JSAWS: Our Book 1995-1997
Enrica Garzilli
garzilli at shore.net
Sat May 24 15:34:50 UTC 1997
J S A W S
Copyright (c) 1995-97 -- ISSN 1085-7478
May 24, 1997
Dear Members,
I am happy to announce that the book
*THE JOURNAL OF SOUTH ASIA WOMEN STUDIES
1995-1997*
is in press. It will be available in a few weeks. It is
published by the *Asiatica Association*.
It will be distributed by the Asiatica Association, and
Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd. It will be available
in the US either from the Asiatica Association or South Asia
Books.
The book also contains an unpublished lecture by the 1995
Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Dr. Taslima Nasrin.
CONTENTS
********
- PREFACE by Michael Witzel
- INTRODUCTION
- ABSTRACT OF THE PAPERS
- VOL. 1, NO. 1 (November 1, 1995)
Papers by Sita Kapadia, Subhadra Chaturvedi; Review by
Enrica Garzilli
- VOL. 2, NO. 1 (January 26, 1996)
Paper by Enrica Garzilli
- VOL. 2, NO. 2 (May 15, 1996)
Papers by Jayaraj Acharya, Bandita Phukan, Himendra B.
Thakur; Reviews by Enrica Garzilli
- VOL. 2, NO. 3 (December 1, 1996)
Paper by Carolyn Brewer; Review by Enrica Garzilli
- VOL. 2, NO. 4 (December 22, 1996)
Papers by Ranjita Bunwaree-Phukan, Julia Leslie, Ram Narayan
Tripathi, Michael E. J. Witzel
- VOL. 3, NO. 1 (June 1, 1997)
Report and Interview by Enrica Garzilli; Paper by Taslima
Nasrin
- BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF THE EDITORS OF THE JOURNAL
- DEB
ABSTRACT OF THE PAPERS
**********************
Vol. 1, No. 1:
A TRIBUTE TO MAHATMA GANDHI: HIS VIEWS ON WOMEN AND SOCIAL
CHANGE by Sita Kapadia
Mahatma Gandhi's legacy to the world, and to India especially,
is immeasurable; his life and work have left an impact on
every aspect of life in India; he has addressed many personal,
social and political issues; his collected works number nearly
one hundred volumes. From these Kapadia has gleaned a few
thoughts about women and social change. In 1940, reviewing his
twenty-five years of work in India concerning women's role in
society, Gandhi says, "My contribution to the great problem
lies in my presenting for acceptance truth and ahimsa
(non-violence) in every walk of life, whether for individuals
or nations. I have hugged the hope that in this woman will be
the unquestioned leader and, having thus found her place in
human evolution, will shed her inferiority complex... Woman is
the incarnation of ahimsa. Ahimsa means infinite love, which
again means infinite capacity for suffering. And who but
woman, the mother of man, shows this capacity in the largest
measure?... Let her translate that love to the whole of
humanity... And she will occupy her proud position by the side
of man... She can become the leader in satyagraha..."
What is significant and what Kapadia underlines here is
Gandhi's image of woman and his hope for her, so radically
different from that of any earlier reformer.
WHETHER INHERITANCE TO WOMEN IS A VIABLE SOLUTION
OF DOWRY PROBLEM IN INDIA? by Subhadra Chaturvedi
The gravest form of the problem is dowry death, the enormity
whereof can be visualized by the fact that according to the
National Crime Records Bureau of India, in 1994, there
occurred a dowry death in India every 102 minutes. According
to a statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in
the Parliament of India, the number of dowry death in 1993 is
5,817. As far as property is concerned, the present position
is that 99% property is held by men. Inheritance is governed
by Hindu Succession Act, 1956 and in respect of agricultural
lands, which constitute 90% of the total property in India, by
respective land laws of the States concerned. Sub-section (2)
of Sec. 4 of the Act, specifically excludes the application of
the Act in respect of agricultural holdings and almost all the
land laws have given preference to the male inheritance. Even
under the Hindu Succession Act, despite the loudest
proclamation of gender equality under the Indian Constitution,
a female heir is practically entitled to only a negligible
fragment of property inasmuch as in India the 90% of the
property is ancestral property and the majority is governed by
Mitakshara copercernory law and according to Section 6 of the
Act (applicable in case of intestate succession) read with the
Schedule of the Act, a female heir would inherit only a little
unless she is the only heir out of the 12 categories specified
in class I of the Schedule. Female inheritance which will give
the financial security to women and which will eliminate the
rationalization of money transfer before and/or after wedding
in the form of dowry and/or "stridhan".
Vol. 2, No. 1:
STRIDHANA: TO HAVE AND TO HAVE NOT by Enrica Garzilli
The paper is a survey and an analysis of Hindu women's rights
to property (strïdhana) in India. The first part deals with
the connection between Indian dowry and property. In fact, for
centuries dowry has been the only property of Hindu women. The
second part is a diachronical study of the law according to
the traditional Hindu law-books, the dharmaçästras. The
interdependence between dowry, considered for centuries as a
substitute for inheritance, and inheritance itself has also
been investigated. The most authoritative Indian law-books
from the Manavadharmaçästra (2nd-3rd A.D.) until the Hindu
Succession Act of 1956, and some major commentaries and
digests on them, have been considered. The third part of the
study focuses on the legal fracture between the concepts of
property and strïdhana under the British rule. The English
misinterpretation of the traditional law allowed women to have
full property rights only with certain restrictions and only
when still alive. The third and fourth part of the paper
analyzes the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act (1937) and
the Hindu Succession Act (1956). In the last part there is an
attempt to answer a few questions that come from the study.
Vol. 2, No. 2:
SATI WAS NOT ENFORCED IN ANCIENT NEPAL by Jayaraj Acharya
Sati, the ancient custom in the Hindu religion of a wife being
burnt withher dead husband, does not seem to have been
enforced in ancient Nepal, i.e. during the rule of the
Licchavi dynasty (c. A.D. 300-879).In this paper, the about
190 stone inscriptions from this period are considered. The
only Licchavi inscription which has a reference to the sati
system is the inscription of Manadeva I at the Changu Narayana
temple in the north-eastern corner of the Kathmandu valley
(A.D. 464). This inscription does not refer to the commitment
of sati but abstention from it. Moreover, out of the total
190, there are 18 stone inscriptions thatwere installed
exclusively by widows during the Licchavi period. Of the 18
inscriptions of widows, only 3 were by members of the royal
family. These are some instances that evidently indicate the
abstention from sati, but there is not a single evidence in
any of the 190 inscriptions from the Licchavi period Nepal
that says that someone did it.
THE DAUGHTERS AND HINDU RITES by Bandita Phukan
This the account of Ms. Bandita Phukan. She is the first woman
mechanical engineer in the State of Assam. When her father
died in 1993, her relatives tried to find a son of a cousin to
do the last rites (Shraddha), because her father did not have
a son. Bandita revolted, and asked thepriest to permit her to
do the last rites. At the beginning, the priestrefused. Last
rites of a dead person can be performed only by a malemember
of the family, and never by a daughter. Bandita did not give
up. Ather insistence, one Brahmin priest came forward and
allowed her to performthe last rites of her father. If married
Hindu daughters could be allowed to perform the Shraddha
cerimonies, concludes Phukan, their surviving parents would be
happy to have "a dear daughter as eligible as their dear son."
PRACTICAL STEPS TOWARDS SAVING THE LIVES OF 25,000 POTENTIAL
VICTIMS OF DOWRY AND BRIDE-BURNING IN INDIA IN THE NEXT FOUR
YEARS by Himendra B. Thakur
This paper offers an analysis of one of the remedies that
could besuggested to oppose dowry: young women should refuse
to marry as soon asthe groom's family asks for dowry. It gives
statistics and examines: 1) the cases of dowry-deaths in
India; 2) the geographical distribution of concentration of
dowry-deaths per million Hindu popolation. In the last part of
the paper, Thakur outlines three immediate and a
long-termsolutions given women who refuse to marry because of
dowry demand.
Vol. 2, No. 3:
FROM 'BAYLAN' TO 'BRUHA': HISPANIC IMPACT ON THE ANIMIST
PRIESTESS IN THE PHILIPPINES by Carolyn Brewer
In the Philippines, at the time of the Spanish conquest, the
Catholic priests were instructed by Bishop Salazar to learn
and preach in the languages of the inhabitants. However,
certain cluster of words,especially those involving Animist
priestesses were altered, negated andthen marginalised almost
to extinction. This movement paralleled the demonisation and
eventual disappearance of the priestesses fromhistorical
texts. The paper wants to: 1) describe the process involvedin
this double negation; 2) recover the forgotten words; 3) give
Animist priestesses back their rightful place in Philippine
history.
Vol. 2, No. 4:
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: A DAILY TERROR IN MOST MAURITIAN
FAMILIES by Ranjita Bunwaree-Phukan
In Mauritian Society there is the rise in domestic violence.
Cases of battered children, women in distress and complaints
from male partners are increasing. The Government is sparing
no effort to grapple with these problems through its wide
network of services, such as counselling, prompt intervention
and other means. Mauritius is a tiny multi-cultural island in
the Indian Ocean off the East Coast of Madagascar and South
East Coast of Africa. Its population of ca. 1,2 millions
originates from Africa, India, China, and Europe, though the
main part of it originates from India. In this paper the
author analyzes the reasons and the remedies for this
increasing plague.
DOWRY, "DOWRY DEATHS", AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN by Julia
Leslie
For several months in 1994 Leslie has made a collection of
clippings on dowry deaths in several papers in India: the
daily The Hindu, The Deccan Herald, and The Indian Express,
the monthly India Today, and an occasional Times of India. She
noted that the giving of dowry in the first place is
traditionally justified in terms of giving the daughter her
"inheritance" at the time of marriage, even though only a
small proportion of that dowry is ever intended for her own
use. Through this unsystematic survey, Leslie studied whether
dowry deaths were a middle-class phenomenon, how prevalent was
the custom of demanding and giving dowry, whether "dowry
deaths" and the system of dowry were generally increasing. She
asked people who was to blame for dowry, and the result was
that 83% of the women respondents in this study spoke against
the system of dowry, and men said that women were responsible
for this. Everyone was against dowry on principle and yet
everyone felt compelled to take part. She concludes atht
anyone can be victimized by the dowry system, even men. In
this study Leslie further explores whether men could be the
victims of dowry. Her last question is whether dowry is the
real problem. She answers that is the perceived, internalized
and socially reinforced ideology of the inferiority of women
that brings to dowry deaths. Finally she lists a series of
proposals to eradicate the phenomenon.
HINDU MARRIAGE SYSTEM, HINDU SCRIPTURES AND DOWRY AND
BRIDE-BURNING IN INDIA by Ram Narayan Tripathi
The paper of Ram Narayan Tripathi is a survey of the
traditional forms of Hindu marriage through thr scriptures and
its connection with the modern crime of dowry and
bride-burning in India. The author asserts that it is hard to
comprehend that the ancient scriptures of India which
propounded the social laws with understanding, logic, justice
and wisdom, thereby establishing one of the most enduring
civilization of mankind, suddenly became illogical and started
to retch outrageous customs like dowry and bride-burning
"which are just one step better than cannibalism". According
to Tripathi, the only explanation appears to be a period of
overall decadence during which individuals survived by
sacrificing many values, which resulted in degeneration of all
dimensions of life, including corruption of some scriptures.
The period of degeneration continued for such a long time that
it became a second nature of the people, and they forgot how
the customs started in the first place. It will be worthwhile
to undertake an intensive study of this period of Indian
history.
LITTLE DOWRY, NO SATØ: THE LOT OF WOMEN IN THE VEDIC PERIOD by
Michael E. J. Witzel
This paper focuses on two main topics: satï and dowry in Vedic
times. The wife was bound to her new family for life, and
beyond it. Whether she had to follow her husband to the other
world at the time of his death or shortly afterwards, has been
a keen topic of discussion. Ígveda 10.18.8 talks about the
return of the widow to her settlement, together with her
relatives. In Atharvaveda 18.3.1 this argument is further
expanded. These passages indicate clearly that a widow was not
to be buried or cremated with her husband. The KaÂha Sa¸hitä,
Brähma³a and Ara³yaka as well as their Sütras are silent on
the topic. In short: there was no satï in the Vedic texts,
from the Ígveda down to the UpaniÕads and the Sütras. In the
case of dowry, even less material is visible from the early
Vedic period. However, even in the ÍV there are a few
indications of the right of women to inherit. Rightful heirs
are the brotherless maidens, the appointed daughters
(appointed by her sonless father to give him a grandson who
will continue his lineage), the widow who temporarily marries
the brother of the deceased sonless husband to produce a male
child who would be counted as a son of the deceased husband
(niyoga practice). In the post-Ígvedic texts, the Brähma³as,
it is clear that a woman was regarded as the possession of her
husband, and generally in a socially lower position. In some
text there is a form of "a bride price" to get a husband for
the daughter. On the other hand, dowry in a mild form existed
as well: at the time of marriage, the father of the bride gave
presents to the bridegroom. These gifts were expressively
called mutual between the groom and the bride or their
families. In Vedic India, the wife did not have her own
possessions, she did not even own herself. On the other hand,
the wife was "a queen in her own house". The lot of Vedic
women was that a women is never independent as an unmarried
woman, as a wife, and as a mother. She had to be protected
respectively by her father, her husband, her son. If women,
especially brotherless maidens, were freer than they were in
later India, their freedom was restricted in many ways. Bride
burning or dowry deaths, of course, did not occur at all.
Dowry did exist at the time, but is was given in a framework
of mutual exchange between the two families involved.
Vol. 3, No. 1:
ENTERING THE WORLD OF A NON-CONVENTIONAL WOMAN: TWO EVENINGS
WITH TASLIMA NASRIN by Enrica Garzilli
This is a report of two evenings spent together with Taslima
Nasrin in April 1996 in Cambridge (U.S.A.). Nasrin is a poet
and a writer; she is the 1995 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of
Thought. Nasrin came to Cambridge to deliver lectures. During
the first, informal meeting and dinner, Garzilli approached
Nasrin as a woman and a friend, trying to be on the same side,
to understand her, and to go through her public, dramatic
personality as controversial and criticized writer and
polemist, and as a symbol of freedom for thousand women
writers in the world.
THE PERILS OF FREE SPEECH by Taslima Nasrin
Taslima Nasrin gave this lecture in April 26, 1996 in
Cambridge, Massachusetts (U.S.A.). It has never been published
so far. It is about women who want to be writers and poets. It
is about herself and her problems to be a writer in Bangladesh
nowadays. Difficulties are both due to Islamic fundamentalism,
and to the general idea that women education would ruin the
family. Educated girls would forget their rituals, neglect
their husbands and their families. In reaction to the initial
attempts at educating the girls, it was spread the idea that
women, if educated, would become widows, which means their
husbands would die. Another common idea is that they educated
women would loose their virtue. There is a saying in Bengali
to the effect that if women put on shoes the lunch is spoiled.
Muslim working women are still very rare in middle class
families; many are forced to work for wages but mostly in the
informal sector like private tutoring, or they are teachers at
schools, colleges, hospitals and a few other types of
institutions. In this situation one can hardly expect hundreds
of women to take up the pen. There are women among authors and
journalists in Bangladesh, but there are few in number. The
problem grows up when a women of Bangladesh want to do some
really creative writing. As long as a woman writes on males,
stories or poems, as long she imitates male writer's style and
subject matters, as long she follows the beaten track, as long
as she remains conformist, she will be all right. But if
someone starts telling what she really means, editors and
publishers are bound to raise their eyebrows. Indeed, the
moment a girl in Bangladeshi society starts writing, the first
reaction of men is that there must be something wrong with
her. Why should a happy housewife want to write? Men think
girls with problems usually take refuge in the mental asylum
or become prostitute or commit suicide. And those who cannot
do either, they pick up the pen and shamelessly intrude into
the men's world. The paper goes on telling about questions,
comments, and speculations on herself. Nasrin describes her
track and problems to be as she is: a free, atheist woman
writer in a Muslim patriarchal country. The talk is followed
by her reading of poems, and by more than one hour of
questions and answers with the audience.
*********************** END **************************
Details on the book will follow.
Thank you,
EG
--
Dr. Enrica Garzilli
Univ. of Perugia (ITALY)
Editor-in-Chief, IJTS and JSAWS (http://www.shore.net/~india/)
Mng. Editor, (http://www.shore.net/~india/ejvs/)
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