Nari shakti and the art of image management

The BJP is projecting itself as modern and women-friendly. It is worthwhile revisiting the annals of history which offer a completely different story

No one can question the BJP’s extraordinary ability to update its image in keeping with the times. It has successfully appropriated one of its fierce critics, Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Despite its public dislike of India’s first prime minister and his economic policies, it is a sincere practitioner of Nehruvian socialism — the party has enthusiastically executed many policies it aggressively opposed when in the Opposition. The latest instance is the failed attempt to amend the Constitutional (106th Amendment) Act, 2023  — or, the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam — that promises 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and state legislatures.

Since the party was outsmarted on the floor of the house, BJP cadres have hit the streets trying to paint the Opposition — especially Congress — as anti-women. In Mumbai, a senior BJP minister in the Devendra Fadnavis government led demonstrators vociferously cursing Congress. As the BJP tries to win over nearly half the electorate by showcasing itself as modern and women-friendly, it is worthwhile to revisit the annals of history, which offer a completely different story.

It all started when the British realised that the un-codified nature of Hindu personal law left many things to traditional scholars to interpret. The trigger was the largely unknown but glorious struggle by a girl from Bombay who refused to submit to her husband’s demands and asserted her rights over her body. Her husband filed a legal challenge, arguing that according to Hindu tradition, it was perfectly acceptable for husbands to seek physical intimacy whenever they desire. The issue split public opinion in Maharashtra, with some like Bal Gangadhar Tilak questioning the court’s intervention in “Hindu tradition” while reformists like Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade and Gopal Ganesh Agarkar extended open support to the girl. The court upheld the husband’s view. Undeterred, the girl wrote to Queen Victoria, who overruled the court order, compelling the government to frame the Age Of Consent Act in 1891. That girl grew up to be Rukhmabai Raut, one of the first practising women doctors in India.

The case appears to have drawn the attention of the British to inequality, particularly regarding women’s property and inheritance rights in the Hindu tradition. The government formed a committee in 1941 under veteran civil servant and jurist B N Rau, to study the issue and suggest corrective steps. In its report, the committee recommended historic changes with the aim of empowering women in inheritance and allowing divorce, besides measures to support their rights in issues like adoption and marriage. The report didn’t go much further at that time, but it became the foundation for independent India’s first law minister, Babasaheb Ambedkar, who was given the responsibility of tabling the necessary legislation in Parliament. After a thorough study and consultations with all stakeholders, Ambedkar presented a comprehensive piece of legislation known as the Hindu Code Bill in 1948.

The Bill lit a huge fire, fuelled by prominent Hindu leaders such as Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, founder of the Jana Sangh, an earlier avatar of today’s BJP. Other Hindu Mahasabha leaders and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, too, opposed the Bill. Hindu leaders described it as an “atom bomb on Hindu society”. Conservatives viewed the Bill as an unnecessary interference in Hindu personal law, an argument that carries the resonance of the one made by Muslims in the Shah Bano case. Hindu organisations criticised the bill as a move by “overeducated” leaders that would disturb, if not destroy, Hindu family structure. There were protests in Delhi and elsewhere, with effigies of Ambedkar and

Jawaharlal Nehru burnt by Hindu leaders. One Karpatri Maharaj, founder of the little-known Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad, challenged Ambedkar to have a public debate and said the Bill went against “Sanatan Dharma”.

The bill was finally introduced in Parliament in 1951 after India became a republic. Congress didn’t issue a whip on the topic, letting its members vote freely. However, after President Rajendra Prasad extended his support to those opposing the Bill, Nehru found it difficult to get the Bill passed. Frustrated by developments around such a crucial piece of legislation and the uncharitable criticism that followed, Ambedkar quit the Nehru cabinet in September 1951. After he returned to power in 1952 with a huge majority, Nehru struggled to get the Hindu Code Bill passed. To make it more palatable to his partymen and Hindu leaders, he sliced Ambedkar’s Bill into four separate ones and ensured their safe passage through Parliament.

There can’t be a bigger irony than the fact that although Nehru thought of reforming the Hindu religion by safeguarding the rights of Hindu daughters, wives and sisters by enacting the law, Hindutvavadis view him as anti-Hindu. Although they are thumping their chests in support of women’s rights now, their predecessors were busy stalling the act that gave Hindu women equal rights vis-à-vis men. But these are not just matters of the past — just look at the present.

The BJP might like to project itself as a champion of women’s rights, but RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat wants Hindu families to have “at least” three children. According to him, “the purpose of marriage is to carry forward creation, not merely fulfilling one’s own desire”. Unlike the BJP, the RSS has shown remarkable consistency on the issue. Bhagwat’s predecessor as RSS sarsanghchalak, K S Sudarshan, had also advocated for couples to have at least three children, saying back in 2005, “You should not have less than three children and if you have more, the merrier it is.”

Many may wonder how the advice to have many children can go hand-in-hand with the promise to empower women. This is especially when, in BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat, young couples who wish to get married are made to get the green signal from the district magistrate and/or their parents if their spouse belongs to another faith.

In light of this, Nari Shakti Vandan appears to be nothing but a hollow slogan. But why bother when mere perception and headline management can fetch electoral success even as the core shows very little change?

The writer is editor, Loksatta