Its strange that women in India are still not politically challenging the RSS on its weird views on women, even with the RSS becoming more and more influential and prominent in Indian politics. Here's some RSS dogma on women.
http://aipwa-aipwa.blogspot.in/2013/01/rss-views-on-women.html
http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/holier-than-cow/283593
http://www.firstpost.com/politics/saffron-women-inside-the-rss-womens-wing-596730.html
Such regressive and misogynist ideas are clearly unconstitutional and therefore anti-national and anti-India.
Since the BJP is really an RSS front, couldn't one argue that its government which does not believe in equality for women is unconstitutional and therefore anti-national and anti-India.
Here is some more RSS dogma on Women reproduced below.
www.quora.com/Why-does-the-RSS-not-admit-female-members
"The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is an exclusively male organization. But that doesn’t mean that women don’t have a role in the Hindu Rashtra.
They do—only, it’s a very different one from that of men. The Sangh women are charged with keeping the family together while the men participate in the more cerebral functions of nation building. An ideal Hindu woman sacrifices her own desires to serve her family, takes care of her husband, dutifully bears him children, which she then raises single-handedly to be responsible Hindu citizens in a Hindu Rashtra. In times of conflict (or when the Hindu Dharma is under attack), she also willingly bears arms to fight the enemy with the ferocity of Durga, or jumps into the fire to protect the honor of the Hindu race and prevents herself from being ‘vandalized’ by the enemy.
Obviously, Hindu women need to be trained in the fine art of suppressing their desires and understanding the demands that the Hindu society places upon them. This is done through a number of different Sangh organizations. Groups like the RSS and VHP/Bajrang Dal, which have exclusively male membership, have counterpart women’s organizations—the Rashtriya Sevika Samiti and the Durga Vahini respectively. The Rashtriya Sevika Samiti organizes women and promotes the Sangh’s vision of an obedient and subservient woman enabling her male counterparts to press ahead in the service of the nation, while the Durga Vahini, in keeping with the paramilitary role of Bajrang Dal, imparts physical training and firearm training to women—these activists are primarily called into action when the Sangh has to blacken the face or serve other physical punishment to female targets122 (the chivalrous Bajrang Dal activists obviously cannot be expected to get physical with women). Other groups, such as the BJP are also predominantly male, but do have a women’s wing (the BJP Mahila Morcha) and also harbor prominent Sangh women in their ranks (Uma Bharati, Vijayraje Scindia) who have been trained in the Sangh’s philosophy and serve as living reminders of what a virtuous Hindu woman should be.
Role of Women in Hindu Society
According to the Sangh, the primary role of a woman is child bearing and child rearing—all her other activities should be subordinate to that. According to Asha Sharma of the Rashtriya Sevika Samiti,
We teach women to give first priority to the family -- a career should be taken up only in case of financial need and should be subject to the approval of the family. There is a natural division of labour -- women, being more sensitive, should take care of children. Everything else is secondary.123
The true power of women in the Sangh, therefore, comes not from what they are or the qualities they possess, but the children they can raise for the good of society. This, we are told, is the true essence of womanhood and the basis for equality between the sexes. Motherhood is necessarily glorified in order to impress upon the women the enormity of the job they have to fulfill, and the special status they enjoy because of it in a society where there is virtually no other role for them.
Enlightened motherhood is a cherished ideal of Hindu woman. Jijabai trained her son Shivaji and his tribal friends for fighting with the foreign rulers to make this country independent. She had a definite aim of establishing Hindu Sovereignty by organising the various constituents of Hindu Society. A Hindu woman is an eternal mother a symbol of love, sacrifice, dedication, fearlessness, sanctity and devotion. The tenderhearted woman becomes bold and aggressive if time demands.
While motherhood clearly forms the central thesis for a woman’s existence in Hindu society, her role as a care-giver in other relationships—as a sacrificing wife and an obedient daughter and daughter-in-law—are also emphasized. In sum, the good of the society is ultimately measured by the well-being of the men in it, and a woman’s contribution to society therefore, is all the different ways in which she can promote the interests of the men she serves, often at considerable cost to her own desires and interests. In this context,
An excerpt from a recent interview with Krishna Sharma of the Women's wing of the VHP is particularly illuminating, as she outlines the uncomplaining, unquestioning and undemanding role that the Sangh expects the model Hindu woman to assume in society.
We also teach women to demand less -- when women demand more, it leads their menfolk to corruption. A man may be satisfied with two sets of clothes but women will desire a dozen saris ... A happy life is not possible unless women compromise and are willing to sacrifice.
Q. Why can't men sacrifice or compromise?
A. They can, but it comes more easily to women because they are more emotional. This is what happened in Vedic times.
[A]s it is the man who must earn and support his family (while the women manages the household), his education is more important. This division of labour is natural.
Q. If a girl who is being married off by her family against her wishes seeks help from the women's wing of the VHP, what advice will you give her?
A. Though every woman wants to get married, she does not say so due to her cultural conditioning. Every father wishes to see his daughter married and hence be assured of social security.
Q. What would you suggest in case she wishes to pursue her education?
A. After marriage she will have many responsibilities in her new home. It is not advisable for her to bring disquiet by refusing to compromise. If ordained by her fate, her husband will permit her to study.
Q. A girl may wish to marry a person her parents do not approve of ...
A. We try and explain to her that her parents have lived longer; they know what is best for her. We oppose a marriage only if there is a wide age gap between the bride and the groom ...
Q. What advice would you give to a victim of wife beating?
A. Don't parents admonish their children for misbehaviour? Just as a child must adjust to his/her parents, so must a wife act keeping in mind her husband's moods and must avoid irritating him. Only this can keep the family together.
Q. In spite of all adjustment, if the beating continues, how should the wife react, 'to keep the family together'?
A. Ideally, if she learns to stifle her screams, the matter will remain within the four walls of the house. Otherwise, every house will become a 'Mahabharat'. However, if she is persistently beaten for no particular reason, then she can take up the matter with her kith and kin (biradari); legal action should remain the last resort. The family you are born into and the family you are married into are predestined. Just as you cannot change your parents you also cannot change your husband.
Q. But the legal system permits divorce. How do you react to that?
A. If a woman seeks divorce, we advise her to try to adjust, since a woman cannot remain single, when she remarries, she will face similar problems in her new home. Divorce, therefore, will not change her situation. Conciliation would be a better option, both for the woman and her children. Divorce can be considered only if every other option fails. Moreover, with diseases like AIDS monogamy is advisable for women.
Q. But there are preventive measures ...
A. They are not foolproof. Moreover an Indian woman can attain true happiness only with one man.
Q. What are your views on polyandry?
A. ... a man may remarry if he does not have any children by his first wife, provided she agrees.
Q. Can a woman remarry in a similar situation?
A. No, society will not allow it -- neither will the man's ego permit it.
Q. In case a man remarries after an extramarital affair, what course of action would you suggest for the first wife?
A. Admittedly, it is a difficult situation for her, but she should try to accept it for the sake of the children, more so, if she is not financially independent. All these problems arise because of westernisation. Even the West reveres Indian family life, but we are forgetting our roles as janmatris and nirmatris.
In the joint family system, the couple's interaction was limited and the attraction remained alive for years after the marriage. Now, with the western concept of honeymoon and nuclear family they grow weary of each other in no time, leading to various problems.
In the West, women don't hesitate to drag their own husbands to the court with allegations of rape.
Q. What else can a victim of conjugal rape do?
A. If a couple are married, how can you call it rape -- this concept is alien to our culture. In any case, if a woman is physically and mentally strong, she can assert herself."
""HSCs’ vision regarding women in the US mirrors that of the Sangh in India. Where the Sangh openly commands women to a life of chastity, subservience and obedience in India, the HSC flatters them by conferring upon them superior morality and nurturing nature to achieve the same results of domestication. In a recent project undertaken by the national HSC called the “Hindu Women Project”, Kanchan Banerjee—the National Coordinator for the HSCs—posted several articles from various ideologues to elucidate “the responsibilities of women and the changing role of Hindu women in the cultural and economical foundation of a changing society.”126 These tracts make fascinating reading as the liberal discourse of equality and rights seamlessly merges with a traditionalist discourse reinforcing the role of women as daughter, wife and mother. The Hindu woman is an embodiment of Shakti, and thanks to some of her innate and exclusive qualities, she is oftentimes conferred a higher-than-men or a better-suited-than-men status. Of course, where much is given, much is asked. And the special qualities forcibly conferred on (and expected of) women invariably restrict her to the confines of her home, where she is given greater ‘responsibilities’ (the Sangh's preferred euphemism for ‘duties’).
The belief is that, in general terms, while men are more aggressive, cerebral and self-promoting, women tend to be more nurturing, intuitive, mature and giving. Interestingly, it is precisely these feminine qualities which are aspired toward in Hindu spiritual life – by both men and women.
... The modern Indian woman is no slave to her family, but the dispenser of its welfare. She will gladly cook, sew, nurse and teach not only for her husband and children but also for those of his relations who may need her services.127
Another posting in the same series draws upon the writings of Vivekananda, one of the earliest ideologues of Sanatana Dharma. Here again, the mythological Sita is first glorified and venerated in all her suffering and chasteness, epitomized as the ideal Hindu woman, and then these very qualities are imposed on all of womanhood in the service of her community.
There she will always be, this glorious Sita, purer than purity itself, all patience, and all suffering. She who suffered that life of suffering without a murmur, she the ever-chaste and ever pure wife, she the ideal of the people, the ideal of gods, the great Sita, our national God she must always remain ... Any attempt to modernize our women, if it tries to take our women away from that ideal of Sita, is immediately a failure, as we see everyday.
For woman they hold chastity as the most important virtue, no doubt. One marrying more than one wife is not so injurious to society as a woman having more than one husband at the same time, for the latter leads to a gradual decay of the race. Therefore, in all countries good care is taken to preserve the chastity of women. Behind this attempt of every society to preserve the chastity of women is seen the hand of nature. The tendency of nature is to multiply the population, and the chastity of women helps that tendency. Therefore being more anxious about the purity of women than of men, every society is only assisting nature in the fulfillment of her purpose.128
A more complete version of the HSC’s vision of women’s role in society is available on the website The Hindu Universe - Hindu Resource Center which seeks to educate HSC students on different aspects of the Hindu Dharma. The restrictions that Hindu society places on the free movement and association of women, the injunctions against their economic independence and their complete definition in terms of their relation to men in the society (as mothers, sisters, wives and daughters) is glibly explained away in terms of the great value and importance that Hinduism accords them, which confers upon them this “special” status.
In Hinduism a woman is looked after not because she is inferior or incapable but, on the contrary, because she is treasured. She is the pride and power of the society. Just as the crown jewels should not be left unguarded, neither should a woman be left unprotected. No extra burden of earning a living should be placed on women who already bear huge responsibilities in society: childbirth, childcare, domestic well-being and spiritual growth. She is the transmitter of culture to her children.”
It is a matter of common knowledge that it is the woman that is vulnerable to attack by males with evil propensities. It is for this reason Manusmriti imposed the obligation of protecting young girls, as well as grown up woman, on her father, husband, and son respectively ...
The Sangh’s Position on Feminism
Feminism, as defined by equal rights for women, has been viewed by the Sangh as a uniquely “western” concept, in conflict with Indian sensibilities. According to the Sangh, the “Indian” notion of rights for the women lies in recognizing the difference between the sexes, which justifies the difference in the opportunities and choices available to women. The “western” concept of feminism, which demands equality in workplace and educational opportunities, is seen as forcing some kind of artificial similitude between the genders and removing them from their natural and biological roles and hence, is an object of abhorrence.
Feminists and “women-libbers” are scorned as family-wreckers, bothered only about their individual interests and not that of the community at large. According to KR Malkani, a prominent member of the RSS and BJP’s ex-vice-president, “[the RSS] would consider women's libber's as the worst enemies of womankind.”130 Mridula Sinha, President of the Women’s Wing of the BJP (the BJP Mahila Morcha) elaborates this position further in her remarks:
We in the Bharatiya Janata Party are opposed to women's liberation because it is against men. It is led by a handful of intellectual women in the cities who have no understanding of the common people's ideology and aspirations ... We tell women to be more adjusting, because they will have nowhere to go if they leave there husbands.131
Ms. Sinha also holds that if a man beats his wife, it is often the woman who is to blame for provoking him; that most problems in marriages arise because women fail to adjust to their new families; that woman should not work after marriage; and that the giving and taking of dowry, practices against which progressive women’s organizations have been organizing for decades, are perfectly acceptable.132
In fact, the ‘threat’ that the traditional Hindu society was facing from the women’s rights movement is credited as being the main impetus for the formation of the Rashtriya Sevika Samiti. The official Sangh history describes the challenges to the Hindu Society at the time of its formation thus:
Due to western impact women were struggling for equal rights and economical freedom. That was leading to individual progress only, inviting self-centred-ness. There was every risk of women being non committed to love, sacrifice, service and other inborn qualities glorifying Hindu women. ... Many women were attracted to the new easy going and showy way of western life. Forgetting their own self they were fascinated by the idea of equal rights and economic freedom. This unnatural change in the attitude of women might have led to disintegration of family, the primary and most important unit of imparting good Sanskaras.133
This notion that the women’s movement for equality is essentially inimical to the interests of the Hindu society is the Sangh’s considered position, and has also found its way into the education systems that it has access to. The following excerpts have been taken from school textbooks that were altered by the BJP once it gained power in the states of UP and MP:134
There is a movement of women's lib. Until recently women lived within the four walls of the house and united the family. Now, when women go out for work, they leave their families behind. The freedom of women creates a sort of tension in the families and many families break because of this sense of freedom and independence. Sometimes members of both sexes indulge in crimes and in immoral acts and the situation worsens.
Legislation which has given rights to women is also responsible for family disorganisation [sic]. The Hindu Widow Remarriage Act, 1956; the Hindu Women's Property Right Act, 1937; the Special Marriages Act, 1954; the Hindu Marriage and Divorce Act, 1955 -- all such acts have raised the status of women. Women have right to the property of their parents [sic]. The total result of these progressive legislative measures by the Government in favour of women is tension and strife in the family."
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