Love
And Be Damned
By Ram Puniyani
16 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
When
Rizanwanur Rahman, a graphic designer, was found dead on the railway
tracks of Kolkata, the police chief without 'wasting' any time, instantly
proclaimed that it is a case of suicide. He had no patience to go through
the proper investigation, postmortem report etc. This raised many a
questions about the motives behind his immediate reaction. as the circumstances
of his death raised a lot of questions at various levels.
The back ground of the incident is very tragic. Rizwan was coming from
the slums, got trained as a graphic designer and later married his love
Priyanka Todi, daughter of the owner of Lux undergarment enterprise,
which specializes in marketing, aandar ki baat, an empire worth over
two hundred crores. After their
marriage the police intervened, summoned Rizwan, and commented that
it is a marriage of unequals and that
it is natural for Priyanka's father to be upset.
Rizwan and his friend Sadiq, the witness to their
marriage, were intimidated repeatedly by the police.
Rizwan approached Association for Protection of
Democratic Rights and was to meet them in the evening.
But that meeting did not take place as he was found
dead on the railway tracks. Just prior to this, police
told the couple that Priyanka should go back to her
fathers house, she should go back for a week, after
which police will ensure that she will come back. The
couple refused. When all these intimidatory tactics of
police failed they threatened that either Priyanaka
goes to her fathers house or they will arrest Rizwan
on the charges of abduction and theft. This prompted
Priynaka to go to her fathers house after which she
became non-contactable for her husband. As per the law
police are to provide protection to such couples,
thats another side of the story.
To add salt to the injury
the women's commission of
West Bengal visited Prinaka Todi, at her fathers
place. Priyanka apparently told the commission that
she wants to avoid the media glare and wants to get
over this past. Also that she has not been pressured
into to any statement.
It is not for nothing that
they say, truth is stranger
than fiction. There can be some obvious other
interpretations of the same incident. That the
powerful industrialist happens to be close to the
police chief adds a minor angle to the story as any
way such powerful people can generate their own
mechanism to have their way. Whether Rizwan was
murdered or committed suicide needs a deeper
investigation, that Priyanka might have given this
statement under the duress of her father needs to be
delved a bit more. Is it something like the case of
Zaheera Shiekh, after the Best bakery burning,
disowning her statements under allurement and pressure
both. One will like to know if Priyanak has given the
statement without the blackmail from the family and
police or is it what she really feels. All this needs
a serious investigation. So far the 'progressive' West
Bengal Government's attitude competes with the
attitude of the administration of Narendra Modi and
many others, as far as giving justice to the victims
is concerned.
We are living in strange
times. We have a democratic
constitution. Incidentally the legal position on such
cases of choosing one's life partner against parents
wishes, was elaborated in one Supreme Court judgment.
On July 7, 2006, the S C ruled emphatically that there
can be no bar on inter-caste or inter-religious
marriages. Those who harass, threaten or subject such
a couple have to be prosecuted. In the case pertaining
to Lata Singh SC observed, "This is a free and
democratic country,and once a person becomes a major,
he or she can marry whomsoever he/she likes".
Parents despite their disagreement
have no right or
authority on the decision of the adult children.
Maximum they can do is to cut off social relations
with the couple. By now the cases of married couples
being threatened, and tortured in various ways are too
numerous. The society continues to be gripped by the
gender hierarchical notion that a girl cannot make her
own choice in the matters of marriage. The patriarchal
father is the one who calculates the caste, religion,
and social hierarchy before 'giving' his daughter. And
this position of women is best exemplified in
Kanyadaan (gift of daughter) in Hindu marriage ritual.
In other religious customs also similar things
prevail, 'giving away the bride'. In Pakistan, the
society is in the grip of similar hierarchical notion
and many a times when the girl makes her choice and
marries according to that, she is killed by her own
relatives, and the 'nice sounding' but atrocious words
is prefixed to that, 'honor killing! 'Honor' for the
family, death for the girl!
In many parts of the country
especially north India
the caste panchayats have been deciding the fate of
such couples, they are forced to separate, the girl
being asked to tie rakhi on her husbands wrist. The
boy or couple being killed at times and in the worst
of the cases the girl being raped on the dictates of
the panchayat have also been reported. This trend cuts
across different religious communities and has most to
do with the prevalence of gender hierarchy. Other
hierarchical notions, that of economic class, caste
angles also get thrown in. With the rise in religion
based politics and the retrograde social values, rise
in such cases abound. No wonder that worst such case
is seen in Gujarat, the Hindu rashtra, being ruled by
RSS combine from last decade or so. Here there is one
Babu Bajrangi, whose major 'religious task' is to beat
up the couples sitting in parks. Further the couples
who have married despite their caste differences, are
bashed up by this ardent associate of RSS combine. He
does wield lot of patronage from the powers that be,
and has tired to break many a marriages. In the same
Gujarat many an attacks on Muslim minority were
engineered, on the ground that Muslim boys are
marrying Hindu girls.
In tune with this are many
fatwas, where some elements
decide the fate of couples in love, or those who have
married. Cases of same Gotra (clan) marriage being
subjected to the wrath of the community also abound.
The prevalence of these feudal
hierarchical notions
and values are far and wide. Here the women is
regarded as the embodiment of family and community
honor. She is not only regarded as the property of
men, her life is controlled by the men in different
degrees. Women being the carrier of community honor is
also painfully seen during the communal violence, when
the women from the 'other community' are subjected to
ignominies and violation of the worst type. With
coming of democratic norms the equality of women is
accepted at formal level. The process of
secularization and womens own struggle ensures the
transition form formal to substantive equality. It is
a process of struggle. The sectarian politics, in the
name of religion or race puts the brakes on this
process. The ascendancy of these trends retards the
process of transformation towards relations of
equality. Fascism, Hitler, also assigned a particular
role to women, that of a life revolving around Kitchen
Church and Children. The Muslim fundamentalists,
Talibans, Maulana Maududi and the Hindutva streams
also give the secondary subordinate position to women.
In India this process of secularization,
transformation in caste and gender relations towards
the one of equality, was fairly well on its way till
the decades of 80s, when the rise of communalism has
put severe brakes on this process. What is surprising
is that even in West Bengal, which is ruled by the
Left front Govt., the matters don't seem to be much
different. In Rizwans case while the human tragedy is
of mammoth scale, the intolerance of high and mighty
is very intimidating. The collusion of state machinery
with the mighty gives dangerous signal for democratic
polity. Here the mighty, a Hindu trader/industrialist,
presumably upper caste, exercises his worst possible
trait, in the pursuit of patriarchal controls over his
daughter. Rizwan coming from the background of average
to low economic status and coming from the 'other
religion' has been his nemesis. It is reflections of
our times that the retrograde social values are on the
upswing and WB is no exception to this down hill
journey. The left front rule does deserve the credit
for operation Barga, but the cultural scene seems to
be no different from the other places. Communalization
of social psyche is similar to the other places in the
country. On the front of communalism, the only credit
which can be given to LF government is absence of
communal violence. But absence of violence does not
mean that communalism is not there or that the social
common sense and the social norms are any better.
How many more Rizwans will
be sacrificed on the alter
of the family honor?
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