Religion and Identity in the South Asian Diaspora by Rajesh Rai Chitra Sankaran

Author:Rajesh Rai, Chitra Sankaran [Rajesh Rai, Chitra Sankaran]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415708159
Goodreads: 18148761
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

Segregated spheres

The focus of the 2004 UK HSG national conference in London was to examine the shifting role of British Hindu women, focusing on women’s traditional role in Vedic society. According to the speaker:

Throughout the many years of the Vedic culture, women were given the highest level of respect and freedom, but they were also protected by the men. Women need protection, not because they are weak, but because they are so precious and so delicate, they should be protected like children ….

The issue of ‘protection’ became progressively more evident (and complex) toward the latter part of the conference, when an interesting event took place. The entire female body of the audience was requested to move to the back of the conference hall, as a member of the Swaminarayan sect was going to address the audience.7 When later asked about his views on this incident, one of the leader’s remarked:

I have a lot of Swaminarayan friends. I am not a Swaminarayan myself, but … I know all the swamis at the Swaminarayan temple, including the one who spoke. If you ask him ‘Why do you have to divert your eyes from women?’ I like his argument …. In Islam, women have been asked to cover themselves; however, in Hinduism, and the Swaminarayan philosophy in particular, they say that we are not going to ask women to cover themselves, we will divert our eyes. Thus, we will not inconvenience women by asking them to dress a certain way, but we will inconvenience ourselves by not looking at them … it is extremely difficult for them to avoid looking at women, you know. So it is more challenging for them, because they have to follow the Swaminarayan philosophy.

Thus, while the separation of sexes is intended to safeguard both genders from sexual temptation, the leader explains that it does not imply female inferiority in any form.

Similarly, other websites argue that there is much criticism surrounding a verse in the Manusmriti8 in which it is said that a woman requires lifelong protection. They highlight that it is common knowledge that women are vulnerable to attacks by ‘males with evil propensities’, which is why Manusmriti imposed the obligation of protecting young girls and women on their fathers, husbands and sons respectively. In response to the criticism surrounding Manusmriti, the US National HSG quotes British author Kerry Brown:

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…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.

This adds a new dimension to gender ‘equality’. Equality means an affirmation of the differences between men and women and of their corresponding roles that are aligned to these differences.

This view is echoed by the authors of a handout that was distributed at the 2004

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.