There ’ s a growing mismatch , a natural tension between the old world and what a scornful western UP farmer calls the ‘ momo-jeans ’ culture .
COVER STORY
no one turns up for the funeral . She , a widow , had dared to marry a Dalit . No outrage , rinse and repeat .
Out in the country , it was always crystal-clear , by custom and social decree , that women were mere property , things that belonged to someone or the other , pieces of differentlyabled furniture perhaps , exchangeable as a commodity , meant to be pulled into commission for a giant , enslaving machine . Traditional society was built around systematically confining women — to the home , and allied sectors , strictly delimited . And marriage was a vital part of this technology of confinement . Castes and communities came to exist and evolve through endogamy , by controlling female sexuality . Besides all the wars ( and ritual immolations ) for honour , there was an implicit violence in that stability .
The new violence has a slightly different origin . It comes from the cracks , from the change and instability of traditional society grappling with modernity — with fear , loathing and incomprehension — to the moving of social tectonic plates as women speak and act . It shows up the starkest in the countryside . Witness how Naresh Tikait , leader of one of the infamous Jat khaps , responds to a Supreme Court verdict that chastised his ilk for interfering in love relationships . “ We will not give birth to daughters , nor let others do so ,” he said . The threat contains within it the promise of that silent gynocide , made absolute . But after Ankit , and similar urban , even elite murders in the past ( see ‘ Her Hand in the State ’ s Grip ’, p . 36 ), has the city lost its edge over the farm ? Is non- village India entitled to feel morally superior ? Look at the countless signs of nervous patriarchy — the dress codes in city colleges , the new phobia of women drinking beer ….
HALF of humankind is not yet rising up in insurrection — acquiescence among women is a deep-rooted , conditioned reflex . But the old consensus is creaking under the strain . There ’ s a growing mismatch , a natural tension between the poles represented by the old world and what a scornful western UP farmer calls the ‘ momo-jeans culture ’, the world of mobile phones and Valentine ’ s Day . Between what young women — and men — seek and the sort of relationship society would love to impose on them . The egregious violence comes from the refusal of women to be treated as items in a prope rty transaction . It ’ s not a sudden eruption of battle — it ’ s a long war deepening in intensity by the day . It ’ s death by a thousand cuts — almost every aspect of masculinity clashing with what women want , charging the fraught territory of relationships with an extra veneer of fear .
The degree of possible reconciliation with modernity varies . Jats offer the perfect stereotype — having started to forge into city life in just the last 50 years , they hunt down inter-caste or inter- religious couples with a vengeance . Even so , the ‘ liberal ’ instinct isn ’ t absent here . Varnika Kundu , the Chandigarh girl chased on a deserted street by two men last year ( all three are Jats ), got unexpected support from the Kundu khap . “ Nobody emphasised the Jat thing last year because it was ‘ Jat versus Jat ’,” she says .
There ’ s a growing mismatch , a natural tension between the old world and what a scornful western UP farmer calls the ‘ momo-jeans ’ culture .
“ Yes , the khap supported me because I ’ m a Jat . That said , it was a huge thing to back a city girl , for khaps are notorious for banning cell phones , noodles etc . I ’ ve seen educated households where women don ’ t have the same privileges as their brothers and also broad-minded families in the villages — what else was Dangal about ?”
So there ’ s mobility there . And also a sense of the immoveable — the idea of property . Signifying something inanimate , with no sense perceptions . With literacy , it ought to be an inevitable movement forward , out of that thought-world . And village India is signing on as a conflic ted recruit — Janus-faced , one face looking back . Last week , the same belt in Manesar , off Gurgaon , reported a moral policing / sexual assault case on a South Korean woman and a village , Naurangpur , that had reversed the female foeticide pattern and registered 1,866 girls to 1,000 boys . But zoom to the other end of the scale — to the # MeToo campaign , or to the chic urbanity of Bollywood , where Kangana Ranaut says independent women are seen as “ vamps ”. Or the women going home while peeling potatoes on Mumbai suburban trains — liberated enough to participate in the economy ( and pay half the bills ), but not quite out of domesticity . The two- facedness persists despite literacy .
It ’ s also inevitable that women themselves internalise the conflict , soaking up all of society ’ s neuroses . A 2005-06 National Family Health Survey study in Haryana found that more women than men ( 46 / 33 per cent ) justified violence by husbands . Even a pan-India study among adolescents in 2012 found that while 57 per cent boys justified wifebeating , so did 53 per cent girls . And
32 OUTLOOK 26 February 2018