A little over three decades ago, large groups of women from all over India made their way to Rajasthan to protest the staged ‘voluntary’ immolation of a young woman called Roop Kanwar on her husband’s funeral pyre. Roop Kanwar’s immolation took place in plain sight, with thousands watching and lauding the woman’s “courage”, the men’s chests bursting with pride at this violent and for them necessary resurgence of Rajput pride.

The spectacle did not end there. It spawned a veritable temple economy, and even a sort of religious tourism. Deorala became a name on the map of Rajasthan. Soon, the woman ceased to matter — if she ever had — and only the stories remained. At the moment she died a cruel, brutal death by fire, Roop Kanwar was watched by men, women, children, among them members of the police force and other employees of the State.

As often happens in our country, the law provides the possibility of redress and justice when there is a crime. A case was filed and fought in the courts. It went on for many years. Its strongest argument was that the Indian Constitution asserts that women are equal beings, citizens, and you cannot discriminate against them. They’re not property, they’re not embodied honour, they’re human beings.

But, as also often happens in our country, justice for women remained elusive. The courts acquitted the men who were implicated. Deorala’s sati economy continued to thrive, the honour of Rajput men was restored.

How deep this supposed sense of ‘honour’ goes was revealed to me one evening in a shocking incident. As one among the hundreds who had gone to Jaipur for the protests, I dropped in to visit a friend who’d married a local man, a Rajput. As we sat drinking leisurely cups of tea the conversation inevitably turned to the tragedy of Roop Kanwar.

“Don’t get me started on this,” he told me, “you feminists know nothing of how important our women’s honour is to us. Roop Kanwar died a glorious death defending that honour.”

This from an irreverent, irreligious, modern, secular man. Small wonder then that Kalyan Singh Kalvi, State chief of the Janata Party (and incidentally father of the current Karni Sena head honcho) scoffed: “how can you change public opinion through acts and ordinances?”

Perhaps the only thing that presented hope was the steadfastness of the women who were protesting. They refused to be drawn into the political battles or the claims about honour. Instead, they asserted the woman’s right to autonomy. How, they asked the men, you don’t give women the freedom to choose anything, suddenly she is free to choose death?

Rajasthan saw another such public assertion of male superiority a few years later. This time, the honour of Rajasthani men was defended not by the staged ‘voluntary’ death of a woman, but by her rape. Bhanwari Devi, a dalit worker with the Women’s Development Programme, was raped by four Gujjar men as punishment for daring to tell them that child marriage was illegal and attempting to stop them from marrying off their young children.

Once again, justice was sought through the law. And once again, the men were acquitted because the judge ruled that upper-caste men could not violate a lower-caste woman — or more accurately, would not ‘disregard caste’ in order to do so.

The difference was that Roop Kanwar died, and Bhanwari Devi lived, and in doing so, she became a fierce and passionate defender of the rights of women, in particular poor, low-caste women. Her experience also gave us the sexual harassment act, the impact of which is clear today.

But now we have another instance of the fabled Rajput valour, and this time too, it is premised on the bodies of women. The difference is that the protestors, a bunch of vigilantes with tacit state support, are angry because ‘their queen’ is shown in an ambivalent relationship with a Muslim in a film, while the filmmaker they are targeting is actually on their side, for he’s emphatically asserting the ‘glorious’ valour of Rajput women, who wear red when they commit mass suicide.

More than 30 years have passed since the tragic death of Roop Kanwar. During this time, the women of Rajasthan have fought entrenched patriarchy, against injustice and discrimination. Whether it’s to defend the right to information, or free speech, or literacy, they’ve been out there in the thick of the battle.

The men, unfortunately, have not. They’re still exhorting women to defend their honour, still offering to protect them by locking them inside the four walls of the home. In this, they’re joined by many others in India. Sanjay Leela Bhansali and the Karni Sena may make odd bedfellows, but in the reassertion of patriarchy, they’re on the same side.

Urvashi Butalia is an editor, publisher and director of Zubaan

blink@thehindu.co.in

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