‘Hindutva is the main challenge to women’s assertion’

CPI(M) politburo member Brinda Karat tells BusinessLine how individual assertions against curbs in the name of religion and culture are “wonderful” and are just as important as collective struggles for wages, maternity benefits and workers’ rights.

India has had strong women leaders such as Aruna Roy and Medha Patkar leading mass movements, but when it comes to mainstream politics, women’s rise is largely on account of their connection with dynasties or strong support from male leaders. Why is that?

They may have got an introduction to politics through male connections, but they have got where they are because of their own talents and skills. We live in a male-dominated society influenced by patriarchal notions, but I think in the last few decades, women have been breaking barriers in all fields. That is true in politics as well.

Tell us something about the institutional sub-culture in your party with regard to women.

There are, of course, sub-cultures rooted in traditional thinking of female compliance, but that is being uprooted by communist women and their participation in the forefront of struggles. I have been in the party now for almost fifty years, and have seen and experienced the changes and have been a part of them too. We have come a long way, and I hope it is easier for women now to assert their opinions.

How do you perceive the elevation of two women in the CCS? Is it just symbolic?

I welcome the inclusion of more women in the Cabinet and in important positions of governance. It is not a question of women’s ambitions to rise in politics, but more of normalising the recognition that women are equal in discharging responsibilities.

A big part of being a politician is performative. How do you deal with being judged not only on the substance of what you’re saying but also as a woman?

Yes it’s true that people generally tend to notice a woman politician’s appearance and there are often comments. But personally I cut out that kind of noise and have become a veteran, although it is an annoyance, especially when I read such personal remarks in the media. But it doesn’t really affect my work.

How do you see women’s enhanced consciousness of their individual rights, which, however, seems to have no relationship with the collective fight for rights like equal wages, maternity benefits and workers’ rights?

Why should the two be contradictory? I don’t see these developments in that way. Right now, it is Hindutva that is the main challenge to women’s assertion with their highly patriarchal understanding of what and where a woman’s place should be. It is wonderful to see young women’s assertions, whether against a dress code, or who she should love or what she should eat; I want them to break down the taboos that suppress in the name of Indian culture which ultimately ends in women’s subordination. I don’t see such assertion as a product of market feminism or globalisation. In India it would mean a challenge to caste-based, gender-based and class-based oppression, discrimination and exploitation.

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