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A
Marginalized Language
In the past decade, the drumbeats across the nation regarding the
state of the Urdu language have sent conflicting signals. In the
early phase, Urdu, assimilated with the Muslim population in
India, was highly politicized. It subsequently experienced the
same official and political neglect, even discrimination, as the
Muslims themselves, penalized since Indian Independence as
foreigners in their own land. The rationale behind the
marginalization and alienation of an ethnic minority in its
homeland lay in the creation of Pakistan, where Urdu is the
official language. The flawed thinking behind this bias within
India is a legacy of British colonial mindsets as India itself
included the whole South Asian subcontinent. Urdu, a historic
language introduced, founded and developed in the rich
multiculturalism of India, was an Indian language, neither alien
to this nation, nor a foreign injection. It was an indigenous
creation generated in the Indian soil itself. But the adversarial
relations following Partition vitiated the reputation and very
existence of Urdu, so that it fell into the same state of moral
despondency, stagnation and financial slump of the Muslims
themselves who, according to the report of Justice Rajinder Sacher
issued in 2005-2006 in Delhi, lagged behind SCs and other backward
castes and classes (including Christians) in obtaining any support
or status from successive Indian governments in every professional
sector, welfare programs or the field of education. At the bottom
of the Muslim scale, a ‘minority within the minority,’ stand
Muslim women, even more deprived of these basic human rights than
Muslim men. They remain second-class citizens not merely in their
country, but often in their families through the politics of
gender and disempowerment. This article probes some of the hidden
secrets of the discrimination of these minority women that
continues to prevail under male-dominant systems of traditional
society.
Corpse of Urdu
While the past sixty years since Independence displayed the
“corpse of Urdu,” (“Urdu ki lash” as a popular novel and Hindi
film projected), a language in its death throes and onrushing
demise, the corpse appears to have suddenly resurrected. Today,
either as a political convenience for ‘vote-bank politics’ by
political parties pandering for Muslim votes, or more likely
through its extraordinary resilience, the Urdu corpse has
miraculously resurrected. Like Christ rising in his cave, Urdu is
alive and well globally, from the Persian Gulf States, the remote
corners of Asia all the way to Europe and the United States where
its cultural survival is celebrated in ‘mushairas,’ ‘qawwalis’ and
other public gatherings highly attended by Muslims, Hindus and
other non-Muslims alike. Some of the fine ‘qawwali’ singers this
writer has heard in Delhi itself were by members of the Sikh
community, or Hindus and non-Muslims, indicating the vast
following and popularity of a language that refuses to die. The
reason for Urdu’s survival has nothing to do with religion, as the
distorting political propaganda has projected it. It has to do
with ‘ilm,’ the Urdu word (derived from Arabic) meaning knowledge.
Long before globalization, Urdu projected the multicultural and
multi-ethnic richness and diversity of the South Asian
subcontinent, of India. It is therefore a language crafted,
skilled, sophisticated and developed in this area of the world
specifically, nurtured by the composite cultural mosaic of India,
its spirituality and history from the Indus civilization through
the arrival of the Vedas and waves of foreign travelers or
settlers who adopted the subcontinent as their own legacy. Urdu,
originally an army language of the Mughals, was nurtured by the
cultural cross-currents of Asia, from Arabic to Turkish and
Turkic, Persian and Sanskrit, Bengali, even south Indian languages
like Tamil and Malayalam, to Hindustani or Hindi, its later
avatars. Today no sentence mouthed by Bollywood actors is
allegedly uttered without “Hinglish,” or sentences half in Hindi
and English. The English phenomenon, is however, globalized, In
France, new academic dictionaries include English neologisms in
the French language, such as ‘le weekend’ and others, equally
sacred to modern French culture. All languages are part of the ‘ilm,’
the pursuit of knowledge through the cross-pollinations of
science, technology, commerce, trade, and culture. Languages are
evolutionary which is why Urdu, porous to extraneous influences,
is ‘globalized’. This is one dimension of its resilience and
survival in a fast-changing modern world. People in the
Arabic-speaking Gulf states are allegedly now using words from the
Urdu lexicon, or Hindi movies. “Salam Walekum,” an Arabic word
associated with Muslims, is now a universal form of greeting in
Europe, the United States, Africa and elsewhere.
The Urdu Resurgence
As Urdu rises like the mythical bird, the phoenix, out of the
ashes of the dead, a window is opened up on the parallel
developments shedding light on the Indian reality, and on whether
the revival of Urdu is merely a political ploy, which would make
its success short-lived, as it would suit short-term interests.
This resurgence would merely perpetuate status quo mindsets of the
past, traditional authoritarian attitudes which would limit the
outreach of Urdu through sexist male dominance. This patriarchal
and political direction of Urdu sheds light on the insidious
realities of racial, religious and gender discrimination in
India’s secular modern democracy, the shameful secret behind
India’s economic success.
Saturday October 23, 2010, was a busy day for Urdu in the city of
Hyderabad, which one observer called the “Urdu City”. As the
writer of this article, and a woman, I attended two seminars in
the city, which gave me a yardstick to measure the vast
disparities in the mindsets and attitudes of the Urdu revival in
the country. One feature to emerge out of both seminars
celebrating the Urdu re-birth was how this has, or has failed to
bring about real change in Muslim society. Has it touched a vital
segment of the Muslim population itself, Muslim women? What is the
role and function of Muslim women, wives, daughters, sisters,
mothers, in this Urdu revival? Will their status quo role as ‘camp
followers,’ the foot-soldiers of men, trophies and appendages,
continue into the next phase of development? And if so, what are
the real dimensions and implications for Urdu in the future? If
its rebirth is to be anchored and grounded in the real
transformations of our time, how do these changes truly impact
Muslim women? Or is change itself cosmetic, a political hypocrisy
to keep power in the hands of men, while the so-called uplift of
women continues to hide their subservient roles through their
marginalization and subjugation?
The Money Trail
Minority women continue to be trapped in a Catch-22 situation with
regard to the funding to which they are entitled through
government welfare programs. Often, due to male politicians, or a
lack of education of their own rights and the RTI (Right to
Information Act) it is hard to follow the money trail; cash flows
may not reach the victims themselves. But poverty is both an
economic and a social stigma, that cuts across the lines of class
to gender, making women a ‘soft target’ as they are the vulnerable
sector.
As an educated and professional woman who has lived in Europe and
the United States, where women’s movements have made revolutionary
changes in traditional mindsets regarding gender, I have had to
survive in the highly competitive environment of these countries,
where I was an alien. But my perceptions of the realities
confronting women in my own country, specifically Muslim minority
women, were revealing when I attended the two seminars in my
hometown, Hyderabad. In both these seminars I witnessed the extent
of real change in the lives and attitudes toward women. I came
away somewhat disillusioned and disheartened by both. This was
perhaps because I was steeped in the dynamic approach I had
witnessed in Western women’s groups and organizations, and the
quantum leap they have made for women, although much still needs
to be achieved for full equality and economic parity even there.
The first seminar, which was organized by a brother of mine who
resides in Europe (supported by my father) gave me some personal
insights into an inter-generational conflict between
traditionalism and modernity, on how women’s roles are defined and
perceived from the male chauvinism of the feudal era to the modern
democratic system. Hyderabad, like my own family, has the
lingering hangover of feudalism. The second seminar was organized
by a member of the Congress Party, and was therefore more relevant
to the values of republican India.
A Secondary Role
In both seminars, my observations disclosed the secondary role
played by women. They continue to be cast through tokenism, or as
appendages to the male agenda, to fathers and sons in the
traditional setting. While female Urdu writers or artists may be
encouraged, they are nonetheless under the supervision (or as
voices) of that male agenda. They are not decision-makers nor
participating in the equal sharing of powers as they should in a
participatory democracy. When my father spoke at the seminar on my
maternal grandfather, the late Professor Agha Hyder Hassan Mirza,
a renowned professor of Urdu, his own daughter, my mother, or
those of his own bloodline, such as my siblings and myself, were
not included in sharing our impressions of the Great Man. Only our
father, like the proverbial traditional patriarch, spoke at the
first seminar. In the political arena it is often male politicians
who remain decision-makers. Similarly, in the Congressman’s
seminar there were only males (mostly VIPs) seated on the dais. I
was shocked when a sherwani-clad bearded Muslim shouted at me when
I entered the second conference, “Go over there and sit with the
women”. I yelled back at him, “Who are you?” and then, waving to
the burkha-clad ladies huddled on one side of the room, I retorted
in my Deccani Urdu, “And these are not ‘women,’ they are ‘ladies’.
Please address them with respect.” In Urdu the term “aurat,”
women, can be disparaging, while the classical word, “qawaateen”
is generally a polite way of addressing women in public audiences.
The ladies in burkhas were ecstatic, almost applauding my response
in a hall containing perhaps over a hundred people. One came to
interview me, taking notes on my education and background as a
human rights activist. Another, a Hindu lady, was a qualified
principle of a school in the city where Urdu was taught, although
she herself spoke little Urdu. It was exhilarating to see such
women, and their struggle to participate in the education of Urdu.
Cultural Conditioning
The first seminar, as mentioned earlier, was a family affair, and
therefore more personal as it touched me more intimately. This
raises the cultural conditioning that women are subjected to in
the Indian family environment, specifically Muslim women as this
article focuses on them. I was once shocked when a left-wing
activist declared in Hyderabad that fathers in Muslim families did
not encourage the equality of their daughters, which hampered the
careers and developments of Muslim girls. Many Muslims are
sensitive to what they perceive as such bias against their faith;
but this misplaced defense mechanism prevents them from attaining
the true development of their community. Additionally, it blocks
change while keeping Muslims in a state of cultural pessimism as
well as economic depression, accelerating their backward status.
In my own family I had always taken my own father as a liberal
man, never suspecting male rivalry with a daughter whose academic
or intellectual achievements might be superior to males in the
family. But in a subtle male dominant system, I discovered the
cultural dichotomy of the roles of women in Muslim families, even
those considered privileged such as ours, when it came to the
competitiveness of genders in the public forum. Male control and
domination continues to prevail, albeit in subtle and covert
forms. Invisible walls of discrimination and gender inequality
continue to favor the woman in the traditional role, subservient
to a male member, a husband. But with rabid modernization, new
insecurities make a sector of Muslim men view women’s rights,
economic freedom and equal empowerment as a threat to their
traditional dominance. I was sensitized to this fundamental bias
in the male patriarchal system because of my own status: I happen
to be single, divorced, a woman who raised a family as a single
parent with two professionally well adjusted successful sons in
the United States. My life may be perceived as a success story
both in the West and in India: I obtained a Ph.D. in literature
from the Sorbonne University in Paris. Last year I was awarded the
highest honor for the arts, letters and culture by the Government
of France. I am a published writer, journalist and single-handedly
founded an international human rights organization in New York.
Later, on return to India, I continued my humanitarian work here
while working as a visiting professor teaching political science
at some of India’s most prestigious universities. I give these
personal details to indicate the arduous struggle that Indian
women have to undergo (without the support-groups or state
benefits provided Western women), not just juggling dual roles as
wives and mothers, but in the professional arena.
Senior Citizens
As a single woman and now a senior citizen over sixty, I am
obliged to work to try to earn a living, even at this age when
most people retire. My insights into the Indian system expose the
glaring discrimination not just against my age, but even against
my religion as a Muslim, and my gender as a woman. Each day is as
much a battle for me, in my advancing years, as for any younger
Indian woman. I have nearly an hour’s drive to work, in grueling
traffic. The work-conditions are sometimes harrowing, but there
are no alternatives. I am aware of the lack of career
opportunities, even of obtaining a full education, for Indian
women in general, not merely Muslim women. But while at the
national scale there is some state support for women of non-Muslim
minorities, SCs, Christians and others, for Muslim women there are
seldom alternatives as they have neither support from the state,
nor often from their own families. Tokenism, a little ‘pocket
money’ as a ‘poor relative’ compounds the state of co-dependency
as it is neither long-term nor economic independence. When there
are no jobs and employment is non-existent for this category of
the population, how is it possible to earn? What about healthcare,
especially for women who are senior citizens? While my entire
family vacation in Europe every year, I cannot afford trips abroad
and remain in India, like any member of the Indian middleclass.
Double Standard
But the family secrets are even more insidious, exposing the truth
behind the façade of Muslim feudal families like ours. While we
are expected to maintain the glorious legacy of our heritage, of a
non-existent past, as a non-earning female in this traditional
paradigm, I am an aberration; I do not have a male as my back-up
to define my social identity. I have heard many Indian women, even
in Delhi, the capital of India, speak of the ‘cultural
discrimination’ of women throughout the country. When my father, a
brilliant former diplomat of the U.N., founded the museum
dedicated to my maternal grandfather he announced it as a family
venture to be equally represented by his five children, my three
brothers, my younger sister and myself. But when the seminar in
Hyderabad took place this week, it exposed the marginalization of
the independent woman, the one who did not conform to the
traditional role-models of women attached to a husband, like my
own mother or sister. I was not considered part of the museum
dedicated to my grandfather, although my brother visiting from
Europe and sister (who resided in another town) were included as
those who helped my father in his ‘pet project’. Ironically, I am
the only one who lives with my parents, tending to their daily
welfare and health in their old age, and I am therefore able to
witness the walls of social and gender exclusion first-hand. The
traditional legacy is handed to those who ‘fit the mold,’
conforming to the old definitions of a patriarchal society. Even
my qualifications as a professor, the harrowing work I have in my
retirement years to eke out a living financially, does not exclude
me from the covert bias, the discrimination of women living alone
or within the family fold. I discovered the double-standards and
true plight of Indian women living and surviving alone across
India. If they are not in the subservient roles of dependents on
their families begging for alms or handouts from their wealthier
siblings from time to time, or if they are not the appendages of
rich husbands beneficial to the family, their status is, indeed,
pathetic.
Veil of Shame
For Muslim minority women forced into traditional roles in a male
patriarchy that continues to penalize them for being independent
and therefore perceived as a ‘threat’ to the male-dominant system,
their plight in the best of families is worse than that of poorer
women: because in the case of privileged families, they are
silenced from revealing the truth through a veil of shame which is
enshrouded in the hypocrisies of the traditional discrimination
against women. Theirs is a no-win situation: if they dare speak
out, they are cast as the proverbial heretic, Taslima Nasreen, and
other rebels. It is this insidious backdrop of Muslim society that
must be redressed as it is the core of the fragmentation and
divisions not only in families, but also of a culture, the Muslim
culture in India, and its survival. It is a self-destructive
process that perpetuates the corruptions of feudal systems,
without inventing new mindsets. It is the destruction of those
women in India, the aged and economically disempowered, who have
neither the support of the state, nor their families. Like Urdu,
these women are the living corpses of a dying society, a decaying
civilization. They are symbols of exclusion, or internal
displacement within a community; they underscore the need for a
change dynamic in a functioning democracy which cannot exist
without self-examination. Without an all-inclusive system, the
legitimate rights and victimhood of Muslims will remain stagnant
through narcissistic delusions and the self-aggrandizing myths of
the past.
Dr. Fatima
Shahnaz, Ph.D. Sorbonne University, Paris, France,
formerly a visiting
professor (political science) at the Jamia Millia Islamia
University and currently at Hyderabad Central University,
is a writer and
president of an international human rights advocacy.
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