-Ramphal Kataria
Goddesses in Temples, Targets in Politics
The Assembly That Remembered Women — For a Day
The noise rose slowly at first — a murmur spreading across the chamber of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha — before erupting into full-throated outrage.
Members stood from their seats, gesturing angrily across the aisle. Papers were waved in the air. The Speaker’s repeated calls for order were drowned out by competing accusations.
At the centre of the storm stood the Congress MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira, accused by members of the treasury benches of making remarks that demeaned women while criticizing a government welfare scheme.
For a few moments, the Assembly appeared united in indignation. Legislators from different parties invoked the dignity of women, the sanctity of public language and the responsibility of elected representatives.
Yet the moral fervour carried a faint echo of irony.
Only days earlier, the Chief Minister of Punjab, Bhagwant Mann, had himself faced criticism from opposition leaders for remarks that many considered sexist.
The spectacle unfolding in the Assembly was therefore not merely a parliamentary controversy.
It was a familiar ritual of Indian politics: outrage that arrives swiftly when opponents offend, and silence that follows when the offence comes from within.
But the episode also revealed something deeper — a long historical contradiction that runs through Indian society.
A civilization that reveres goddesses has often struggled to respect women.
The contradiction was familiar.
Indian politics often condemns sexism selectively — loudly when it comes from opponents, quietly when it emerges from one’s own ranks.
But to treat such controversies merely as partisan hypocrisy would be to miss a deeper reality.
Misogyny in India is not simply a political problem.
It is civilisational.
The Oldest Paradox of Indian Society
Few societies celebrate the feminine as reverentially as India does.
The divine feminine occupies a central place in religious life. Goddesses such as Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati are worshipped as embodiments of power, wealth and wisdom.
Temples across the country resound with the ancient verse:
“Yatra Naryastu Pujyante Ramante Tatra Devata”
(Where women are worshipped, the gods rejoice.)
Yet the lived experience of women tells a starkly different story.
Domestic violence, moral policing, sexist humour, honour killings and degrading political rhetoric remain persistent realities.
The contradiction raises a fundamental question: How did a civilization that symbolically exalted women produce a society that frequently humiliates them?
To answer that question requires tracing the long history of patriarchy — not just in India, but in human civilization itself.
When Patriarchy Was Invented
Anthropological evidence suggests that early human communities were not strictly patriarchal.
Hunter-gatherer societies often exhibited relatively egalitarian gender relations. Women played central roles in food gathering, medicinal knowledge and social organization.
The transition to agriculture changed this balance.
When societies began accumulating property — land, livestock, wealth — controlling inheritance became crucial. That, in turn, required controlling women’s sexuality.
The historian Gerda Lerner argued that patriarchy emerged as a system designed to regulate women’s reproductive capacity.
As she wrote in The Creation of Patriarchy:
“The appropriation of women’s sexual and reproductive capacity by men preceded the development of private property.”
In other words, patriarchy was not natural. It was constructed.
Early India: Between Freedom and Control
Early Vedic literature suggests that women in ancient India may have enjoyed greater autonomy than in later centuries.
Women such as Gargi Vachaknavi and Maitreyi appear in the Upanishads engaging in philosophical debates with male sages.
They were not merely passive participants in spiritual life.
But this relatively open social order gradually narrowed.
As societies became more stratified, religious and legal codes began emphasizing female obedience.
The Manusmriti, a foundational text in the codification of social norms, declared that women should remain under permanent male guardianship.
“A woman must never be independent.”
The line became one of the most enduring expressions of patriarchal ideology in South Asia.
Brahmanical Patriarchy: Caste and Gender
The Indian feminist historian Uma Chakravarti introduced the influential concept of Brahmanical patriarchy.
This system linked caste hierarchy with control over women’s sexuality.
The logic was simple but powerful: preserving caste purity required regulating women’s bodies.
Strict marriage rules ensured that caste boundaries remained intact.
Women’s autonomy therefore became a threat to the social order.
The sociological insight of this framework was later reinforced by the political thinker B. R. Ambedkar.
Ambedkar argued that endogamy — marriage within caste — was the central mechanism that sustained caste hierarchy.
Controlling women’s marriage choices therefore became essential to maintaining caste dominance.
Ambedkar famously observed:
“Caste is endogamy, and endogamy means the control of women.”
Thus patriarchy in India cannot be understood without understanding caste.
Honour, Seclusion and Medieval Patriarchy
Over centuries, patriarchal norms became deeply entrenched.
During medieval periods marked by warfare and political instability, the obsession with protecting family honour intensified.
Practices such as purdah, child marriage and restrictions on education became widespread in many regions.
Women increasingly became symbols of community prestige.
Sociologists describe this phenomenon as honour-based patriarchy — a system in which women’s autonomy is sacrificed to preserve male honour.
The echoes of this mindset remain visible in contemporary institutions such as khap panchayats.
The Khap Mindset
Khap panchayats, prevalent in parts of northern India, claim to defend social traditions.
In practice, they often police women’s behaviour — especially in matters of marriage and sexuality.
Inter-caste marriages, inter-faith relationships and even marriages within the same village have sometimes been punished through social boycotts or violence.
Women’s autonomy is treated as a threat to social order.
The logic of the khap mindset is simple: female independence disrupts patriarchal authority.
Violence as Social Control: The Data Behind Patriarchy
Behind the rhetoric of reverence lies a much harsher reality.
India’s crime statistics reveal that violence against women remains one of the most persistent features of the social order. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, hundreds of thousands of crimes against women are reported every year across the country.
These include rape, domestic violence, dowry deaths, acid attacks, stalking and trafficking.
Yet experts caution that the real numbers are almost certainly higher.
Social stigma, fear of retaliation and pressure from families often discourage women from reporting abuse. In many rural communities, local institutions — including caste councils and khap panchayats — still encourage families to “settle” such cases quietly rather than pursue legal action.
Domestic violence remains particularly under-reported.
Despite the enactment of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, enforcement remains inconsistent. Police officers sometimes treat domestic abuse as a “family matter,” discouraging victims from filing complaints.
The persistence of such attitudes reflects the deeper cultural belief that a woman’s primary duty is to preserve family honour — even at the cost of her own dignity or safety.
Violence, in this sense, becomes not merely a crime but a mechanism of social control.
Reform Without Liberation
The nineteenth century brought reform movements that challenged some oppressive practices.
Reformers such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy campaigned against sati.
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar advocated widow remarriage.
But many reforms were paternalistic.
They sought to create a respectable “modern Indian woman” rather than dismantle patriarchy itself.
The political theorist Partha Chatterjee argued that nationalist ideology divided society into two spheres.
Men occupied the outer domain of politics and economic life.
Women were assigned the inner domain of culture and morality.
Thus women were symbolically elevated but practically confined.
Democracy Without Equality
Independent India adopted a progressive Constitution guaranteeing equality.
Yet social attitudes remained stubbornly patriarchal.
Women continue to be underrepresented in political institutions.
Even after the passage of the Women's Reservation Bill, 2023, the implementation timeline remains uncertain.
Political power remains overwhelmingly male.
The Language of Humiliation in Politics
Misogyny in political rhetoric often follows predictable patterns.
Women leaders are attacked through sexualised insults, comments on appearance or moral policing.
Examples abound.
Dayashankar Singh compared Mayawati to a prostitute.
Mulayam Singh Yadav mocked her as a “parkati aurat”.
Narendra Modi once referred to Sonia Gandhi as a “Jersey cow”.
Azam Khan made vulgar remarks about Jaya Prada.
Kailash Vijayvargiya dismissed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as merely a “chocolaty face”.
Such language reveals how women’s legitimacy in politics is frequently undermined through gendered insults.
Patriarchy Across Parties
No political party is immune.
Within the Aam Aadmi Party, leaders such as Kumar Vishwas and Naresh Balyan have faced criticism for sexist remarks.
Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal has also accused party leadership of failing to address gender-related grievances after an assault controversy involving an aide of Arvind Kejriwal.
Misogyny in politics mirrors misogyny in society.
Cinema, Popular Culture and the Male Gaze
Patriarchy is not sustained only through law and custom.
It is also reproduced through culture.
Indian cinema, television and digital media have long played a powerful role in shaping social attitudes toward women. Feminist scholars have argued that the entertainment industry often reinforces traditional gender roles rather than challenging them.
The concept of the male gaze, articulated by film theorist Laura Mulvey, describes how visual media frequently portray women as objects of male desire rather than autonomous individuals.
In mainstream commercial cinema, female characters often exist primarily as romantic interests, victims or decorative figures.
Item songs, voyeuristic camera angles and scripts that normalize stalking as courtship have all contributed to the sexualisation of women’s bodies in popular culture.
These portrayals influence social behaviour in subtle but significant ways.
Young audiences absorb messages about masculinity and femininity long before they encounter political discourse. When films glorify aggressive male pursuit and depict women as passive recipients of attention, they reinforce patriarchal assumptions about gender relations.
The cultural critic bell hooks once observed that media representations are not merely reflections of society but active participants in shaping it.
In India, where cinema holds enormous cultural influence, this insight carries particular weight.
Hypocrisy in Public Morality
One of the most revealing aspects of contemporary discourse is selective outrage.
Songs by artists like Badshah may provoke FIRs and moral panic.
But sexist remarks by powerful politicians often go unpunished.
The pattern reveals a troubling truth: public morality is enforced selectively.
Why Patriarchy Still Survives
If patriarchy has faced centuries of critique and reform, why does it persist?
The answer lies in the way patriarchal systems embed themselves across institutions — family, religion, economy and politics.
Patriarchy is not merely an attitude.
It is a structure of power.
Within families, sons are often preferred because they inherit property, carry forward the family name and perform last rites for parents. Daughters, by contrast, are sometimes perceived as financial liabilities due to dowry expectations.
Economic inequality further reinforces these patterns.
Women’s labour force participation in India remains significantly lower than that of men. Limited access to employment reduces women’s economic independence, making it harder for them to challenge abusive relationships or discriminatory social norms.
Religion and tradition also play a role.
Cultural narratives frequently idealize women as self-sacrificing mothers or obedient wives. While such images are presented as virtues, they often function as tools of social discipline.
Politics, meanwhile, rarely challenges these norms decisively.
Women remain severely underrepresented in legislatures. Even where legal reforms exist, political will to enforce them often fluctuates depending on electoral calculations.
The feminist philosopher Kate Millett famously described patriarchy as “a political institution.”
Its survival therefore depends on the continued distribution of power — who holds it, who benefits from it and who challenges it.
Until those structures change, patriarchal attitudes will continue to surface not only in everyday life but also in the language of political leaders.
Changing the Social Order
Real change requires confronting patriarchy at its roots.
Families must treat daughters and sons equally.
Education must challenge gender stereotypes.
Media must represent women as autonomous individuals rather than objects.
Politics must hold leaders accountable for sexist speech.
The Question India Must Answer
India proudly celebrates the divine feminine.
But reverence without equality is hypocrisy.
As the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir wrote:
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
Society constructs gender roles.
And therefore society can change them.
Until that transformation occurs, India will continue to live with its oldest contradiction:
Women will be worshipped in temples — and ridiculed in politics.
Footnotes
1. Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). Lerner argues that patriarchal control over women’s sexuality and reproductive capacity preceded the emergence of private property systems.
2. Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton, The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India (Oxford University Press, 2014). The text highlights the participation of women such as Gargi Vachaknavi and Maitreyi in philosophical discourse.
3. Manusmriti, Chapter 9. The text codifies patriarchal norms and prescribes permanent guardianship of women by male relatives.
4. Uma Chakravarti, “Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India,” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 14 (1993).
5. B. R. Ambedkar, “Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development,” originally presented at Columbia University, 1916. Ambedkar argues that caste is sustained through strict endogamy.
6. Leela Dube, Women and Kinship: Comparative Perspectives on Gender in South and South-East Asia (United Nations University Press, 1997).
7. Supreme Court of India, Shakti Vahini v. Union of India (2018). The Court condemned honour killings and directed states to prevent interference by caste councils in adult marriages.
8. National Crime Records Bureau, Crime in India Annual Report (latest edition). The report provides nationwide data on crimes against women.
9. Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, Government of India.
10. Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen, Vol. 16, No. 3 (1975). Mulvey introduced the concept of the “male gaze” in film theory.
11. bell hooks, The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators (Boston: South End Press, 1992).
12. Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (New York: Doubleday, 1970). Millett defines patriarchy as a political system that institutionalizes male dominance.
13. Inter-Parliamentary Union, Women in National Parliaments Report (latest edition).
