Reflections on Hindu Feminism

Q: Is there a thing that we can call Hindu Feminism?

Scholar 1: In thinking about Hindu feminism I want to emphasize Gynocentricism with a capital G. I want to move away from reductive feminism which is a result of a particular history, a modernist feminism that in its third stage has been co-opted by consumer feminism. Because it is a result of a particular history it cannot be universalized to the world. I want to briefly describe a liberatory tradition from the world that I grew up in. Even though that world—India--is always seen here as limiting and patriarchal, yet I am aware of found traditions of liberatory feminism that serves a larger body of women. I find the constant binary thinking of reductive feminism--the liberated West and backward oppressed rest—very problematic though I understand this constant hovering round the theme is to allow the liberated western feminist identity to be created against the backward other. We see such binaries reflected in the most scholarly pieces as well.

The second aspect of Gynocentric feminism is that because it comes from a spiritrual tradition, it also resists the modernist denial of religion. The modernist trend that separates religion out to a different realm and tends towards aethism in a western sense. Within that specific trend there is a construction of religion as feminine in the sense of being irrational. Within this structure, where the West has identified itself as the masculine, the rational west, this structure that I would call hyper masculinity to differentiate it from the masculinity of Shiva, in this hierarchy based on the hyper- masculine, religion is marked out as irrational feminized aspect of life.

So how do we, women, find a source of strength in a spiritual tradition? I go back to my own tradition, realizing that this tradition is ignored and denied in the reductive feminist discourse that believes all Indian women are oppressed. Yet when I go back to Gynocentrism, I find nuances within male hegemony that are not uniform. The masculinity of Shiva is not a reflection of the hyper masculine. And looking at society, I find, just below the patriarchal superstructure, is a gynocentric matrix that continues to create a very different history and different texts, as other sources of liberation.

There more philosophical aspects to this. How do you look at duality? Within the Gynocentric perspective we look at Hinduism as it centers on “shakti” the female energy. But this is not based on simple binaries or hierarchies. There is no mono mania, not monism, nor monotheism. The Divine Feminine rests on diversity it does not create a road-roller homogeneity. There are so many forms of the goddess, no one form subsumes the other. So it is a wonderful model to understand human diversity, indeed bio diversity, it is a very positive way of looking at the world. It is lila, the world of god’s play. It does not deny suffering but it gives us a positive platform o understand joy and suffering. It gives us a tie with the ecological platform based on this shakti principle that Vandana Shiva has written about. The duality is non hierarachical, it is not spirit over matter. It is a dance of dualities. The opposities are not in a constant struggle of binaries. They flow into each other. At least for me, it is a model of positive and it givesme a sense of where the self is constructed not in opposition to something but as a part of the powerful divine female with no limit to the strengths one can access. That is why it is so liberatory.

Scholar 2: Since the terms feminism and Hinduism, have a recent history of being coopted by ethnocentrists and fundamentalists, I will begin by clarifying what I mean by Hindu feminism. The term feminism is often bounded by ethnocentric claims. Feminism cannot be limited to specific social movements that occurred in the Euro- America, as the Euro-American mainstreet claims. The Indian subcontinent has a long history of formal activism for women’s rights and social justice that dates back at least to the 19th century. While these movements were vigorously opposed by large numbers of conservative males and females, it was supported by other men. This movement was not an exclusive movement of Hindus, nor was it a movement that was exclusively of women. However, this movement always considered issues of nationalism, state roles and colonialism as central aspects for understanding gender. The feminism that I understand is grounded in this history, without ignoring or dismissing the histories of feminism in other parts of the world. The framework goes beyond women to the construction of gender and other inequalities. I can enumerate numerous women who were part of this change, but there are plenty of books, like Radha Kumar’s History of Doing, that people can read to get introduced to this history.

When I turn to Hinduism, I want to explicitly reject the narrow, authoritarian, ethnocentric, gendered version of Hinduism of Hindu fundamentalists. Instead I concurwith Scholar 1 about the importance of the Divine feminine principle. As a Bengali Hindu I was brought up, almost exclusively, with Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Saraswati, so I never doubted or imagined women were not important. But the idea of ardhanariswara, a symbol of god as half male half female is also an appealing way to represent Brahman in human terms because the boundaries of male-ness and female ness are not apparent. When I grapple with the idea of a form-less, all encompassing Brahman that pervades all forms, I do not need to think of atomized, essentialized females and males. Shakti, female strength/power, is about regenerate, which rests on creation and destruction. I have had the opportunity to read about other world religions (see Values and ourselves), and I think this dual personification of god as female and male and the preeminence of shakti in symbolism is a unique symbolism. At least in the realm of religious symbolism, there is nothing that makes me feel lesser than males.

It is also important to emphasize that some other aspects of Hinduism are non- gendered. First, there is such a diversity of “forms of worship” that individuals can and do exercise agency in what they choose to follow at different points of their life- course. There are centralized organizations focusing on male or female gurus. There are temple based forms where priests dictate the practice of ritual offering and that are male dominated. There are direct devotional forms where there is little segregation of male and female, with an emphasis on the direct relationship between “the god” and the worshipper with no outside intervention. “The worship” can take on myriads of forms including combinations of knowledge, work, faith/devotion, and following disciplines. “God” can be personified, or imagined in millions of other ways. In the end,an individual can be anything from an atheist to a faith-based follower, change the object of worship depending on life stage and preferences, in short find ways of living “manusher dharma” i.e. striving to become more human/e. Second, Hinduism assumes that individuals are likely to change during their lifetime. The whole notion of having a personal deity—a tangible way of thinking about Brahman--that reflect one’s emotional and social state, allows a great deal of choice. I can rely on the Upanishads at one time, there are other times in my life when I might turn to the faith based practice. But it also means, I need to recognize this ability to change and follow other paths in all human beings. The term dharma is not about faith or worship but trying to realize how you can become more human within the social circumstances you find yourself. It is about understanding you are human in the sense of being fundamentally tied to a larger universe. It is about thinking of our selves, not in narrow atomized distinctive entities, but as brief temporal manifestations of waves of energy that emanate from the dance of kali-Shiva.

That said, I am not going to ignore the kinds of harm that are done to women in the name of religion. How often are the broad non-gendered, non-discriminatory fundamentals of the religion are misused by groups that use their power to exploit and trample over other human beings in the name of religion. The 13th century “laws” of Manu continue to be selectively evoked by people whose inhumanity is reflected in their abuse of women. The supposedly timeless-ness of the caste system is the excuse fundamentalist Hindu groups use to shut out claims of discrimination and exploitation by the Dalits. How many women are subject to harsh regimens of behavior that restricttheir access to freedoms. How many women, drunk with the power of narrowly interpreted ideologies, are willing to inflict harm on other women? So the issue we always have to reflect on is two fold. Hindu women have a heritage of the most far reaching and liberatory symbolism, to what extent do other facts of social life keep them from accessing these? The second part of this idea of power is to what extent can we have these ideas influence our economic and political systems. Some women, like Vandana Shiva, are engaged in this process, so there is a long road a head to work this out.

But I have to end on a contrary note. While Hinduism is centrally a source of power and inspiration for my life, I am somewhat uncomfortable with defining a Hindu feminism. I can think of this as a strategic choice, but it is only in response to define Christian, Jewish, Islamic and other religion defined feminisms. If we are defining these to express connections with other religions, I can live with that. But Hinduism, in its essence, is not about boundaries, and it is difficult for me to reconcile the idea of trying to reflect my ties to a universe, to strive constantly to live by the precepts of manusher dharma, with marking out religio-social boundaries. I cannot be anything but a feminist, and I cannot be anything but Hindu. But I do not have to fall into limiting version of feminism or Hinduism, where I link my thoughts to some kind of “foundation” in a selected history. The more universal, boundaryless, manusher dharma, is the source of my feminism.

Scholar 3: As I hear both Scholar 1 and Scholar 2, it appears at the outset that our views are strikingly similar to the views of several rightwing Hindu groups in the United States on Hinduism and feminism. Both views problematize Western feminism’s monolithic construction of Hindu women with assumptions about traditions that influence norms and behaviors of individuals in ways that mitigate individual empowerment. In fact, rightwing groups in the US are actively critiquing the claim to universality of feminism and are establishing institutions such as the ‘Hindu women’s Think Tank’ to generate ‘authentic’ scholarship on Hindu women’s issues. Second, both views emphasize the need to give due attention to the prior existence of women of power and religious leaders, feminine symbols of power, androgyny, etc within the Hindu tradition. Religio- nationalist groups in the US constantly emphasize a strong Hindu woman discourse and are aggressively attempting to put women at the center of the Hindu worldview and affirm the feminine within Hinduism.

However, careful distinctions need to be made between the two views. The religio-nationalist discourse completely rejects feminism by arguing that Hinduism offers a model of female freedom and empowerment which is far superior from models offered by western feminism as well as other religions particularly Christianity and Islam. They blatantly deploy an ‘our women versus their women’ discourse to propagate the superiority of Hinduism. Furthermore, while the strong women discourse creates an illusion of women’s empowerment, it is situated within a cult of domesticity privileging women as wives, mothers and keepers of tradition.

These groups also claim to be more knowledgeable about Hinduism and are systematically undertaking studies of certain selected Hindu religious texts such as the Vedas giving them a certain sense of credibility and authenticity. While I completely agree with Scholar 2, that defining a Hindu feminism is problematic, I also feel that feminism is one of the answers to Hindutva. While feminists have collectively responded to abuses by Hindutva groups in the name of Hinduism, they have not adequately addressed issues of faith, Hindu religious philosophy and beliefs which continue to provide answers to existential questions and offer a guide to living for several women and men. We need to undertake a meticulous feminist interpretation of religious texts as well as the range of undocumented beliefs, practices and spiritual traditions (Scholar 1’s Gynocentric perspective) which in many ways are more foundational to the Hindu tradition than Vedic Brahmanism to challenge the credibility of Hindutva forces.