Calling women safety squads anti-Romeo is an Indian problem

In large parts of the world, it is commonly said that the harassment and assault on women are accompanied by a verbal or conceptual debasing of anti-women offences.

For example, in the '60s, it was commonplace throughout India to refer to criminal attacks as "eve teasing".

But the biblical Eve was never "teased" by anyone.

Yet, this patriarchal term continued for decades.

Now the term Romeo has emerged.

But Shakespeare never showed Romeo as a predator attacking Juliet in his play Romeo and Juliet.

Why is it that in this country of many languages, literatures and cultures, these European terms are used with reference to assault on women?

After all, police personnel handle FIRs, not Shakespeare.

By now, the Bard of Avon must have turned in his grave many times over.

And why does this foreign slant to describe crimes against women persist?

Isn't the assault and denigration of women very much part of the Indian culture and tradition?

Isn't the disrobing of Draupadi, as described in one of our most famous epics, a brazen attack on a woman - that too in a royal court?

In one version of the Ramayana, didn't Lord Ram exile Sita on the basis of the suspicion of a washerman?

Only few decades ago did the Supreme Court rule that a woman could be the guardian of her child.

The laws on various feminist concerns are antiquated and partisan. Under various sections of Article 371, the customary laws practised by various tribal communities outweigh women's rights.

In Nagaland, few months ago, owing to patriarchal resentment, three women were killed for daring to be members of the district councils.

The CM who brought in 33 per cent reservations in the district councils had to resign because as he put it the "Centre" did not like what he had done.

Such examples are rife.

These attitudes thrive. Matrimonial advertisements, for example, often state that the sought after bride must be "homely".

This term in the West is the opposite of terms like "beautiful" and "fair", which are also the staple of those searching for potential brides.

In the West "homely" means not physically attractive. But the Indian use is telling.

The potential wife must be largely at home. There are differences because of religion, sect, class, caste, region education, et al.

But the widespread prevalence of the dowry system has not diminished. Most parents welcome a male child.

The female child is not considered precious owing to reasons like the potential costs of marriage.

The increase in the number of women CEOs is heartening, but they remain a fraction of the managerial elite.

Despite the continued endeavours of feminist groups, the "feminising" of texts by educationists, strict laws on the premature abortion of female foetuses, and so on are yet highly inadequate.

Yet, risqué to political jokes are widespread.

One of the less vulgar ones is about a man sitting on a women's seat in a DTC bus. When the conductor asks him to get up, he retorts that even then PM Morarji Desai had occupied a woman's seat, the reference being to Desai replacing Indira Gandhi as PM.

The deeper meaning: women prime ministers don't deserve their seats.

Politicians are sometimes worse. During the furore in the Shah Bano case, Muslim clerics vociferously opposed the ruling of the Supreme Court on the right of Muslim divorcees to have a right to maintenance.

When women MPs met PM Rajiv Gandhi on the issue, he retorted that women's equality was a "western concept". In the next meeting of the Lok Sabha, CPI(M) MP Saifuddin Choudhury pointed out that the PM himself had a "western wife."

Now Muslim clerics are demanding that "triple talaq" should be retained as it is part of their religious heritage and law.

But many Muslim countries do not have such a law. Our neighbour Pakistan does not have any such law. This law is grossly anti-women and unequal. But religious arguments are often used to subordinate women.

The most important point is that under the Constitution there is equality of rights for women, and infirmities or deviations are supposed to be removed or corrected by gender just civil codes.

Patriarchal mindsets cannot be allowed to prevail. One last, but distressing example: the Women's Reservation Bill.

In a stridently brazen assault, women who had demanded 33 per cent reservation met with abuse in the Rajya Sabha from male patriarchs.

The redoubtable Geeta Mukherjee and other women MPs were insulted by socialist MP Sharad Yadav as being "par kati" - a reference to pigeons whose wings are clipped so they can't fly.

Shamefully, the Speaker did not marshal Sharad Yadav out of the House. This proposed measure is not even discussed since then in the House. Men, after all, are better MPs, as most male MPs will testify.

Tearing up parliamentary papers, storming the well of the House, speaking longer than the allotted time, irrelevant if not irreverent suggestions, quips, et al are their characteristics.

You can see such antics in the controversial discussions.

Wouldn't women members, in adequate numbers, add to the quality of discussions?

Many such instances highlight the real situation of women, even those who are significantly politically empowered.

Look at any Council of Ministers, say in the last five regimes.

How many women have had major ministerial positions compared to men?

How many women have been MPs in the last five Lok Sabhas? Why five? Because there should have been improvements in later years.

As the feminists had said in the '60s, "Men who oppress women themselves cannot be free."