Ancient manuscripts reveal the role of 17th century women

From Indian Education Diary:

More than analyzing textual and linguistic structures and interpreting ancient writings, Philology as a human science can surprise us and reveal “existing layers of a society” from the past. This was the case in a study that transcribed “Letters of Dates”, a kind of land deed, from Jundiaí, in the middle of the 17th century. At the time, amid requests for possession, widowed, married and single women they were among the “supplicants” of extensive areas, addressed to the public power of the city. The ancient manuscripts (1657), which date from the colonial period, are now filed at the Memory Center of the municipality of Jundiaí, in the interior of the State of São Paulo, and were the object of study by researcher Kathlin Carla de Morais, from the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH) from USP.

According to the study, this intertwining of religious, political and cultural powers can be explained in this period by the fact that the city councils were the regulators of everything that happened in the region. The guidelines they followed were inspired by sources from the Portuguese judicial system, which dealt with the State’s relations with the Church and guided civil and commercial processes, based on Roman and canon law. This land concession scheme lasted until the 19th century with the Land Law (1850), which started to use the purchase and sale model for the acquisition of floors.

read more here @ Indian Education Diary

Horrifying Attacks On Indian Women

From Daily Mail Online:

An Indian husband walked to a police station in India carrying the decapitated head of his wife who he beheaded after accusing her of having an affair. 

Chinnar Yadav attacked his wife Vimla with a sharp weapon after a heated argument in which he accused her of being unfaithful with their neighbour, according to police.

After killing and beheading his wife, Yadav was then filmed carrying her severed head to their local police station in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Similar scenes were captured in Uttar Pradesh in February when another man decapitated his wife and walked through the streets singing the Indian national anthem. 

This is not the only attacks on women in this region. You have the following horrific examples:

- husband kills wife he thinks is about to give birth to a daughter

- gang rape reported but not believed by police

- reporting sexual assault is termed a conspiracy

- rape culture criticised

- vulnerability of women

- acid attack on woman by neighbours

- cremation of rape victim under scrutiny

- high incidents of crime against women

- congress woman assaulted for speaking out

- woman brutalised

- another gang rape death

- sexual assault not believed, justice delayed

- woman beaten for resisting public molestation

- high level of crimes against women

The northern region of Uttar Pradesh is one of the four largest states in India, with a population to 200 million (and growing). With the fifth largest economy, the state is now dominated by the services industry. The service sector comprises travel and tourism, hotel industry, real estate, insurance and financial consultancies.

Uttar Pradesh also has the highest number of crimes among any state in India, but due to its high population. Uttar Pradesh also continues to top the list of states with maximum communal violence incidents. An analysis of Ministers of State of Home Affairs states (2014), 23% of all incidents of communal violence in India took place in Uttar Pradesh - this includes violence against religious minorities, social castes, and women. According to a post from NDTV, "... 4,322 cases of rape were reported in 2018, with almost 12 taking place daily ..." - and further statistics are provided in this article from The Hindu, with this alarming statistic that "... the conviction rate in rape-related cases stood at 27.2% even though the rate of filing chargesheets was 85.3% in such cases ..."

This is just over the last year or so; it boggles the mind to think of the brutality women and girls have been silently subjected to in years past. Something needs to be done!

The extraordinary women of Ghiyas-ud-din Khalji's harem

Female Court Musicians

The phrase “powerful women of Medieval India” either conjures the image of the queen of the Delhi Sultanate, Razia Sultana, who braved enormous opposition from Shamsi nobles and effectively ruled Delhi for three years, or the Mughal Empress Nur Jahan – an able administrator, but also a poet par excellence and a fashionista.

Mughal emperor Jahangir, in his Jahangirnama, gives the exaggerated figure of 15,000 women in Ghiyas’ seraglio. He further adds that each woman in the harem was either trained in a particular craft according to her aptitude and talent, or was appointed to some high position at the court of Malwa. 

It is not surprising that medieval Indian chroniclers could not understand and appreciate Ghiyas’ distinguished harem. In an era that treated women as second-class human beings, educated women would have certainly been misfits. This may be why when Ghiyas’ son, after he murdered his father and wrested the reins of Malwa for himself, executed most of the women from his father’s seraglio. Weak rulers are often threatened by empowered women.

read more here @ Scroll.in

When Will Land Rights for South Asian Women Become a Reality?

In Meghalaya, India’s northeastern biodiversity hotspot, all three major tribes are matrilineal. Children take the mother’s family name, while daughters inherit the family lands.

Because women own land and have always decided what is grown on it and what is conserved, the state not only has a strong climate-resistant food system but also some of the rarest edible and medicinal plants, researchers said. The importance of protecting the full spectrum of women’s property rights becomes even more urgent as the number of women-led households in rural areas around the world continues to grow.

While their ancient culture empowers Meghalaya’s indigenous women with land ownership that vastly improves their resilience to the food shocks climate change springs on them, for an overwhelming majority of women in developing countries, culture does not allow them even a voice in family or community land management. Nor do national laws support their rights to own the very land they sow and harvest to feed their families.

read more here @ The Wire

Schoolgirls 'stripped' to check for menstrual blood

Period shaming in India is not new, but the fact that girls can be "punished" for menstruating, that too inside educational institutes, is indeed a matter of great shame.

Girl students of a residential school in Muzaffarnagar were reportedly stripped naked by a warden to “check for menstrual blood”. According to this report, around 70 students of Kasturba Gandhi Girls Residential School complained that the female warden asked them to take off their clothes and allegedly threatened them to punish if they disobeyed.

The inspection resulted after the warden spotted some blood stains in the bathroom. "The warden ordered us to remove our clothes. It was very humiliating for all of us. We want action against her,” one of the students was quoted as saying but the CNN-News18.

Our society is still driven by the mindset that women turn impure during their periods. And what is most disgusting is that the idea is so deep ingrained and the practice so ancient that even women themselves look at menstruation blood with aversion.

And just like all other obnoxious claims attaching scientific significance to Indian traditions, this custom too, the sanskari Indians believe, has "empirical" proof — menstrual blood is unhygienic which makes the women impure and untouchable during her monthly cycle. 

read more here @ Daily O and Women of History - Chhaupadi - monthly exile of Nepali women and Menstrupedia Blog: Options for menstrual products for Indian women

Mistress of Herbs: Saving Uteruses Worldwide

Recently a racket involving the removal of uteruses from healthy women in Kalaburgi hit the headlines. In the city, however, an Ayurvedic doctor has prevented thousands of women from going under the scalpel. 

Dr Gowri Subramanya, has dedicated her life to educating people about the benefits of ancient Ayurvedic medicines and has treated several women ailing for various issues related to the uterus. She is the granddaughter of Pandith Narasimha Murthy, Palace Vaidya of Mysuru royal family. She resides in Banashankari.

She has successfully treated more than 1,300 women and prevent them from undergoing needless surgeries. Not only people in the country, she boasts of patients even from abroad, from countries like Australia and USA. 

Read More Here @ New Indian Express

Ancient Indian Poetesses

From Speaking Tree:

A community’s development can be easily measured by the level of women’s education or status. If we take all the ancient cultures into account, India has a unique place in the world. Lot of countries gave women-- education, freedom, right to inherit property, right to attend religious ceremonies and a status ---several centuries after ‘India that is Bharat’ gave them.

Vedas and Sangam Tamil literature have the highest number of women poets (poetesses) in the world. It is amazing to see they were able to compose poems and attend assemblies.

We have over 25 Vedic poetesses and over 25 Tamil Sangam poetesses. No culture in the world had so many poetesses 2000 years ago. It was a world dominated by men. Law giver Manu said that a community will be destroyed if women are not respected.

Sorry State of Women In India

Tragic tales of violence against women and children has emerged from India.  Here are just a few of the headlines that have appeared this week:

From the Guardian:

Indian PM Manmohan Singh: women's status and safety a growing concern...  India must make vast improvements to protect women, says prime minister amid protests over rape of five-year-old girl.

From the Times of India:

CPM politburo member Brinda Karat on Sunday called for the need to amend the criminal law to protect tribal women against the atrocities by officials and guards of forest department.Expressing concern over the increase in crimes against women, Brinda Karat said the issue of atrocities against tribal women should also be addressed. 

From The Hindu:
Even as protests against the brutal rape of a five-year-old girl in the Gandhi Nagar area of East Delhi snowballed into widespread public outrage, the 22-year-old casual worker accused of the crime was brought here on Saturday.

From The Siasat Daily:
The brutal rapist of the five-year-old girl had met his equally vile partner-in-crime during a chance meeting aboard a train earlier this year, sources claimed on Sunday. Identified by sources as one Pradeep, the man in question is now ‘officially’ the second accused in the case which took place precisely a week ago. “Manoj Kumar Sah, the main accused, kept twisting facts, changing his statements and putting the entire blame on Pradeep as soon as he was arrested,” said an officer.

Also from The Siasat Daily:
Second Delhi child rape accused arrested from Bihar .....One more person allegedly involved in the rape of a five-year-old girl in New Delhi a week ago has been arrested, police said on Monday. Pradeep, the second accused, was apprehended from Bihar in a joint operation by Delhi and Bihar Police, Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar told PTI.

And this again from The Siasat Daily:

Delhi rape accused Manoj raped wife before marriage .....In another shocking revelation it has been reported that rape accused Manoj Kumar, who was arrested by police yesterday had also raped his wife before marriage.

From Huffington Post:
Women's groups here are hailing a new law, passed March 21, that stiffens punishments of sexual violence in the aftermath of the notorious gang rape last December that left a medical student dead.

And then this tragic story from The Siasat Daily:
A 22-year-old mentally challenged woman was raped allegedly by a ward boy at a nursing home whose doctors have been arrested on charge of trying to bribe the victim's kin to hush up the matter. The incident occurred at Walhekarwadi in Chinchwad town near hear on April 16 in the nursing home run by Dr Vishal Sonawane (34) and his wife Dr Varsha (31) where the victim was undergoing treatment, police said today. Police arrested the accused, identified as Subhash Modad (22), on the charge of rape and the doctor couple for trying to hush up the matter and bribe the victim's kin to not report the incident to police as it would bring bad name to their hospital.

From Opposing Views:

Gruesome footage surfaced today of four men relentlessly beating an Indian woman in Ludhiana, a city in the northwest Indian province of Punjab. The woman says she was beaten because she asked to be repaid a sum of money that she had lent to one of the men. The amount is reported to be 20,000 rupees, the equivalent of about $370 USD.

From CTV News:

But exotic ancient India has run headlong into the rapidly growing economic powerhouse, where women have stepped out of traditional roles, resulting in harsh questions about their treatment which is considered to be among the worst in the world. Rape is common. Sexual assault goes unreported. The victim is often blamed, which the perpetrator walks free.

Meghalaya: Modern Day Matriarchy

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

The one and only place in India where the birth of a baby girl is greeted with ecstasy is Meghalaya, where the mother's family, waiting in the corridor of the maternity ward, break into laughter, hugs and clap their hands for joy.

''When a boy is born, the reaction is very different, subdued - 'Oh, OK, fine, whatever God gives us must be accepted,'' says Merle Gilford, a nurse at Nazareth Hospital in Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, a picturesque state of wooded hills and mists in the north-east.

In male-dominated, boy-fixated Indian society, Meghalaya is an aberration. It holds one of the world's last surviving matrilineal societies. The 1.2 million strong Khasi tribe invests all power in its women. For thousands of years, the Khasis have traced their descent, inheritance and lineage from mother to daughter.

New Delhi Gang Rape Outrage

From Time World:

Last Sunday in New Delhi, at around 9.30 p.m., a 23-year-old woman was gang raped for almost an hour on a moving bus and then thrown semi-naked on the road to die. Hideous violence against women is nothing new in India, but this particular outrage has caused widespread anger. Perhaps it was the casual ferocity of it. Or the fact that it took place on some of the teeming capital’s busiest streets. Or perhaps a nation at great pains to modernize is finding it hard to stomach what feels like an increasingly predatory sexual culture.

Experts say blaming survivors of sexual assault is common in India. Rather than prosecute perpetrators, many say the fault belongs to rape survivors, who are shamed for, say, daring to walk alone, taking public transportation or wearing certain clothes. “Blaming the victim has been in some way also part of the larger design of the system, where you want to push the women to say they are responsible for what happens to them,” says Ranjana Kumari, a member of the National Mission for Empowerment of Women. “It is like saying men are not responsible but it is the women who lured them into this.”

Legacy of Begum Akhtar

From the Hindu Business Line:

Once the toast of cultural circles, artistes and musicians often slip out of public memory as soon as they quit the stage. The late Begum Akhtar still rules hearts in the world of classical music, but in her home State, Uttar Pradesh, her soul-stirring voice has all but faded from the minds of music lovers. In fact, even as preparations are on nationally to celebrate her centenary year - in 2014 - the place of her birth and musical taleem (education) remains oblivious to her legacy.

But that may change soon if 80-year-old Shanti Hiranand has her way. A student of the great vocalist, Shanti has teamed up with fans of Begum Akhtar to revisit her work and has even restored her grave, which once lay forgotten in old Lucknow’s Thakurganj area.

Born in Faizabad, Begum Akhtar later moved to Lucknow and made it her home. She passed away here in 1974 aged 60 and is buried at a two-grave cemetery next to her mother, Mushtari Sahiba.

See biography of Begum Akhtar at Cultural India

Tribal Tradition Broken In Bihar

From NDTV:

Santhal tribals in a Bihar village have added a new chapter to their ancient custom of young men and women living together - allowing an unwed mother to marry her dead partner's body to make her children legitimate and give them property rights.

Gotul - practised in the tribal regions of Bihar and Jharkhand - allows young adults to cohabit till they are sure that the partner he or she has chosen is good enough for marriage.

Beware The "Medicine Man"

From CBN:

Every 12 seconds, a baby girl is aborted in India. That's about 7,000 girls killed every day just because they are females. 

The United Nations now calls India the most dangerous place on earth for a girl. So why are these parents taking such action? 

CBN News went searching for answers in a remote village of Rajasthan in northeast India. In rural villages and big cities, millions of families are turning to men like Kilash Boria to help eliminate their girl children. For more than two decades, Boria's father was known around Rajasthan as the medicine man. He created a secret brew that he'd give to pregnant women to help abort their babies. 

Abortion is legal in India. Sex-selective abortion, however, is illegal but widely common. The impact is devastating, with census figures showing the child sex ratios getting worse. In 2001, there were 927 girls for every 1,000 boys. Now the girls in that ratio are down to 914. In some parts of the Indian state of Punjab, the ratio is as low as 300 girls.

Man Beheads Daughter

From NineMSN:

An Indian father beheaded his daughter with a sword and paraded it through his village after learning of her alleged "indecent behaviour" with men.

Police in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan say they were shocked when Oghad Singh turned himself over to authorities with the severed head and sword still in his hands.

Singh's daughter, Manju Kunwar, 20, was living with her parents after leaving her husband two years ago.

Police Superintendent Umesh Ojha says Singh was upset by his daughter having affairs with men and became enraged when she eloped with one of them two weeks ago, NY Daily News reports.

Supt. Ojha said Singh forced her to return home Sunday and beheaded her Monday with a sword.

Jharkhand Women Still Witchcraft Victims

From the Daily Pioneer:

In a shocking revelation, a report released by Jharkhand Human Rights Movement 2001-2011, says every three days a woman becomes victim of crime related to witchcraft in Jharkhand. Jharkhand has reported 1,157 cases of murder between the year 1991 to 2010, where a woman was branded a witch and killed.

The report says that every third day a woman is persecuted under the garb of witchcraft. According to the facts and figures of Jharkhand State Legal Authority 175 women were branded as ‘witch’ and subjected to atrocities every year in Jharkhand.

Being the State capital, Ranchi registered the maximum number of cases of witchcraft. About 250 cases of witchcraft were registered in Ranchi during the past decade. On the other hand Godda, a backward district as compared to Ranchi registered only 11 cases.

Witchcraft is a never ending story in Jharkhand. Illiteracy, lack of awareness and medical facilities are the major reasons behind this. Ojhas (witch doctors) play an important role in this medieval practice.

Smita Jadhav - Increase in Dowry Deaths

From DNA India:

The new head of the women grievance redressal cell of the Pune Police, Smita Jadhav, handles a sensitive posting. As an incharge of the cell, Jadhav and her team have to counsel warring couples to try and bridge the gap between them. A student of history from the Fergusson College, Jadhav has plans to make the women aware of their rights. Chaitraly Deshmukh spoke to Jadhav to know about her future plans for the women’s cell.

As many as 48 married women in their 20s have fallen prey to the greed of their in-laws following mental and physical harassment over dowry in the last 11 months. What is your opinion on this?

"It is a shocking figure as we are in the 21st century and the city is witnessing increasing number of dowry deaths. Most of the women are in the age group of 20 to 30.

Women have fallen prey to dowry demands. Most of them are educated and belong to good families. Many women do not come forward despite knowing that laws have been made to protect them. Yet, they choose to remain silent and silence kills them. They sometimes approach us but later disappear. We cannot keep a track of each and every case but we make it a point to follow-up serious cases."

See also:

Death & Dowry in India

Dowry in Ancient Times & the Role of Women in Indian Society

Tortuous Life of Women & Girls in Brothels

From the Times of India:

One doesn't expect socialites to spend a languid rainy afternoon listening to horror stories. Especially when it's a diminutive 62-year-old narrating the tales. But when it is one Anuradha Koirala doing the talk, the glamour quotient doesn't matter. The grit that fuels this character does. It jolts listeners out of stupor and lands them in a stark world with sleaze and grime.

A packed audience, mostly members of the FICCI ladies organization, listened with rapt attention as the chairperson of Maiti Nepal (an NGO that has rescued over 18,000 women from sexual slavery and exploitation) recounted stories that touch a nadir in human depravation.

While most girls trafficked from Nepal land up in brothels in Nagpur, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Surat, Delhi, Bangalore, Siliguri, Gorakhpur and Meerut, girls are increasingly being re-routed to the Gulf, China and South-East Asia as well. "While traffickers in India prefer girls with mongoloid features as prevalent in people from lower castes in Nepal, those in China prefer girls from high caste who have prominent nose and high cheek bone," Maiti Nepal director Bishwo Ram Khadka said.

Of the 600,000-800,000 people trafficked every year globally, 70% are women and children. Of this, 150,000 cases are in South Asia with Nepal accounting for a lion's share. Maiti estimates there are 150,000-400,000 Nepali girls and women in Indian brothels. A big chunk of them are aged 7-24 years.

"The girls undergo systematic rape and torture. They are starved and scalded by smoldering cigarettes and sometimes even murdered. Those who are young are given hormone injections so that they appear big and then gang raped as an initiation into the trade. Thereafter, they are made to entertain 5-50 clients a day," said Koirala.

While extreme poverty in west Nepal is considered the primary reason for Nepali girls being trafficked in large numbers, Koirala says gender discrimination is the root cause, citing social practices like Chaupadi, Deuki and Badi where girls are driven into flesh trade by families.

India: Ganesh Madal Supports The Girl Child

From Express India:

If many Ganesh Mandals have adopted the popular sentiment of the Anna Hazare movement against corruption to decorate Ganpati pandals, there are others that have picked up social causes which are in news these days. One mandal, for instance, the Rashtriya Sattoti Haud Mandal at Kasba Peth, has taken up female foeticide as the theme and is trying to create awareness on the importance of saving the girl child.

The mandal also felicitated eight couples who either have a single child, a girl, or two girl children. The mandal has used several ideas to drive home the point. For instance, a woman is shown near the pram of an infant. “It is the mother who is responsible for educating her daughter. Through proper upbringing, a mother can inculcate self-esteem in a girl child and make her independent.” said Sandeep Bangar, president of the mandal.

An Anglo-Indian Tale

From IBN Live:

During the earlier period of the East India Company in India, it was a common practice for British men to take Indian women as wives, for the lack of British women in the country. The children of such inter-racial marriages were known as Eurasians. But as the 19th century progressed, British women began arriving at the sub continent, and the trend of inter-cultural marriages came to an abrupt halt. As a result, such Eurasians, also known as Anglo Indians, were neglected by both Indians and British.

This was among the interesting information that contoured the lecture on Anglo Indians as part of the Madras Week Celebration, held at the GRT Grand Days. Harry Mclure and Richard O Connor from Anglos in the Wind, a national Anglo Indian magazine, read out articles published in the magazine over the last 10 years, that capture the history and essence of Anglo Indians in Madras, especially in areas of Santhome, Royapuram, Perambur, Pallavaram. The lecture was an insight as to how a new community evolved and marginalised later with unfriendly environment.

Love in the time of Mughals

From the Sunday Pioneer:

Mughal history, as we know it, is all about how the Muslim rulers won over vast tracts of land and established kingdoms that promoted art, literature and culture. They ruled with an iron fist, battled palace intrigues and mercilessly suppressed opposition. Some like Aurangzeb were religious despots, while others like Akbar were liberal enough to even promote a new brand of all-inclusive religious structure — Din-e-Elahi.

While the Mughal empire was largely male-dominated, there were flashes of female dominance, even if at subaltern levels. But while they have been dealt with by some classic and even modern-day historians, few have attempted to tackle the subject of sexuality among the Mughal society’s influential women. Perhaps, it is because authors have considered the issue as peripheral to the larger story. Nevertheless, it is an important gender perspective, more so as it deals with a society where women were behind veils and their affairs were rarely discussed. This book provides a fresh and scholarly insight into the private lives of Mughal women, without being voyeuristic.