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

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.

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

Ancient Indian Women

From The Hindu:

Though women from India's ancient past have been generalised by early historians as a uniform group conditioned in the same way and conforming to the social codes, there were many of them who lived multi-faceted lives and exercised the freedom to pursue alternative paths of self-fulfilment, historian Romila Thapar said on Wednesday.

Delivering the “IWA Endowment Lecture” hosted by the International Women's Association and the Government Museum, Prof. Thapar said quite unlike their generalised portrayal, women in the history of Indian society were from diverse social backgrounds; therefore their activities were as diverse as their aspirations.

Indian Women & the Mahalaxmi Temple

From the Ahmedabad Mirror:

The Anna Hazare blitzkrieg, which shook up the entire system, proved that India is changing fast. A similar tremor of change was felt at the heart of the Mahalaxmi Temple in Kolhapur on Saturday. In this case, the pride of the patriach, the ultimate male bastion fortified by centuries of rules loaded against the fairer sex, was finally breached.

The garbhagruha (sanctum sanctorum) of the important twelfth century temple in a city of half a million, nestled in the lush corner of south Maharashtra’s sugar belt, was witness to a change in the course of history, with one line shouted out by a trustee of the temple a few minutes past 10.30 am: “Let the women devotees in.”

The trustee requested the male devotees to empty the tiny space and make way for the women. What followed was a group of women, who walked up the silver-coated staircase leading to the innermost shrine of Ambabai with a quiet zest in their steps, even as the few priests inside watched, aghast.

The centuries-old barrier had been broken at last, even as the hardcore traditionalists, which most of the priests in the garbhagruha are, watched in dismay because to them the sanctity of the divine abode of Ambabai, one among the Shaktipeeths, had been defiled.

Nepal: Women Priests

From China View:

As Nepal celebrates its biggest Hindu festival Dashain with devotees worshipping the goddesses of power, there is an additional cause for women to rejoice.

Traditionally, only men from the Brahmin community -- who were regarded to be at the top of Nepal's caste society -- were appointed as priests at Hindu temples.

But now, in a sign of the changing times, at least two temples in the former Hindu kingdom have now opened their doors to women priests -- and that too, from the Dalit community, is regarded to be at the bottom of the social hierarchy and still treated as untouchables in some villages.