View of Jodhpur's Old City from Merangarh Fort
discourse and internationalization: Solutions to issues of indian female disempowerment
Despite India’s abolishing of the caste system, caste hierarchies remain entrenched in Indian society. Patriarchy allies with caste hierarchies, building a framework of structural violence on which Indian cultural traditions are based. Women and lower caste members bear the brunt of this structural inequality. In the past five years, the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) has pressured both India and Nepal to recognize caste as a form of race and accept international efforts to eradicate descent and work-based discriminations (Puniyani, 2009, p.1). Nepal recently adopted the stance that caste is race-based and fosters discrimination, thereby accepting the UNHRC’s international assistance to supplements national and local human rights organizations. India, however, continues to reject UNHRC proposals on the grounds that caste exists as an internal problem and one that cannot be solved by expatriates (Puniyani, 2009, p.1). However, the Indian government’s inability to enforce anti-caste policies and subsequently, female empowerment initiatives, illustrates the government’s need for outside help. Although internationalized anti-caste efforts hold the potential to open up new avenues for combating caste hierarchies, such programs will fail without the integration of male-female interfamilial and community discourse into their agendas because awareness of social issues serves as the first step towards change.
Two opposing forces dominate current political discourse focused on the implementation of anti-caste legislation in India: human rights activists and members of traditional Hindu nationalist movements. While human rights groups on both local and national levels advocate for UNHCR norms and the recognition of caste as a race, members the religious nationalist group Hindu Rashtra rail against UN censures (Puniyani, 2009, p.1). Hindu Rashtra backs their oppositional standpoint on the basis that within Hinduism a division exists between rights and duties. Rights are for the elite, while duties are for the downtrodden. Thus, to the Hindu Rashtra, the caste system helps to structure society into a functional body for the greater good of all Hindus. While the Hindu Rashtra movement exerts influence within the political sphere, efforts on the part of Prime Minister Manmohan, who equated untouchability with apartheid, prove that, “state machinery has elements that are deliberately tilting the policies in this retrograde direction” (Puniyani, 2009, p.1). Therefore, government officials occupy both camps concerning anti-caste legislation. While some legislation has passed despite this dichotomy, corruption within the Indian government and infrastructural systems has resulted in the failure to implement policies and has led to the perpetuation caste hierarchies (Asadullah, 2012, p.1152). Thus, government failure to enforce stable policies and represent a unanimous opinion advocating for the abolishment of remaining caste-hierarchies exemplifies India’s need for international intervention.
Two opposing forces dominate current political discourse focused on the implementation of anti-caste legislation in India: human rights activists and members of traditional Hindu nationalist movements. While human rights groups on both local and national levels advocate for UNHCR norms and the recognition of caste as a race, members the religious nationalist group Hindu Rashtra rail against UN censures (Puniyani, 2009, p.1). Hindu Rashtra backs their oppositional standpoint on the basis that within Hinduism a division exists between rights and duties. Rights are for the elite, while duties are for the downtrodden. Thus, to the Hindu Rashtra, the caste system helps to structure society into a functional body for the greater good of all Hindus. While the Hindu Rashtra movement exerts influence within the political sphere, efforts on the part of Prime Minister Manmohan, who equated untouchability with apartheid, prove that, “state machinery has elements that are deliberately tilting the policies in this retrograde direction” (Puniyani, 2009, p.1). Therefore, government officials occupy both camps concerning anti-caste legislation. While some legislation has passed despite this dichotomy, corruption within the Indian government and infrastructural systems has resulted in the failure to implement policies and has led to the perpetuation caste hierarchies (Asadullah, 2012, p.1152). Thus, government failure to enforce stable policies and represent a unanimous opinion advocating for the abolishment of remaining caste-hierarchies exemplifies India’s need for international intervention.
Because the UN possesses the unique ability to coordinate national and local non-governmental organizations to collaborate on projects, it holds the capacity to target caste-hierarchies and issues of female empowerment at the grassroots level. NGOs hold the capability to easily access local populations because of the community backing they foster through their locally driven initiatives. Singer accounts for this power NGOs derive from their ability to provide openings through which structural problems can be addressed stating that community-based organizations offer, “Institutional openings for influence and activity at many points” (Singer, 1995, p.87). Access to local populations is a crucial element in social reform because societal constructions targeted by reforms, such as patriarchy and the caste system, were implemented and continue to be perpetuated by India’s local populations. Drawing on Wolf’s premise that culture cannot be fully understood without first exploring the history of its roots and the dynamics of its formation through time helps to illuminate the fact that the caste system and patriarchy exist as societal constructions and this can be changed by society itself (2010, p.1). Thus, the internationalization of anti-caste and women’s empowerment movements through UN-led programs affords India the ability to reach all manner of society through its vast scope of connections and instill initiatives for social change within the populace who hold the power for change within their own capacities.
Because the caste system operates in conjunction with patriarchal traditions to create India’s infamous female empowerment issues, addressing the caste system through internationalization efforts also creates space a through which gender issues should subsequently be dealt with. Though a vast array of social problems stem from the caste system, eradicating the caste-hierarchies in India will not solve all of India’s problems. Despite a lessening of severity, gender hierarchies will continue to persist after the abolition of caste-hierarchies because of their grounding in patriarchal notions. These patriarchal constraints muffle women’s voices, stifling their ability to speak out against this structural violence and raise awareness that could potentially result in change. Utilizing discourse to focus on gender hierarchies within caste system reforms can serve as a powerful tool to raise awareness and work actively towards the disintegration of such social constructs plaguing women by giving them a space in which they can voice their opinion. However, such discourse must be present on multiple levels in order to effectively allow for flow of ideas and eventual social change. Therefore, all levels of social strata, the political arena and development arena, and both males and females must all discuss and formulate solutions on the subject of gender hierarchies.
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Facilitating and documenting such discourse among low caste women serves as a fantastic starting point for future student researchers in India, especially in the Northwest where religious and cultural patriarchy tradition persists most strongly. Student researchers can also research state and local anti-caste policies and their implementation by speaking not only to government officials but also local populations. However, such research needs to be complemented by efforts to raise awareness by sharing findings with NGOs that hold the capacity to initiate change and well as sharing findings with research subjects. Assisting lobbying efforts to allow UN intervention in India serves as another avenue students can engage in to help ameliorate caste-hierarchies. I plan to continue engaging in issues of caste-hierarchies and women’s empowerment by continuing anthropological research for my senior thesis in an evaluation of gender hierarchies within the development sector. Women’s empowerment supposedly stems from Self-Help Group (SHG) loan structures offered at microfinance institutions. However, during my time in India I noticed that husbands of the SHG women often dealt with the “business,” which included managing the money and purchasing raw materials with the money while the women made the crafts and assembled the SHG ladies via word of mouth when needed. Due to limited female access to education inherent in Indian patriarchal society, women lack the necessary basic math and literacy skills to effectively manage their SHG business. Thus, the job necessarily falls of the male head of house, but this undermines women’s ability to truly be empowered through business ownership. Instead of managing their business on all they levels they continue to rely on male help and thus are a participant rather than an autonomous agent. I plan to submit my findings of this future research to the microfinance institution I worked for as well as the INGO that facilitated my internship. I hope that my efforts to expose and change not only caste-hierarchies but also gender inequalities in India will inspire future students to become involved and will also illuminate those I worked with in India to the ways in which their good intentions may continue to perpetuate the problems they seek to ameliorate.