Even though the stories of bestial treatment of women of the minority community in
Gujarat have hit the headlines and drawn attention across the country, what is of more
concern is the involvement of a section of women as tacit supporters or as active agents –
in the looting and rioting process, writes Shruba Mukherjee

Is ideology more important than biology? Should humane feelings take a back seat and greed
allowed to reign supreme? In the context of ongoing celebration of violence in Gujarat, these issues
require immediate attention, particularly keeping in view the special role played by women in the
Gujarat carnage.

Even though the stories of bestial treatment of women of the minority community have hit the
headlines and drawn attention across the country, what is of more concern is the involvement of a
section of women as tacit supporters or as active agents – in the looting and rioting process.
Women took active part in looting shops and turned a blind eye when their men unleashed a reign
of terror on their Muslim sisters. Be it for ideology or greed, de-sensitisation of women was perhaps the worst fall-out of the Gujarat mayhem.

As social activist Shabnam Hashmi noted, women were very much part of the looting process.
“Although there are only unconfirmed reports that women of the majority community supported rape and violence on their Muslim sisters, there is no doubt about the fact that upper-middle class women
did take part in looting shops.

Farah Naqvi, another social activist and who was a member of an independent fact-finding team to
Gujarat said, the women might not have come out in the open wielding swords and instigating men to brutalise minority women, but their tacit support or indifference towards the plight of Muslim women
was a matter of concern. “But even here, I feel, a distinction should be made. A number of women activists and volunteers, who are helping out inmates of the relief camps, are Hindus. But the women from VHP/RSS background were very much keen in sharing the spoils of the carnage,” Naqvi said.
She quoted a story where a woman went into a shoe shop to collect her share of the booty, while
her husband waited in the car. The shoes she brought out did not fit her, so she went back again to
change them.

An eminent artist in Ahmedabad revealed how some of his lady neighbours had returned with a car
full of looted goods and proudly displayed them to their neighbours. All the reports of looting in the
posh areas of the city indicated that it was not the poor but the well-dressed middle class, including
women, who participated. These stories capture the immoral greed of supposedly educated people
which was on full display during the riots.

“The political platform of Hindutva directly encourages criminal acts directed against ‘the other’ and
converts looted goods from Muslim properties into trophies to be displayed as ‘politically’ correct
status symbols,” he said. Explaining active participation of Hindu women in the carnage All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) General Secretary Brinda Karat said the Hindutva lobby was engaged in politically mobilizing the women and instilling their ideology into them.
Citing her experience during her visit in a Dalit village in Gujarat, she said, when some of the
village boys collected foodgrain for their Muslim neighbours, their mothers and aunts scolded
them by saying “Musalmanse kyon dosti karna hai? (Why do you want to befriend the Muslims?)”
Nathiben, the Mahila Sarpanch of Laxmipura village in Sabarkantha district, did nothing to dissuade
her husband Jitu Bhai Patel and son Ramesh (both members of the local VHP unit) from torching
Muslim homes on the evening of February 27. She even justified it by saying that Godhra was the
beginning and that it were the Muslims who started the carnage. She also claimed that Muslims from
almost every village in Gujarat had gone to participate in the Godhra murders. In spite of being the Sarpanch, Nathiben did not have any clue about the Muslims who have been forced to flee Laxmipura village. She also said that even if they come back, they would not be allowed to stay
in the village unless they followed village tradition, i.e. shaving of beards for men and wearing of sarees and bindis for women.

Maya Kodnani, the BJP MLA from Naroda Patia, one of the worst affected areas in Ahmedabad,
tried to justify the violence as an outburst of “natural ghrina (hatred) and aaskrosh (anger) in the
heart of every Hindu.” She also claimed that this kind of communal violence was part of “Gujarat ki
prakruti” and “Gujarat ki taasir”. “These are natural and should be accepted as such,” she said.
Even though Kodnani has been named in an FIR as having participated in the Naroda Patia carnage
on February 28, she showed no remorse. She did not know where the Muslims of her constituency
had fled, nor was she aware of the large number of rapes that took place during the mayhem. The
Kausar Bano rape case, where the culprits cut open the belly of the nine-month pregnant woman,
took out her foetus with a sword and threw it into a blazing fire, took place in Kodnani’s
constituency. But she did not have any knowledge about the incident.

Explaining the complicity, if not active support of women in looting and rioting, Karat said the
Hindutva lobby very efficiently used the slogan “religion in danger” to mobilise the fair sex. “This,
along with false stories on atrocities on Hindu women published in some of the Gujarati vernacular
dailies, added fuel to fire,” she said. “The stories of murder and rape of Hindu women, emblazoned
in banner headlines across the vernacular press became the excuse, the emotional rallying point, the
justification for brutalizing Muslim women which was also acceptable to their Hindu sisters.”
Noted social scientist Veena Mazumdar, who visited Ahmedabad and Surat after the 1993 riots,
did not come across this ‘other face of women’ at that time. Even Naqvi, who has been working in
Gujarat for a long time, was not aware of polarization and de-sensitisation of women to such an
extent in the communally-sensitive state.

But for Dr Uma Chakravarty, eminent social scientist and activist, participation of women in rioting
and looting was a quite “natural and expected phenomenon.”
“For the last five years or so, the Hindutva groups have been undertaking a systematic mobilization
of women just to show that they are important constituents and supporters of the movement,” she
said. “Thus, these women share both material greed and ideology of hatred of the Hindutva group.”
Stating that this contemporary ideology should be distinguished from the older form of Hindutva,
Chakravarty said the emergence of a consumer-oriented approach has also changed the trend in
rioting. “Riots offer these women an opportunity to get those things, which they never dreamt of
laying their hands on, and that too without paying a price.”
 
 
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