The Union minister for culture, Mahesh Sharma, may be in
favour of a curfewed social life for women, but the RSS’ Akhil
Bharatiya Itihaas Sankalan Yojana (BISY) defines the golden period for
women in India as the Rig Vedic age where they went beyond traditional
roles, “married at a mature age” and “had the right to choose their
husbands.”
In fact, according to an invitation for
research papers issued by the BISY, for a seminar it is hosting in
December on status of women, restrictions on women, the kind Dr. Sharma
spoke about, happened after invasions from outsiders like “Yavanas,
Shakas, Huna, Kushana and several other reasons, the status of women
began to decline and with Islamic invasions later, women’s freedom and
rights.”
The convenor for BISY Bal Mukund told The Hindu,
that the seminar would be held in December in Mysore, and that papers
detailing research into this aspect had been invited. “We hold a seminar
every three years, as part of our charter to promote history and
historiography. This time the theme is how the status of women in India
deteriorated to this extent,” he said.
“Women as
scholars, and with important economic roles have dotted Rig Vedic
history, they have written Richas of the Vedasa, and we have to know how
the decline in their rights came,” he said. Asked how he could square
this view with the frequent calls by Sangh associates that Hindu women
should bear more children and to view them only for child bearing
purposes, he said that “no reasonable person can hold that view.”
He
did however, in the context of a so-called decline in Hindu population
to below 80% of India’s total numbers say that, “such remarks as above
need to be heard in the proper context.”
“We are worshippers of Ardhanarishwara, for us the male and female element is the same,” he said.
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