General

Genocide of Women in Hinduism by Sita Agarwal, now available in Italian

by Milena Rampoldi, ProMosaik.

I would like to dedicate this translation of the militant book by Sita Agarwal
about women’s genocide in Hinduism to all women of all cultures and religions:
to the victims of the oppression on one hand and to the women fighting for
their rights on the other hand. In every culture, feminism develops as a form
of struggle for female rights on all levels, the personal, sexual, familiar,
social, political, and economical. For me personally feminism means a movement
in plural, having a very diversified cultural and religious declension. All
these “feminisms” struggle for different ideals all unified in the underlying principle
according to which a woman must regain her dignity and self-determination, her
self-value for herself and for her religious, cultural, political, economic,
and social environment, because the female gender is the pillar of all human
society.

For me, from a philosophical point of view, the female aspect of life stands
for non-violence, vitality, positive and aesthetical energy existing in all of
us. However, this aspect is elevated to a dynamic and creative form of
socio-political struggle in a world characterised by violations against basic
women’s rights.

A country where the “suffering of the female gender” as the author, the Indian
feminist Sita Agarwal, calls it, causes situations without any perspective of
self-determination and dignity, is the traditional Hindu-Vedic-Brahman society.

Sita lost her late younger sister who was murdered as a result of a
dowry-related incident. Dowry-related incidents make many victims in India. The
worst forms of this oppression, the genocide committed by traditional Hinduism,
concern female infanticide, followed by dowry-related murder and generalised
violence against Indian women, in particular against widows.

The real reason for this female genocide of Indian women are the Vedic and
Vaishnava religions, collectively referred to as Brahmanism or “astika” Hinduism.
The author shows us how religious scriptures of this religious tradition impose
this genocide against women.

For Sita, the feminist struggle means the struggle against the misogynist
religion of Hinduism. Sita speaks about a real holocaust against women in India,
imposed to women by Brahmanism. The only way to overcome this problem according
to the author is the union between Indian feminism and the other forms of
feminim, like the communist, Islamic, and Christian feminism in order to fight
a form of savagery known as Vedic-Hinduism.

In the first chapter, the author talks about the Vedic annihilation of girls,
the so called female infanticide. Undesired girls are to be eliminated in
favour of a male offspring.

She quotes the verse Atharva Veda 6.2.3 in which it says:
“Let a female child be born somewhere else; here, let a male child be born.”

In the name of this tradition the female infanticide against millions of girls
is justified. Women have to be freed from this belief which enslaves them and
kills their daughters: this is the argument of the author who describes the
history of this female infanticide and the forms it assumes.


On all girls being “lucky” because they were born, child marriage is imposed.
Child marriage is justified and promoted by Vedic tradition which affirms that
the bride should have one third of the husband’s age.

In the second chapter, the author speaks about married women who are also
exterminated by rituals like sati and jauhar. The bride is burnt
alive if the family is not able to pay her dowry. If she survives the time of
the payment of the dowry, there is still the option of the wife-burning. The
wife can be burnt at any time for the most trifling of circumstances. The jauhar,
however, refers to the practice of the mass burning of all the wives and
daughters in an entire town/district to prevent them from falling into the
hands of enemies; then there are the witch-burning and the widow-burning
(called sati). There are also other brutal practices described in
chapter 3, like cannibalism, homicide and treatment of lesbian women.

In the following chapter, the restrictions imposed to Hindu women are described.
They are kept with any right to property and education, and forced to pay huge dowries
to marry. The violence against women is also expressed as psychological
oppression which is completely destroying female self-confidence.

However, as long as the dowry is considered as something “holy”, so the author,
there will not be any hope for the victims of all this system of oppressive
forms against women in the Hindu world.

The prohibition to divorce and to remarry is another aspect of this misogynist
world perpetuated by the scriptures of Hinduism. Chastity and total poverty or sati
(which is preferable to enter the Paradise of the Gods of Hinduism) are the
only alternatives for a widow, according to Brahman teaching: this is the sad reality
of the Hindu woman at the end of her life.

Sita accuses the contemporary Hindu fundamentalism of making revive misogynist
traditions of any kind, having been practised by Hinduist societies since
centuries.

Struggling against the Gods imposing these practices seems to be utopian.
However, it is not utopian anymore if Indian feminism cooperates with the
feminist movements of other religions and ideologies. From my point of view, in
this context we can work in particular on Islam and Marxism which both affirm a
radical egalitarianism which has nothing to do with the justification of
women’s murder in the Vedic tradition.

To purchase the book, follow this link:
https://www.bookrepublic.it/book/9788899050405-il-genocidio-delle-donne-nellinduismo/

Here you can find our video about the book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhyQv8aIovg