This is a very good write-up. It may not seem to be the best way to greet Rabindranath's 150th birth celebrations. But it is timely in the sense of showing how sociopolitical pressures vary from time to time, but patriarchy finds a way of subjugating women in any ruse. For Tagore it was preserving a certain class hierarchy and social identity. He really did have a double standard. He preached about equal status of men and women in 'Chitrangoda' but craved from his own family-women total devotion to the service of their husbands in the most servile way in which, he felt, there was 'shanti' and 'kalyan' for the society as a whole.
I have always pointed to the class aspect of purdah. So did Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, my all-time favorite feminist. Nowadays many lower class women are donning fashionable burkhas not because they are pressured by mullahs, nor for the fact that they suddenly turned religious, but for a bit of newly minted social status.
Amini is raising hell against the Govt. Women Policies, which are not ideally suitable policies anyway, just to keep religion as a potent political tool. It keeps AL Govt. in thrall and gives BNP/Jamaat a stick to beat the govt. with.
Women and religion always make a heady political brew anywhere, anytime. Just look at the ongoing "abortion politics" in the U.S.A.!
~ Farida Majid
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From: bdmailer@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:09:48 +0600
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Women policy of Tagore and Amini
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