Re: [mukto-mona] Do Hindus respect their women? Any Mukto monas beating their wives and having multiple mistresses?

My first impression was that the story is a fake one with plenty of exaggeration to create a storm in the media. But, I could be wrong? A person with Ph.D, who could not stand up against a bully? Sounds very strange.  I have seen enough Hindu wives, who are not afraid of any body except their own shadows. :-)
In regards to property rights, Hindus are scared, because it will open a pandora's box. If girls get the property rights, Hindu women would be lucrative commodity for many scoundrels, who will just snatch them from their homes and claim their part of the property. That would be an ethnic cleansing with the aid of legal force? Damn you do, damn you don't? But Hindu women need to be protected somehow? But how? More education?
-SD

 

"I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues."
-Seuss

On Friday, February 7, 2014 6:09 PM, Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com> wrote:

 

I agree with Dr. Jiten Roy that the lady generalized too much based upon the misery of her personal life, that she could have taken more serious actions against the criminal husband, and that she failed miserably to educate her family.

 

I also feel that polygamy and extra-marital relationships are not as prevalent among Hindu men as she has portrayed. I personally do not know even one man in our generation or the next generations who has more than one wife. Yes, a few in my parents' and grandparents' generations had two wives. I turned 18 in 1974, and most of my parents' generation died almost 15 to 20 years back.

 

However, what is this talk of property rights issue being complicated? Does that mean the Hindus of Bangladesh should keep the status quo? "It could bring more trouble into their lives" sounds similar to "the deprived should not ask for their rights because that could bring more trouble for them from the oppressor."

 

Sukhamaya Bain

 

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From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 6, 2014 10:37 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Do Hindus respect their women? Any Mukto monas beating their wives and having multiple mistresses?

 

She has painted her own experiences as the plight of all Hindu women in Bangladesh. Property rights issue for Hindu women in Bangladesh is complicated. There is no easy solution. Hindu women will not be liberated with this right. It could bring more trouble into their lives.

Educated people should take the lead to refine society from all superstitions; she had the responsibility to change the mentality of her own relatives. She failed miserably. Now she is blaming the whole society for her plight. She actually could have left her husband long back. This is what a self-reliant woman should have done.

When I took my wife back to my village home for the first time, she did not want to put Shari on her head (Ghumta). I did not want that as well. The moment she entered into the village, everybody got stunned to see a newly married woman, without Ghumta. They started to criticize her for that. My mother initially did not like it, but ultimately she got used to it. My wife regularly does not wear conch bangle or vermillion; she does it whenever she likes to.

I had a very young widow (~27 years old) in my family. I told her to get married soon, and she did. Some of my family members could not accept my suggestion, but finally they came along.

So, not all Hindu family is like her family. Conscious people should take the lead to enlighten our society.

 
Jiten Roy

On Thursday, February 6, 2014 9:46 PM, Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com> wrote:

 

Bangladesh certainly needs universal laws for marriage, divorce and equal parental property rights. There should be no difference between religious groups. The old British era Hindu laws exist in Bangladesh more than in India, most likely because there is more emphasis on religions in the affairs of the state in Bangladesh. When the majority population want Islam to play a big role in their affairs as well as in the affairs of the state in general, it becomes hard for the law-makers to tinker with the laws that are in existence for religious minority religious groups based upon the religions/traditions of those minority groups.

 

This lady's story sounds too extreme for today's Hindu society. While I personally do not do any religion, I came from a Hindu background, and a lot of my relatives identify themselves as Hindus. I have seen significant changes. For example, in my family circle I have seen at least six widows (ages about 80, 67, 67, 66, 64 and 55 years) wearing regular cloths (as opposed to white) and eating regular food. Nobody in the so-called Hindu society dares to ostracize them.

 

SuBain

 

========================================

From: Shah Deeldar <shahdeeldar@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, February 6, 2014 4:22 PM
Subject: [mukto-mona] Do Hindus respect their women? Any Mukto monas beating their wives and having multiple mistresses?

 

Can a Hindu man afford to have multiple wives in Bangladesh? I would be truly envious of those scoundrels.

-SD

http://www.thedailystar.net/plight-of-hindu-women-in-bangladesh-9973

Plight of Hindu women in Bangladesh

A Bangladesh Hindu woman

I am a university educated Hindu woman and got a prestigious scholarship on my own merit to do Ph.D. in a foreign university in 2008. I also had the opportunity to visit many countries in Europe and North America between 2009-2013. I take this opportunity to tell readers about my life before I could come out of Bangladeshi Hindu society. I did my MA in 2000 and taught at a university college in Dhaka. I was married after my BA Honours and got a baby too, thanks to my monster husband with whom I was married under pressure from my family and relatives. He was a Ph.D., that attracted them most, but my first contact with him was a nightmare that haunts me even today. Yes, I had no choice but to live with this man for long 5 years and every day of it was hell for me. He had other women and it was normal for him to beat me without any rhyme or reason. We never made love and he regularly raped me. Soon I started hating men deeply because of the behaviour of this man. When I was pregnant one day he punched me on my backbone and I fainted to wake up in a hospital bed. On examination, the doctors found that my spinal cord was damaged and said that the injury may never be healed. Quite surprisingly, my husband did not regret what he did and continued his brutal behaviour. Finally, with my father's help I gained some courage and divorced him against uproar and protest from my relatives, many of them with university degrees. Without my father's support and a job at the university college I could never have had the guts to divorce the brute. I felt highly relieved after divorcing the monster and moving in with my parents. But my problems were not really over. I was regularly lectured by my so-called educated relatives who constantly asked me to return to my husband knowing well how brutish he was and how unfaithful he had been. Most of them boycotted me and I was never invited to any social and religious gathering. Once I wanted to visit my grandparents but they told on my face that I would be welcomed only with my "Thakhur," otherwise not. My ex-husband was married by then but still I was asked to go back to him by most of my relatives. I wonder what I would do if I had no education, a job and, most importantly, my saintly father's support against great pressure from my relatives. I wrote about the injury my ex-husband inflicted on me. I am still suffering from it. I have undergone treatment in foreign countries and the doctors concluded that I shall never be cured and have to live with it for the rest of my life. With the growth of Western education in Bengal and social movement that was started by Ram Mohan Roy and Iswar Chandra Bidyasagar, Bengali Hindu women progressed greatly. Gone were the days of of Sati Daha (widow burning), Gouri Dhan (marriage by 6-9 years), forbidden widow marriage, unlimited polygamy and what not. But are they really gone for good from Bangladesh? Bangladeshi Hindus don't have Sati Daha but the rest of the barbaric Hindu cultures are fully intact with hidden but strong support from the so-called Hindu intellectuals. We hear every day how Muslim women are suppressed but how many know to what magnitude the Hindu women are oppressed and live like sub-humans in Bangladesh? Hindus lived under full repression during Pakistani period. But in independent Bangladesh they may not have full rights as citizens that the constitution of the country promises but no doubt they have made remarkable progress in educational, economic and political arenas by their own efforts and hard work. But what about social progress so far as Hind women are concerned? It is very disgraceful and deplorable, to say the truth. Hindus don't register their marriages, and divorce is not allowed legally. Widow marriage is still not a Hindu social norm in Bangladesh. Polygamy is an open secret among Bangladeshi Hindus.  Muslims may have 4 wives by religious culture but Hindus have no number limitation. Adultery is a common fact among Hindu men and it is a hush-hush matter. Hindu Bengali widows in Bangladesh still live in utter disgrace and face inhuman treatment and discrimination. Hindu widows are not allowed in social gathering such as weddings; they are not supposed to eat fish and meat and must wear simple white clothes only. In some cases they are not even allowed to wear shoes. Centuries-old Hindu tradition does not allow a widow to remarry and the question of divorce does not arise at all.  A widow or a divorced woman is a curse to a family and the society at large. Most of the Bangladeshi Hindus consider seeing widow or a divorcee's face as an evil omen and bad luck and that is why they don't invite them to any auspicious occasions. Caste and dowry system are other two most inhuman Hindu cultures and traditions that dominantly prevail in Bangladesh as in the Indian Hindu society. All these I write from my personal experience and I wish I were wrong. Western press talk about oppression on Muslim women, as Hindu media cheerfully and gleefully nods. But nobody writes about us, the unfortunate Hindu women in Bangladesh. We silently accept our pathetic social condition and tolerate all sorts of suppression and oppression that Hindu men inflict on us. We have "Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christian Oikyo Parishod" to fight for political rights for minority communities in Bangladesh, but did they ever give any attention to the centuries-old evils that prevail in Bangladeshi Hindu society? They foiled the Bangladesh government's move to make Hindu marriage registration mandatory. The bill (Hindu Marriage Registration Bill-2012) aimed at providing legal and social protection to Hindu women. The objective was to safeguard women from marriage-related cheating by their husbands, to ensure the rights of the Hindu married daughters who are deprived of most of their rights, including their equal rights or inheritance to the parental as well as husband's property, and making polygamy a punishable offence. This bill was vehemently opposed by a large section of Bangladeshi Hindu leadership. Hiren Biswas, the president of the Samaj Sangskar Parishad group, passed the most obnoxious comment on these issues saying: "We don't mind optional registration because Hindu couples sometimes need the marriage certificate when they travel, but we won't accept mandatory registration, or divorce and inheritance rights to women because our scriptures and customs don't allow them." What silly reasons he had for his objection! How long do he and other Hindus want to oppress their mothers, sister and daughters? I ask this question to all Hindu men of Bangladesh and plead to our government to come forward with legal framework to protect us.Name withheld by request.

Published: 12:00 am Wednesday, February 05, 2014

 

"I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues."
-Seuss

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