[News] Keralta, India - 5.5 Million Women Build Their Wall

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Mon Jan 14 11:51:38 EST 2019


counterpunch.org 
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/14/5-5-million-women-build-their-wall/> 



  5.5 Million Women Build Their Wall

by Vijay Prashad <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/drespu/> - January 
14, 2019
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On Jan. 1, 5.5 million women in the Indian state of Kerala (population 
35 million) built a 386-mile wall with their bodies. They stood from one 
end to the other of this long state in southwestern India. The women 
gathered at 4 p.m. and took a vow to defend the renaissance traditions 
of their state and to work towards women’s empowerment. It is not an 
exaggeration to say that this was one of the largest mobilizations of 
women in the world for women’s rights. It is certainly larger than the 
historical Women’s March in Washington, D.C. in 2017.

Kerala’s government is run by the Communists. It is not easy for a 
left-wing government to operate in a state within the Indian union. The 
Central Government in New Delhi has little desire to assist Kerala, 
which suffered a cataclysmic flood last year. No assistance with the 
budgetary burdens of relief and reconstruction, and no help with 
financing for infrastructure and welfare services. The Communist 
government has a wide-ranging agenda that runs from its Green Kerala 
Mission — a project for stewardship of the state’s beautiful environment 
— to its fight for women’s emancipation. The Left Democratic Front 
government believes that dignity is a crucial a goal as economic rights, 
and that it is centrally important to fight against everyday humiliation 
to build a truly just society.

Over the course of the left’s government in Kerala, it has pushed ahead 
the agenda against everyday humiliation. For instance, in 2017, the 
government provided free sanitary pads for young women in school. The 
logic was that during their periods, young women who could not afford 
sanitary pads avoided school. Prejudices against menstruation had become 
a barrier to equal education. The government called this project “She 
Pad,” which benefited students and teachers. Pinarayi Vijayan, the Chief 
Minister of Kerala, said of the effort, “Menstrual hygiene is every 
girl’s right. The government is hoping that initiatives like these will 
help our girls to lead a life of confidence.”

A hundred miles north of Kerala’s capital — Thiruvanthapuram — sits a 
temple for Ayyappan, a celibate god. Women between the ages of 10 and 50 
had not been permitted into the temple due to a belief that the celibate 
god would not be able to tolerate women who menstruate. The Indian 
Supreme Court took notice of this and, in September 2018, declared that 
the temple must allow all women to enter. The Left Democratic Front 
government agreed with the courts. But the temple authorities, and the 
far-right groups in the state, disagreed. When women tried to enter the 
temple, the priests blocked them, assisted by the far right. The 
situation was at a deadlock.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan called upon progressive organizations 
across the state to start mobilizing the citizens toward the building of 
a Women’s Wall (Vanitha Mathil) on Jan. 1. The energy in the state was 
electric. Women gathered at hundreds of mass meetings across the state. 
They recognized immediately that this was not a fight only to enter a 
temple, but this was a fight principally for women’s emancipation, for 
the right of women, as Vijayan had said, “to lead a life of confidence.”

The public meetings in November and December galvanized the opposition 
to the far right, arguing that women have every right to enter public 
spaces, including religious buildings. January began in anticipation. 
Women had been organized by districts and knew where to go. Women of all 
ages and backgrounds, from schoolteachers to members of the fishing 
community, began to line up around 3 p.m. After taking an oath, they 
marched through their towns and cities. They exuded joy and confidence, 
a freedom that should warm the hearts of sensitive people.

Strikingly, the media outside India paid little attention to this 
global, historical event. Press coverage in the United States was nearly 
absent. Internationalism in our time is such a façade, with so little 
care to amplify the bravery of people around the world. When the Women’s 
March took place in Washington, D.C., newspapers in Kerala reported it 
in detail. The favor was not returned. Silence was the answer.

Two days after the Women’s Wall, the right-wing in Kerala went on a 
rampage. Their members attacked the leaders on the left and threw bombs 
at government buildings. Over 700 people — mostly men on the far right — 
were arrested that day.

Walking down a main shopping street in Thiruvanthapuram, I see visible 
signs of the far-right’s attack. On one side of the street are posters 
and signs of left organizations torn and broken during the day of 
rampage by the far right. On the other side of the street, far-right 
supporters sit on a hunger strike.

Even liberals have taken the side of the far right. One liberal 
politician said that while he favored women’s rights, he also favored 
the temple’s rights. But the temple has no rights, nor does tradition. 
As Gandhi wrote almost a hundred years ago, “If I can’t swim in 
tradition, I’ll sink in it.” Neither the temple nor tradition trumps the 
rights of women to live with confidence. If a tradition is 
discriminatory, it deserves to be set aside.

There are no half measures in this debate in Kerala. The mood is that 
one must not walk away from one’s principles.

5.5 million women in Kerala — one in three women in the state — took to 
the streets to champion the emancipation of women. What brought them to 
join the Women’s Wall was that the Left Democratic Front government took 
a clear position, a principled position: that menstruation should not be 
used as a penalty against women’s full participation in society. Clarity 
defines the struggle. It is a lesson worth learning around the world.

/*Vijay Prashad’s* most recent book is No Free Left: The Futures of 
Indian Communism (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2015)./

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