A Sexism Prone Culture

AANTAKI RAISA

While religions preach peace, equality and goodness, the practice of mostly all
religions in Bangladesh quite contradicts to what they champion. While none of the
vital issues addressed by all religions, such as removing economic and social
discrimination or bringing justice in the society and etc have failed to be realised,
implementation of all those religious laws which are discriminatory against women
have been successfully practiced all along. Whereas voices have hardly been raised
against any form of injustice, religious leaders have been very vocal when such
discriminatory laws against women faced the ‘equal rights’ challenges of the 21st
century. Even though Amini, chief of Islami Ain Bastabayan Committee, has been
the central character of the resistance against the National Women Development
Policy 2011, it’s not just Islam which is prone to sexist implementation of its laws.
Other major religions in the country- Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity- all have,
in some way or other, sexist practices.

Mrinmayee Saha (not her real name) was married off at the age of 22 with a much
older man. Despite her extraordinary academic qualifications, her parents wanted
her to get ‘settled’ as early as possible because in Bangladesh “it’s really tough to
find an eligible Hindu man to marry your daughter off with” according to
Mrinmayee’s parents. However, the very ‘eligible Hindu man’ those parents found
for their daughter turned out to be a schizophrenic patient but unfortunately
Mrinmayee was already married to him for three years then. Being an educated and
an upper echelon family in the Hindu society, her parents got her ‘separated’ from
the husband as she couldn’t divorce him, as the concept of divorce doesn’t exist in
Hindu marriages, as a Hindu marriage doesn’t have any form of registration, as
Hindu men and women get married having the ‘holy fire’ as the witness.

“It’s sad that Hindu Marriage Law hasn’t been renovated since the Hindu Marriage
Disabilities Removal Act, 1946, which only permitted separation and compensation.
This allowed women to live separately from their husbands but didn’t get them any
freedom to remarry. This is not a problem for Hindu men because they can marry
even hundreds of women if they want to, regardless of separation; though out of
social bonding Hindu men are not usually polygamous, there is nothing illegal if
they choose to be according to Hindu laws. The 1946 Act cannot be applied at the
present time; it needs to be changed and improved with respect to the changing
lifestyle and mentality of Hindu women and men today,” says Nina Goswami, Senior
Deputy Director, Mediation and Rapid Response Unit Advocate, Supreme Court of
Bangladesh. According to her, there can be many reasons such as impotency or
individual differences, for which a woman might want to divorce her husband; but
lack of such options makes it impossible for a woman to move forward in life.
Whereas laws and religions both are supposed to benefit people, they are doing the
opposites. “The religious laws that we abide by are age old; they don’t apply to this
age. All religions preach change- Hinduism or Islam. Even Islam says, when
solutions cannot be found in Quran, to look into the hadith or in the verses of the
sahabis. Hindu scriptured have also evolved with time. If the religion itself accepts
change, why can’t its laws be amended? The Hindu marriage law that is followed
today is inhuman and needs to be changed,” she adds. Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), a
human rights and legal aid organisation along with Bangladesh Mahila Parishad and
Manusher Jonno have proposed an amended Hindu Matrimony Law which response
to the demand of time and is much less discriminatory against women. The draft of
the proposed law has been submitted to the responsible parliamentary committee
in 2011. But men seems to dislike the idea as they think “there are more severe
problems for the Hindus in Bangladesh than the matrimony law” and “the problems
like the Vesting Law should be solved first”. “While drafting the amendments of the
matrimony law, all the resistance came from men. Men prefer to have superiority
and advantage over women and deprive women,” complains Goswami.

India, having the majority of Hindu citizens, has implemented a uniform matrimonial
registration law, so that women of all religion are protected when they get into a
matrimonial relationship, regardless of the religion they follow and it has been
active since 1955. “It’s time for us to have a civil law so that women of all religion
are protected socially and financially,” suggests Goswami. None of the religions
other than Islam, have matrimonial registration system in Bangladesh. All the
marriages are conducted according to the religious ritual, without any paper
documentation and proof. As a result, women of these religions do not get any kind
of security. “When I got married, I had to believe that my husband is my god and I
must have faith in him, that he will protect me and provide me with shelter. There is
no legal proof of my marriage; I have to live on the truthfulness and kindness of my
husband and my relatives. Life is kind of hard this way,” says Shuchorita Devi (not
her real name) who has been married for 36 years now.

Marriage laws are not the only way that discriminates women. There is the recently
hyped ‘inheritance law’ that are biased against the daughters, sisters and wives of
the country. The National Women Development Policy 2011 does not say anything
about the equal distribution of the inherited property; it speaks of assuring to
provide women what they have inherited rightfully. “’Fortunately’ for Hindus, there
is no inherited property for women, so Hindu men kept quiet during the ‘Amini
resistance’. They don’t need to worry about a thing; Hindu women aren’t going to
get any properties anyways,” remarks Goswami in her witty sarcastic manner.
There is no domestic law that can provide women with any kind of financial security.
As Hindu women do not inherit anything from their father, neither they have share
on their husband’s properties, they are compelled to live a very insecure life. “If a
woman gets beaten up by her husband, she cannot move to her father’s house
because she doesn’t have any legal right there, neither can she protest her
husband because her husband doesn’t owe her anything. All she can do is to endure
the torture silently,” says Goswami as she explains the brutality and dangers of the
absence of a domestic inheritance law. The government, which is supposed to
protect its citizens but our government is yet to implement and even propose a
domestic law that would prohibit such ‘violence’ against women. In India Inheritance
law is different for the followers of different religions but the Hindu inheritance law
has been amended there and women enjoy their rights on their husbands’ and
fathers’ properties. This gives women a great sense of security which women of our
country are missing. Though Christianity provides equal inheritance for all children,
Buddhism is governed by Hindu laws in Bangladesh. Implementation of an unbiased
inheritance law will save our women from a lot of atrocity.

Kavita Ranee Biswas, now a human activist, was married off at the age of 13. She
was physically tortured by her husbad but couldn’t leave him because of the society
and because she didn’t have anywhere else to go. But Kavita stood up for her rights
and the rights of other women who are the victims of religious bias against women.
Not all women are as strong as Kavita has been. It’s high time that the government
takes actions to not just propose but implement domestic law which will protect and
provide security to the women of this country regardless of their religion, cast and
creed.