Women don’t deserve oppression
Bashir Ahmad Dar
Recent gut wrenching episodes of suicide by few married women in different districts of Kashmir, severe beating of a woman by her in laws in south Kashmir Anantnag followed by heart throbbing rape incident of a teen age girl in Kulgam sent the entire Kashmir into collective turmoil.
People are seeing condemning these heinous crimes with so much of anger. Social media platforms are flooded with posts where the people are demanding arrest of the culprits and stern action against them. Some want to see the guilt facing gallows while others seek their life time imprisonment. Every sensitive soul is incited to raise voice in protest against these shameful incidents. I too intend to paint a few lines on paper but before I return back on the subject let me write a few lines in praise of woman to shake the consciousness of those for whom the woman is mere an object of amusement.
Woman is the most beautiful creation of Allah, whose presence has made the world a wonderful place. She is a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother simultaneously and in her every role she is exemplary. She is a princess to her parents, queen to her husband. She is an ocean of love for the kiths, sea of mercy for her kins and an embodiment of glory and light, a radiation of grace, a beauty and honor of humankind, an epitome of love, care, passion, mercy, joy, strength of every family. She is Hawa, Aasiya, Maryum, Khatija, Aisha and Fatima. (May Allah be pleased with them all).
She has some inborn attributes bestowed upon her by Allah. Strength and dignity are her clothing and virtues like love, care, tender, kind, beauty, cannot fully describe her. It is rightly said that a man can buy a house but it is only a woman who brings in charm and turns it a home. In fact, the world is incomplete without her.
But it pains me to tell my readers that sadly the idea of woman as an evil creature has a long historical pattern. She was thought to be source of all evils in Greek mythology, a door of sins for some Christians, wicked and deceptive for some western political thinkers like Aristotle and a man’s personal property in Pre-Islamic Arab. She was subjected to all sorts of torment and, severe human rights violation was her daily tale.
Islam, however, came to her rescue from human right violation of pre Islamic times and she began to to live in dignity. Allah commands His male slaves and Quran quotes, “Live with them on footing of kindness and equality”. Islam has granted her all sorts of rights which men enjoy like right to education, heritage, property, dignity and security. Islam has ensured her safe departure from under the man’s foot and ensured that a man finds his Jannah under her feet. We find Quran commanding the believing man to respect the womb which bore him.
Islam, thus, elevates her from the darkest depth of oppression to the brightest high of honor. Women are so much valued in Islam that Allah has dedicated a full chapter in their name in His final heavenly book Quran and wherever Allah addresses the believing women in Quran, He does so in an honourable way.
Doubtless, today in Kashmir have developed materially. We have conquered the new heights of development. Our people are working in different reputed institutions of the world. We have Kashmiris inducted into world superpower America’s administration, taking important decisions on world affairs. But inspite of all this, when we observe the condition of our ‘Sanf i Nazuk’ in our own society, it is clear that the exploitation which was taking place on women centuries ago is still going on.
Kashmir which was once known as Peer Vaer, an abode of saints, is fast becoming a virtual hell for women folk. It seems that the saints are hastily departing, leaving this beautiful valley within the hard skin clutches of stone lusted monsters, who are hungered hard for material wealth, power and sex. In a short span of time our valley has converted from a gigantic tranquil and pleasant open sanctum into a coarse and profane orgy.
Here, the women are now increasingly becoming vulnerable to sexual assaults and domestic violence which often force them to terminate their life. Their daily life is ruled by fear which can be better understood from the fact that when a girl is asked to take a company along while going to market and return back to home before the break of dusk, there is underlying fear of men, a fear of getting molested or raped.
When a woman walks through a bazar or any public place, some lowly men stare at her with lustful eyes and mockingly, with their fangs open, call her as temptations and crooked. On seeing a woman walking lonely on a fairly less busy road, the lust poisoned red wine of youth course strongly through the veins of men and they fall in the satanic trap. Men here have forgotten that the guardianship and protection of women is a matter of responsibility and duty, not that of favour. Suffice to say that the girl or a woman who walks fearless among men and has not been molested, stared or doesn’t go through the fear of being raped is just lucky.
Time and again the governments came up with laws and acts to safeguard our women against the domestic violence and sexual harassment but same have not been able to effectively prevent the recurrence of offence against women mainly because these are not implemented strictly on ground. These laws need to be implemented with an iron hand.
I would also like my readers to remind how, at the time of Nikkah here in Kashmir, the in-laws of the bride brag high that they are taking a daughter to their home and not daughter in law. But the reality is altogether different. At her in laws she is never treated as a daughter and at places not even a family member. The day the in-laws really start to look upon her as their own daughter, I am sure the cases of domestic violence will eradicate completely from our society. And to protect our girls from molestation and rape cases we have to turn back to religion. Religion teaches humanity. It connects one to God. Once the connection with God is established firmly, the satanic thoughts and deeds will depart, leaving one empty handed only to receive Allah’s rewards.
Though, to some extent, women too are responsible for some isolated episodes of attack on their honor. Had they dressed properly many of the sexual assault cases won’t have taken place. Wearing tight clothes only gives birth to bad thoughts about them in the minds of men.
These thoughts are manifested in the form sexual aggression on women. I believe that if women cover bodies properly, don’t show their flesh and charm in front of men other than those categorised as Mehrem, the occurrence of sexual attacks on women will be curbed a lot. But, it is only a man who can be charged as the primarily responsible for atrocities on women. It is only the man who molests, rapes and domestically violates a woman. It is only him who has to change and remove these menaces from our society.
(The author is a teacher by profession. He can be reached at [email protected])
KV Network
