Recently, a two and a half minute video of film actress Deepika Padukone, ‘My Choice’, was released on a website called ‘YouTube’. Directed by Homi Adajania, the things said in the name of women’s liberation have sparked a lot of debates and controversies, which have become a hot topic on social media and film news channels. The video talks about women’s personal choices in opposition to the male-dominated society imposing restrictions on women’s dress, lifestyle, etc., and issuing fatwas. The debate that arose after this has touched upon many issues ranging from women’s freedom to human relationships, etc., which we will discuss here. We will come to the views expressed in it later, but before that, let us talk about the guardians of medieval values who have come forward in response to it, who have come forward in the form of numerous individuals, institutions and organizations, among which we talk about the statement of Rajni Thakural of Durga Vahini.
Durga Vahini is the women’s wing of the radical Hindu organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, whose main camp is in Aurangabad (Maharashtra). Rajni Thakural, the head of Durga Vahini, says that this video is against “Hindu culture”. Durga Vahini sees the “liberation” of Indian women in following medieval feudal values and rituals. According to Durga Vahini, women should not have any freedom to wear the clothes of their choice, choose a spouse, get education, or be financially independent. It wants to keep women imprisoned within the four walls of the house, engaged in the service of their husband and God, and a machine for producing children. For this reason, various faces, including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Durga Vahini, sometimes advise women to have four children each, and sometimes declare rape victims guilty of rape with different “logics”. This is not only the understanding of the radical Hindu forces, but a large section of our society is sick of this mentality. Many people even today are in favor of keeping women tied to the stove, imposing restrictions on their attire, banning them from working outside the home, and depriving them of the right to choose their profession and life partner. For this reason, today our society is full of heinous crimes like mistreatment of women, domestic violence, rape, even today thousands of young people are killed every year in the name of honor. These values, which have been passed down since the Middle Ages, have become a burden on our society today, and their bold rejection is the urgent need of the hour. Opposing them, abandoning them is the condition of being human in today’s times.
The video in question has also actually come out in opposition to these already prevalent values and concepts, and again, it was from the very foundation of these values and concepts that this video was opposed on a large scale. But in this video, the life-examination of medieval values was opposed from the ideological stance of “absolute” freedom from all kinds of social relations, which in reality does not liberate women but only perpetuates their slavery. It advocates taking women out of medieval restrictions and making them slaves to the forces of the market, where all human relationships, emotions lose their meaning and only profit becomes paramount. This video is actually a mask, we will have to identify the real forces and ideology behind this mask so that the true root and essence of these ideas can be captured.
For this discussion, it is necessary to first understand the structure of the current Indian society. The development from feudalism to capitalism in India did not happen through a revolutionary process, which is why the values and culture of the feudal era were not harmed in India and even today the medieval feudal values are dominant in our society. The anti-women mentality in our society, male supremacy, keeping women tied to the hearth and the kitchen, imposing restrictions on their dress, profession and choice of life partner are the results of this. Along with this, the process of capitalist development started in India from above after 1947 and later imperialist capital also entered here as a small partner of the imperialist powers of Indian capitalism. In capitalism, everything is handed over to the forces of the market. From common necessities like bread and water to human relationships and emotions, the desire for profit becomes dominant in everything. Under this, women’s bodies, beauty and emotions are also made a means of earning profits. It can be said that instead of slavery in the form of oppression and restrictions of the feudal era, women’s slavery comes to the fore in the capitalist era as a commodity of the market. Therefore, in making women slaves in India, a combination of feudal restrictions and the capitalist market is seen. Sometimes these two streams are seen together making women slaves and sometimes both are seen standing in opposition to each other and trying to make women slaves in their own way. In the issue of this video too, the views in the Durga Vahini and the video are the form of the opposition between these two streams. What both of them have in common is that neither of them talks about the real reasons for women’s slavery nor does it tell the right way to get rid of that slavery. Thus, behind this video, in fact, it is the capitalist class that is making women a commodity of the market. The ideology in this video is the ideology of the capitalist class.
As we have mentioned above, behind this is actually ‘Vogue’, which is a big name in the world of fashion, it has branches in many countries of the world, where the magazine named Vogue is published. Its branch in India has started a consciousness campaign for the “empowerment” of women under the name of ‘Vogue Empower’ since last year. In this world of fashion, a woman’s body, beauty, freedom, emotions are all commodities, through which the patrons of the world of fashion earn billions. Therefore, their definition of “empowerment” of women is also linked to their profits. For the owners of businesses that run on the basis of fashion, beauty, and body, to those who hold important positions in them, it doesn’t matter much whether they themselves are women or men, they are only vultures who profit from women’s bodies and their concern for women’s liberation is only to the extent that they remain a useful commodity for their profits. The medieval restrictions on women (which are necessarily repealable) are an obstacle to their profits, so they oppose them, but they do not oppose the commodification of women’s bodies and beauty for fashion, modeling, and advertising; they do not consider this slavery, but rather they call it women’s liberation. Most of the videos, including ‘My Choice’, made under the banner of ‘Vogue Empowerment’, do the same. One can even wonder whether ‘Vogue’ and its ‘partners’ in ‘Empowerment’, like Godrej and Tata, will oppose the commodification of women, whose income is largely based on this?
It is also worth noting that the capitalist system makes women from both the poor and rich sections of society victims of its market-based slavery of women. On the one hand, poor women are being forced into the heinous business of prostitution, prostitution, due to their economic hardships or for profit, while women from wealthy families are used for profit through fashion, modeling, advertising, beauty, etc., and on the strength of the market and media, these “businesses” are made sacred and respectable.
The thing that has caused the most controversy is the promotion of adultery. At one point in the video, it is said, “It is my choice to have relations outside marriage”. This is extremely heinous for human civilization, but it is not foreign to the market-based morality of capitalism. Blinded by the race for profit, human emotions and relationships have no meaning for the rich and the poor. For them, all relationships like love, friendship, marriage, etc. are based on property and status. They have lost the human quality of seeing humans as humans. Through films, TV serials, stories, novels, magazines, newspapers, etc., people are taught that humans are wild animals and that all relationships and emotions other than physical relations between men and women are a fraud. It is also necessary to see the sewage filth hidden beneath the dazzling lives of these rich and the poor. Buying women individually or collectively, using film actresses and models as a means of advancing their careers are very small things for them, but they also engage in shameful acts like exchanging wives for one night, having affairs with each other’s wives by deception, and handing over their wives and daughters to each other for their business deals, etc. In most of these cases, women also participate equally, because in the slavery and glamour of capital, they too lose their human essence like men. The bottom line is that the more their wealth increases, the more they move towards becoming animals. Due to their class outlook, such people can only encourage adultery, polygamy, and the buying and selling of women. It is not surprising that this same class of society today calls prostitution a “necessary need” of society and advocates for its legal recognition. These people cannot be expected to have a correct view of human relations, relationships, emotions and women’s freedom.
In the controversy that has arisen after this video, it is also worth noting that the issue of women’s slavery, oppression and second-class status is being presented as a form of mutual hostility between women and men, pitting the two against each other. That is why, in the name of women’s liberation, some are talking about giving advice to men, some are advising women to live in dignity, some are finding excuses like “who is less than girls”, some are making speeches like “give boys intelligence too” and some are holding a funeral for their intelligence under the pretext of phrases like “you can’t clap with one hand”. In the case of the video under discussion, this has been expressed in the form of numerous “male versions” of “My Choice” videos in response to this video, in which such a bad display of spiritual and cultural decay has been put on display that once the question arises in the mind that we are indeed living in a human world. Just listening to the ideas in them makes one cringe, and talking about them is even more mentally torture. Today, the question of women’s slavery is not only a women’s question but also a men’s question, because men who oppress women, enslave them and reduce them to objects also lose their conditions of being human. In this sense, it is a question of the liberation of the entire humanity, which cannot be solved by mutual hostility between men and women.
There are many important issues associated with this video that need to be discussed briefly. This video shows 99 women, most of whom belong to the upper strata of society. The things that are said in the video are mostly related to the “freedom” of these upper-class women. Whereas, there is no mention of the 80 percent of the laborers, workers and poor women of the society for whom issues like food, water, health, education and employment are the main issues, there is no mention of their demands, problems and rights. No place is given to the oppression, coercion, violence etc. that are being faced by them, which are not even heard in Indian law or courts. Therefore, 80 percent of the women have been excluded from the definition of women in this video. Looking at the economic and social condition of these 80 percent of the women, the question also arises that is it possible for these women to be liberated only by being given the right to choose their own choice and do what they want? For example, a woman who is poor and deprived, let alone choosing a profession like a teacher, doctor, etc., and is not even able to find a place among the workers due to the large number of unemployed, what is the scope of such a woman’s “freedom”? What other “choice” does she have other than starving to death or being forced to sell her body? The point is clear, the slogans of “freedom”, “will” and “choice” uttered in ignorance of the existing socio-economic structure are hollow, they cannot improve the lot of the majority of women.
Then the question arises that where are the real roots of women’s slavery and what will be the correct slogans for women’s liberation? The roots of women’s slavery are linked to the emergence of private property in human history. In primitive society, where all natural gifts such as land, trees, fruits, animals, etc. were the common property of humanity, all the people of the tribe worked together and shared their food. During this period, neither women were in a state of slavery, nor men, nor was one part of the society the slave of another. When primitive society began to disintegrate with the development of productive forces and private property emerged, the ownership of this private property came into the hands of men due to their greater role in production. While this led to the exploitation of the propertyless by the property owners on the one hand, it also pushed women into a state of slavery. Women became a means of producing the legitimate heirs of this private property and remained an object of enjoyment and this has continued till now. The slavery of women has been changing in the changing relations of production based on private property, just like in the era of slavery, a woman was a slave who could be bought, sold, and used according to the will of the owner, whose own will had no meaning. In the feudal era, the slavery of women came to the fore in the form of oppression and restrictions, and in the current capitalist era, everything from women’s bodies to their beauty have been made into marketable items. Today, this slavery of women exists in many forms, from molestation, rape to restrictions imposed in homes, etc.
In this situation, the complete liberation of women is possible only with the complete abolition of commodity production and private property. By abolishing private property and replacing it with collective property, the basis of women’s slavery will be eliminated and a socio-economic basis will be created in which women’s liberation can be ensured. Therefore, the fight for their liberation can be fought only as part of the overall revolutionary fight for the destruction of the capitalist system. Women will have to participate equally in the organizations of students, youth, workers, and laborers and will have to build their own separate organizations. But it would be an illusion to think that women’s liberation will be achieved only by replacing private ownership of property with collective ownership. This will only create a basis, but a conscious fight will have to be waged against the slavery and oppression of women on the basis of culture, values, social institutions, etc. This fight will have to start now and will continue even after the collectivization of property (i.e. the construction of a socialist society). Various propaganda and awareness campaigns will have to be continuously launched against all kinds of anti-women mentality, patriarchy, male supremacy, etc. We will have to take to the streets against the increasing crimes against women and people’s vigilance committees will have to be formed at the level of villages, areas, neighborhoods, etc. All kinds of medieval values like caste mentality, restrictions on dress, profession and choice of life partner and other rituals will have to be broken with force. The bottom line is that all kinds of anti-women ideas will have to be countered in the form of propaganda, practical actions and struggles. Here too, it should be remembered that leaving aside the goal of abolishing private property, only cultural struggles will not have any qualitative benefit. The fight for the destruction of the socio-economic structure and the struggles in the field of culture are both complementary to each other, both will have to be waged side by side. The path is indeed long and difficult, but this is the only path. The solution to the centuries-old exploitation and slavery cannot be found in a straightforward way, with cries of ‘freedom, freedom’ and ‘my choice, my will’, nor can it be solved through the advice of the contractors of “decency” and “Indian culture”, but the chains of this slavery can only be broken through a long struggle based on scientific understanding.