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Confronting Saffron Demography:
Religion, Fertility and Women’s Status in India
Saffron demography rests on the claims that there are essential differences between Hindu and Muslim population dynamics. It is also primarily concerned with the relationships between religion (on one hand) and fertility and population growth (on the other). A standard theme in Hindutva discourse is the allegation of Muslims being engaged in a well-planned "conspiracy" to rapidly multiply in order to convert India into a Muslim-majority country. Muslims, Hindutva ideologues claim, are fanatically opposed to family planning; and Islam is said to legitimise it. Hindutva leaders insist, Hindus must produce as many children as they can in order to stave off the alleged looming Muslim population explosion. The book succeeds brilliantly in forcefully debunking this baseless Hindutva myth. Drawing on intensive fieldwork of over 20 years by the authors in Bijnor, a district in rural Uttar Pradesh, the book discusses population dynamics at the local level to show that the notion of an alleged Muslim "conspiracy" to overwhelm India by rapidly multiplying is completely false and unsubstantiated. In the first section of the book, the authors draw a critique and discuss various factors responsible for the differentials in fertility behaviour between the Hindus and Muslims. While the authors admit that there is a difference between fertility rates of the two communities, they argue that this is not because of an alleged Muslim "plot" to swamp India or because of a supposed Islamic abhorrence of family planning. Rather, it owes essentially to various social and economic factors such as caste, class, education, region (urban/rural) et al. For the claim that the higher Muslim fertility rate owes to a supposed inherent Islamic ban on family planning, the authors note the diversity of opinion that has always existed among the Ulema or Islamic clerics on the issue. Muslim fertility behaviour, the authors insist, cannot be understood in a sociological vacuum or by invoking theological arguments. The argument in section two focuses on aspects of everyday gender politics—the lived realities of Muslim and Hindu women in western UP—particularly on women entitlements to economic support especially after marital breakdown. The authors focus on bringing local-level gender politics, a uniform customary code, into the frame alongside the communalisation of politics raises serious questions about the efficacy of the law into protecting women’s rights. It also highlights the dilemmas for feminist activists in regard to their strategic priorities and potential of mobilising rural women around the struggle for gender equity. The third section focuses on social and political significance of religious community membership. The authors argue that Muslim women, as members of religious minority, are more adversely affected than Hindu women by communalised social and political processes that operate beyond the domestic arena at the local level. Everyday sexism is itself a key why women in rural north India do not form a powerful political constituency to counter the continual endorsement and replication of the deep-seated gender inequalities that women experience. The political and economic
marginalisation of women in general, and the Muslim women in particular
as more likely victims, is a crucial element in their educational
trajectories, reproductive health and contraceptive decision-making. The
book is a must read to understand the gender dynamics vis-`E0-vis
religion and women’s reproductive rights. |
AS
against those who see communal identities as "fixed" and
"central" to how people see themselves, there is a need to
understand that all social identities are fluid, and are continually
re-worked through social praxis. These identities are negotiated and
socially constructed rather than natural or essential.