Fidelity could not just be about sex. I picture to myself as an activist young woman, bright, ambitious. Because, your womb has taken a precious stead in the universe. Sometimes, I think not to come out from this place. But, your love doesn’t let me stay inside your womb. Because, you want to show something that you have already been a part of the aisle where you are only human, not humanity. How can they behave so badly, so cruelly, so stupidly? I’m sorry I won’t live to see it- the conflagration, the downfall. If I allow myself to live, I’ll disgorge too much truth. Because, my darling mother, you did the same and who does the same as you did, they don’t get what they want. They always torture by the human without their humanity. And my mother, I know that torture is like dancing. Pregnant female animals are dying, and I don’t want to kill myself and you. I just want to kill my desires so that I can live like others!
No. Never. The full moon is about to go out. As the woman’s hair is her glory, the same as your womb is everything for me and I can’t let it go away. Mortals always drag us in domestic cases, sexual assault, female criminals, sex workers, divorces, removal of children from unfit mothers and so on. Your experience with the men had not encouraged trust. But the body has its twitches, which it can be humiliating as well as rewarding to obey. No lasting harm was done to you, some pleasure was both given and received, and none of these individuals took their swift dismissal from your life as a personal affront.
People always think that the world is infesting with men. Why don’t they see with two eyes? Why don’t they move all over the sights of the world? They think that the girls who are straying out of bounds: such girls will be viewed as lost in their morals. Oh please! Stop. I might not get any farther than the next block before being ripped to shreds, polluted, and reduced to a pile of wilting green petals. They will be prejudiced against this.
My darling mother, I always feel you and your pain that always gives you from inside and that pain reminds me that the world is so mean and pompous. You had endured your suffering without complaint. And I salute you my mother, for spending your time in that world. I can understand that everything is hollow and wither. My darling mother, you have perjured yourself irrevocatably. Nobody is any authority on the fucks other people give. When a shameful thing had done with you, then my shamelessness rubbed away inside your womb. And I’ll not take revenge, I’ll speak against them who didn’t let you speak up. My darling mother, my seclusion is your silence and I’ll break this chain and precisely I’ll emerge definitely. I would come across the words nameless dread. From the beginning salvation comes. My darling mother, I am the embodiment of your will.
Certainly I’m not the first writer to point out that our contemporary conception of the movement is flawed, in that it can be exclusive. I wrote the above lines at the time of Safoora Zargar, M.phil student of Jamia Millia Islamia, when she got arrested under UAPA. She was three months pregnant and nobody knew from which path she was passing through inside the Jail? To be a child inside her womb, I wrote it. I felt her pain like a human, not like the government. As the days went by I completed the above lines and thought to include something big into it. Like, the moral of the women in the society. Like her, so many women and young activist girls are still enduring the same pain with different situations. I salute and have more power to become strong. During those days I didn’t know so many women got beaten up and torched by the police and rioters.
On the other hand, people called them prostitute. The same as they said to Safoora Zargar that ‘give her a condom.’ They even didn’t know that she’s married and commenting on her in their own way, where women are worshipped as Devis. Complicity of media and the government. And the media was showing it like a fun. In fact, Zargar’s husband and family spoke to The Print and clarified that she was indeed married, but that they didn’t want to name him in public or dignify the trolls with a response. Some of the tweets were deeply regressive, sexist and sexually offensive in nature and attempted to raise questions on her character in order to malign the student and justify her arrest. I am short of words to express my disgust.
Here is the link to know more about the women’s state during the CAA/NRC protest. https://theswaddle.com/delhi-violence-nrc-caa-riots women/#:~:text=Bano%20was%20beaten%20by%20men,attention%20and%20notified%20her%20family.
Tum Ghar Ki Ho Shehzadiyan, Mulk Ki Ho Aabadiyan, Veeran Dilon Ki Shaadiyan, Eimaan Salamat Tumse Hai, Aey Maaon, Behnon, Betiyon, Duniya Ki Zeenat Tumse Hai. (You Are The Princesses Of Households, In Wilderness You Are Happiness, Faith In You Is Salamat, O Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, You Are Grace Of The World). “Maulana Altaf Husain Hali”
“The underlying moral principle is that man is not his own property and cannot do with his body what he will. The body part of the self; in its togetherness with the self it constitutes a person; a man cannot make of his person a thing (Kant: quoted in Shannon, 1988:70).”
“The bitter fact that the only time that equality is considered a value is in a situation like this where some extremely degrading transaction is being rationalized. And the only time that freedom is considered important to women as such is when we’re talking about the freedom to prostitute oneself is one way or another (Andrea Dworkin: quoted in Corea, 1985:227).”
Syeda Hameed, an Indian Activist said in her article “The Brave Women Of Shaheen Bagh” that “In all my 35 years of working with Muslim women, I had never witnessed a scene such as this. What I was witnessing was the new generation of Muslim women who speak boldly without an iota of fear.” She says that “I heard women to say in the Shaheen Bagh protest that “Those who speak of “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” allow their police to barge into the university and hit our girls. How can such barbarity be allowed?”
I think it might be easy to be a woman today, in the 21st century, but it hasn’t always been this way. There was a time when the word ‘feminism’ or ‘women empowerment’ wasn’t even coined. There was a time when women struggled to break society’s so-called ‘norms’ and achieve what they were truly born to be.
Draupadi is the first feminist of Indian Mythology – starting with woman power, self-belief and being confident, is what the lady knew right from the beginning. She was strong not because she was born strong but because she believed that she was strong. Born to a father, who wanted a son instead and bestowed upon her hardships instead of blessings, didn’t deter Draupadi to follow her heart and instincts. The beautiful, virtuous and intelligent Draupadi, the real ‘heroine’ of Mahabharata, was a woman of substance.
In the last I would like to inform you that it’s not just a womb, this is the thing which generates your lineage and provide you to erase your lust. And she bear the pain in every situation, else it is your torturing or labor pain or during menstruation. She’s not a toy, she’s strong than you and if you get her like a toy then you are wrong and you have made your mind a toy, so that you can play and torture and comment like a kid. She’s SHE/HER, you just need to be equal, else you are government or policeman or politician. Salute to the women who are still fighting against hate and facing to the phobia.
Sufyan Khan is an undergraduate from University of Delhi and post graduate from Jamia Millia Islamia. Email ID: [email protected]
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