The Mothers and Her Gender
Animesh AL Rai
Assistant Professor (Sociology)
Indian Institute of Legal Studies
European Sociologist, Robert Briffault in his three volume book “The Mothers” claims that in the early phase of human civilisation the institution of family was incomplete and constituted by only a woman and her children. Human race was characterised by social promiscuity and marriage as an institution did not exist. The matured males were mostly engaged outside for hunting and collecting food. Many times, they had to spend weeks and months far away from their community. It was only when women consented their trust on men for security and socio-economic reasons that he was included into the household. This gave birth to the institutions of marriage and family which were characterised by values of affection, unity and harmony. Mothers have been credited for institutionalising these vital institutions – Marriage and Family.
In modern times the notion of Mother has been used to symbolise other things as well. It is visible in the discussions on Mother Earth, the politicisation of the term ‘Bharat Mata’ meaning Mother India, worshipping ‘Cow’ as a Mother and Laxmi Ma (the Hindu goddesses of wealth and prosperity). Of late, the conception has also penetrated and spread into the political structure of West Bengal. The political spells like “liberating the captive Ama” – Mother in case of Gorkhaland movement in Darjeeling hills and Trinamool’s “Ma-Mati-Manush” for Paribortan – The “Mother-Earth-People” for Change, whatever the expressions are meant to represent it does contain the gracious term Mother.
The terminology Mother is constantly being used in the present society to mean many good things and condone bad equally. The linking of political chauvinism to Mother as in the case of Jawaharlal Nehru University sloganeering “Bharat Ma ki Barbadi’ (Destruction of Mother India) has at times has defamed the pure character of the ‘Birth-Giver’ has stolen away her social prestige and glory. It has brought a pitiful shame and pain to ‘Her’, it was ‘She’ whom Briffault had allusively referred to as the ‘Developers’ and ‘Designers’ of a family. Lately, paranoiac patriarchs and chauvinist males have started to attack on the gender of the Mother – the Women, to whom the majority of mankind worships, admires and adores in our nation. The growth of hatred, cases of female child molestations to abuses of various kinds on women is constantly increasing in the nation and within the local circles as well. The painful Delhi rape tragedy of December 2013 to the recent ruthless rape of a young Gorkha girl in Assam in May 2016, one of the Member of the Parliament asking a young girl to unfasten her jeans zip in Uttar Pradesh along with heightening problems of women trafficking are all affirmative of the growing brutalities against women in our country and locality.
If the number of such patriarchs and chauvinists are on rise, let us also not forget and undermine the quantity and strength of the devotees of the Mothers. Those defenders form our current civil society, the majority. It has the capacity and power to unify the intensity of guarding our Mothers and protecting our co-gender groups from those limited lousy crooks. These negative forces would be easily dismayed, defeated and disappear in a charming spell of the Mother – for her pure and unconditional love is enormous to empower and equip us all in defending her and her gender.
Reflecting on the empirical situation of the nation, our sex ratio is 94 percent and in case of Darjeeling district it is much higher at 97 per cent. These indices represent the flourishing of a gender equal India. It is a positive sign indicating more prosperity and social harmony. Let us continue to embrace our Mothers and our female counterparts and support them to live their life in equality with dignity, free from all forms of gender domination and discrimination. Let us continue to rejoice and accept our baby girls for she is natured to nurture – a new family in the near future and to bless it with the pure values of human morality. Let us continue to fight against gender exploitation and ever respect the Mothers and womanhood at large for directing the paths of social progression.
