Monday, October 09, 2023
Return to theory
Women in India need to study both tradition and modernity to formulate a just social order. This is important as most media discussions are regarding making women's reservation bill a reality
The Indian Parliament recently passed the landmark women’s reservation bill, which guarantees a third of the seats in the lower House of Parliament and state assemblies for women. The bill was passed in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha during the special session of Parliament held on its new premises.
Following this historic moment, we should also focus on the women’s movement in the West and the contribution of feminist philosophers like Susan Moller Okin. Okin’s remarkable essay, “Reason and Feeling in Thinking about Justice”, exposes the various layers of discrimination against women in Western philosophy and society. She displays her expertise in identifying, approaching and dealing with archival material as she examines the politics of discrimination.
Indian women, too, need to return to theory and carefully evaluate the women’s reservation bill. The reason is twofold. First, to identify the underlying relation between texts and practices and acknowledge the contribution of feminism in the West. Second, to suggest the need to look, with an open and critical mind, at the theory and practices concerning women in Indian society.
Feminism in the West extended the modern ideals of individual rights, equality and rationality to criticise patriarchy in traditional society. It excavated and unearthed the surreptitious continuation of patriarchy in modernity and tradition. Okin’s essay takes up the challenging task of fighting against visible patriarchy in the classical philosophies and its continuation, albeit disguised, within modernity.
Okin closely examines the writings of modern philosopher, Immanuel Kant, and the continuation of his impact on contemporary philosophers like John Rawls. She uncovers the underlying architecture in these influential writings and exposes how modern philosophers like Kant based morality on rationality.
They based morality on tangible rationality, moving away from the earlier practice in metaphysics where morality was founded on transcendental aspects like Plato’s Ideals or God in Christianity. This was a significant contribution to modern morality and is recognised in mainstream scholarship as one of the achievements of modernity.
However, what Okin explores is the other side, or the extensions of these foundations, by Kant. She points out that while he has not discriminated between the sexes in his major writings, he subscribes to the gender division in his minor pieces in earlier and later works.
Okin demonstrates that while founding morality on reason, Kant excludes non-rational aspects such as feelings and emotions from its domain. He insists that “no moral principle is based… on any feeling whatsoever.” According to Kant, modern morality is based exclusively on rationality. Thus far, there is no problem.
The problem arises when he links women with non-rational feelings and emotions, associating only males with rationality, which is the foundation of morality. Women’s “philosophy is not to reason, but to sense,” Okin quotes from Kant’s Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. He states that a married woman is necessarily subjected to her husband and a legal minor. “To make oneself behave like a minor,” Kant says, “degrading as it may be, is, nevertheless, very comfortable.” In a tongue-in-cheek way, Okin states, “It is not difficult to tell, from such remarks, where women stand (perhaps it is more appropriate to say ‘where women sit’) on Kant’s moral scale.”
Okin’s ingenuity lies in moving our gaze from the foundations of modern morality to its extensions. This is where the actual politics of modernity concerning women is exposed. These extensions include associating males with rationality and dissociating women from it. This disguised patriarchy has severe implications for women. While founding morality on reason is radical, excluding women from rationality and forcing them outside the domain of morality is deeply problematic.
The contribution of feminists like Okin lies in their scrutiny of the texts to identify these shocking extensions. Presenting this other picture of Kant and modernity shocked scholars of Kant and modernity.
In the context of the women’s reservation bill, Okin’s excellent philosophical work should inspire us to reflect on the dominant traditions in India and the West and to take this as a catalyst for understanding the claims and counterclaims about the status of women in India, both in text and in practice.
On the positive side, Okin does not seek parity with males by claiming that women, too, are rational. Instead, she sees virtue in moral ideals such as benevolence and parental love that are considered non-rational and excluded from the domain of morality. For children, the family is their “first [example] of human interaction,” if based on “equality and reciprocity rather than on dependence and domination,” it can shape their morality. And by extension, this can provide the basis for “larger communities within which people are supposed to develop fellow feelings for each other.”
Women in India thus need to carefully study both tradition and modernity and contribute to formulating a just social order. This is important as most of the discussions in the media are regarding the agency of making the bill a reality. Unfortunately, there is less about content and challenges before women in the changed scenario with more representation. Reading Western feminism is not to borrow or blindly imitate the West, making India its extension. While learning from the West, India must significantly modify modernity and tradition. What has been achieved is not enough, but how to take the unfinished other aspects is an open question. This also includes more significant problems such as corruption, exploitation and discrimination.
A. Raghuramaraju
Source: Telegraph India, 9/10/23
Nobel Prize for Peace: Who is Narges Mohammadi, the Iranian woman awarded this year?
An engineer-turned-activist, Narges Mohammadi is currently living in a detention facility in Iran under the charges of “spreading anti-state propaganda”. She is the second Iranian woman to be awarded in the prize's history.
Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi has been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize for Peace, “For her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”, as stated by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in its citation.
The committee also referred to last year’s protests in Iran, following the killing of a young woman named Mahsa Amini while she was in the custody of the Iranian morality police. The protests’ motto ‘Zan –Zendegi – Azadi’ (Woman – Life – Freedom) “suitably expresses the dedication and work of Narges Mohammadi”, the committee said.
Mohammadi is currently in Iran’s Evin House of Detention, serving a 16-year sentence that began in 2015 over charges that include spreading propaganda against the state. Her family expressed their gratitude to the committee in a statement, adding, “We also want to extend our sincere congratulations to all Iranians, especially the courageous women and girls of Iran who have captivated the world with their bravery in fighting for freedom and equality… As Narges always says: Victory is not easy, but it’s certain.”
Early brushes with activism
Born in 1972 in Iran, Mohammadi and her family have long been involved in political protests – beginning with the Iranian Revolution against the country’s monarchy. Iran’s Pahlavi dynasty fell in 1979 and it then became an Islamic republic. Members of her family were among those arrested after the new government came to power. She said in an interview with The New York Times in June this year that two childhood memories “set her on the path to activism” – her mother’s prison visits to her brother, and seeing her watch announcements on TV for the names of prisoners executed each day.
Mohammadi went on to study nuclear physics in the city of Qazvin. At college, she met her future husband Taghi Rahmani, who is also an activist. He was jailed for 14 years in Iran and currently lives in exile in France with the couple’s two children.
On women, prisoners’ rights
The committee said that in the 1990s, as a student, Mohammadi was already “distinguishing herself as an advocate for equality and women’s rights.” She began working as an engineer but also wrote articles for newspapers. In 2003, she became associated with the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Tehran, an organisation founded by Shirin Ebadi – the first Iranian woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize back in 2003. Mohammadi’s activism has centred on Iranian women’s rights and she has campaigned against the death penalty and other harsh sentences meted out to prisoners in the country.
Her first arrest came in 2011. But even during her incarceration, she has organised protests against the government along with other women prisoners. During last year’s protests after Amini’s death, she organised solidarity actions. In 2022, her book ‘White Torture’ was published while she was briefly at home after a heart attack and surgery. It focused on solitary confinement and included interviews with other Iranian women who had experienced the punishment.
“Altogether, the regime has arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes,” the Nobel Committee said.
Previous awards and the Nobel legacy
Mohammadi has also been awarded other prominent prizes in the West for her work, such as the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award in May 2023 and the 2023 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. In 2022, she was featured in the BBC’s list of 100 inspirational and influential women from around the world.
The first Iranian woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Shirin Ebadi, received it “for her efforts for democracy and human rights,” the Committee’s citation said. Ebadi was one of Iran’s first female judges and defended people who were being persecuted by the authorities. She was also imprisoned for her work on the rights of women and children and now lives in London.
The committee also wrote, “In its choice of Ebadi, the Nobel Committee expressed a wish to reduce the tensions between the Islamic and the Western worlds following the terrorist attack on the United States on 11 September 2001.” A reflection of Nobel’s peace prizes reflecting ongoing geopolitical tensions, last year, the prize was awarded to human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial, and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties. Unlike the Peace Prize, Nobel prizes in the fields of Medicine, Physics and Chemistry are awarded many years after the scientists’ work has been published to effectively gauge the impact of the research work. That the Peace Prize has sometimes been awarded to politicians and world leaders much sooner in comparFor example, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded in 2019, “for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea”.
However, violence broke out in the region in 2020, and the Committee later issued a rare statement. “As Prime Minister and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Abiy Ahmed has a special responsibility to end the conflict and help to create peace,” it said, noting the fact that humanitarian relief was not able to reach Tigray.ison has become a point of criticism.
Similarly, the award given to former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1973, for negotiating a peace treaty during the Vietnam War, also saw some pushback. The treaty fell apart soon after it was signed. Two Nobel Committee members resigned over the committee chairman’s statement that the committee had unanimously supported the selection of Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the Vietnamese negotiator. Tho himself refused the prize over the treaty’s violation.
Source: Indian Express, 6/10/23
Israel-Hamas conflict: Who are Hezbollah, and why has their presence raised concerns of escalation?
Hezbollah, whose name means ‘Party of God’, is a Shiite Islamic militant organisation from Lebanon. How is it linked to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine?
On Saturday morning (October 7), the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a devastating attack on Israel that has led to the deaths of at least 300 people, according to Israeli media reports. In the Gaza Strip, the coastal Palestinian region from where Hamas fighters crossed over to the bordering Israel, around 250 people have died.
The attack is being seen as the biggest exchange of fire between the two parties in decades. There are concerns over a further escalation into a full-blown conflict, in an already volatile region of the world that has been beset by decades of regional, sectarian and communal rivalries, and intervention from foreign powers.
A major factor could be the presence of Shiite Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. It said in a statement on Sunday that it fired at Israeli positions in the disputed Chebaa Farms, located along the border with Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, using “large numbers of rockets and shells”. It also declared its solidarity with the “Palestinian resistance.” What exactly is this group?
Who are Hezbollah and how was the group founded?
Hezbollah, whose name means ‘Party of God’, is a Shiite Islamic militant organisation from Lebanon. The think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has described it as “The world’s most heavily armed non-state actor, with a large and diverse stockpile of unguided artillery rockets, as well as ballistic, antiair, antitank, and antiship missiles.” In modern history, Lebanon was under a French mandate until 1943 and after it ended, power was divided into various religious groups, with posts such as Prime Minister and President of the country reserved for people of particular religious denominations.
Hezbollah originated during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), which was a result of “long-simmering discontent over the large, armed Palestinian presence in the country”, according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Amid tense ethnic and religious divisions, Palestinian refugees’ arrival from 1948 onwards – with the creation of Israel as a state for Jewish people – added to the tensions. Their presence also led to Israeli forces invading southern Lebanon in 1978 and again in 1982 to expel Palestinian guerrilla fighters.
This would lead to the formation of Hezbollah, which was also inspired by the formation of a theocratic Islamic government in Iran in 1979. “Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) provided funds and training to the budding militia,” CFR notes. Therefore, it also reflects West Asia’s two major powers and their rivalry – the Sunni Muslim-dominated Saudi Arabia and the majority Shia Muslim-dominated Iran. The US estimates that Iran supplies hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to Hezbollah and that it has thousands of fighters.
What are Hezbollah’s aims?
It opposes Israel and Western influence in West Asia. It has also, along with Russia and Iran, supported the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in neighbouring Syria during its civil war.
It became more visible in Lebanese politics in the mid-2000s and currently holds 13 of the country’s 128-member Parliament. Along with allies, it is part of the ruling government. But in recent years, there have been protests against its work in the country with worsening issues of unemployment, government debt and poverty.
What are Hezbollah’s military capabilities?
Hezbollah has undertaken targeted attacks, such as a 1983 suicide bombing of barracks housing US and French troops in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, in which more than three hundred people died. Many Western governments characterise it as a terrorist organisation, as does the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes six West Asian countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE.
Israel and Hezbollah first fought a war in 2006 over a month and have often exchanged fire. According to CSIS, “The party’s arsenal is comprised primarily of small, man-portable, unguided artillery rockets. Although these devices lack precision, their sheer number make them effective weapons of terror.” Israeli estimates peg the number at 15,000 rockets and missiles on the eve of the 2006 war. “Hezbollah has since expanded its rocket force, today estimated at 130,000 rounds,” it added.
Why is there worry over Hezbollah potentially escalating the conflict?
For one, the Benjamin Netanyahu-led right-wing government in Israel has raised the matter of national security in the past too, and is now under criticism for being caught unaware by a far inferior force in terms of military and intelligence capabilities. The government is likely to double down in its response.
It has also been backed by governments in the West. United States and US President Joe Biden said his administration’s support for Israel’s security “is rock solid and unwavering.”
According to a Reuters analysis, the motivations of Hamas are related to it opposing the greater engagements between Israel and other West Asian governments in recent years – a significant development considering the fact that most of them lacked diplomatic relations with Israel. It has these goals in common with Hezbollah, which is much better equipped to fight.
“All the agreements of normalisation that you (Arab states) signed with (Israel) will not end this conflict,” Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas which runs Gaza, said on Al Jazeera television. A regional source told Reuters: “This is a message to Saudi Arabia, which is crawling towards Israel, and to the Americans who are supporting normalisation and supporting Israel. There is no security in the whole region as long as Palestinians are left outside of the equation.”
Hamas’s attack also follows “months of rising violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with stepped-up Israeli raids, Palestinian street attacks and assaults by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages,” the report added. Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East analyst at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, told Reuters: “As Hamas watched the Israelis and Saudis move close to an agreement, they decided: no seat at the table? Poison the meal,” she said.
Iran called Saturday’s attack an act of self-defence by Palestinians. Yahya Rahim Safavi, adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Tehran would stand by the Palestinian fighters “until the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem.”
According to AP, the leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said the attack was only the start of what he called “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm,” and called on Palestinians from east Jerusalem to northern Israel to join the fight.
Written by Rishika Singh
Source: Indian Express, 9/10/23
Tuesday, October 03, 2023
Quote of the Day
“Health and intellect are the two blessings of life.”
Menander
“स्वास्थ्य और बुद्धिमत्ता जीवन के दो आशीर्वाद हैं।”
मेनान्डेर
Current Affairs-October 1, 2023
INDIA
- As southwest monsoon ends, Karnataka is under spell of drought as all 31 districts receive poor rain.
- Aditya-L1 spacecraft has travelled beyond a distance of 9.2 lakh km from Earth, successfully escaping the sphere of earth’s influence.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a week-long programme for Aspirational Blocks in the country called ‘Sankalp Saptaah’.
- Param Vir Chakra Awardee Captain Bana Singh has been nominated as Ambassador for ‘War Against Waste’ in Jammu & Kashmir.
- Ministry of Tourism announced that India will host the 46th edition of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Travel Mart 2023.
ECONOMY & CORPORATE
- Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to extend the deadline to exchange ₹2,000 notes to October 7.
- Union Ministry of Textiles introduced Quality Control Orders (QCOs) for six medical-textile and 20 agro-textile products.
- From October 1, online gaming companies will charge 28% GST on full value of bets.
WORLD
- Front runner and Opposition candidate Mohamed Muizzu was elected President of the Maldives.
- India and Argentina signed an agreement to ensure legal rights of professionals in each other’s domain.
- On the brink of a federal government shutdown, U.S. House Speaker announced mulls for 45-day funding Bill through the House with Democratic help.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin marks anniversary of annexation of Ukrainian regions.
SPORTS
- Abhay Singh won 2-1 against Pakistan’s Noor Zaman as India regained the Asian Games squash gold.
- Asian Games: Kartik won the silver with a timing of 28:15.38s while Gulveer clocked 28:17.21s to claim the bronze in the 10,000m race.
- Indian shooting duo of Sarabjot Singh and Divya Subbaraju secured a silver medal in the mixed 10m air rifle pistol team event.
- Bopanna-Rutuja pair clinches mixed doubles gold at the Asian Games.
Current Affairs-October 2, 2023
INDIA
- Assam Police said the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act has been extended in four districts of the State for six more months.
- Defence Ministry tightens rules of entitlement for disability compensation.
- Ministry of Civil Aviation observes Shramdaan event under Swachhata Hi Seva Abhiyaan (SHS) 2023.
- CRPF in collaboration with Ministry of Women and Child Development to organize a cross-country bike expedition with Yashaswini.
- Defence Ministry launches several digital initiatives of Defence Accounts Department during its 276th Annual Day celebrations.
- On the occasion of 154th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, several leaders paid tribute to the father of nation at the Rajghat.
ECONOMY & CORPORATE
- Oil firms raise aviation turbine fuel (ATF), or jet fuel and commercial LPG prices.
- Gross GST revenue growth slowed to 10.2% in September.
- Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) celebrates its Seventh Annual Day.
- According to the Finance Ministry, the five-year recurring deposit under small savings scheme will now fetch 6.7 percent interest rate.
WORLD
- Indonesia is set to launch China-funded high-speed rail, first in Southeast Asia.
- A United Nations mission arrived in Nagorno-Karabakh, in first visit in 30 years.
SPORTS
- Asian Games: Shot-putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor wins gold; Avinash Sable wins Gold In Men’s 3000m Steeplechase.
- Asian Games: Harmilan Bains (women’s 1500m), Murali Sreeshankar (men’s long jump), Ajay Kumar Saroj (men’s 1500m) and Jyothi Yarraji (women’s 100m hurdles) won silver.
- Indian Men’s Badminton Team wins the Silver Medal at the Asian Games.
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