As time goes by, newer and serious topics come to the fore in man-woman relationships. In today’s day and age, when everything is in the open, it is but natural that families, societies and lawmakers must debate the difficult and personal-sounding issue of marital rape, incest and the like. The author-activist Harpreet Kaur Ahluwalia looks at how man has dominated society down the ages. She urges society to empower women and pleads for women to empower themselves to face brute challenges. In the article, she also touches on the remarkable contribution of the Gurus for an equal society per men and women and rues how the present situation is far from it.

WE HAVE BEEN BROUGHT UPON, “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world,” and rightly so. Though we choose to run down women, existence simply cannot run without her -she gives birth to them and equips her creations to face the harsh realities of this world.

God made us all equal in body, thoughts and emotions. Both men and women are made of five elements- air, water, fire, earth and sky.  

But does a woman believe in it? Does she ask:

Who am I?
Why did I need Guru Nanak to make me aware of my importance?
Why did He have to fight to change society’s mindset?

Guru Nanak was using a two-sided dagger – on the one hand, He was asking the man to give the women their due and on the other, asked women to respect herself and believe in herself.

We have all heard of this fable – an egg of an eagle fell in the enclosure of a hen. The baby eagle grew up like the rest of the chickens around him. He lived the life of a chicken little realising that he was too sore in the sky.

In actuality, we are all made up of our beliefs, thoughts, emotions, perceptions, ego and conditioning but along with this women have an innate quality of love, empathy and humility. 

Ironically, women, in general, do not use them as their strengths but instead from time immemorial, men use them as their weakness. In this process of use and misuse, a woman forgets that she is clay and not the clay pot.

Do women ask: Who am I? Why did I need Guru Nanak to make me aware of my importance? Why did He have to fight to change society’s mindset?

If a lie is told 100 times over, people start believing that to be the truth. This is what happened to women. While history has been replete with examples and sermons of adulating, respecting, granting her liberty, justice, independence in what women desired and wanted – actuality was divorced from reality. Too much talk yet too little action on the ground was and is the reality. 

Rules, regulations, diktats, customs were made by men, the primary objective was to rein her, constrain her and make her do what they wanted, to fall in line voluntarily by making her believe that she is vulnerable and needs help, support and protection. 

She was consigned to do tasks that were transactional – back bending and domesticated. She was considered a bad omen and a girl child was a curse and marriage was her only destiny and above all making her feel small even for natural phenomena like the menstrual cycle, etc.

Women’s lives are written with a pencil which could be changed with an eraser as and when and where ever needed. To hide the guilt of suppressing her, manipulating her, using her, society gives her a false veneration and puts her on a pedestal as Devi or Goddess.

Religious leaders seized this opportunity to demolish all the resistance that could occur from her side, by manipulating and creating verses that degraded women as a being. She had to prove herself repeatedly through tests that were high as Everest and deep as an ocean. The objective was to make her fall and fail in her own eyes and make her focus only on her outer beauty and totally erase her inner beauty and strengths.

Women’s lives are written with a pencil which could be changed with an eraser as and when and where ever needed. To hide the guilt of suppressing her, manipulating her, using her, society gives her a false veneration and puts her on a pedestal.

Tulsi Das equated woman with dhol, ganwar, shudra, pashu. In Mahabharata, Draupadi was used in gambling as a commodity. The Devadasi system forced women to be married to the Lord and then abused by power brokers.

The Sati system burned her alive after her husband’s death, clearly saying her usefulness was only till her husband. Kanya dan was created and no rights in property were given to her. She was mentally conditioned like a chained elephant who believes that he is not free even if left unchained. In such a scenario, no person could gather courage, not to only challenge the status quo but also to change it- by being a rebel.

Sikh tenets and practices during the Guru period and thereafter brought about a whiff of fresh air for women. Sikhism crowned women with the identity of Kaur at a time when she had no identity. Kaur was liberation from the bondages that society and religions across the world had imposed on her. Sikhism did not discriminate against women and gave free entry to places of worship -Gurdwaras, along with kitchens and taught women the art of warfare.

Guru Nanak, on page 473 of Guru Granth Sahib says – from a woman a man is born, within the woman a man is conceived, to woman, he is engaged and married. Woman becomes his friend, through women the future generations come. When his woman dies, he seeks another woman to the woman he is bound to. So why call her bad? From her kings are born. From a woman, a woman is born, without women, there would be no one at all.

First Mehl:

ਭੰਡਿ ਜੰਮੀਐ ਭੰਡਿ ਨਿੰਮੀਐ ਭੰਡਿ ਮੰਗਣੁ ਵੀਆਹੁ ॥
ਭੰਡਹੁ ਹੋਵੈ ਦੋਸਤੀ ਭੰਡਹੁ ਚਲੈ ਰਾਹੁ ॥
ਭੰਡੁ ਮੁਆ ਭੰਡੁ ਭਾਲੀਐ ਭੰਡਿ ਹੋਵੈ ਬੰਧਾਨੁ ॥
ਸੋ ਕਿਉ ਮੰਦਾ ਆਖੀਐ ਜਿਤੁ ਜੰਮਹਿ ਰਾਜਾਨ ॥
ਭੰਡਹੁ ਹੀ ਭੰਡੁ ਊਪਜੈ ਭੰਡੈ ਬਾਝੁ ਨ ਕੋਇ ॥
ਨਾਨਕ ਭੰਡੈ ਬਾਹਰਾ ਏਕੋ ਸਚਾ ਸੋਇ ॥

Sikhism and the Gurus empowered women. Guru Nanak admitted women in Sangat without restrictions and ensured that his message was for both men and women. Guru Angad encouraged education.  Guru Amar Das condemned the customs of Sati, female infanticide and advocated widow remarriage. 

The sixth master -Guru Hargobind announced women to be the conscience of the human race and finally, Guru Gobind Singh gave her a separate identity. She was a Kaur right from her birth till death and was free of changing her surname.

Sikh history has some highly empowered Sikh women who helped shape Sikhism along with the Gurus-Bibi Nanaki, Mata Sahib Kaur, Mata Khivri, Bibi Bhani, Mata Gujri, Mata Sundri, are a few names. 

Sikh history has some highly empowered Sikh women who helped shape Sikhism along with the Gurus-Bibi Nanaki, Mata Sahib Kaur, Mata Khivri, Bibi Bhani, Mata Gujri, Mata Sundri, are a few names. 

Sikh philosophy calls upon all men to cultivate the superior qualities of a woman that come naturally to her. Sikh history also has had strong warrior women -Bibi Sharan Kaur, Mata Bhago, Bibi Nirbhai Kaur, Bhadur Deep Kaur, and many more. 

Sadly, today, these women even after their impeccable and exemplary contribution have been left only in the pages of Sikh history. None of these women is celebrated as role models. 

The Sikhs themselves are to be blamed for this and it is for them to change the situation. The irony is that the Sikh Rehat Maryada has also been conveniently modified by today’s Gurudwara Committees and have assigned secondary roles to women and with time she has forgotten that she is a celebrative being.

From the women’s perspective, who is to be blamed? Women themselves have been committing a cardinal mistake all her life of getting caught in the man-woman distinction, again and again, and forgetting that she has no boundaries and she is here to fly. 

Sikh Rehat Maryada has also been conveniently modified by today’s Gurudwara Committees and have assigned secondary roles to women and with time she has forgotten that she is a celebrative being.

The question remains. Guru Nanak was successful in bringing radical change for women. Now it is for women to believe in themselves and their abilities, stand up to men and society, empower themselves with grit, determination and compassion.