The word ‘Taboo’ has a Togan origin,
with opposing meanings of holy and unclean both. Taboo refers to a system of
prohibition connected to restraint or exclusion. In verb form, it means to
“forbid approach to or use of” (Chamber). In other words, “banned on grounds
of morality”. This specific meaning seems to be of greater significance where
societal norms in India are always about upholding our culture and traditions.
While it is important to protect and carry forward your traditional values, it
is also necessary to constantly reinspect them to make sure that they are not
turning into shackles.
A Taboo arises when people associate
any action with feelings of shame or disgust, and then it becomes a tool of
oppression for those with the power to wield it. Whether it be the Sati tradition
that arose from the taboo around widowhood or the prevention of widow
remarriage in the name of preserving the dead husband’s honor, left women with
options of either death or a life of loneliness and exploitation. It took the
combined efforts of Christian reformer William Carey and Hindu reformer Raja
Ram Mohan Roy of about twenty years to bring about the Bengal Sati Regulation
Act of 1829. This helped further the petition to allow widows to remarry with a
rigorous campaign by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and culminated in the Hindu
Widow’s Remarriage Act of 1856. These were important because the taboo around a
window did not even rule out child widows who were either forced to commit Sati
to avoid the shame of living as a widow or spend their life alone and abused.
These are the perfect examples of how a taboo that forces innocent children
towards a life of loneliness for the sake of tradition and societal pressure
needs to be broken. And the way it was achieved shows us that we can’t wait for
governments or legal bodies to do it, we need to speak up against such
restrictive norms and take a stand to abolish them.
Even if these taboos are now
dismissed, there still remain many such restrictions imposed by Indian societal
norms. Research suggests
that each year, at least 1.5 million girls under 18 get married in India, which
is the largest number of child brides in the world. While the percentage of
girls getting married before age 18 has declined from 47 to 27 percent between
2005-2006 and 2015-2016, it is still too high. India is still among the top six
countries that account for the highest global number of child marriages.
Underage children having no say in the decision of when and whom they can marry
is the main reason behind this. Such marriages can mostly be traced back to
poorer families from rural backgrounds, where a lack of education and awareness
about the future effects of marrying young is just not known. Such marriages
most often result in a high mortality rate of young mothers and their babies,
malnutrition, and poor health for their whole life. If not acted upon with more
rigor, this can result in a never-ending cycle of poverty for future
generations.
On one hand, underage people are forced to marry, on the
other, Divorce is also considered taboo. Even if a woman is treated
horribly by her husband and in-laws, she is told by society to stay in an
abusive marriage. If a couple comes to realize that they are not compatible to
spend their whole life together, the taboo around divorce and the treatment
received by divorcees later makes them hesitate and remain in an unhappy environment.
Being a country that boasts of a divorce rate of less than 1% in 2017 according
to a report from the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, there is a need to
break the stigma around divorce so people can truly be free to lead fulfilling
lives.
In India some communities still follow outdated and cruel
practices of checking whether a bride is a virgin before she can get married,
leaving behind physical and emotional trauma. If a woman is in a physical
relationship before marriage, she is considered to be “lacking character”. The
taboo around anything of sexual nature and a lack of proper sex education is
affecting both men and women. Boys and girls entering puberty are deprived of
any structured guidance about the physical changes they face, leaving them to
look for information from other sources which are often misleading. This
results in the girls developing shameful feelings towards completely natural
body function like menstruation and with boys entertaining misguided notions
about masculinity. There is also a lack of knowledge on how to handle sexual
relationships and the repercussions of unprotected sex with resulting STDs or
pregnancy.
The taboo around sex education also gives rise to a bigger issue: the ignorance about LGBTQ people and belief in notions of homophobia. In a country like India, which is home to the Kamasutra which openly discussed homosexual relationships, the intolerance towards same-sex relationships is a baffling phenomenon. This again depicts the paradoxical nature of a society that on one hand worships women as Goddesses and on the other prohibits them from entering temples while menstruating. This brings us back to the association of taboo concepts with feelings of shame or disgust. Being ashamed of bodily discharges, which are natural and essential for the survival of the human race, is illogical. And so is forcing the feeling of shame on those who belong to the LGBTQ community, because it is not an affliction or abnormality. The choice to identify with a gender and to be with whomever your heart desires should be left to each individual; it must be identified as a right to freedom of expression. Not a right to be bestowed, but a fundamental right that each human being deserves.
And taboos arising from shame also target innocent victims of abuse and rape, holding them responsible in some manner for the abuser’s actions. Studies showed that India recorded an average of 87 rape cases daily in 2019 and 4 lakh cases of crime against women during the year, a rise of over 7% from 2018. Even after the infamous Delhi Rape case of 2012, victim blaming in the name of “Men will be men” and women have to be more careful about how they behave and what they wear has been rampant. The such shame associated with abuse discourages victims from coming forward and justice being delivered. The taboo should be for the abuser, not the abused. Verbal assault on anyone for their sexual orientation should also be treated in the same manner.
So now the question remains. . . how do we rid our society of these Taboos?
Well, the answer is by educating first ourselves and then
those around us! Getting to the root of a taboo and understanding the
sentiments of society in creating those restrictions will help us
understand how to overcome them. When we know that the taboo around periods
comes from the feelings of shame associated with it, we can bring awareness by
speaking up more openly about it. The campaign #PadsAgainstSexism by students at Jamia Millia Islamia university in 2015
aimed to bring awareness about menstruation and the reality faced by rape
victims. The government taking a stand and implementing new laws for fast-track
procedures of rape cases and sensitizing the police, electorate, and education
sector to this issue is a very welcome change. Despite there being strict laws
against child marriage, we are still not able to be fully rid of it. Young
girls from poorer and rural families are more vulnerable to this and thus need
more attention. The drive against child marriage needs to reach even the
smallest villages, people educated about the long-lasting effects of it, and
efforts made to ensure that girls stay in school and learn, and have access to
life skills and career opportunities to succeed and thrive.
The LGBTQ community in India was the target of persecution
for a long time in India. But the picture is slowly changing now. Before,
even the law was against same-sex relationships, but in 2018 the Supreme Court
of India abolished article 377 and decriminalized consensual same-sex
relationships. This was a great victory for the activists and the whole
community fighting for years for their rights and has helped open the
conversation on this issue even more. Different social organizations working
for victim welfare, government departments and agencies, and the common people
have started to work together to bring an end to regressive societal norms.
Social media campaigns run by commercial entities to bring awareness, whether
it be Tanishq ads about remarriage or Myntra and Fastrack advert campaigns about same-sex couples, are increasing
the outreach of these movements.
Never-ending and positive efforts are the key that will
help unlock the taboos.
All we need to do is . . . Speak Up!
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