History of Civilizations of Central Asia
Download 8.99 Mb. Pdf ko'rish
|
|
Contents
THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN NORTHERN CENTRAL ASIA . . . . . . . . . . . 515
WOMEN’s MOVEMENTS AND CHANGES IN THE LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN IN IRAN AND AFGHANISTAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
Iran and the Islamic Republic of Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525 Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535 India
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535
Pakistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545 Part One
THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN NORTHERN CENTRAL ASIA (D. A. Alimova) The twentieth century was characterized by profound socio-economic, cultural and spiri- tual changes in the life of women. During that century, women experienced three forms of political and social organization. For example, the status of women in Central Asia, tsarist 515 Contents
Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 THE STATUS OF WOMEN. . . Russia’s former colonial periphery, was determined to a great extent by the strict traditions and canons of Islam, which governed women’s secluded, disenfranchised way of life. Soviet historiography routinely held that only the October revolution had given women freedom and rights equal to those of men and had accordingly implemented a programme to secure these rights in real life. In fact, in Turkistan in the late nineteenth and early twen- tieth centuries, long before the Bolshevik coup, a progressive movement of the national intelligentsia known as Jadidism had raised the issue of drawing women into social and cultural life as part of its programme to revitalize and reorganize society. Shur¯a-i Islami, a Jadidist organization, was the first to make the issue of women’s participation in elections a part of its programme. Mahmud Khoja Behbudi (1875–1919), ‘Abdurrauf Fitrat (1884–1937), ‘Abdallah Avlani (1878–1934), A. Chulpan and other well-known participants in this movement believed that society’s intellectual level depended in many respects on the status of women. They held that society’s transformation must begin with reforms in the spiritual and cultural spheres and in everyday life, which also meant changing the perception of women’s place and role in Muslim life. According to their views, the outlook of the younger generation depended greatly on the level of education of their mothers and on the principles underly- ing family relationships; without proper foundations for the family and a full education for young people, society could not be reformed or led down the path of progress. 1 However, the Jadids, who were well aware that a religious society where the tone was set mainly by the conservative clergy would not be receptive to drastic changes, did not undertake any particularly revolutionary measures. Such drastic changes were characteristic of the Soviet period, when a political and social experiment was carried out to create a completely new way of life for women in Central Asia. This experiment involved violent methods, which were primarily the work of the Communist Party and entailed an open struggle with Islam. Bearing in mind the more servile status of women in Central Asia, the communists stepped up this struggle, which was conducted on a wider scale than in the European part of the USSR. As a result, def- inite successes were achieved in securing the legal rights of women and their entry into the productive sphere. During the very first years of Soviet power in Kazakhstan and the Turkistan ASSR (Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic), laws were promulgated abol- ishing the kalym (bride-price), setting the marriageable age (16 for girls, 18 for boys) and prohibiting both polygamy and the marrying off of minors. Special provisions concerning the protection of women’s rights were introduced in the constitutions of all five Central Asian republics. 1 Behbudi,
1914 , Nos. 48, 49, 50; Fitrat, 1998 ; Avlani, 1992 . 516 Contents ISBN 92-3-103985-7 THE STATUS OF WOMEN. . . In the 1920s, when these measures were implemented, national attitudes and the need for a cautious approach were still being taken into account, as were traditions and the special features of women’s way of life. The zhenotdels (women’s sections for work among women, which existed at all levels of the Communist Party structure) organized women activists to go from house to house and to start women’s clubs, cooperatives, shops, and special places where women learned to sew, read and write without encountering men. 2 Persuasion was the primary method in the work of the zhenotdels. The salaries of those who worked in the cooperatives made a substantial contribution to the family budget. Dehq¯ans (peasants) were pleased that their wives were earning money without violating accepted moral standards in the process. However, the rate of women’s emancipation did not please the totalitarian regime, which was already gaining strength. To accelerate it, a policy known as the Khujum (Advance) was implemented. According to the communists’ definition, this was a ‘qualitatively new stage’ in the resolution of the women’s question in the republics of Central Asia. The party shifted from explanatory methods to mandatory implementation of all Soviet laws and all party decrees. 3 In fact, the women’s question was caught up in the general trend towards the consolidation of totalitarian power. By 1927, all alternative voices had already been eliminated from society. Reforms in agriculture, culture, industry and other areas met the same fate. The desire to accelerate the Khujum artificially turned it into something more like a ‘shock campaign’. At the same time, the psychological factor (which was of paramount importance in this matter) was ignored. Even party and Soviet workers, regardless of their rank or position, to say nothing of the common people, found it difficult to accept the idea of women walking around without the paranja (a veil covering the woman from head to foot). For exam- ple, a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Repub- lic arrested a worker because his wife had removed her paranja. In the kishlak (village) of Yallama, in Tashkent oblast’, senior workers forbade day labourers from ‘uncovering’ their women and would not allow them to go out on the street. 4 This covert and overt resistance greatly alarmed the party organs, so a system of punishments for party mem- bers who were not ‘pioneers’ in this matter was instituted. At the same time, there was no mention of educational-type measures. By then (1927), the communist parties of the republics of Central Asia had 40,000 members and candidate members, of whom 25,000 were representatives of local ethnic groups. 5 2 See Shukurova, 1970
; Nabieva, 1973
; Aminova, 1975
; Palvanova, 1982
. 3 Aminova, 1975 , p. 136. 4
, 1927 , No. 8, pp. 52–3. 5
, 1989
, p. 10. 517
Contents Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 THE STATUS OF WOMEN. . . It was assumed that these communists would be in the vanguard of the Khujum and would set an example for people with their progressive thinking. In fact, although they might bring their wives into the squares, where their paranjas were burned, the next day they would force their wives to put them back on. Thus, on 8 March 1929, in Osh oblast’ in the Kyrgyz ASSR, about 9,000 women removed their paranjas, but the next day many put them back on. 6 Administrative measures followed in quick succession. Thus, the Four- teenth Plenum of the Central Asian Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party ( Bolsheviks) (October 1927) approved a decision authorizing the strict punishment of party members for ‘social crimes’, up to and including expulsion from the party.
7 No other methods of suppressing resistance to women’s emancipation were considered. Verification that the party directive on this issue had been implemented – or, more simply put, the ‘purge’ – sometimes led to absurd situations. Thus, according to the testimony of one contemporary author, out of 258 senior workers of Kyrgyzstan who were ‘checked’, 18 had married by paying the kalym after the establishment of Soviet power, 3 had inherited wives and 2 were bigamists. Everyone was punished according to the party line, including 7 people who had paid the kalym before the October revolution, i.e. before its abolition by the Soviets. In Karakolsk district, the commission decreed that a Communist Party member named Ulmaskulov should be eradicating religious prejudices rather than basic illiteracy. After a similar ‘check’, one party organization was inundated by statements from the wives of senior workers concerning acceptance into the party. Intimidation, threats and punishments replaced persuasion and education. Not taken into account was the fact that in the East a woman’s fate was wholly dependent on men, her father and husband, who were not mentally prepared for the Khujum. The Khujum became so much like an organized campaign that a socialist competition was even insti- tuted between the Uzbek and Turkmen republics on issues of woman’s emancipation. The competition became known as the Pact of Millions. All this led to tragic consequences. According to archival data, in Uzbekistan alone in the two-year period 1926–8, more than 2,500 women activists, members of village and district councils and leaders of women’s clubs and libraries died at the hands of men. A great many of those who were killed or maimed were rank-and-file participants in the women’s movement. Party organs saw the fruits of their haste: a male terror campaign was unleashed against women. It cannot be denied, however, that the aspiration for freedom among the women themselves was very high. Thanks to their support and active involvement, the Khujum 6 Tabyshalieva, 1995 , p. 14.
7 Za partiyu , 1927 , No. 3, supplement. 518
Contents Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 THE STATUS OF WOMEN. . . was initially a great success. In Uzbekistan, in spring 1927, 100,000 women took off the
, 5,000 women were studying at the likbez (‘elimination of illiteracy’ school) and 5,202 women were elected People’s Court assessors. 8 These are impressive figures if one bears in mind the place occupied by Muslim women in the social life of the republics before that time. The party’s leading organs, however, intoxicated by the success of women’s emancipa- tion, entirely forgot – or, more likely, intentionally ignored – the Islamic factor, adopting a policy leading to the open rejection of Islam and efforts to eradicate it. The exclusion of these two factors – the psychological and the religious – was the reason that resistance to women’s emancipation persisted long afterwards. Moreover, there was a social factor that was not taken into account. A significant portion of the population of the old cities consisted of craft workers, small traders and artisans who had lost everything as a result of the development of industry. The natural process of their economic disintegration reinforced their hostile attitude towards government decisions. Nor did the ‘uncovering’ of women bring economic benefits for them (unlike the dehq¯ans, who used women’s labour in various branches of agriculture, and the poorest segment of the urban population). Thus these artisans and small traders came out openly against women’s emancipation. Both then and later, it was commonly believed that the clergy were inciting crimes against women who had removed the paranja and that they were principally to blame for terrorist acts. However, there was also a progressive clergy that strove to restrain the broad sections of the Muslim population under their influence and who realized the consequences of resistance to the liberation of women, a process which had many supporters. Interpret- ing the Qur’an in a new way, this segment of the clergy expressed the opinion that the Qur’an did not contain a ban on women’s participation in social and productive life, nor did it require them to wear the paranja. According to archival data, they even attempted to organize their zhenotdels. Thus, in kishlaks of the Ferghana valley, a proclamation was disseminated, signed by the ‘Head of the Zhenotdel of the Mursali-bibi Religious Admin- istration’: while appealing for women’s emancipation not to be impeded, it also stated that their religious education should not be forgotten. These kinds of attempts were repudiated, however, by the official organs. 9 The open struggle with religion and the clergy was vividly expressed in the activities of the so-called Kurashchan Khudosizlar (Militant Atheists) Union organized everywhere. If in the early 1920s the zhenotdels favoured caution in their anti-religious propaganda, 8
, 7 Oct.
1927 . 9 Lyubimova, 1926
, p. 38; Dimanshteyn, 1929
, Nos. 5–6, pp. 49–51. 519
Contents Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 THE STATUS OF WOMEN. . . by the early 1930s there was no longer any question of this. K. Makarov, chairman of the union, said openly that there was no longer any point in being cautious. Kurashchan Khudosizlar helped to whip up an atmosphere of universal suspicion. All representatives of the clergy without exception were considered class enemies. Their demands to return the mosques to the faithful were presented as a manifestation of their class ‘hatred for the Komsomol (Communist Union of Youth) and the clubs’. But the war over women was a war not of classes but of world views. It had nothing to do with the social allegiance of its participants, who found it difficult to relinquish notions of women that had been ingrained in their consciousness for centuries. This battle was provoked by the crude, irregular methods of work used by the party committees. Thus they used prayer meetings in the mosques to agitate in favour of the Khujum , they organized paranja-removing ‘troikas’ that even included the chief of police, and they took notes from husbands stating that they were uncovering their wives. Similar violent methods had an adverse effect on the women’s movement itself, which went into decline. By the late 1930s, with the proclamation of the ‘victory of socialism’, it was wrongly believed that the social bases of religion had been eradicated. The reason for women’s religiosity was seen to be merely ‘the harmful complacency of local workers in Central Asia who have permitted the curtailment of anti-religious work among women’. A certain F. Popov connected it with the ‘counter-revolutionary’ leadership shortly before his article came out on A. Ikramov, the ‘repressed’ first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan. 10 One of the Soviet regime’s problems was how to attract female labour into the national economy. Discussion of women’s participation in industrial production focused on those branches where there was the greatest likelihood of using female labour, and it was sug- gested that women be utilized only in those jobs which did not involve lifting heavy weights or dangerous physical loads. By the late 1920s, however, this position began to change. A tendency developed to equate female and male labour. Equality was interpreted literally and female labour began to be actively incorporated into all types of production. Many party and Soviet workers suggested using women to fill the major gaps in the Central Asian workforce. For example, it was felt that construction work should be done by women and that they should be used in carpentry, in carrying bricks and in laying stone. 11 As a result of this forced ‘equality’, by 1939 women had gained a hold in 50 per cent of male professions. Disregard for woman’s natural role and the characteristics of the 10 Popov, 1938 , No. 12, pp. 13–15. 11 Volny,
1931 , p. 25.
520 Contents
Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 THE STATUS OF WOMEN. . . female organism was also vividly manifested in the use of women in agriculture. Here, too, the thesis about the equality of female and male labour was transformed into dogma that no one tried to refute. In 1930 women in the cotton-growing regions of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan comprised 80 per cent of the workforce. They were used in 15 types of agri- cultural work, from seed cleaning to ploughing. In 1932 one magazine wrote that female labour should be used exclusively to cultivate labour-intensive, industrial crops. 12 The gen-
eral and forcible inclusion of women in the kolkhozs (collective farms) in the absence of the provision of basic services, especially kindergartens, led to women working in the hot sun with children in their arms and on their backs. Ironically, this was referred to as the high level of consciousness of kolkhoz women. The pursuit of successes in socialist construction also affected the women’s question. A decree was handed down from the command regime to consider it resolved. In 1930 the zhenotdels were eliminated in quick order, and in 1932 the KUBT (Commission for the Improvement of Women’s Labour and Life) and women’s magazines were shut down, including the Uzbek Yangi-yul. Owing to the ideological and political situation during those years, the women’s question suffered the same fate as many other major social issues: it was closed for discussion as a subject not appropriate for rhetoric on ‘the grandest achievements’. 13 During the Second World War, however, the governing bodies of the Soviet state were compelled once again to revive the zhenotdels, inasmuch as the full burden of labour in the national economy rested on the shoulders of women, a factor that could not be left outside the realm of ideology. However, women did not enjoy the same popularity and influence they had in the 1920s. Paradoxical though it may seem, the war conditions estab- lished women’s authority as individuals, workers and leaders. This was of particular sig- nificance for the republics of Central Asia. During these years, public attitudes evolved; people became convinced that women could replace the men fighting on the front in all sectors of the national economy, in state government, in social and political life, and in the field of culture. It was during these years that the number of qualified women workers from the indigenous ethnic groups increased significantly. 14 During this period, the number of women workers doubled, and their proportion rose from 29 per cent of the workforce in 1940 to 54.4 per cent in 1945. By the 1950s, the number of women employed in education, science, and health care exceeded the number of men. 15 12 Rizel’, 1932
, No. 9, p. 31. 13
, 1934
, Nos. 3–4, p. 33. 14 Davletova, 1949 ; Zhivotovskaya, 1963 ; Ibragimova, 1987 . 15 Tabyshalieva, 1998
, p. 69. 521
Contents Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 THE STATUS OF WOMEN. . . The improvements in the lives of women in Soviet Central Asia, in particular the achievement of universal literacy and the great successes in the areas of technology, health care, education and science, which became free and accessible, transformed their status. For example, in the brief period from 1926 to 1939, the number of literate women in Tajikistan aged 9–49 increased from 0.9 to 77.5 per cent. 16 In the 1960s women made up 60 per cent of the doctors in Uzbekistan, 70 per cent in Kazakhstan, 66 per cent in Kyrgyzstan and 58 per cent each in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. 17 At the same time, how- ever, this was accompanied by ideological indoctrination, and the official communist ideol- ogy held the women’s movement in strict check, defining the place of women in the overall party system. Since there was a quota system for women, they accounted for only a small percentage of the country’s leaders. Special attention was paid to implementing this arrangement in the republics of Central Asia, where female cadres were not allowed to take the most important decisions. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, women’s participation in political life was expressed in slogans rather than action, and became topical only during the celebrations of International Women’s Day, 8 March. This period saw a worsening of the socio-economic crisis, which Download 8.99 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
|