Sagorika@sagorika_s
The internet has created a smart and informed class of people who bang their heads against walls for the fun of it instead of trying to find a door.
The idea that women are somehow more evil cannot be the basis of all thought when trying to solve a problem that has the potential to affect half the Hindu population. The women who are targeted to be converted are targeted with very specific intent. These are not the strong independent types that “internet trads” rave against - these are women who have spent most of their time dependent upon family for the basics, with zero exposure to life beyond family dynamics that are built to keep them undereducated and definitely otherises them on the basis of gender. Their parents are hardworking but not as educated about religion and strife.
Discussing excesses like maal-e-ghanimat and other excesses with someone not aware of basic Hindu wisdom, not practicing a sadhana, not allowed to socialise with Hindu men even as friends, constantly told about jaati in the same breath as religion is only going to find the claims of excesses of determined Islamists a tall tale. When she meets a Muslim man who is nice to her, all she will find is attention that is never offered to her within her family and no sign of the excesses they are associated with, making it easy to dismiss wholesale. Regular people do not understand or care for statistics, as is obvious with the discourse on even such platforms.
It isn’t that there is no recourse. However, anyone thinking of it, even with the best of protective intentions, cannot afford to start with Hindu women as the problem. It is cowardly.
No one in the intellectual classes addresses the jihadi first. It is so taken for granted that they just wish to foist that desensitisation upon anyone in the discourse. Thank goodness for the Bajrang Dal and Arya Samaji and other on-ground workers who provide tangible support.
If one has to look outside, the Sikhs in the UK and elsewhere have regular discourses in their gurudwaras about grooming and immediately rehabilitate any victim. The discourses are very considerate of age and exposure. Not a single religious place or ashram has taken this up with volunteer pracharaks preaching to the regular populations at scale.
Victim blaming is easy. It is not a solution.