Women on religion in India

Why all the religions, the most powerful institutions in India or rather the world, are led by only men?

Are religions inherently patriarchal or have the interpretations of the religious texts skewed the scale against women and girls? 

In present India, how do different religions view women and affect their human rights?

These are some of the questions I have struggled with growing up in India. I always believed that answers to these questions need to be explored and the stories of Indian women must be told. I tried finding answers to these questions through the journey I made for my documentary “Women and Religion in India.”

I started this journey in January 2016 and for ten months it took me from the snow-covered peaks of Jammu-Kashmir to the backwaters of Kerala, from the deserts of Rajasthan to the rains of Meghalaya and everything in between. I met and interviewed around 200 women belonging to Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, and Zoroastrianism.

Traveling alone as a woman in India is one big adventure in itself but the highlight of my journey was meeting these women and girls. They challenged a lot of my preconceived notions and stereotypes. I found their stories extremely important and powerful. “Should girls have a say in who they should marry?”, “If women can talk about everything else then why can’t they interpret religion?”, “What would Jesus say if he was alive today?”, “Are gods and religious men so weak that they would be tempted by just the body and the face of a woman?” were some the questions I found women and girls asking about the religious traditions and I believe the answers to these questions need to be explored not just by women but by men our religious leaders as well.

I completed this documentary earlier this year and have premiered it in India and the US. Going ahead, I want to use it as a tool to begin a comprehensive discussion on religion in the realm of women’s rights. In a diverse country like ours, religion is the thread that runs through the heart of the entire nation and could be found in the very spirit of its people. 

There are no uncertainties about the enormous impact that religion holds in defining the norms, rules and laws of our land.  As social changemakers, activists, we talk a lot about ‘changing the mindset’ and I think in India, we cannot the ignore the dynamics of structures like caste and religion when we are trying to work on the issue of women’s rights. 

Religion, like a lot of other aspects of our society, is led by men. Written by men, interpreted by men, and implemented by men. Through this documentary, I also want to add diverse voices of women to the space of religion and highlight how some women are breaking the traditions to make more space for women in religion. To conclude, I want to use the words of Katherine Jaup. 

She is an American journalist and author who writes in her book Excellent Daughters, “The world changes because of wars and terrorist attacks but it also changes because a daughter makes slightly different decisions from the ones her mother made.”

Link to the trailer of the documentary: bit.ly/WomenReligionIndia

Link to the Facebook page of the documentary: facebook.com/ WomenReligionIndia

About the Director: Disha Arora
The writer is a development communication specialist and documentary filmmaker Over the past eight years, she has worked with a number of local and international nonprofits addressing social issues such as violence against women, rural education, climate change, animal protection, and effects of urbanisation.