This is a matter that is making a lot of noise at the feet of the Iron Lady. This Monday, the Eiffel Tower was forced to close its doors following a spontaneous strike by its employees. In question? The visit, two days earlier, of a delegation from the Hindu Baps movement. Prior to this arrival, internal instructions led “to exclude, replace or make invisible the female employees” of the monument to satisfy the demands of the religious group.
While the management of the monument and the spiritual organization presented their apologies, the political class was outraged at an attack on republican values and gender equality. But behind this controversy, what is really behind the Hindu Baps movement? What does this affair say about the relationship with women in Hinduism? 20 Minutes takes stock.
What is the Hindu Baps movement?
Founded in 1907 in the state of Gujarat in western India, the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (Baps) is a recent spiritual organization on the scale of the history of Hinduism, resulting from the teachings of a master who lived at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, recalls AFP. Today, the Baps claims more than a million faithful (out of more than a billion Hindus in India) and 1,300 temples around the world, the very last of which has just been inaugurated in Bussy-Saint-Georges. “The Baps is distinguished by the importance given to monastic asceticism: the sannyasis (“renouncers” in Sanskrit) who take a vow of renunciation and total dedication to the institution, are subject to particularly strict rules of life: celibacy, vegetarianism, renunciation of the material world, abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, and can be recognized by their saffron robe,” explains to 20 Minutes an academic specializing in Hinduism. The movement is also very close to conservative Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP party.
Why did they ask that the women working at the Eiffel Tower be “invisible”?
Having taken particularly strict vows of chastity, BAPS monks traditionally avoid close contact with women. “These religious people lead an ascetic life based on detachment from worldly and material attachments,” recalls the specialist. It is in the name of these monastic rules that the organizers requested that employees not be present on the tour route. A request which aroused incomprehension and controversy.
In their temples, a space is reserved for women, into which religious masters do not venture. During the Parisian visit, these wishes clashed brutally with republican principles. By wanting to excessively respect their guests' vow of chastity, the management of the Eiffel Tower accepted conditions that go against the secular values in force in French public space.
Is the Baps movement representative of Hinduism?
Absolutely not. Hinduism is not a homogeneous religion, but rather a “constellation of beliefs and practices”, a portmanteau under which sometimes totally opposed religious realities coexist. “Baps is a rather conservative movement among many others. We cannot in any way associate it with Hinduism as a whole,” insists the researcher. Making this movement the face of an entire religion would be equivalent, for example, to judging the whole of Christianity solely through the practices of Mormons.
Why is it so visible around the world?
Although Baps is far from being the movement with the most devotees in India, it benefits from powerful financial networks, a very active presence within the diaspora (notably in the United Kingdom and the United States) and the direct support of Indian political power.
This financial power allows him to build monumental temples (mandirs) throughout the planet. This spectacular architecture attracts the media spotlight, giving the movement international visibility out of all proportion to its real weight in the global religious landscape.
Is Hinduism a religion that makes women invisible?
Here again, it is impossible to make a binary decision as texts and practices are intertwined. According to the academic, the great founding sacred texts, such as the “Mahabharata” or the “Ramayana”, grant a central place to female figures such as Sita or Draupadi. Long held up as models of virtue, loyalty and devotion, these heroines are today the subject of critical rereadings. Their journeys, often marked by suffering, sacrifice or submission to certain patriarchal norms, are particularly questioned by many Indian feminist intellectuals, who seek to renew the way we look at the condition of women. At the same time, the feminine occupies a major place in the Hindu religious imagination. Through the sacred figure of the mother and the cult of numerous goddesses, woman is frequently associated with the divine.
This spiritual valorization of the feminine, however, coexists with a more contrasting social heritage. For centuries, certain texts and practices have contributed to legitimizing a patriarchal vision of society, based in particular on arranged marriages, the ideal of the devoted wife or even sati, an ancient practice of immolation of widows which has now disappeared. If very traditionalist fringes still assign women to the home, modern Hinduism is increasingly detaching itself from this and encouraging education as well as the professional emancipation of women.
Why do Westerners see India as a country hostile to women?
The image of an India as dangerous or hostile for women has more to do with socio-economic factors than religious dogma. “It has absolutely nothing to do with Hinduism,” confirms the academic.
The violence suffered by women or the harassment sometimes felt by foreign travelers can be explained by the level of poverty, the lack of education in certain remote regions and the overall social inequalities of the country. Attributing these excesses to the Hindu religion would be a shaky shortcut, as the situation of women is evolving very quickly in contemporary Indian society.
