Of Article 19 and Women

 The constitution of India in its very preamble promises liberty of expression for its citizen. The right to speech and expression are one of the fundamental rights which the world's largest democracy offers to its people. Even though Article 19 was being violated by the very governing bodies, it still survives in our preamble and constitution without amendments. The violation of Article 19 happens not only on these serious grounds but also in very household where they teach their girls to obey than to raise questions by the hands of patriarchy. This is not something that is limited to the Indian scenario but that is one of the world's ways of teaching women to obey, moulding them to listen to the words of others rather than speaking their thoughts and emotions to anyone. 

The recent Malayalam movie “Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey” by Vipin Das talks about the violation of many fundamental rights of women. The movie has been a success in the theatres and reviews are all talking about this fun-filled satire on patriarchy and domestic violence. A woman may have her eyes more on domestic violence.  The intervention of patriarchy into the choices of women is commonplace.  Jaya is no stranger to the audience she is one of us, or she is a portrayal of ourselves. The only funfilled scenes are from Jaya’s transformation to her own wall of resistance. The movie begins with toddler Jaya, this helps the audience to witness the upbringing of her and effortlessly shows the amount of unfairness in a woman’s life that’s taken for granted. The movie depicts how the girl is brought up as one to be married off from the very childhood. She is being denied the right to desired education and even the right to speak for herself in front of her family. The home extends the right to make opinions on Jaya’s life but silences Jaya who actually holds it.

The same denial of Article 19 repeats regularly in the movie until she marries Rajesh, a typical middle-class man running a chicken business, and who has no respect for the women in his family. It is Rajesh who brings out the warrior of resistance in her. When Jaya comes to Rajesh's home for the first time she notices many broken things that have been repaired and taped together, as if they were a forewarning of what her life would be like in that household. Jaya seeks help from her parents and all her hypocritic guardians to help from being beaten by the man who they find for her, the mother says that is normal in a woman’s life while her father is too busy with his tea to listen. Despite this cold behaviour from her parents, she uprises as a woman of resistance by making use of her smartphone effectively. Even though this part gives goosebumps to the audience, all the women knew that this is a fictional buildup or not more than a daydream for the real-life victims.

Although this movie was not able to travel with the perspective of Jaya or to stick to the realities of womanhood and its sufferings, discussions on women and the subjugation they face from their very home are something to be welcomed in the mainstream media.

Ms. Athira Hanna, Assistant Professor of English, Al Shifa College of Arts and Science, Kizhattoor, Perinthalmanna