Why you shouldn’t call her a ‘Aurat’
Every year on 8th of March, women’s day is celebrated internationally to rejoice the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. This year women across the globe took up the challenge to #BreakTheBias and aimed towards ‘‘Gender Equality for a Sustainable Tomorrow.’
In a context with India’s one of the longest running comedy sitcom Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashma, we remember Jhethalal scolding Dayaben as ‘Ae Pagaal Aurat’,’ it sure was funny years back and still is. But do we really know what ‘Aurat’ means?
‘Aurat’ derives from an Urdu word for woman, which in Arabic is ‘awrat’, meaning genitalia, defectiveness and nudity.
Bharat that is modern day India, has seen many infiltrations in its culture since centuries, be it the mughals or early invasion. As a result, unknowingly, in the Hindi language we speak locally there many Urdu/Arabic words imbibed in it. The term awrah or awrat that means shame, blemish, defectiveness or shame, that means we somehow kept calling our women ‘defective.’
Many twitter users on this women’s day tried to spread awareness on this topic, one twitter user wrote a thread saying that, ‘Woman is commonly referred to as “Aurat” in Hindi/Urdu. Hindi, unfortunately, got corrupted with Persian /Arabic during invasions & popularized by Bollywood in recent times. But we take words that are culturally inapplicable in India and that is where we should draw the line.’
During the Southeast Asian games 2015, a Malaysian gymnast Farah Ann Abdul Hadi was attacked on the internet for showing her ‘Aurat’ despite of winning gold medal for her country. Several Muslim men called out her on Facebook, a user named Muhammad Nur Salam wrote on, “Until she’s dead too people can see the shape of her vagina and aurat.” Another user called Amir Muhd wrote that, “Just strip off your clothes lah… let everyone see,” from a report of Malaymail.
From producing a movie named ‘Aurat’ to the popular the dialogue ‘Sharm aur Laaj to Aurat ka gehna hota hai’ in Housefull movie, didn’t writers in Bollywood knew the meaning before glorifying such derogatory word?
A culture where women are treated as goddesses, where we worship Maa Durga, where we had such great queens as Rani Laxmi Bai and Ahilya Bai Holkar, even in modern India where Indira Gandhi was the first lady Prime Minister, when did we women became defective?
Woman is a Shakti, instead of such a derogatory word ‘Aurat’, call her ‘Mahila, Patni or Stree,’ in your daily life. What you call her perceives as what you think of her. It’s a new day after women’s day, lets pledge to respect her all life, and remember, ‘Vo Stree Hai!’
