India recently extended a warm welcome to a Taliban delegation led by the group’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. The Taliban’s human rights record, particularly its regressive and misogynistic policies, is well known. While developing relations with the Taliban may be a geostrategic requirement, women in Afghanistan—deprived of basic rights such as education and assembly—must feel utterly betrayed, especially after women journalists were denied entry into the group’s first press conference. Following widespread criticism, women were permitted to attend the next one.

Rise and Ideology of the Taliban

When the Taliban came to power, their decrees shocked the world. This is the same group that destroyed the majestic statues of Gautam Buddha—53 and 35 meters tall—despite appeals from global powers. The world has since watched, helplessly, as the Taliban continued their gross abuse of human rights. It was also the same regime that imposed jizya on non-Muslims.

The Taliban emerged from the generation of youth indoctrinated in a few madrassas in Pakistan, including the notorious Lal Masjid. Although the Taliban has since assumed its own agency, the conditions of its formation deserve recall.

The Taliban were shaped by a particular version of Islam propagated by Maulana Wahhab. When the Soviet army occupied Afghanistan, the United States—still reeling from its defeat in Vietnam—chose to fight its proxy war through what came to be known as the Kissinger Doctrine. It mobilized Asian Muslim youth to fight communism, heavily funding madrassas in Pakistan.

As Mahmood Mamdani details in Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, drawing on CIA documents, the Mujahideen were indoctrinated and supplied with $8 billion and 7,000 tons of armaments, including advanced Stinger missiles.

These trained fighters eventually joined the anti-Soviet resistance, and the Soviet army suffered defeat. The U.S. later extended its dominance through wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Taliban’s brand of Islam remains the most conservative and violent, cloaked in religious legitimacy. In their system, concepts of human rights are absent, and women and other marginalized groups endure severe oppression.

Hindutva’s Patriarchy: The Indian Context

This extreme form of patriarchal control and human rights abuse is not yet visible under the Hindutva nationalism ruling India today. However, the seeds of rigid patriarchy are deeply embedded. The concept of human rights is increasingly being replaced by “rights for the elite, upper-caste, and rich” and “duties for the poor and marginalized,” pushing vulnerable sections further into the margins.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—the parent organization of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—and its women’s wing, the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, remain male-dominated structures. They are rooted in a Brahminical version of Hinduism, starkly contrasting with the liberal and inclusive Hinduism espoused by Mahatma Gandhi—who was, ironically, killed by an adherent of Hindu nationalist ideology.

When B.R. Ambedkar publicly burned the Manusmriti in protest against caste and gender hierarchies, M.S. Golwalkar, the second chief of the RSS, praised the text. After the Indian Constitution came into effect, the RSS mouthpiece criticized it for having “nothing Indian about it.” Golwalkar lamented that “‘modern’ women think modernism lies in exposing their body more and more to the public gaze. What a fall!”

Women in the Hindutva Framework

When Laxmi Bai Kelkar sought to include women in the RSS in 1936, she was told instead to form a separate, subordinate organization—the Rashtra Sevika Samiti. Notably, the term Swayam (self) was omitted from its name, symbolizing the absence of autonomy. Vijaya Raje Scindia, then Vice President of the BJP, glorified sati (widow immolation), while BJP leader Mridula Sinha advised women to conform to patriarchal family norms where the husband is supreme (Savvy Magazine, April 1994). RSS-affiliated groups have opposed women wearing jeans and celebrating Valentine’s Day.

As India’s feminist movement gained strength, it fought against dowry, female infanticide, and other oppressive practices. The RSS neither initiated nor supported these struggles, and it opposed the Hindu Code Bill that sought limited gender equality. Nevertheless, India’s democratic space enabled women to achieve modest gains through their own efforts.

Today, the RSS ecosystem includes the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, Durga Vahini, and the BJP’s women’s wing—all rooted in the same hierarchical ideology that upholds gender inequality and views Manusmriti as foundational. Their rhetoric often blames the “Muslim man” while ignoring patriarchy within their own tradition.

Patriarchy Across Religions and Ideologies

While the Taliban and many Islamist regimes subject women to the harshest forms of oppression, the patriarchal tendencies within Hindu nationalism share ideological similarities. Both stem from feudal notions of gender and hierarchy, though their intensity and expression differ. Every form of politics that cloaks itself in religion tends to preserve feudal values and promote hostility toward the “other.” Even Christian fundamentalism reinforces patriarchal norms. Nazi Germany, too, confined women to the three Ks—kirche, küche, kinder (church, kitchen, children). As we condemn patriarchy and the denial of human rights, we must recognize that all sectarian nationalisms—those rooted in religious or racial superiority—share these regressive traits.

(The author is a former professor at IIT Bombay and Chairman of the Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai. Views expressed are personal and not necessarily shared by editors of SAM. He can be reached at ram.puniyani@gmail.com/ Youtube Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Twitter )