The Union minister for culture, Mahesh Sharma, may be in favour of a curfewed social life for women, but the RSS’ Akhil Bharatiya Itihaas Sankalan Yojana (BISY) defines the golden period for women in India as the Rig Vedic age where they went beyond traditional roles, “married at a mature age” and “had the right to choose their husbands.”

In fact, according to an invitation for research papers issued by the BISY, for a seminar it is hosting in December on status of women, restrictions on women, the kind Dr. Sharma spoke about, happened after invasions from outsiders like “Yavanas, Shakas, Huna, Kushana and several other reasons, the status of women began to decline and with Islamic invasions later, women’s freedom and rights.”

The convenor for BISY Bal Mukund told The Hindu, that the seminar would be held in December in Mysore, and that papers detailing research into this aspect had been invited. “We hold a seminar every three years, as part of our charter to promote history and historiography. This time the theme is how the status of women in India deteriorated to this extent,” he said.

“Women as scholars, and with important economic roles have dotted Rig Vedic history, they have written Richas of the Vedasa, and we have to know how the decline in their rights came,” he said. Asked how he could square this view with the frequent calls by Sangh associates that Hindu women should bear more children and to view them only for child bearing purposes, he said that “no reasonable person can hold that view.”

He did however, in the context of a so-called decline in Hindu population to below 80% of India’s total numbers say that, “such remarks as above need to be heard in the proper context.”

“We are worshippers of Ardhanarishwara, for us the male and female element is the same,” he said.