Pandit with a passion for rights
By Joanne Joseph
Arthi Shanand was pregnant when her husband first hit her. Arthi recalls the shock of that moment, along with his broken promises that it would never happen again. But it did for another twenty-three years, her two children witnessing the violence first-hand. Counselling failed, as did the interventions of both Arthi’s parents and parents-in-law. Her son was driven from their home. In time, Arthi adopted a veil of silence in line with the values of the Hindu community that she says preferred not to ‘air its dirty linen’ in public.
Arthi credits her daughter with persuading to her end her marriage at the age of forty-seven. But she says it was the act of returning to her holy scriptures, the Vedas, that eventually gave her the courage to leave. “It’s not about rituals. It’s about a way of life. And everything in the Vedas points to righteousness, to justice, to empowering other people, uplifting them and finding our way to liberation and salvation.” The Arya Samaj – one of the many offshoots of Hinduism – is a reform movement embracing physical, social and spiritual equality for all. Founded by Swami Dayananda Saraswati in 1875, Arthi says the movement is guided by the principle that “every girl and woman should be educated, and that every woman should be able to find her place in society.”
Two women played pivotal roles in helping Arthi to re-establish herself after her decades-long ordeal. Her mother-in-law welcomed Arthi and the children into her home. “My mother-in-law refused to let me go anywhere else. She wrote her son off. She felt that keeping me with her helped her to compensate for what she couldn’t do. She had a business in Stanger and she ensured that there was nothing I was short of.”
Similarly, Arthi’s mother, who headed up the Women’s Forum at the Arya Samaj, encouraged Arthi to assist at the ashram in Kenville, Durban, where it had opened a shelter. The abused women who came there mirrored Arthi’s experiences, many of them fleeing with their equally traumatised children. “We worked with the SAPS and the Advice Desk for the Abused under the guidance of the dynamic late Dr Anshu Padayachee. We received those women who had run away from home during violent attacks on them and their children, most often at night and on weekends. They would go to the nearest police station for help. We would pick them up from the police station, house them at the shelter with their children till they left us to be with their families. In most cases, we would assist them legally, while also liaising with the children’s schools.”
It became apparent to Arthi that financial co-dependence was one of the main reasons that women stayed in abusive relationships – much as she had. “I was a qualified educator but I hadn’t been allowed to teach because my husband had a business of his own and he expected me to work with him. But I was never paid a salary. I didn’t even have a bank account till I walked out and I went back into teaching.” While Arthi found her feet, she funded her children’s university education with student loans.
In 2008, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The punishing treatment schedule forced her to leave teaching behind. But once she had recovered, she found a new calling, entering the Arya Samaj School of Vedic Studies, which prepared her for the priesthood. Arthi is now a fully-qualified pandit with a deep passion for her vocation.
Her current position as President of the Arya Samaj in South Africa and her active involvement with the Faith Action to End GBV Collective, have allowed her to further cement the anti-GBVF cause. She says, compared to India and Mauritius where the Arya Samaj has a distinctly patriarchal bent, the South African chapter is entirely different. “I think I’m the only female country president of the Arya Samaj globally. At a conference in Mauritius recently, they were surprised that I am the president of the organisation. They’re all very patriarchal.”
Arthi says the Vedas prescribe that every woman should be respected and treated with the dignity she deserves but she is all too aware that apart from a few organisations, many members of the wider Hindu community are at odds with her views on gender empowerment and have shown little interest in joining her anti-GBVF campaign or embracing the Faith Action Collective that unites activists across faiths and enables them to exchange ideas and collaborate on how to eradicate GBVF. Arthi is especially concerned about her community’s discriminatory stance against LGBTQIA+ people, saying their plight is too often ignored. “Nobody wants to help them. For me it’s not only about violence where a woman and child are abused. The LGBTQIA+ community is always abused. So many end up dying by suicide. And who’s going to help them? Even when I sit in the Inter-Faith Forum with the Christians, Muslims and others, I see that very few support this community. We, at the Arya Samaj, are conducting a marriage between a gay couple in August. They want a Hindu wedding but no other Hindu organisation wants to do it. We are doing it unconditionally.”
While Arthi works toward her next goal of extending the work of the shelter that is now based at the Aryan Benevolent Home in Durban, she has further ambitions on the Inter-Faith front. At the Presidential Summit on GBVF2, the Faith Action Collective, hosted by the We Will Speak Out SA coalition, facilitated a session where scholars and activists from six diverse faiths proposed several resolutions, which were accepted by the 1500-strong representation. These included: supporting GBV survivors against their perpetrators; creating safe spaces for survivors where justice can be pursued; dismantling patriarchy from religious teachings and practices; integrating women into more senior roles in religious organisations; strengthening healing and restorative justice, while eradicating what they call ‘all forms of spiritual abuse’ and holding religious leaders accountable for abuse within reasonable time frames.
Arthi believes it is possible to reach these resolutions with the requisite will. “We want to work towards making them attainable. I know we’re going to have a struggle but we’re not going to give up. We’ve got a huge fight because the community is not interested. As long as it’s not happening in their homes, it doesn’t affect them. Everybody wants to keep this little secret in their homes. They don’t want others to know what’s going on behind closed doors. So to get to the survivors is going to be difficult, especially in the Indian community. But we have to work at it and we need to let them know that they’re safe with us,” she says.
This is one of the broader missions of the Faith Action Collective, in which Arthi is intimately involved. The Collective is becoming particularly vocal as the country transitions towards a Government of National Unity (GNU) in which President Cyril Ramaphosa has encouraged civil society to take a more active role. While the general population hopes the multi-party coalition will combine its efforts to rebuild broken aspects of governance, social activists, like members of the Faith Action Collective, are equally eager to see issues like GBVF tackled with a good deal more resoluteness.
The almost 700 faith sector signatories from eight different faith traditions to an Interfaith Statement of Commitment jointly launched in November 2023, have promised that they will be vocal without fear of causing division or offending the powerful. The growing Faith Action Collective has set out to dismantle toxic masculinity, promote care-giving environments, and act decisively against perpetrators of violence, including religious leaders. It has further pointed out that ignoring poverty, racism, substance abuse and mental health problems, has hindered the prevention of, and contributed to GBVF for too long. It therefore wants to support and increase efforts to offer healing services and ministries to the traumatised, dispossessed and bereaved who have suffered from GBVF. Importantly, it is determined to listen to survivors of GBV, to women and the marginalised, and involve men and boys in calling out behaviours and attitudes that demean women’s dignity, condone violence or stigmatise them.
To realise this will take strong will, unity and the powerful voices of people like Pandit Arthi. And perhaps the message will be that more relatable coming from a religious leader who combines her passion for faith and social justice with the empathy of her lived experience.
The Faith Action to End GBV Collective wants your support for its campaign to end GBVF. Add your commitment to the Joint Statement of Commitment and Pledge at:
Or contact them to get involved: info@wwsosa.org.za
Joanne Joseph is a respected broadcaster with 26 years of experience in media. She has a Master of Arts degree from Wits University and is the author of two bestsellers, ‘Drug Muled: Sixteen Years in a Thai Prison’ (non-fiction) and internationally released historical fiction novel, ‘Children of Sugarcane’.