‘Liberals’ of our country have apparently
chosen the concept of ‘patriarchy’ to satiate the escapist mindset existing in
our society. They use the idea of ‘patriarchy’ to blame it for being the reason
of all evils in the society. I just wonder, such a faulty vision only provides
them some superficial satisfaction with little intention to outline a roadmap
to carry out reforms. This concept has originated outside India primarily to attack
the ‘family structure’ as the concept of ‘patriarchy’ believes that ‘family’ is
basically a unit created to execute ‘exploitation’. Family for them is a place
created by the patriarch society to exploit women, child and weaker
components of the unit. As a matter of fact, in Indian context, ‘family’ is an
idea that has worked to save and protect the interest of the disadvantaged
components of the unit. This one-sided abuse of the concept of ‘family’ gets
reflected in the approach wherein instead of carrying out an evaluation and
assessment of the system that we are in, instead of talking ‘also’ about the
advantages of the system that exists at present, the focus has always been on
painting ‘family’ as the main culprit of the system. In this background
therefore, ‘patriarchy’ is the characteristic of a society that can be entirely
understood only when you are viewing the society with a negative mindset.
Unfortunately, those who refuse to notice any of the positives of a ‘family
based society structure’ feel inherently resonated with the expressions of
anti-patriarchy expletives and with no better alternative to offer, they prefer
to break this structure in a blind hope that the new structure cannot be as bad
as it exists at present. In the context of our society however, those who are
exaggeratedly frustrated with ‘whatever order' that exists in our society and those
who feel that they are not allowed to live their adventurous fantasies on the
demand of respecting that 'order', feel compelled to misuse the term
‘patriarchy’ and then to take advantage of the chaos created out of that.
The idea of ‘patriarchy’ has been
identified with a misplaced believe that men and women can form parallel
structures in a society and that it is only the bad effects of ‘Patriarchy’
that has dwarfed the extent and broadness of the area associated with women
when it is compared with that of the men. Whereas the fact is, that instead of
being parallel they constitute different parts of a circular construct. No one can
be a substitute for the other and both have many different aspects of social
and family issues to deal with. In their skewed narration, ‘patriarchy’ assumes
that both the parts are exactly identical and quite illogically are blinded to
the realty that they are indeed ‘different’. The fact that they have different
collective aspirations, that they both prefer different ways for enjoyment,
that they have different fantasies to deal with and that they both have
different demands to meet – is completely ignored and hushed up in this new
approach of demonizing ‘patriarchy’.
Among many of their ill-conceived
constructs, the one that I would take up here is their complete rejection for a
safety manual for women in the name that men do not have such a manual. This
issue has caught our attention like never before after Amitabh drew our
attention on the issue very effectively during the narration he presented in
the film PINK. Please think again, before accepting this assertion blindly. Men
are also expected to follow a safety manual but that is, of course, different
from that of the women. Children again, have their own safety manual. And even
among them, Girls have a manual different from that of the boys. Old men and
women have another set of safety manuals. So, what exactly is the problem? And
therefore, instead of derailing this discussion and jumping on the issue of why
do these manuals exist at all, let us discuss the ‘real issue’ of why do we
have different manuals for each of these categories - as it is often objected
to by the ‘liberals’ when they are in some senses relatively. Yes, why are
these manuals different? Let me ask now, are the threat concerns same for these
categories? Do all these categories have identical aspects and similar dimensions
of threats? Would you feel equally enraged, equally devastated and equally
shattered when the threats, unfortunately, happen to come true in the two
cases? You cannot have the same safety manuals of a bank account that has a
facility of an online transaction with those that are not registered for such a
facility. When the threat concerns are different, it is only logical to have
different set of safety manuals. `Realistically speaking, the day when we all
would feel equally shattered in the two cases, even the safety manuals would
merge into one. But till then, they will and they should remain different.
In the right urge of making the
society accept an aberration, you cannot justify making that as a rule. In
order to make the society accept acts of consensual sex among friends, any
effort to encourage the same must also be opposed. In order to make the society
accept adultery (of both the variations) as an inescapable reality, you cannot
glorify such an act to be encouraged and emulated by all. And in order to make
the society realize the unnecessary demand of retaining ‘virginity’ one cannot
justify glorifying ‘loss of virginity’ and encourage people to lose it on the
day they acquire adulthood. One must realize the positives of our family based
society structure and then ask for a genuine liberty and scope of freedom
without giving an impression that a section needs a freedom only to match the
other section. In fact, we have already erred in doing so. People of both the
genders of my generation (those who are parents of grown-up individuals) would
agree that ‘boys’ in our days were subjected to a lot more restrictions as
compared to what we now pose on them. Many of the arguments that have led to
such a situation originate from the approach that when girls of today’s age
were being allowed to have more freedom ‘boys’ started demanding even more by
putting across the justification that now ‘even’ girls are doing this much and so
they are ‘entitled’ to get more. That was the aspect that the society ignored
completely while providing the space of freedom rightly to the girls. That the
society, inadvertently allowed a relaxation in the safety manuals for men in
the name of putting off some of the obsolete restrictions on women – is where
we have collectively erred. We must rein the boys back to the stage of our
generation to keep the advantages of our family based system intact and correct
the obsolete approach of putting unnecessary restrictions on women so that our
society remains as healthy as earlier.
