Demonizing Patriarchy: Enforcing PINK safety manual

‘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. 

A visit to Khajuraho Temple Complex

My recent visit to the Khajuraho temple complex left me completely perplexed. At the first sight itself, it is impossible not to get completely stumped at the architecture of the temple complex and the beauty of the sculptures built on those temples. Temples and the carvings on them are so artistic that each corner of the complex will just leave you awestruck. And these artistic marvels just induce a sense to do something to preserve these divine works. But what bothered me was that face of not even a single sculpture could be found complete. They all, without exception, show clear evidences to have been faced hammer of destruction on their faces. None of the faces carved in the stone has been left with complete features. I have absolutely no doubt therefore, that the left-liberal historians have been working on a mission just to establish an impossible proposition as truth. They have taken up a herculean task to de-demonize the Mughal period cruelties that were carried out in the name of religion. And even if I leave aside the issue of destruction of these artistically precious structures, it is also difficult to imagine the kind of culture that could have accepted such temples in those times.

Our historians have shoved down so much hatred for our past into our mind that they have almost convinced us that we never had a past to be proud of. Just imagine, even the ‘modern’ British who discovered these temples had a horrifying time conjecturing for a possible justification of such sculptures that are openly and artistically carved on the walls of temples. The more I tried to analyze the more I am convinced that we are completely disconnected with the society that prevailed those days. Do we exactly belong to that society? Isn’t there a clear discontinuity in our evolution process? Have the invaders eliminated an entire generation, an entire culture and a developed society. Are we only the ‘left-overs’ whom they did not found worth-eliminating. It is difficult to reject that the invasion eliminated a society that was so open, so peace-loving, so divine and so religious that they failed to devise ways to face the Mughal Rakshasas.

Only a developed society can have flourishing arts and culture. Only a peace loving community that was never prepared for such a catastrophe could be so rich in arts and culture. Imagine the society which had accomplished artists in abandon. I am afraid, the manner in which our history books have presented our past, they leave us with more questions than the answers in the end. And that gives others a scope to provide us another equally (un)convincing theories and conjectures. Genuine and open minded research has not been done in ‘History’ till now. It is high time that our history books are written in a manner so that we can get answers to our genuine queries instead of misusing ‘history’ with a purpose to control our future. 

Unresolved issues and Inappropriate Celebration

I am amazed at the celebration mode of some DUTA leaders on the news of change in ministry. This news was celebrated as if DUTA has been able to resolve any of the major issues that are concerning and bothering the teachers in general. It is more than clear now that ‘their’ disproportionate sense of achievement would get 'completed' only with the exit of NDA government. The scale and extent of celebration only proved what some of us have often been reiterating in our assessment that DUTA has been derailed from its primary focus. It is lately being used more as a platform for venting out their politically motivated desire and outbursts of opposing and defaming the government at the Centre.

The hard reality is that the present government was greeted by a list of long pending chronic problems that were started and then left unresolved by the UPA government. The problems of unmanageable number of adhoc teachers and the un-implementable nature of API-PBAS scheme both were inherited by this government from the earlier regime.

Yes, the MHRD failed to address these issues effectively and this could be one of the factors that could have led to the change in the ministry. However, it would dishonesty if the efforts made by the MHRD in getting these long-pending problems resolved, are not acknowledged. Although it is true that all the efforts in terms of 3rd, 4th amendments and further clarifications carried out to address the issue were quick like never before but in the final analysis those were proved only to aggravate the problems due to factors that the new minister will face as a challenge. I hope the new minister would be able to take control of the forces working within the system against the government.

Interestingly, even groups active under DUTA can not absolve of from their contribution in getting these two problems to this alarming stage. While AADityans can hardly save themselves from the blame of directly supporting the regimes that created this huge pool of adhoc and un-promoted teachers, DTF also can not wash their hands off from the fact that they did not launch any effective attack despite having DUTA’s functioning under their major control. NDTF, on the other hand, have no such history of helping factors that led towards building up of these problems.

I am a proud NDTF activist who can claim that NDTF, after the present government came into power, actually played a significant role in DUTA to ensure continuation of adhoc teachers in the last few semesters besides getting the permanent appointments started. And after the change of ministry, we will keep our efforts going with a greater hope of resolution of all our problems to the satisfaction of teachers.

Breaking a Myth - Air-conditioning of Campus costs a fortune

It is ‘normally assumed’ that making an entire college building air-conditioned would burden the students with unreasonable increase in fees, but I am afraid – this is only a myth created by those who love to exploit this ‘common sense’ by offering such a justification for the huge fees that they charge from the students. As it might be shocking to know that making all the classrooms & Labs of a college air-conditioned would actually cost less than Rs. 500 per students annually!

I was driven to write this piece when I came two know about the recent turmoil that Hindu College observed when they decided to charge a hefty fees for their newly constructed Girls’ Hostel – many steps more than what Boys are being charged. The justification offered in support of this differential fee structure was that the new structure was proposed to be air-conditioned.

Surprisingly, generally speaking, it is a commonly established and accepted fact that an educational institution that has air-conditioned class rooms can sustain its infrastructure only by charging fees in lacs. I am here to break this myth. I would pick up the case of my college that has around 5000 fees-paying students, around 50 class rooms and approximately 20 labs. To start with, I can assure you that if I dump 150 air-conditioners in my college, the administration will face huge difficulty in finding a place to install all of them (given that the college already has some air-conditioners installed in the office and some computer labs). Now let me place some basic calculations here. It would be perfectly realistic to assume that purchase and installation (including cabling) will cost approximately 50 thousand per AC. Therefore the total cost of installation of these 150 ACs will be 150x50,000=75,00,000. And thus, the cost incurred per student will be a one-time contribution of 75,00,000/5000 = 1500 (Rs.). It is clear that we need only a single contribution of Rs. 1500 per student to ensure air-conditioning of the entire college building. Moreover, if our college decides to do this in a span of three years, we need a contribution of Rs. 500 per student to achieve our target in a time-bound 3-year time.

Now, another greater myth is on the running cost of these ACs. Let me try to break this myth too. On an average, our college can claim to have not more than 180-200 teaching days in a year. And discounting the winter days when ACs are not required, we may need these ACs in the class rooms only for about 150 days and that too from 9 AM to 5 PM (8 hours a day). This generous estimate makes these 150 ACs run for 150x150x8 = 1,80,000 hrs. On an average this would consume 2,70,000 units of energy costing Rs. 25 lac maximum. This, when distributed on the 5000 students would come to 25,00,000/5000 = Rs. 500 per student per annum! Given that colleges are already charging a minimum of Rs. 10 thousand per annum from the students, it is only a lack of vision that has pulled the college administration back from making the campus air-conditioned. On the contrary, colleges have often given an impression that air-conditioning the campus would cost them fortune. Myth have got built up by the incident like Hindu College that proposed to charge about Rs. 1,20,000 per student as compared to Rs. 80,000 per student primarily for air-conditioning. A whooping difference of Rs. 40,000 per students annually is not only ethically unjustified but that also help create the ‘Myth’ that I have pointed out here. When AC can be for all – it is conspiratorially being utilized with a motive to create and maintain a division between an Elitists’ and a supposedly Commoners’ institution.

Let us break this myth and encourage college administrations to think of ways to get the entire campus air-conditioned. One must never forget that air-conditioned class rooms not only can encourage attendance in the classrooms but it would also provide the students the much-required comfortable environment during their tense, hot and anxious examination days.