Women in India - is there a hope?

No other society can match the number of reforms that ours has successfully carried out. Our ability to allow and encourage questions is simply unparalleled. That our society still exists and has remained alive and kicking transcending eras of conflicts and invasions - is a proof enough to convince that we have always remained open to questions and reforms. Yes, the kind of individualistic freedom that the today's modern world advocates might not have existed earlier - but the current model is yet to prove its worth. Individual freedom at the cost of maintaining an order in the society has remained a point of real concern for the modern day social scientists. How far is enough - has been the question that the modern world has often struggled to answer. On the other hand, that our society has managed reasonably well in accommodating diverse views and conflicting interests and that too with considerable ease - can only be a matter of amusement for the west. More than us, the West needs to learn from us on how to live in this manner. 

Our present rogue and rotten understanding of the issue of respecting our women and allowing them a desired space is nowhere near to what is depicted in our mythology. The present outlook can only be understood to have got developed over the years during adverse circumstances when probably the society was left with no other alternative to keep. This skewed opinion to put women under so much of restrictions must have been our way to defend us from our inability to affect the required changes in the system that ruled us. A loss of confidence in the ruling system can only be the reason of affecting such transformation where 'precautions' started dominating over 'justice' and 'reasoning'. Yes, the idea of having 'Kunti' or 'Draupadi' may not pass the current scrutiny based on the modern world norms but quite strangely it also appears as un-Indian if it is compared with the present India. The idea of a character "Durga' and 'Kali' on one hand and "Saraswati' and 'Laxmi' on the other may not be 'perfect' by the standards of our modern world but nevertheless they also collide head-on with our current opinion about women. 

Our 'glorious past' may not pass the quality test on a scrutiny based on the parameters of today's modern society but it would only be absurd to overlook the same just because it fails to show us a rosy picture when viewed with a microscope of today's world. Why can't we be asked to change our microscope itself. For it is high time that we start inspecting the idea of putting individual concerns ahead of the concerns of the society as that has only resulted in encouraging a culture of violence and dissatisfaction - prevalent everywhere today. A disturbed and agitated society that lost its patience on the rape-events in the absence of any effective action by the system has shown enough glimpses to prove that branding us as a society that encourages rape-culture is patently unjustified. This strategy is intended only to encourage 'Mukesh Singhs' and abuse and suffocate 'Nitbhayas'.

The case of BBC documentary

A fear shivered down my spine the day I had heard about the Nirbhaya case. Subsequently it has always been an emotion-shattering feeling for me whenever through the media I happened to encounter the details about how the crime was executed beyond all 'imagined' limits of brutality. A movie would have been completely censored if someone had tried to show what had actually happened that night! I remember, despite these hard hitting realities and despite the fact that the entire country was mourning the death of a braveheart and was feeling disgusted and ashamed, it could not stop an insensitive 'creative' artist from attempting to glamorize that gruesome 'rape in a bus' event. Understandably, the attempt faced spontaneous uproar from all corners and the creator was forced to dump the project (probably). Yet another insensitive attempt has been made by the BBC by daring to air the views of that mentally sick culprit who is undoubtedly an inhuman criminal by instinct. With no intention of asking you to draw any conclusion on those who could watch the documentary, I must confess that I will never be able to find enough strength to face his weird views in the name of logic as it would only expose our collective failure and magnify our sense of helplessness in proving him that there is no place for him in this universe.

You are free to blame me and my origin for having a feeling like this but I could not stop myself from writing this when I saw my feelings almost resonating with the shattered mother of the unfortunate victim yesterday on a TV channel. This development has only magnified the sense of defeat in me!

What hurts me most is when a set of 'independent and free thinkers' make an attempt at extracting and then magnifying a non-existent 'Indian' trace out of the words and sentences of the culprit that found a crucial space in the BBC documentary. I am convinced along with my countrymen that there was nothing 'Indian' in whatever had happened that night. As a matter of fact, it was Indian-ness that transformed the victim into an overnight emblem of courage and fighting spirit and it was exactly the same reason that had instantaneously demon-ized the culprit.

Survival of Indian Secularism Industry

Secularism in its mutated format of majority-bashing flavour is not an idea in India any more, it has developed into an industry. The entire media thrives on this skewed understanding of secularism. It is used as a protection by a selected few individuals among the vast population of minority to keep on exploiting their supporters. It pays to side with an NGO that supports this violated form of secularism as (a la Teesta) money starts pouring in. This industry provides a cover to many minority institutions to hide their activities of conversion. Human activism as a byproduct of this industry helps many groups in hiding their anti-nationalist intentions and activities. Corruption happens to be the end product of this industry. Seculars are so overflowing with leaders like Lalus, Mulayams, Kapils, Mamtas, Jayalalitas and Rajas that it becomes impossible to find a clean leader among them. And even if with some great difficulty you are able to identify a small fry with a clean history, the culture of secularism makes them difficult to accept that clean individual as their leader.

After the emergence of BJP in India, this nearly century-old secularism industry has been hit very hard. What adds to the discomfort of these seculars is the fact that the nationalist party has no dearth of financially clean leaders who are devoted to their ideology. A clean leader on the top makes these seculars uncomfortable – it becomes difficult for them to breathe corruption. They find no other way but to follow the same old tactics that they had been pursuing ever since Modi became the CM of Gujarat. These elements keep on trying to portray a picture that is very far from the hard reality. They kept on doing the chest-beating on the alleged poor and dismal condition of minorities in Gujarat while the reality has remained opposite to their claims if their status is compared with the other states in India. The rise of minorities in Gujarat during Modi's tenure is an example enough to shut these laud-mouths up but they would not do that as they earn their living on this. I dare these close-minds to first rise above their vested interest and then honestly analyze why an RSS man Modi saved a minority 'Father Alexis' from Taliban – they would immediately realize that RSS and Modi are actually following our true tradition and ancient-pure form of secularism. They consider all Indians as Hindus - a word that helps them in discovering a deeper connect within the fellow nationals.

Understanding the Godmen syndrome

It is true that Hinduism has survived centuries of invasions to throw enough evidence of its strength however, PK has indeed highlighted one of the rare weaknesses of Hinduism for which Hindus very easily fall for Godmen. While in other religions, the final word is awaited only from their well identified and organized places of worships, Hindus are quite unorganized in this regard. In all other religions only the pre-identified religious heads are in a position to use or misuse their status, but in Hinduism anyone can occupy the place of religious authority. This unorganized character of Hinduism allows its followers to look, on their own, for the one who can directly address to their problems/doubts. Godmen look to fill up this void existing in this peculiar religious set up of Hinduism. As a natural consequence to this, many genuine thinkers and several ace social reformists of Hinduism have often been historically pushed to the place of Godmen/God while on the other hand some cunningly exploit this weakness of the Hinduism to fool their gullible followers. The scope of having acceptability of a Godman has helped Hinduism to carry out several great reforms successfully. Therefore while asking the followers to test the genuineness of their respective Godmen must be encouraged but forcing them against having Godmen altogether will make this great Hinduism also as narrow and as rigid as other monolithic beliefs like Islam, Christian and Communism.

In addition to above, it seems to me that this 'weakness' of Hinduism is directly linked with a typical Hindu outlook wherein they can see God literally in everything – sun, moon, earth, mountain, animals, trees, stones and idols. Hindus can worship anything and therefore anyone who is able to win their heart easily become yet another object of their faith and worship. It is exactly this attitude of Hindus that make them bow even before the tokens and emblems of other faiths and religions - with highest respect and that too as almost in a reflexive manner. Developing respect for other religions comes almost natural to Hindus. It is no nonsense that while even neighbouring countries with identical background as ours chose to become non-secular state in their complete senses, Hindustan preferred 'secularism' by heart. This idol-worshipping attitude that makes Hindus prone to falling prey to even those Godmen who try to take undue advantage of their honest beliefs – also help them in becoming 'true seculars'. While there is indeed a need to caution gullible Hindus to test a person completely before accepting him/her as a Godman, it is even more important to ensure that idol-worshipping is neither underestimated and nor ridiculed ever as it helps in producing truly 'secular' persons in abundance to keep the secular character intact of this country.