It’s been sixty years since we attained our Independence and in those sixty years our nation has developed practically in all the fields in leaps and bounds. Mobile-phones, DVDs, iPods have lost their luxury status simply because nearly everyone in our metropolitan cities possesses it. But sad to say that in spite of the tremendous development that our nation has undergone, our male mentality towards their woman-kind remains more or less in a stagnated state.
Now one can somewhat understand the villagers carrying on their age-old irrational tradition of confining their womenfolk amidst the four-walls of their house but frankly speaking is it any better in the metropolitan cities?
Yes, of course, in cities our women and girls are free to follow their way of life – western clothes, designer jewelry, driving cars, late night outings, etc. Most of them are graduates and working on plum positions in renowned companies as well as government departments. Although it apparently seems that they have broken themselves free of male-domination and are competing with their male counterparts; yet these very modern women are covertly entrapped as objects of lust in most of the sadistic and distorted male mentality.
These days’ sexual harassments of lady teachers and lecturers in schools and colleges, of lady executives by their male superiors at work have become overtly common.
Since time immemorial it is the males who have been framing the laws of society and morality, wherein women were placed on the foot-stool of men whose two main services were to confine themselves in kitchen and produce offspring for them. Even God has been shown as a MCP by the so called “Holy Books†which proclaims that ‘Eve’ was created from the last-rib bone of male hence always inferior to man!
The latest sequel wherein Richard Gere kissed Shilpa Shetty was blown out of proportion by our electronic and print-media. This provided a rich fodder for our hypocrite tribe of pseudo-defenders of morality. Those devious moralists nursing erotic thoughts in their pathetic brains left no chance to shout themselves hoarse above their roof-tops claiming that Indian culture has been endangered by this ordinary kissing affair!
Seriously, when do we see these moralists take out rallies against much filthier sexual scenes in Hindi movies and other regional cinemas, where kissing now a days have become a routine norm? Or against despicable crimes such rape, sexual abuse, dowry harassment, etc.
When Southern actress Khushboo in an interview opined that she isn’t against having sex before marriage, it created a ruckus amongst our bogus preachers and kicked so much dust which was enough to cloud the rational thoughts of few of our elites and bend their ways to their mentality of irrational thinking.
A peek in the personal lives of those defenders of morality in this country would reveal their ugly and obnoxious side. One hand they worship and venerate the female Goddess like Durga, Saraswati, Laxmi, and Amba and from the other hand they derive vicious pleasure by suppressing the womenfolk of their house and the nation. This is the kind of double standard lives pursued by our so called cultural saviors.
Right from the age of Ramayana wherein Sita in spite of all the proofs of her sexual innocence had to undergo Agni Pariksha to the present day victimization of Madhumita Shukla, Jessica Lal, Priyadarshini Mattoo and so many innumerable women, only presents us with one harsh fact – No matter how much we have progressed as a nation, an Indian woman is still an “abla nari†in reality.
Comments
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Harsh
May 19th, 2007 at 2:19 pm | #
Yo Sakx!
Agreed on all counts. But you shouldn’t relate this to independence or development of a nation. Even the most developed of nations suffer from such problems. In fact, the infamous “white male superiority” is far more notorious than what you see in India. I would go so far as to say that the culture of no other nation defines women as reverent except in India. No other religion gives so much details about their status in society. Some of these have been morphed over the years by people who claim to ‘own’ religions and heritage. But you can’t deny that the origin of these concepts/fables/lores was for a noble purpose. I somehow think that this is what makes female abuse seem worse in India, because it is a blatant violation of what our heritage teaches us. Otherwise, the problems in question are actually lesser than those in much more developed nations.
The male dominance is so deep-rooted a thing so as to be a basic instinct derived from nature. There’s some validity to it too, as seen across the spectrum of species on earth where, in its rawest form, this dominance arises from males’ superior strength. But it becomes most obvious and disconcerting in case of human beings by virtue of our sensibilities and degree of social structure. While the distinction of being the most developed species on this planet has resulted in rational thought (which in turn leads to scientific, intellectual and emotional progression), it still is not enough to get rid of what nature instilled in us as just another animal species eons ago. If you look at this problem on a geological time scale, the remotest order of social structure arose around 1 million years ago (not a big thing on earth’s time scale), while the animal instinct of male dominance has been around ever since species complex enough to show sexual divide arose – 250 million years ago, or even more.
Simply put, this means that despite the remarkable growth in sensibilities and sensitivities of humans, there are some traits so deeply ingrained that just cannot be washed out because they are partly a result of laws of nature that had formed long before cavemen – or even apes – walked this earth. Sadly, the other results of being a highly developed life-form makes it tough and unfair for us to live with these rules that lesser life forms accept without question.
If these rules do change, they will take a long long time to do so.
Sorry for being so long-winded
Ashi
May 19th, 2007 at 3:12 pm | #
Its not about religions. The religions that say that Eve was created from a rib of Adam mean to say that man is incomplete without woman. Which is true, both are incomplete without the other.It just happens because men and women have a different psyche and thats how nature has made them.If a woman wears shorts, guys are waiting to say “great legs” but women dont do that with men, women dont rape men. We are not bothered how much they expose.It is so even in usa, uk, southafrica so its all men.The only reason why it is more visible in India is because we are not so easygoing and accepting about this nature.Pamela anderson said very openly once that she was raped in high school, can any Indian actress confess such a thing?It had no impact on Pamela’s image or popularity,but in our country such a confession would have been blown into an issue.There they accept this instinctive nature of men and dont look down on victims.Thats the only difference.
Vn
Apr 18th, 2008 at 7:25 pm | #
Sakshi,
I ahve seen your comments in Desicritics as well. People like you who list dowry harasment as a crime must know that 99% of the cases are never convicted despite India has a harsh alw and more than 1200 NGOs and NCW and flamybyont Prsdient, sonia gandhi, and zealous reformers like Renuka?
The real truth is there is no dowry harrsment all are false cases.The abla naris of India file false cases? so I ask you what ahev one of your feminists done to stop false cases. Otherwise the abla naris wont be abla anymore.
Vn