Ram Puniyani
Women’s struggle to break the shackles of patriarchy and come of their
own is a part of democratization/secularization process of society. In India
while this equality has been granted right with the implementation of
Constitution in free India, the social realities are far from those of
equality. With the rise of cultural, religious and social norms, which
accompany politics in the name of religion, the matters are worse off as far as
struggle for gender justice is concerned. While women’s movement has been
asserting the longing for equality, this process has got several obstacles and
these obstacles, when couched in the language of religion become much more
difficult to overcome.
The observation of Bombay High Court (March 2012) that married women
should be like Goddess Sita and should give up their all to accompany their
husband like Sita did, is what is desirable. The learned judges were opining on
a case of divorce in which woman is not willing to join her husband, who has
got a job in Port Blair and she is living in Mumbai. The judge’s observation
and taking a cue from the mythological figures itself has lot of problems. On
the top of that the analogy of Sita may be most painful as far as women are
concerned. Despite various versions of Lord Ram story prevailing around the
most common and well known in this part of the country is the one of Valmiki.
This Valmiki version has been made more popular byMahrshi Ramanand
Sagar through his serial Ramayan. Here the character of Sita is most servile
and subservient to the Lord. For example when Ram faces the dilemma of
banishing her to forest on the alleged rumours of Sita’s chastity, Sita in
Ramanand Sagar’s version herself prods her husband to send her to forest, quite
a retrograde fall over the version of Valmiki himself.
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| Sita's Agni-Pariksha |
The misery intensifies. There is a rumour questioning the chastity of
the queen. The King, Lord Ram, is witness to the agniparikshka. At
this point instead of protecting his wife, who is pregnant, he asks his loyal
brother Laxman to dump her in a forest. Exiling a pregnant wife can not by any
standard be part of the justice at any time in the history. Years later when
Ram meets Sita by coincidence, Ram hesitates to take her back and at this point
Sita commits suicide. Probably amongst all the mythological figures, Sita’s is
the most tragic tale.
While all this is part of the popular folklore, how come the learned
judges give the advice to any married woman to emulate Sita? No woman can have
a life worse than this. The other point is in the present society trying to
march towards democratic values; can we think of giving the examples from
mythology to be emulated today? The period of society depicted in mythologies
is the one which was having values of kingdoms. Kingdoms had the values of
‘birth based hierarchy’ of caste and gender. While the claims are that in
ancient India, women had a glorious and respectable life, the truth comes out
from the values given in the Manusmirti, a book where the women has the status
totally subservient and secondary to man. It was precisely because of the caste
and gender hierarchy of this ‘holy’ book, that Dr. Ambedkar burnt it.
With women’s movement coming up and gender subservience being
questioned, surely our laws and courts have to be sensitive to the aspirations
of women. The very concept of woman losing her basic identity after marriage
has to be consigned to the dustbin of history. The adjustment between couples
has be more innovative, few examples of which one sees in the contemporary
times more so in western countries and in good measure around here as well.
Here in India also there are couples who chart their own course for
togetherness, without losing their basic identities and choices. We need to
bring our thinking in tune with the times, the democratic set up, away from the
birth based hierarchies towards the concept of equality. The intrusion of
feudal and other primordial values has been wearing the garb of fundamentalism,
in various religions. Christian Fundamentalism, Islamic Fundamentalism and
Hindutva are examples where the subordination of women is legitimized in the
language of religion.
In India with the rise of religion based politics with Ram Temple
movement, there has also been a religio-cultural accompaniment in the form
of Godmen, modern Gurus, who are talking of status quo of social
relationships in a refined language. Manu Smriti’s values are being dished out
in the clever disguise by the five star Gurus, with massive following. Many a
television serials are also playing a very retrograde role as far as the norms
of gender equality are concerned. The TV-Baba combination is very lethal for values
desirable in a democratic set up, in a set up where we create social situations
to dump patriarchal norms for good.
The analogy of Sita in particular is very painful but as such any
analogy from mythological and periods of history before the democratic culture
starts coming in has to be shunned. One hope courts and legal structures think
of the fate of Sita before ordaining such a life for women in current
times.
Please contact author: rpuniyani08@gmail.com
