As a friend few years back called me a right winger and conseravtive, i kept on thinking about it for long. Is it bad to appreciate the heritage, culture and inherent reasons for existence of many of thse traditions? I felt proud of the civilisation that i am born in for the simple fact that it allowed divergent views.
Off late it has become fashionable to ridicule tradition in the so called, modern forward thinking world citizens. Many of whom watch NDTV or CNNIBN and use them as their primary source for world view. Wherein they talk about the pollution that comes on Diwali but never mention the tons of confettis that re blown away on Christmas along with the garbage, primarily plastic piling on the roads. They even ignore the cruel culling on poor animals on EID through a painfully process of Halal and go to the extent of respecting the sensitivities of Christans and Muslims. Fair enough, how about respecting the rights of other indians who follow Sanatan?
Today, 'Jallikattu' is referred as barbaric but the same crowd goes berserk as seeing bulls chasing 3 Bollywood actors in the popular movie 'jindagi an milegi dobara' . Is it the anglicised , metrosexual (feminine) heros with waxed chests look far more appealing to our world view of being modern and the VESHTI clad, skinny , dark natives running in front of bulls inTamil nadu are not so appealing that's why the whole acts is termed as barbaric?
One question which I want to ask the so called, modern, forward, English speaking , urbane population of this country is where is their famed nostril flaring anger at the murder of Bhanvari devi? I do know for a fact that if some CONgress politicians would not hav been involved then NDTV/CNNIBN would have taken the culprit to cleaners but as we understand you can't expose the people who pay your salaries. Most of the English media has concocted a story as of she deserved to die like this, murdered, burnt and pieces thrown into canal. Behind the exterior of sophistication is the real intent visible when they use the words like ,"small town woman", "big ambitions" and "dangerous liaisons". What a double speak this is. I know of many English speaking, career woman who did exactly the same as Bhanvari, slept with their mentors to have a great career, faster promotions or to have a life style that they could not afford. But off course , they are modern and definitely not small town . Moreover they speak English unlike Bhanwari Devi .
How blithely we abuse the Right for anything and everything that offends those who promote and practice unrestrained libertinism and are appalled that morals and scruples are still valued by the vast majority of the people of India. It is of little or no consequence to the critics of the Right that most of them lack the intellectual wherewithal to define and qualify the object of their hate. Despite the absence of any real understanding of what the Right stands for, in contrast to the Left, it is fashionable to mock at the former even for those whom the latter holds in utter contempt.
Hence the outpouring of abuse and worse against the Right following the attack on a pub in Mangalore, evocatively named Amnesia, by a bunch of goons masquerading as soldiers of Sri Ram Sena on January 24.,2009. Strangely, most of the scathing criticism of the Right was and is voiced by those whose dissolute lifestyle sets them firmly apart from conservatives as well as liberals. It is doubtful whether the Left, leave alone the Right, would endorse the enterprise undertaken by The Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women to collect pink underwear, sneeringly referred to as ‘chaddis’, which was sent to Pramod Muthalik and his hoodlums on Valentine’s Day that year. There is nothing amusing about either this ‘creative’ protest or Union Minister of State for Women and Child Development Renuka Choudhury’s call for a ‘pub bharo andolan’; both merely highlight the moral bankruptcy of a certain segment of our urban society which seeks to impose on India the trailer park ‘culture’ that permeates every aspect of their lives.
" The issue really isn’t one of culture and tradition, which are far too complex for those who look askance at responsible behaviour to comprehend, but the manner in which they view others who may refuse to embrace or applaud their lifestyle. It is also to do with perverse notions of ‘modernism’ and assertion of perverted ‘modernity’. For instance, The Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women — this Facebook group also had men as its members — would consider women who don’t consume alcoholic beverages or smoke cigarettes, wear saris and are not necessarily long-suffering wives who spend their lives as home-makers but in building successful careers, as ‘backward’.
They would view working women who travel in over-crowded buses and commuter trains and return home in the evening too tired to contemplate a night out on the tiles, or those who contribute to the family kitty to keep the home fire burning and, therefore, cannot afford the luxury of scoffing exotic cocktails at pubs, as losers deserving of their pity. The women who scrub floors, wash clothes and clean dishes to eke out subsistence wages from which they save money to pay for their children’s school fees and books, and are regularly beaten black and blue by their husbands after they have had their fill of liquor at ‘pubs’ which cater to the underclass, simply do not matter and, hence, are not worthy of The Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women’s attention".
There is also the aspect of duplicity, the double standards which are practiced by those who equate ‘pub culture’ and its attendant libertine self-indulgence with being ‘forward’ or ‘modern’. For example, a woman with the pallu of her sari firmly placed over her head will be sneered at as not only ‘backward’ but also a ‘conservative’ who is preventing society from moving ‘forward’. But a woman forced to clad herself in an all-enveloping burqa will be seen as being true to her ‘faith’ and ‘culture’, which only underscores the amazing ignorance of those who do the tagging.
Who is to tell The Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women, and their guardian angel Renuka Choudhury, that a vegetarian and a teetotaller, whether a man or a woman, who finds ‘pub culture’ abhorrent and distasteful, or those who reject conspicuous consumption since it clashes with their middle class values, can also be ‘forward’ and ‘modern’ in their personal lives?
"Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar did not give up his sacred thread nor did he get rid of the tuft of hair that denoted his caste; he wore a short Bengali peasant’s dhuti and used a coarse cotton chaador to cover his torso. He was a scholar of Sanskrit who was barely able to make ends meet, leave alone indulge in the smallest of luxuries. Such a person would be an object of ridicule and worse for The Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women, especially the male members of the group who would burst into derisive laughter. That’s understandable. For those busy collecting pink chaddis would be blissfully ignorant of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s pioneering role in championing women’s emancipation and promoting widow remarriage. Nor would they know about Raja Ram Mohun Roy who led a remarkable campaign for social reform without abandoning culture and tradition: The Brahmo Samaj was — and remains — grounded in India’s civilisational identity and cultural ethos while repudiating aberrations and excesses of faith.
A last point that merits elaboration is the disdain which the pink chaddi brigade and charlatans who pose as emancipators of women and ostensibly believe that emancipation lies in sipping Bacardi or chasing whiskey while blowing smoke rings have for local community sensitivities, which are often casually referred to as local culture and tradition. Just because lip-locking or similar public display of carnal attraction (which is not to be confused with love) raises no eyebrows in the West does not mean the East must ape the mating game. It is immaterial whether individuals are comfortable with licentious behaviour in front of others. What is material and important is whether those around the individuals — in a street, a park, a café or a restaurant — are comfortable with it; if they feel discomfited or outraged, then their sensitivities must over-ride the presumed right to make a spectacle of yourself in public."
Let me tell you dear 'modern, loose moral, consortium of pub going men and women', you indeed are rootless, characterless and unprincipled zombies. You who've no strength of character. Even if Bhanvari did what she did, nobody has any right to kill her for ambitions and she deserves justice and yes more outrage. Where are the champions of women's modesty and her right o have a life that she wants and chooses for herself.
Remember PINK CHADDIS Bhanvari Devi has a 17 year old son and 2 daughters.
Quotes from Kanchan Gupta's article in January 2009
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