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The Rape of Our Epics: Part 1
January 14, 2013
By Sandeep
Introduction
Nilanjana Roy’s Business Standard piece on Jan 08, 2013 entitled A woman alone in the forest is just the latest in what has become a much-lauded fad. A fad whose staple diet consists of a distorted reading of Indian epics, misinterpretations aplenty, sleights of hand, concealment, and open falsehood. We’ve seen the disastrous results of what happens when such untruths come to be accepted as truth—simply put, they multiply and over time gain such wide currency that even when the truth is pointed out, people simply dismiss it as propaganda or ranting or both. This problem is made worse in a country like India where the English media refuses to give voice to opposing and/or honest viewpoints.
Nilanjana Roy’s piece tries to do two things at the same time: it tries to pin the blame for that Delhi lady’s brutal rape on our epics and like a corollary of sorts, tries to show that “if you hurt the wrong woman, prepare for war.” Among others, a key message of her piece is the fact that our epics have fashioned the way Indians regard and treat women, which includes condoning rape.
Factual Errors and Falsification
However, an honest reading of our epics in fact yields the exact opposite conclusion: treat women badly, and you will suffer horribly. Which is why Nilanjana’s piece abandons honesty and indulges in the aforementioned techniques of deceit in plenty. Let’s examine them, one by one, starting with the very first sentence.
In times of trouble, turning to the great epics is always useful: their ancient bloodstained lines are reminders that we do not have a premium on violence, rape and corpses.
‘tis true, we need to turn to our epics in times of trouble: to seek solace, inspiration, and to learn lessons that are applicable to our own times. However, it’s interesting that Nilanjana chooses to see only bloodstained lines, violence, and rape in them instead of a wealth of learning, high philosophy, a harmonious worldview, a divine view of women, and a solid value system they contain and espouse.
There’s a reason our epics have stood the test of time: they deal with fundamental human impulses and aren’t written with any ideology or theory in mind. As such, they will remain relevant and revered as long as humankind exists notwithstanding however they are interpreted, notwithstanding how much mud is slung at them. Nilanjana herself accepts this albeit in a different, negative light while committing a factual blunder simultaneously:
Over the centuries, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata have become India’s default epics, eclipsing the Rajatarangini, the Cilappatikkaram and other equally powerful legends in the mainstream imagination. While this is a loss…
One wonders on what basis Roy puts Rajatarangini and Silappadikaram in the same bracket as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
Rajatarangini is a historical chronicle proper and not a legend while Silappadikaram is a longish poem written employing a metre that’s used in epic poetry. That alone doesn’t qualify it to be termed a legend at the same level as our epics. These are shocking, factual bloopers for a veteran Business Standard columnist.
Nilanjana omits the fact that Silappadikaram was written in Tamil limiting both its appeal and reach to non-Tamil parts of India. Indeed, Krishnadevaraya’s Amukta Malyada is still one of the most widely read long poems but it’s little known outside Andhra Pradesh. So is Kumaravyasa’s Karnata Bharata Kathamanjari, a classic that is still a blockbuster in terms of book and audio sales, research, and public recitation in Karnataka. The same goes for any celebrated literary work in regional languages in India. Besides, Silappadikaram was composed around the 6th Century (or maybe slightly later), and bears influences of and contains references to the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. It’s pretty clear that by the 6th Century both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata had already left indelible imprints on the Indian social, cultural, and civilizational consciousness. But going by the tone and tenor of the piece, it’s clear that Nilanajana is irked by the endurance of India’s only two epics because she characterizes the relatively less popular Rajatarangini and Silappadikaram as a “loss.” One wonders why. There have been dozens of translations of Rajatarangini so far because it is a proven primary source for studying the history and culture of Kashmir. Second, the enduring popularity of Silappadikaram is evidenced again by its innumerable translations, and its value as a source for studying Sangam Tamil politics, culture, language, and literature. Indeed, both Kannagi and Poompuhar have been superhits in Tamil cinema, a testimony to Silappadikaram’s sustained popularity. Given all this, we wonder where Nilanjana Roy’s “eclipse” and “loss” come from.
Do our Epics Contain Only Rape?
Nilanjana’s piece is chiefly concerned with how “both epics offer an insight into the way rape works in India.” In her own words,
Five stories of rape and sexual assault from the epics are particularly useful. The Ramayana has the abduction of Sita by Ravana, and, running parallel to it, the disfiguration of Surpanakha by Rama and Lakshmana — two atrocities, not one, that trigger a war. The Mahabharata has the public assault on Draupadi at its heart, the abduction and revenge of Amba, and the sanctioned rapes of Amba and Ambalika by Ved Vyasa…The tale most often cited in the aftermath of assaults on women, such as the tragedy of the young woman who died this December after being gang-raped and injured by six men, is Sita’s abduction. This is raised explicitly by pseudo-Hindus, usually as a warning to women to stay behind a Lakshman rekha, an arbitrarily drawn line of protection. It echoes the widespread views of many who blame women for being sexually assaulted, saying that they should not have gone out in public.
The first thing to notice here is the choice of words: “rape” and “sexual assault.” However, a reading of the primary texts reveals that none of the five stories that Nilanjana quotes have elements that come anywhere near what can be called “rape” and “sexual assault” as we shall see. Like I said, it’s clever word play so the question we need to ask is: how does Nilanjana Roy define “rape” and “sexual assault?” Without a clear answer to this, it’s easy write what she does.
Nilanjana Roy characterizes the five stories as such because she employs that other classic trick: imposing the morals and values of today to a period in the ancient past, a classic illustration of Seneca’s “What once were vices are manners now.” What Roy also tries to do is hold the views of a few “pseudo-Hindus” as representative of most (“widespread views”) Hindus. Indeed, if that were true, we need to look at the number of women in urban India who step “out in public” to go to work. That number as Nilanjana knows, is quite high. Doesn’t that mean the menfolk in the family of these women are okay with their women crossing the Lakshman Rekha? Do these men fall under Nilanjana’s “pseudo-Hindus” and “widespread views” category? If not, exactly who are these “pseudo-Hindus?” If not, exactly how widespread is “widespread?” Also, what about those Hindu men who regard women as worthy of worship, a conception higher than respect? Are they also pseudo-Hindus because the same epics have shaped this view of women in them?
Justice to Sita
But before we go there, we need to look at how Nilanjana characterizes Sita.
Sita, though, is not a passive victim, as Namita Gokhale, Arshia Sattar and others argue. Ms Gokhale points out that Sita is the first single mother. Ms Sattar sees Sita as a woman who exercises complex choices, leaving a marriage where she is no longer treated with respect. (This episode, Sita’s rejection of Rama and her building of a life without him, is seldom raised by guardians of the purity of Indian women.)
As we see, she doesn’t characterize Sita but borrows the misguided opinions of Namita Gokhale and Arshia Sattar. In other words, can we conclude that Nilanjana has no original opinion of Sita?
Now, what exactly are Namita and Arshia’s credentials to hold forth on Sita? Because an honest, objective reading of the Ramayana does not yield the characterization they have put forth. Of all the things I’ve read about Sita, characterizing her as a single mother is both the funniest and the most ridiculous one. One wonders if Namita Gokhale time-travelled, toured all of India in Sita’s era, did a census of all mothers and found that Sita was the first single mother. Needless, like Roy, Gokhale too tries to retrofit today’s social and moral notions to the past. Which is why it is quite illuminating to examine this paragraph at length.
The sentence “leaving a marriage where she’s no longer treated with respect,” is pretty revealing. Let’s see what the primary source, the Uttara Ramayana says, in the sequence of events. Rama in his position as a king—and not as a husband—first abandons a pregnant Sita in the forest. By Arshia and Roy’s reasoning, this means Rama did “leave the marriage” first. If that’s true, was he treated with disrespect by Sita, following the same reasoning? Then the sage Valmiki takes her to his hermitage. Lava and Kusha are soon born. Now, by Namita Gokhale’s reasoning, this supposedly makes Sita the “first single mother.” And then, after the lapse of much time, Rama and Sita meet each other whereupon Rama asks her to get back with him. She rejects him and reverts to her mother, the Mother Earth, which means she leaves her mortal life. This in turn means that Nilanjana’s claim that “building a life without [Rama]” is false.
And so, in the final reckoning, we get the following when we stick to their reasoning: by the time Rama and Sita meet again, it is Rama who has already “[leave] the marriage,” Sita is already a “single mother,” and she leaves the mortal world, leaving no scope for, as Nilanjana claims, “building a life without [Rama].”
In other words, Namitha Gokhale, Arshia Sattar, and Nilanjana Roy, have all falsified the epic so that it fits into their tailored conclusions about Sita. The truth is that Sita, throughout the Ramayana, has no word of reproach for Rama. The truth is that Sita encouraged her children to learn, sing, and disseminate Ramayana. Would she do this if she had felt that Rama treated her with disrespect? Would she do this if she had rejected Rama?
The truth also is that Nilanjana Roy et al are obsessed with delivering justice to Sita in whom they see as the first/earliest Indian (?) Woman to be wronged by Man. This is less about Sita than it is about Woman and it comes straight from a juvenile strand of feminism that holds Man to be the oppressor of women till Eternity. Anything is fair game according to this strand: epics, novels, poems, movies, even porn. A Nation of Victims is a classic that brilliantly explains how this phenomenon works. And so, Justice to Sita at any cost, even if it means falsifying the Ramayana, even if it means reading the Ramayana selectively, and even if it means indulging in intellectual dishonesty.
An honest reading of the original Ramayana reveals that Sita held Rama in the highest esteem throughout the epic. Consider this: Rama lived in a time where polygamy was socially accepted. Indeed, Rama’s father had himself taken three wives. Despite this, Rama married just one woman. He discouraged her from accompanying him on exile. But when that failed, and throughout the period that she was in exile with him, he protected her, pampered her, and treated her like a baby. After Ravana abducted her, Rama made it his life’s mission to get her back, and pined for her every moment. He didn’t as much as look at any other woman. Indeed, the verses in which he describes his life without Sita are heart rending and must be made mandatory reading for any man who wants to learn how to treat his wife. Equally, Cantos 25—40 of Sundara Kanda show exactly how highly she regards Rama, and how intensely she loves him.
Even if we ignore all this, what does the fact that Rama kills a hugely powerful king and destroys his empire in order to rescue his wife tell us about Rama? What does the fact that mere monkeys formed an army and staked their lives to quell this powerful king who had coveted another man’s wife tell us? What value system does this impart to us? More importantly, what does that tell us about a culture which continues to emulate him as the ideal man, king, and husband—a culture that includes millions of men who emulate him thus?
Yet what are the only things that people like Nilanjana Roy find in the epic? Stains of blood, violence, rape, sexual assaults, dead bodies, and the supposed injustice meted out to Sita by Rama. What does that tell you about how the minds of the Justice-Deliverers-to-Sita work?
Be that however it may, given all these facts, the real point is that Nilanjana Roy fails to show us how Sita’s abduction by Ravana and her abandonment by Rama qualify as “rape” and/or “sexual assault,” which is what her piece sets out to do among other things.
Continued in Part 2
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Tags: Arshia Sattar, Business Standard, Commentary, Epics, Feminism, Indian Epics, Namitha Gokhale, Nilanjana Roy, Ramayana, Ramayana & Mahabharata, Rape, Sexual Assault, Society & Culture
15 Responses to The Rape of Our Epics: Part 1
Pingback: The Rape of Our Epics: Part 2 | The Rediscovery of India
soundaryambha
January 14, 2013 at 2:12 PM
Only those Hindus who understand that both Sri.Ram & His Consort Seetha (as are Lord Krishna , Sri.Hanuman etc) are Avataras comprehend Ramayana flawlessly.
This phrase lakshman rekha does not exist at all in the original Valmiki Ramayanam.
Why only Seetha even Vaali who is slain by Lord Ram has only words of praise for Sri.Ram.
Yet even today we find many half baked people discussing the same Vaali vatham etc in pattimandrams in Tamil Nadu.
Vishy Kuruganti (@ulaar)
January 14, 2013 at 2:03 PM
In one of Swami Vivekananda’s talks at Pasadena, California, he gives a summary of the Ramayana to his audience. I’ve captured that narrative in my blog (see below)
http://www.ulaar.com/2013/01/
My key takeaway from Swami V’s narrative is that Rama held his duty (as king) much higher than his love/filiality towards Sita. Against that social milieu/context, the fact that he refuses to remarry (at the time of Ashwamedha yagna) and immediately plunges into Sarayu to rejoin Sita (after it’s revealed that his ‘earthly’ mission is over — at least provides some data points for his love for Sita.
Vishy
Chandra
January 14, 2013 at 12:59 PM
This Shoorpanakha episode being quoted as an instance of atrocity is rather amusing. I would love to get some perspective on this.
Consider this:
A man sees a woman, becomes brimfully consumed by lust for her, approaches her and almost immediately proposes that the woman marry him right away because he’s so full of ‘love’ for her. The woman spurns him away in good humour while explaining with clarity and conviction that she’s already married, is against her own self-imposed ‘dharma’ to marry another man and is therefore NOT interested in his proposal. She advises that he seek elsewhere. And it’s all the more dramatic that this happens right in the presence of her (passive)husband. The lustful man now takes extreme umbrage to this, mocks and derides her husband in caustic and vile language and referring to his physique quips, “Of what use is this man to you?”. He then eventually attempts to eliminate the husband so that he can have the wife and savor her all for himself.
What should or would the woman do? How should the lustful man be treated?
Now as a little exercise, let’s do a role-play and interchange the genders too though in this age of gender-equality, gender should not really matter. Or, should it? let’s see..
Replace the lust-filled man with Shoorpanakha, the passive husband with Sita and the (good?) wife with Rama.
What’s your narrative now? Could Nilanjana Roy please explain where the atrocity part is?
manish
January 14, 2013 at 12:59 PM
Sandeep
You have been doing a wonderful job.
But i still doubt that Ms Roy is ever going to acknowledge that she was wrong.
They are brought up in their thinking so as to interpret things from their own lense.
Objectivity, simply put, is never going to be their cup of tea.
som
January 14, 2013 at 12:20 PM
It’s about time US and rest of the world citizens recalled that their only significant enemy is the British Empire.
Once that tie is broken, primarily financially, the prospects for progress and harmony will be back on the agenda.
ravi
January 14, 2013 at 12:05 PM
This is the British imperial plan. Behind the local militias and jihadis are the kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which fund, arm, and direct the mayhem. But the Saudis and Qataris are themselves not “independent” forces, but integral and controlled assets of the British Empire, which is determined to create the conditions where it can maintain its global financial dominance, as well as to set off the most massive depopulation the world has ever seen, achieving the monarchy’s wish for reduction of the world population from the current 7 billion, to something like 1 billion.
The British Empire is determined to use its historical control over radical and royal currents in the Islamic world – emphatically including its control of what is called al-Qaeda – to stir up more than 1 billion Muslims into a bloody conflict that could destroy civilization itself.
As FAR AS HINDU OR HINDUISM IS CONCERNED THEY WOULD FEEL ASHAMED BY READING
BOOKS RELATED TO THEIR CULTURE PUBLISHED BY ENGLISH MEDIA WHICH IS CONTROLLED
BY IMPERIAL POWERS SUCH AS ROTHSCHILD.
Damyanti
January 14, 2013 at 11:35 AM
Ramayana was written over the ages, and has many versions.
Rama, despite all his pining, shoved Sita into a burning pyre, and abandoned her at the first occasion she came between him and his kingdom. He could have jumped into the fire with her as part of his belief in her purity, and also left the kingdom with her and joined and ashram when he heard the dhobi say whatever.
That would have set a true example, where men an women are equal. While Sita’s virtue is extolled when she decides to follow him, why no word of censure when he abandons her?
Sita praises Ram throughout, yes, but isn’t she a creation of patriarchy where a woman is supposed to keep on praising men to her dying breath no matter what a man does to her? The writers came from a patriarchal setup where the man could do no wrong, and the woman was always made to suffer for her ‘apparent’ faults. And the only escape left to her is death!
If Ram is anyone’s concept of an ideal man, I have only my deepest sympathies for them.
Ramayana is a religious epic, and as such deserves respect, but respect cannot be blind. I like Rama’s values of honesty, courage during adversity, kindness to all beings, whether human or animal, devotion to parents and so on.
But, no, he cannot be a role model when it comes to how a man should treat a wife, and I could see that as a child, when my grandmother first read me Ramayana.
Malay roychoudhury
January 14, 2013 at 11:25 AM
There is no reference of ‘Lakshman Rekha’ in original Valmiki Ramayana’. This rekha is an invention of the cowbelt patriarchy. Even Tulasidasa does not have this rekha in Aranya Kanda !
R. D. Choudhary,
January 14, 2013 at 10:02 AM
I think with certainty by reading Niranjanas article that her upbringing has not been smooth and She might have undergone the trauma of rape and horror and trying to find the root cause in an insane way. A distorted and disturbed mind can not search truth. A person with distorted mind saw cow dung paste on a wall and He exclaimed! ” Oh! How a Cow can climb on the wall and defecate like this?” He went on researching on it and assumed that Cow must have climbed on the wall. But the next level of doubt came in his mind and that was the straight line in which he saw the cow dung paste on the wall. He was under bewilderment and went on creating new hypothesis to please his so called creative mind and the truth of the episode is too simple to give any description.
Because we have learnt compassion and forgiveness we tolerate blasphemy. Otherwise even a mad and perverted kind like the author applies some mind in not writing about Prophet because he or she fears the ” electric shock” that she may have to withstand thereafter. This is one reason such authors take path of least resistance in writing false , imaginative and insinuating articles without fear. They are to be thanked at least for recognising the compassionate and forgiving nature of the community before imagining dirty and perverted view of sacred, timeless literatures of one community and attributing all wrongs of the society on those epics.
The cause of the rape of the Delhi student was simply due to absence of stringent law, delayed course of justice and the overall insensitivity of police in enforcing needed vigil and timely response to registration of case and speedy treatment of victims. But some authors look upon it in the most complicated way like the person interpreting Cow Dung pastes on a wall. In the process our sacred scriptures are dragged into unnecessary controversy and attempt is made to create confusion and controversy. I will not be surprised if some vested interests are there in inciting such mad authors to spread venoms through their writings based on pure disorderly mental fantasy.
Again with compassionate and forbearing attitude we should pray sincerely for such personality of distorted mind to enter into Bhakti and real love inspite of the torture experienced by them physically and mentally in their lives and try to become sane. Contradicting them will look loke defending something which has withstood the taste of time for thousands of years.
Also I would suggest more retrospection and contemplation for the editors mostly young who allow such piece of absurdity to be in their newspapers/ journals in the name of fundamental right.
Lastly I would appeal all political fraternity belonging to different faiths not to allow distorted and defaming articles on any religion, group or community in the interest of public peace and harmony for which they have been assigned by the public to govern and not indulge in politics always.
Akilesh Yadav
January 14, 2013 at 8:40 AM
Why this pseudo secularist never spoke about Pedophile Prophet who raped 9 year old kid.
Varun P (@varunpp)
January 14, 2013 at 8:11 AM
Good rebuttal Sandeep ji
Jooske
January 14, 2013 at 7:32 AM
Here is a summary for those who do not want to read the long version.
It is not the epics that are as fault but the fault of what happended lies in how India is governed,primarily by the congress government which has been in government for all but 5 years since independence.
New laws won’t solve India’s rape epidemic, by: Ramesh Thakur, The Australian, January 10, 2013
THE pack-rape and murder of a 23-year old woman in Delhi is not rooted in local culture. The blame for India’s rape epidemic lies in the corruption of public life and the decay of institutions. Successive governments are culpable but have yet to be held criminally accountable.
A new feudal system is being created as the political process is captured by an increasingly narrow and self-perpetuating ruling class that collaborates with the bureaucracy and police as agents of the predator state. Rape based on structural violence occurs when the powerful misuse their position to rape the powerless. This happens both in cities and in villages; it is not a phenomenon restricted just to urban centres.
The problem of rape, especially against the poor, outcaste and tribal women, is not recent. There have been enough high-profile cases that a government with a social conscience would have acted decisively by now.
Public policy failings have produced the world’s biggest pool of poor, sick, starving and illiterate. Institutional failures of governance mean their suffering is aggravated.
The glib call to name a tough new law after the victim will import American custom that is alien and offensive to the British-based Indian legal tradition. India suffers from too many laws which sow confusion, provide perverse incentives for police and judicial corruption, and foster and embed a disrespect for the principle of the rule of law.
Creating special courts for speedy trials of rape cases with toughened conditions for defendants will mean some victims will get swifter justice. But it will impose even further delays on other cases. It will also mean more people will threaten or file false cases as a convenient tool of extortion against political opponents, social rivals, wealthy neighbours, rejected suitors and so on.
Police and judges will find yet another tool to extract bribes from all sides.
Professor Ramesh Thakur is director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, Australian National University.
Jooske
January 14, 2013 at 6:16 AM
Sandeep,you will like this article from an Australian academic of Indian decent?
http://www.theaustralian.com.
New laws won’t solve India’s rape epidemic
• by: Ramesh Thakur
THE pack-rape and murder of a 23-year old woman in Delhi is not rooted in local culture. The blame for India’s rape epidemic lies in the corruption of public life and the decay of institutions. Successive governments are culpable but have yet to be held criminally accountable.
A new feudal system is being created as the political process is captured by an increasingly narrow and self-perpetuating ruling class that collaborates with the bureaucracy and police as agents of the predator state. Rape based on structural violence occurs when the powerful misuse their position to rape the powerless. This happens both in cities and in villages; it is not a phenomenon restricted just to urban centres.
The problem of rape, especially against the poor, outcaste and tribal women, is not recent. There have been enough high-profile cases that a government with a social conscience would have acted decisively by now. But a response driven by the need to appease public emotions will risk being a bandaid rather than a root-and-branches reform solution.
Public policy failings have produced the world’s biggest pool of poor, sick, starving and illiterate. Institutional failures of governance mean their suffering is aggravated.
The glib call to name a tough new law after the victim will import American custom that is alien and offensive to the British-based Indian legal tradition. India suffers from too many laws which sow confusion, provide perverse incentives for police and judicial corruption, and foster and embed a disrespect for the principle of the rule of law.
The bus in which the victim was assaulted for more than two hours was being run illegally, its tinted windows contravened a court order, it drove through many checkpoints, and the police failed to act on an earlier complaint of robbery that evening in the same bus.
New legislation is not the solution to a lack of implementation. To improve governance in India a moratorium should be imposed on new laws while attention is given to enforcing existing ones pending their simplification and rationalisation. Fewer laws are easier to understand, simpler to interpret and implement.
Many are demanding mandatory death sentences. Yet India lacks the courage of conviction either to abolish the death penalty on principle, or implement it firmly in practice. Afzal Guru, convicted of the terrorist attack on parliament in 2001, is yet to be hanged because the Congress government fears an electoral backlash from its Muslim vote-bank.
In another example, a person was convicted and sentenced to death in 2002 for the rape and murder of a five-year old girl in 2001. In May last year, President Pratibha Patil – a woman – commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.
The political class is increasingly inbred, criminal and out of touch with the changing nation. Analysis by Patrick French, author of India: A Country shows that of the 545 federal MPs, 156 have hereditary connections. Of women MPs, 70 per cent are in family politics. Every MP under 30, and 65 per cent of the 66 MPs in their 30s, has a family connection. Of Congress MPs in their 30s, 86 per cent inherited a family seat. And if the trend continues, almost all MPs will be hereditary.
One fourth of MPs face criminal charges. They can only be debarred on conviction. Because they can bribe or otherwise indefinitely delay the court cases, in practice being implicated in serious crimes is no bar to being an MP for life.
The pathology of politics as a family business for criminals is worse in state politics.
India’s courts are clogged. In Maharashtra – the worst on this count – only 240,000 of the 3.1 million cases of people in prison or awaiting trial were settled last year. At current caseload settlement rates, India’s 15,000 judges (plus 3000 unfilled posts) will require more than 300 years just to clear the backlog of 30 million pending cases. Against India’s recommended norm of 50 judges per million population, it has 10. Public officials operate with colonial structures and mindsets, lording it over subjects instead of serving citizens. India’s bureaucrats are rated the most inefficient in Asia. The police are largely corrupt, inefficient and distrusted.
Ruchika Girhotra, a 14-year old girl, was sexually molested by a powerful police officer in 1990. He rose to be the state’s top cop while she and her family were harassed and victimised for not dropping the case. She killed herself in 1993. Only in 2009 did justice finally catch up with the police officer, with a risible six-month sentence that saw him smirking as he left court on bail pending an appeal. What is especially dispiriting about this is just how many individuals and institutions that could and should have protected her went instead with the flow; and how instantly credible the sad saga is in modern India.
Finally, there is the risk of perverse consequences. Legislative quotas for women merely feather the family nest by packing parliaments with the “bibi, beti and bahu” brigade (wives, daughters and daughters-in-law) when what is really needed is to open the doors to the talented young people of the new dynamic India who aspire to public office for serving a higher social purpose.
Creating special courts for speedy trials of rape cases with toughened conditions for defendants will mean some victims will get swifter justice. But it will impose even further delays on other cases. It will also mean more people will threaten or file false cases as a convenient tool of extortion against political opponents, social rivals, wealthy neighbours, rejected suitors and so on. Police and judges will find yet another tool to extract bribes from all sides.
Professor Ramesh Thakur is director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, Australian National University.
d2thdr
January 14, 2013 at 4:46 AM
Loved it Sandeep. If you get a chance please see rajiv dixits ram katha on you tube
http://www.sandeepweb.com/
The Rape of Our Epics: Part 2
January 14, 2013
By Sandeep
Is Draupadi Rarely Referenced?
After failing to show how Sita’s abduction by Ravana and her abandonment by Rama qualify as “rape” and/or “sexual assault,” Nilanjana Roy turns to Draupadi whom she characterizes as follows:
Draupadi’s story is rarely referenced, though it is powerfully told in the Mahabharata. Draupadi’s reaction, after Krishna rescues her from Dushasana’s assault while her husbands and clan elders sit by in passive silence, is not meek gratitude. She berates the men for their complicity and their refusal to defend her; instead of the shame visited on women who have been sexually assaulted, she expresses a fierce, searing anger.
She will wear her hair loose, she says, as a reminder of the insult; she does not see herself and her body as the property of the clan, least of all as the property of the husband, Yudhisthira, who has gambled her away to the Kauravas. She demands justice and is prepared to call down a war that destroys the clan in order to receive her due. It is no wonder, perhaps, that those sections of conservative India who will cite Sita’s “transgression” – her crossing of the Lakshman rekha – as the reason for women’s rape will not speak of Draupadi. Panchali, with her five husbands, her proud sense of ownership over her own body and her quest for vengeance, represents everything about women that terrifies a certain kind of Indian, who prefer to be more selective about the myths they wish to follow.
A near-accurate characterization but one that’s nonetheless arrived at and interpreted by wearing feminism-tinted glasses. But before we examine that, let’s see how Nilanjana yet again makes assumptions on our behalf when she claims that “Draupadi’s story is rarely referenced.” Let’s begin with a famous verse:
Ahalya Draupadi Sita,Tara Mandodari tatha l
Pancha kanya smarenityam, maha pataka nashanam ll
Meditating upon the names of the five holiest women,
Ahalya, Draupadi, Sita, Tara and Mandodari
Verily destroys the greatest of sins
This celebrated verse is invoked everyday, even today in rituals like worship and marriage, and names these five women as ideals of womanhood. Notice that Draupadi’s name is also included in this list. From this verse up to hundreds of renderings of the Mahabharata, the story of Draupadi—in Nilanjana’s narrow sense of viewing just one character in a vast epic—continues to be told and retold. If only Nilanjana entered the hinterlands of India, she’d be treated to hundreds of folk tellings and discourses on “Draupadi’s story” every other day. Also, we wonder why Nilanjana forgot mentioning Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s atrocious The Palace of Illusions, which is a novel-length rendering of the Mahabharata “from the perspective of a woman living in a patriarchal world.” This novel was published in 2008 and continues to be highly acclaimed, shattering Nilanjana’s claims of Draupadi’s story being “rarely referenced.” More recently, Ashok Banker has published his own version of Mahabharata, a fact that again disproves the “rarely referenced” claim of Nilanjana.
First it was Nilanjana’s factual errors about Rajatarangini and Silappadikaram, and now her false claim about Draupadi’s story being hardly referenced. Really, Nilanjana should stop assuming that her readers aren’t well-informed.
Mahabharata’s Draupadi Mangled by Feminism
What is notable in Nilanjana’s passionate description of Draupadi is the stress she lays twice on Draupadi’s “proud sense of ownership over her own body,” an aspect that comes straight from a Feminism textbook. Laying extreme emphasis on the female body is one of the key points in feminist discourse. Of the several strands of feminist discourse that deal with the female body, one happens to read thus: Men seek to control the female body because they are basically intimidated by it. As elaboration, this strand exposits that the roots of this male fear of the female body lies in sexuality, in things like the clitoris, the capacity of women to have multiple orgasms, and the supposed male insecurity that his woman’s child might be born to a different seed, and therefore the need to control it using violence if required. Thus, one of the first steps by which a woman can liberate herself from this male control is to fight—aggressively if necessary—for the ownership of her own body.
And so when you apply this theory to Draupadi, you get the readymade feminist conclusion that Nilanjana Roy gives us: Panchali, with her five husbands, her proud sense of ownership over her own body and her quest for vengeance, represents everything about women that terrifies a certain kind of Indian, who prefer to be more selective about the myths they wish to follow.
This is the reason Draupadi is subjected to extreme heroine-worship in feminist circles. Her “story” renders itself malleable to feminist theories. Additionally, unlike Sita, feminists like Nilanjana don’t need to resort to falsifying and misinterpreting the Mahabharata. Yet, despite relatively sticking to the truth, they are compelled to force-fit the story to the Theory. Nothing in the Mahabharata—or “Draupadi’s story” if you will—gives you things like the ownership of body, and certain kinds of terrified men.
Now this creates a slight problem. That same Indian who is supposedly terrified by Draupadi also deeply believes in that aforementioned verse about Tara, Draupadi, Mandodari, et al. That same Indian also worships Durga and Kali who are a billion times more terrifying than Draupadi and who never called a figure like Krishna for help. Kali doesn’t merely exhibit a “proud sense of ownership over her own body” but goes a step further: she tramples over and places one foot over the chest of her own husband, Shiva. Does this terrify and prevent those certain men from worshipping Kali?
It’s also interesting how in her zest of heroine-worshipping Draupadi, Nilanjana Roy completely glosses over the role played by various men in protecting Draupadi’s honour. Indeed, because it’s impossible to ignore the fact, Nilanjana rewards Krishna with the word “rescues.” But not a word about Bhima’s terrible oath—which he redeemed—in that selfsame assembly where Draupadi was humiliated. Not a word about how Krishna throughout the epic consoles and assures Draupadi that he will help hasten her revenge against the Kauravas. Not a word also, about how Bhima and Arjuna humiliate Jayadratha who abducts her. Not a word again about Bhima who throws caution to the wind and pounds Keechaka to death because he coveted Draupadi.
Based on this, can we reasonably conclude that Nilanjana is also guilty of committing the same error she accuses a “certain kind of men" of committing? Of preferring “to be more selective about the myths they wish to follow?”
Indeed, Nilanjana’s piece is like an interesting echo of what Salil Tripathi wrote in July 2012 in Mint, which I had subsequently dissected.
But that’s part of the tradition. From the time of the ritual disrobing of Draupadi in Mahabharata, many men have participated in such public stripping of a woman, forming a tight circle around her, as they have cheered, jeered and leered. Most men who should have stepped in to stop have turned their eyes away, expressing their inability to do anything, leaving Draupadi to the mercy of divine powers. And all that Krishna can do is to keep adding yards to her never-ending sari, prolonging the humiliation.
The same theme: episodes of rape in India. The same skullduggery employed to trace the root cause of incidents of rape in India: Indian men rape women because they get their lessons from their epics. Of course, the content of Salil and Nilanjana’s piece is different but that’s precisely the point: the conclusion has already been arrived at in both cases.
The Rape of Our Epics: Part 3
January 16, 2013
By Sandeep
R
ead Parts 1 and 2.
After trying to force-fit Draupadi into the feminist mould, Nilanjana Roy sets her sights on Amba, Ambika and Ambalika in yet another extremely revealing paragraph.
Amba is, again, silenced in popular discussion, and yet her story remains both remarkable and disquieting — the woman who will even become a man in order to wreak revenge on the man who first abducts and then rejects her. There is nothing easy about her story, as anyone who has tried to rewrite the Mahabharata knows; or about the way in which we gloss over the sanctioned rapes of Ambika and Ambalika, one so afraid of the man who is in her bed that she shuts her eyes so as not to see him.
How? And who has silenced Amba in “popular discussion?” Phrases like this are always intriguing simply because they hang loose. There are a gazillion things that fall under “popular discussion.” How does one define something like “popular discussion?” What constitutes a “popular discussion?” Films? Books? Music? Politics? Art? Mahabharata? What? But this is precisely where the beauty lies: building a narrative without defining something.
Even if we set aside these definitional issues, Nilanjana gives us a very important hint as to where she comes from: the woman who will even become a man in order to wreak revenge on the man who first abducts and then rejects her. This is far more important that it seems. “the woman who will even become a man” sounds supremacist, even evil at a level—of course, apart from the fact that Amba is reborn a eunuch who is neither male nor female but Nilanjana has decided that a eunuch is a Male so I suppose we need to go by it. So think about it: a woman “who will even become a man” can also be interpreted—taking a leaf out of the Book of Nilanjana’s Interpretations—to mean that males are somehow inferior to females. Wait! It can also be interpreted to give us this equation: male=eunuch. Remember, this isn’t my interpretation; I’m merely following Nilanjana’s Tradition of Interpreting the Five Stories.
At which point, we encounter yet another factual error. Yes Bhishma abducts her. No. Bhishma doesn’t reject Amba. Actually, Nilanjana has gotten the sequence of events incorrect. After Amba confesses to Bhishma that she already loves Salva, it is Bhishma, the Amba-abductor who returns her to Salva. And it is Salva who rejects her. It is then that Amba proposes that Bhishma marry her. And it is then that Bhishma rejects her proposal because his conscience doesn’t allow him to break his vow of lifelong celibacy. Further, it is then that Amba immolates herself, swearing revenge against Bhishma.
Did Bhishma do right? No he didn’t. So what exactly is Bhishma’s position? Which is why I stress repeatedly: read the original. It is pretty clear that Bhishma was a blind adherent of tradition and orthodoxy if not possessed by a misguided sense of Dharma. It is this blindness that makes him abduct the three princesses. It is this blindness that makes him a mute spectator to Draupadi’s disrobing. It is this blindness that makes him tolerate every atrocity committed by the Kauravas. It is this blindness that makes him fight against the Pandavas in the Kurukshetra war. And in the end, it is the final consequence of this blindness that Krishna calls out in the Bhagavad Gita (11.34):
Dronanca Bhishmanca Jayadrathanca|
Karnam Tathaanyaanapi Yodhaveeraan||
Mayaa Hantaanstvam Jahi Maa Vyatishtitaa|
Yudhyasva Jetaaasi Saptanaan||
Slay Drona, Bhishma, Jayadratha, Karna, and other great warriors who are already killed by Me|
Do not be distressed, fight, and you will surely conquer your enemies in battle.
This verse simply means that Krishna—God himself—had recognized that this was to be Bhishma’s ultimate for siding with Adharma (injustice, non-righteousness, etc) and that Arjuna’s duty was to merely put an end to Bhishma’s physical body.
And so what we have here is once more, the same feature: selective reading on the part of Nilanjana Roy. Perhaps one of the finest attributes of the Mahabharata is the fact that there’s no injustice that goes unpunished. And Bhishma is himself a towering illustration of this fact: he is unbeatable on the battlefield and yet he gives up his life voluntarily when he faces the reborn face of the injustice he had rendered ages ago. But to cherry-pick specific instances of injustices with the sole purpose of tailoring them to suit whatever fancy theory is the mark of a juvenile mind to say the least.
As for Ambika and Ambalika, we need to begin with Nilanjana’s renewed display of intellectual dishonesty on her blog. In her tailpiece to her Business Standard article, she mentions the practice of Niyoga. However, she shrewdly terms Niyoga as “forced sex” by attributing it to some “reading” of the Mahabharata.
But what does the record say?
Niyoga was a perfectly acceptable social practice for continuing a lineage whereby the husband—who cannot impregnate his wife because of impotency or whatever other reason—gives consent to his wife to have sex with another man for the express purpose of bearing a child. The sexual relation with the other man would stop as soon as the wife became pregnant. The child born thus was termed a Kshetraja (literally “born of the field,” meaning born of the mother). The practice of Niyoga existed in Rig Vedic times (see for example, Mantra 10, Sutra 10) and is also held valid by Manu Smriti (IX.59-63) as an emergency/extreme measure. The same Manu Smriti also condemns Niyoga in IX.64-68 in cases where Niyoga is used as an excuse to satisfy lust.
So one really wonders why Nilanjana Roy chooses to only read the “reading” that informs her that Niyoga implies forced sex.
Like she does with Niyoga, Nilanjana also conceals the fact that different kinds of bride-taking existed in the time of Mahabharata. The most well-known method is Swayamvara. The lesser-known method happens to be abduction. This method also had a caveat: if the bride-to-be had already lost her heart to another man, such abduction was illegal and punishable. Now, the foremost examples of taking brides by abduction include Arjuna who abducted Subhadra, and Krishna, who abducted Rukmini. And so, when Bhishma abducted the three princesses, he was merely following the accepted norms of bride-taking in his time. Which is why he returned Amba to Salva when he learnt that she had already accepted Salva as her husband in her heart. This issue was absent in the case of Ambika and Ambalika.
Yet, Bhishma’s mistake lies in the fact that he acted as an agent to secure brides for the weak and impotent Vichitravirya. Which is what led to the subsequent Niyoga by Veda Vyasa. Given the definition of Niyoga, it is clear that it occurred with the consent of everybody involved: the two princesses, Vichitravirya, Satyavati, and Vyasa. Given this, we wonder how Nilanjana Roy manages to characterize it as a “sanctioned rape.” Now, what exactly is a sanctioned rape? It can either be consensual sex or rape. There’s nothing like a middle ground or what’s that other favourite cliché? Ah! “shades of grey.” Unless Nilanjana implies that the social system back then said it was okay to rape women as long as that resulted in children. But that could well be the case because she declares in the very first sentence of her piece that our epics are full of violence and rape and by implication, the Delhi rapists take their lessons from this culture.
Oh! and I don’t need to be a feminist to condemn Bhishma’s ill-advised adventure of abduction just in the same way that I don’t need a feminist lens to empathize with Amba’s suffering.
http://www.sandeepweb.com/
The Rape of Our Epics: Part 4
January 18, 2013
By Sandeep
Read the previous parts: 1, 2, and 3.
So where were we? Popular discussion? Niyoga? No…well, yes, we were at the three princesses: Amba, Ambika and Ambalika. Pardon my confusion. I mean, confusion happens when Nilanjana Roy mixes up timelines.
Imagine my plight: she begins with Sita, then moves to Draupadi. Correct: from Treta Yuga to Dwapara Yuga. Then she spends some time in Dwapara Yuga. Suddenly she reverts to Treta Yuga, she reverts to Shurpanakha. But does she stop there? No. Without warning, she drags in Hidimbi.
That leaves Surpanakha, the woman in the forest; like the rakshasi Hidimbi, she sees herself as a free agent.
Let’s focus on “like the rakshasi Hidimbi” in that sentence. What Nilanjana is saying: “Surpanakha is like the rakshasi Hidimbi.” We’ll get to the “free agent” bit in more detail later. Now, here again, Nilanjana gets the chronology mixed up. Dwapara Yuga occurs after the Treta Yuga. So, the correct comparison would be “Hidimbi was like the rakshasi Surpanakha,” not the other way round. Also, it’s pretty interesting that Nilanjana Roy doesn’t mention Hidimbi’s real name: Saalakatankati. “Hidimbi” is the feminine gender (sister of) the rakshasa, Hidimba. I mean, Saalakatankati had a feminist identity of her own. “Why should her name be derived from the name of her brother?” asks a committed feminist. Also, please forgive the nitpicking.
But let’s get to the crux of Nilanjana’s characterization of Surpanakha. Line by line. Line 1:
Different versions of the Ramayana are uneasy about her looks — in some, she is an ugly rakshasi; in some, she takes on a deceptive, beautiful form; in some, she is beautiful to begin with.
We can’t help but simply marvel at Nilanjana’s disclaimer about the “different versions of the Ramayana.” The “different versions of the Ramayana” is the Classic Manual of Intellectual Dishonesty laid down by A.K. Ramanujam. We wonder why only Homer is considered to be the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey but when it concerns the Ramayana, multiple versions and authors are held to be more authoritative than the original author, Valmiki. We also wonder why a crucial fact is concealed—the crucial fact that the author of every single “version” of the Ramayana pays reverential tributes to Valmiki. We are of course, talking about the “versions” of the Ramayana written in regional languages in an age where a thing called feminism hadn’t been introduced yet. These “versions” do contain the input upon which the likes of Nilanjana Roy base their creative interpretations. And I repeat, all of these versions invariably have at least one invocatory verse that addresses Valmiki in nothing less than a reverential tone. From Kamban to Tulsidas to Kuvempu to the tens of Ramayana works in Telugu and Kannada, every single poet has worshipped Valmiki; every single poet has explicitly expressed his/her debt to the Adi Kavi.
And so, how does the Adi Kavi, Valmiki describe Surpankaha at the very outset?
sumukham durmukhii raamam vR^itta madhyam mahodarii ||
vishaalaakSam viruupaakSii sukesham taamra muurdhajaa |
priyaruupam viruupaa saa susvaram bhairava svanaa ||
taruNam daaruNaa vR^iddhaa dakSiNam vaama bhaaSiNii |
nyaaya vR^ittam sudurvR^ittaa priyam apriya darshanaa ||
shariiraja samaaviSTaa raakSasii raamam abraviit |
She that demoness, endowed with an unpleasant face, (she with the) pot-belly, (she with the) wry-eyes, (she with the) coppery-hairs, (she with the) ugly features, (she with the) brassy voice, the crooked-talker, the ill-mannered, the uncouth, the abominable, and she whose body had aged prematurely saw [Rama], the pleasant faced, the slim-waisted, the broad-eyed, the neatly-tressed , the charming, the [one endowed with a] gentle voice, the pleasant-talker, spoke besieged by lust.
(Aranya Kanda Sarga 17, Sloka 11)
In other words, Valmiki had no doubt in his mind about how he conceived the character of Surpanakha. Her complete story therefore needs to be told. Ravana himself kills her husband and in a bid to pacify her, makes her the governess of a province in his kingdom. He lets her have her way in pretty much everything including her unquenchable appetite for carnal pleasure with every other man. This relentless abuse of her body is what leads to the premature aging of her body (mentioned in the verse above). And it is this unquenchable appetite that makes her put out an indecent proposal to the much-married Rama and an equally married Lakshmana.
In many ways, it is Surpanakha who caused the destruction of both Ravana and Lanka. After getting her nose cut off, she approaches Ravana, seeking revenge. When Ravana inquiries about the cause of her mutilated nose, she lies. She says that she went to the forest to gift the beautiful Sita to Ravana but found that both Rama and Lakshmana were coveting her amorously, and that because she proved an obstacle in their quest, they cut her nose off. And then she begins an elaborate description of Sita’s beauty, which is enough motivation for Ravana to not only avenge his sister but to kidnap a married woman.
Perhaps the best estimate of Surpanakha comes from the women of Lanka during wartime:
dR^iShTvaa shrutvaa cha sambhraantaa hatasheShaa nishaacharaaH |
raakShasyashcha samaagamya dInaashchintaapariplutaaH ||
vidhavaa hataputraashcha kroshantyo hatabaandhavaaH |
raakShasyaH saha saMgamya duHkhaartaaH paryadevayan ||
Seeing and hearing about the slain demons, the surviving demons, horribly scared, looked sad and were overwhelmed with anxiety. They wailed when they met their wives. All the demonesses who had lost their husbands, sons and kinsfolk met at one place, stricken with sorrow, and wailed as follows.
katham shUrpaNakhaa vR^iddhaa karaalaa nirNatodarI |
aasasaada vane raaman kandarpamiva rUpiNam ||
How did the old and ugly Surpanakha, of sunken belly, approach, in the forest, Rama who is charming like the god of love?
sukumaaraM mahaasattvan sarvabhUtahite ratam |
tan dR^iShTvaa lokavadhyaa saa hInarUpaa prakaamitaa ||
How strange it is that on seeing that Rama of tender youth, endowed with extraordinary strength and devoted to the welfare of all created beings, that ugly woman (Surpanakha) who deserved to be condemned by the people, was stung with excessive lust?
(Yuddha Kanda, Sarga 94, Sloka 4-6)
tannimittamidan vairaM raavaNena kR^itaM mahat |
vadhaaya nItaa saa sItaa dashagrIveNa rakShasaa||
For the sake of that Surpanakha, Ravana built this huge enmity. For his own destruction, Ravana the demon brought that Seetha.
(Yuddha Kanda, Sarga 94, Sloka 11)
Here we have a lust-crazed liar who eventually causes the destruction of her own brother and is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent citizens of Lanka. She has nary a redeeming quality. But we need to address Nilanjana’s point about Lakshmana cutting her nose off.
It bears repetition that Surpanakha lusts after one married man first, and then the other. What that tells us about Surpanakha: any man will do for the moment. The relevant portion in Aranya Kanda has tens of verses devoted to how Rama and Lakshmana try to dissuade her: first by polite talk, and then sarcasm. But the final straw is when she charges ahead to eat Sita. Which is when Lakshmana cuts her ears and nose off as per Rama’s orders as we shall see.
But how does this metamorphose in Nilanjana’s world?
But what we know about her is that she is Ravana’s sister and, by extension, probably as learned as her brother; that she is free enough to express her desire for the brothers Rama and Lakshmana; and that she is indeed free to roam the forests without protection. The story of Surpanakha is filled with tangles and diversions — how much deception does she practise; does she merely terrify Sita or actually attempt to attack her; do Rama and Lakshmana toy with her, or are they more polite, or are they consistently hostile, before they cut off her nose, her ears, and, in some terrible versions, her nipples?
Sure she is Ravana’s sister but does it make her as learned as him? Nilanjana answers “probably,” which means she’s building her case based on something that can potentially be false. Even admitting Nilanjana’s thesis that Surpanakha is learned, does her learning justify her inherently immoral desire? Does her learning justify the barefaced lie she tells her brother about Rama, Lakshmana and Sita? Does her learning justify her kindling of Ravana’s lust for Sita?
But let’s look at the exchange that leads to the mutilation of Surpanakha’s nose:
shruuyataam raama vakSyaami tattvaartham vacanam mama |
aham shuurpaNakhaa naama raakSasii kaamaruupiNii ||
araNyam vicaraami idam ekaa sarva bhaya.mkaraa |
I will tell you the truth, Rama, nothing but the truth, I am a guise-changing demoness named Surpanakha, and I am freely moving in this forest in a solitary manner and unnerving all.
(Aranya Kanda, Sarga 17, Verse 20)
aham prabhaava sa.mpannaa svacCha.nda bala gaaminii |
ciraaya bhava bhartaa me siitayaa kim kariSyasi ||
"I am endowed with such preponderances and I can operate with my independent might, and as such, you become my everlasting husband; by the way, what will you do with (someone like) Sita?
(Aranya Kanda, Sarga 17, Verse 25)
vikR^itaa ca viruupaa ca na saa iyam sadR^ishii tava |
aham eva anuruupaa te bhaaryaa ruupeNa pashya maam ||
Unlovely and unshapely is this one, such as she is, this Seetha is unworthy to be your wife, and I am the lone one, worthy to be your wife; treat me therefore, as your wife.
(Aranya Kanda, Sarga 17, Verse 26)
imaam viruupaam asatiim karaalaam nirNata udariim |
anena saha te bhraatraa bhakSayiSyaami maanuSiim ||
Shall I eat up this disfigured, dishonest, diabolical human female with a hallow stomach along with him, that brother of yours and set you free?
(Aranya Kanda, Sarga 17, Verse 27)
kR^ita daaro asmi bhavati bhaaryaa iyam dayitaa mama |
tvat vidhaanaam tu naariiNaam suduHkhaa sasapatnataa ||
[Rama spoke] Oh, honourable one, I am married and this is my dear wife, thus it will be distressing for your sort of females to live with a co-wife.
(Aranya Kanda, Sarga 18, Verse 2)
adya imaam bhakSayiSyaami pashyataH tava maanuSiim |
tvayaa saha cariSyaami niHsapatnaa yathaa sukham ||
iti uk{}tvaa mR^igashaavaakSiim alaata sadR^isha iikSaNaa |
abhyadhaavat susa.mkruddhaa mahaa ulkaa rohiNiim iva
“Now I wish to eat up this human female right before your very eyes, and then I can blithely make merry along with you, without the botheration of a co-wife," said Surpanakha to Rama. Speaking thus, she, the torch-eyed Surpanakha rushed towards the deer-eyed Seetha in high exasperation as a great meteor would dash towards Rohini, the brightest star in the sky.
(Aranya Kanda, Sarga 18, Verse 16-17)
iti ukto lakshmaNaH tasyaaH kruddho raamasya pashyataH |
uddhR^itya khaDgam cicCheda karNa naasam mahaabalaH ||
Thus said [by Rama] to the mighty Lakshmana, Lakshmana furiously drew his sword and chopped off her ears and nose before the very eyes of Rama.
(Aranya Kanda, Sarga 18, Verse 21)
I suppose this clearly answers all of Nilanjana’s questions and probabilities around Surpanakha: was she pretty? was she ugly? did she practice deception? did she terrify Sita? did Lakshmana cut off just her ears and nose or nipples? As for the last question, Nilanjana falls back on that readymade insurance of “multiple versions” of Ramayana.
However, what she glosses over—while accusing traditionalists etc of glossing over—is the heart of the Surpanakha issue: the immorality of her “free expression of desire” and the violent length she goes to in order to satisfy it—including attempting to murder Sita. But no, in Nilanjana’s world, “free expression of desire” is all that counts. “Critiques” like hers aren’t willing to even admit two crucial questions: is the man married? is the man interested in you? What compels such “critiques” to ignore the cause but wholly focus on only the consequence? Nilanjana’s defence of Surpanakha reminds of a Kannada proverb: you cannot sow a neem seed and expect a mango tree to grow.
And it doesn’t stop at that. Surpanakha’s disfiguration becomes an atrocity. And anybody who calls out this selective reading and the dishonesty necessary to paint Surpanakha as a victim is branded as someone who’s uncomfortable with the feminist critique etc.
In the end, what Nilanjana says about Surpanakha is nothing new. If I recall correctly, the whole Surpanakha as the wronged woman theme was widely publicized in a horrid dance-drama choreographed by Mallika Sarabhai. Ever since, it’s been a free for all. It’s therefore not a coincidence that Nilanjana Roy picks up the same theme.
Rajeev Srinivasan says it best:
Surpanakha’s Daughters…That was the name of a dance-drama choreographed by Mallika Sarabhai: the title, and the performance, were meant to tell modern Indian women to no longer look to the traditional Hindu role-models, such as the pancha-kanyas: Ahalya, Draupadi, Kunti, Tara and Mandodari….No, these are passé, retrogressive figures, and today’s with-it Indian woman should rather emulate a lust-crazed Titan/Asura woman who relentlessly pursued a married man who showed no interest whatsoever in her! A very fine exemplar indeed!…Indeed, the Asuras are winning: Surpanakha would be proud of her daughters. All that remains is to make it a criminal offence for a man to rebuff the unwanted romantic advances of any woman.
The Rape of Our Epics: Conclusion
January 21, 2013
By Sandeep
Here are my tweets that started it all:
1. Nilanjana Roy’s lesbian fantasies about Shurpanakha: http://www.business-standard.
2. A woman who lusts after another woman’s husband is the role model of several urban Indian women today. Latest exhibit: Nilanjana Roy.
3. I know for a fact that Nilanjana Roy is married. How’d SHE feel if a Shurpanakha type today wanted to sleep with Nilanjana’s husband?
4. BTW is Nilanjana Roy on Twitter?
I deleted all these tweets subsequently. Were these tweets rude and offensive? Most certainly they were. In about 13 years of blogging, I’ve consciously made it a point to not say a word justifying what I write here. People are free to read what I write here and come to their own conclusions about my writing and about me as a person. But I’m breaking this rule only in this instance.
I’ll say this a million times: It did not give me any happiness to put out those tweets. And given how I highly regard women, I felt sad that I had to resort to tweeting this kind of stuff about a woman. Yet I did it consciously.
A few tweets about Nilanjana Roy, and a lot of fury erupted on Twitter and here in my comments section, and this is the kind of outrage that occurs when insulting things are said about a person. Yet why shouldn’t we be outraged, why shouldn’t millions be outraged, when a woman writes a piece that’s based on factual errors, falsification, and selective reading about women that these selfsame millions regard as role models? What exactly gives Nilanjana Roy the right to insult the icons and role models of other people based on her worldview of how women should be? And why should she be upset when I did the same thing that she did by giving a misleading interpretation of those five women? If Nilanjana Roy for example, calls Surpanakha a wronged woman based on convenient and/or selective readings, I can in the same manner, characterize her piece as a lesbian fantasy. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for gander.
If Nilanjana Roy defends this by calling Surpanakha a fictional character, here’s what occurs: why trace the cause for the Delhi rape to a fictional woman? If Surpanakha was a fictional character, Nilanjana should’ve analyzed her using literary parameters. And if Nilanjana believes that Surpanakha was a real woman, then my case for characterizing her piece as a lesbian fantasy only becomes stronger—simply because she has relied on a falsified version of Surpanakha, the real woman, and I just showed Nilanjana the mirror. Sorry, Nilanjana Roy, you cannot have it both ways.
The other charge against me was that I “asked questions about [Nilanjana’s] marriage and [her] husband” and that I “haven’t had the courage to repeat these insults here, in this piece.” As for the courage bit, I’ve reproduced everything above, in this post. As for the marriage and husband bit, let me repeat my tweet here:
I know for a fact that Nilanjana Roy is married. How’d SHE feel if a Shurpanakha type today wanted to sleep with Nilanjana’s husband?
Given all the facts about Surpanakha’s story (in my previous post), I believe this is a fair question to ask Nilanjana and everybody who embarks on a quest to deliver “justice” to Surpanakha. Here’s my last word, the last word derived from the last sentence of her piece where she says:
if you hurt the wrong woman, prepare for war.
Incorrect Nilanjana, it’s not just the woman. In my world, it’s any woman. If you hurt—if any man or any woman hurts any man or woman unjustly, that wrong should be righted even if it means war. That includes anybody unjustly hurting even you, Nilanjana. Like I said earlier, I don’t need to be a feminist to say this. And honestly, when you claim that I have “extreme discomfort with any kind of feminist critique of the great epics,” I can only laugh. I do have extreme discomfort with a dishonest critique whether it is feminine or Leftist or Liberal or whatever other kind.
I honestly have no use for any isms that feed the ego. Be it individualism or the kind of feminism Nilanjana Roy espouses. The ego-feeding is one main reason such isms find immense appeal. And there’s no dearth of logical reasoning that can justify it. Yet, it is this that makes people blind to even the most obvious acts of injustice, which they try to defend using even falsification and bias as valid forms of defence. Of what use then is Nilanjana Roy’s feminism, in this case?
If I’m a feminist in Nilanjana’s mould, I lose sight of all the men who stood by and even lost their lives protecting the women who were wronged. I lose sight of the ultimate plight of all those men who hurt these women. I lose sight of the final fate of a Ravana who could’ve remained happy ruling over a vast and prosperous kingdom, enjoying the best in life. I lose sight of the fate of a Keechaka who was pounded to death. I lose sight of the bloody end of a Dusshyasana who had his intestines ripped out. I lose sight of the sorry plight of Duryodhana who lost everything he had and lay dying with his thighs broken. All these were men who were otherwise good to their subjects, who took wise decisions but whose only fault was to lust after a married woman. And it was other men who taught their own brethren this much-needed lesson. If Nilanjana wants to argue that it’s okay for happily married women to succumb to the lust of other men, I have nothing further to say.
Perhaps there’s yet another side to this. Of all the great epics of the world, only the Ramayana and the Mahabharata continue to influence and shape the lives, values, and beliefs of the Indian people. The two epics are perhaps the greatest forces that unite the Indian people culturally, spiritually, and socially. And this fact is unique only to India. There is almost no direct relation to the life and culture of the Greece and Italy of today to the epics produced by their respective countries. If we observe the so-called critiques of the Indian epics in the early days by the Left, the underlying strain was to deride and destroy their appeal because that was one of the significant ways in which they could realize their pet project of a Red World in India. I wouldn’t accuse Nilanjana Roy of this in the absence of enough evidence, but I’d certainly say that her piece assumes such agenda-based critiques to be valid and builds on them. In this respect, Nilanjana Roy’s piece is no different from Sanjay Srivastava’s ill-informed rant about Swami Vivekananda in the Hindu.
In the end, there’s a simpler explanation for rape: the sick minds of a few men. Sad that Nilanjana Roy had to embark on an 830-word expedition of epic falsification to seek and yet not find this commonsense answer.