Recently Kailash
Vijayvargiya, a BJP Minister from Madhya Pradesh, India, has said that if the
women of India breach the lines of morality, they will be punished, just like
Sita (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-05/india/36161573_1_kailash-vijayvargiya-babulal-gaur-maryada).
While the statement is highly regressive and offensive, what is important is
that it did not quite stir a hornets’ nest, except for some condemnation in the
social media and a few hours wasted on the visual media.
Does this reveal
a passive acknowledgement of such mindset?
This leads me to
the question – did Sita err?
In Ramayana,
when Sita sends Lakshman to help Rama during their exile in the jungles, Lakshman
is supposed to have drawn a line (of morality) asking Sita not to breach it
under any circumstances. When Ravan is supposed to have come in the guise of an
ascetic asking for alms, he provoked Sita to come out and give him the arms, as
he was unable to cross the zone too. According to a poetic version of this
episode from the Bengali poem “Meghnadbadh
Kabya” (slaying of Meghnad) written by Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Ravan is
supposed to have told Sita – “Give me alms, or say you will not, so that I may
go elsewhere. Are you unwilling to serve a guest today, O daughter of Janak? Do
you want to blacken the house of the Raghu’s with the scandal of this, Married
into it though you are?...)*
If we go with
the above or any version, Ravan, in the guise of an ascetic is supposed to have
threatened Sita with dire consequences for denying alms to an ascetic. So what
choice did Sita have?
If Sita declined
to step out and give alms to the ascetic as was the norm of the day, she would
insult her illustrious in-laws, the clan of the Raghu’s who were known for
being the upholders of morals and principles. She would have further maligned
the family of her father, King Janak for poor upbringing which had not taught its
daughters to serve ascetics. Wasn’t Sita simply following the rules set by the
patriarchal norms of the then society? Just how did she breach the moral limits
(so regressively known as Lakshman rekha)?
Was Sita left with any choice, but to do what seemed to be the need of the
hour?
This was a
peculiar predicament for Sita. If she agreed with the moral code of her
in-laws, then she could have harmed the established norms of the society, and if
she catered to the societal norms, then she would have broken the moral code of
her in-laws. At the end of the day, Sita was in such a tragic state, because
she decided to follow her husband, kidnapped by a King, because her
brother-in-law severed the nose of a jungle woman, and later asked to prove her
chastity, by her husband. In all the cases, she had to suffer the acts of men. In
spite of her unflinching loyalty and dedication, she is misunderstood, punished
and banished, without ever given a chance to explain.
Sita's agni-pariksha |
Sita endured it,
for she had no choice as the moral-brigade of the times had enforced their
rules. In her case, it was just not the King who questioned her but even a
lowly born mortal (read ‘man’) questioned her morality. She was punished time
and again for this single act of hers in many ways than one. But can the same norms
be seen as an acceptable code of conduct today? Can stepping out at 9.30pm with
a male companion be seen as a breach of morality and thus be punished and that
too in such a brutal manner? Should women of today, (and I am not referring
just to the 10-20% of the educated city-bred working women) live by the norms
of the Puranic times? Should the
modern woman, suffer what is better known as the Sita Syndrome? Also, just who
are these self-appointed upholders of the medieval morality and what is their
authority?
This is not just
a feminine issue; it is a matter of civilisation. We cannot have predators
roaming around with naked lust, and hide our women from their bloodthirsty
eyes. We need to eliminate the predators themselves and let our women roam
around freely in this country. We also need to vehemently shut the mouths of
all the incorrect utterances of the fossilised moral brigade (be they the
politicians or religious heads) and ensure that they simply do not exist. It is
they who need to be put on leash, not our women.
Friends and
readers of this Blog raise your voice and object to the abject utterances!
*Translated in English by
William Radice, Penguin Edition
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