Does one write deliberately as a woman or man when taking up pen and paper? I do not know. But right now, I am writing as an Indian woman. The Indian woman who has held up the torch of cultured living for millennia through self-sacrifice, incredible feats of physical and mental endurance and abiding compassion. I know that the pen is a sacred object; if used unthinkingly as Sanjay Srivastava has done ( The Hindu , Op-Ed, “ >Taking the aggression out of masculinity ,” January 3, 2013), it might do more harm than good to the position of women in India.
Two portraits have been constant companions in my longish life as a housewife and writer. They have both infused in me the needed strength to face life despite scores of disappointments, frustrations and tragedies. One is the figure of Bharat Mata, rider on the lion, as though telling me: are you a weakling? You are as strong as this land, endowed with hurrying streams and gleaming orchards. Never give up! I learnt the connection between nature and the Indian woman when I read Sita say in Kavisamrat Viswanatha Satyanarayana’s Sri Ramayana Kalpavrikshamu that she has no fear of rivers and forests. Is she not the child of Mother Earth?
The other portrait has been that of Swami Vivekananda, with the caption: “Strength is life: weakness is death.” It is a message for men and women of India. Yes, indeed it was Swami Vivekananda who gave us back our dignity as women, our education, our strength of purpose and reminded us again that no woman is a zero. Inspired by him, a host of social reformers all over India opened a new, glorious page for Indian women. They educated themselves, took part in the Gandhian movement in vast numbers and became equal partners in work everywhere. Interestingly enough, they preferred not to jettison the received tradition that had helped them all along not go down under during the dark centuries in the past.
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Hence, when I opened the Op-Ed page of
What the picture represents
Actually Prof Srivastava can sit down with a whole portfolio of all the available photographs of the Swami and peruse each one of them. He will not find even one which will fit in with his boorish description. The one used for the article has eyes gazing with compassion at the sorrows inflicted upon Indian women, and a determination to help them overcome it. He had travelled all over India as a
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Not ‘male-worship’
Such inspiration flowing from him through the nationalist movement laid the red carpet welcome to women to join the Gandhian movement, removing fear and ignorance which had imprisoned them till then. It was Swami Vivekananda who brought to India committed women like Sister Nivedita and Sister Christine whose work for women’s education was truly monumental. Not only has the Indian woman received education but she also knows what is good for her, in inherited culture. As for Prof. Srivastava’s characterisation of Karva-Chauth as male-worship, does he not know that when Sister Subbulakshmi Ammal founded the Sarada Home (Widow’s Home) in 1912 at Madras, one of the works she made her inmates study was the story of Savitri and Satyavan in the Mahabharata? It was because, herself a child widow, she found that Savitri empowered herself before facing Yama by a tri-rattra vrata which was a discipline of meditation, yoga, studies and rituals. In the same way, Sister Subbulakshmi wanted the inmates to empower themselves with education and self-discipline to face life which was very harsh to the widow of those days. Celebrations of joy and the reaffirmation of holy ties is not male-worship. Such attempts to degrade beautiful traditions is a perversion of the mind. Is tying a rakhi to a brother to be considered as male-worship?
If Professor Srivastava wants examples of macho icons, let him seek them in the likes of Dasaratha, who sport many wives. They are a dime a dozen today. If he wants portraits on the same subject, he can have his choice from the various glossy advertisements for men’s vests and motorcycles. He ought to know that serious sociological research is not achieved by mudslinging.
(Prema Nandakumar is a renowned Sanskrit scholar and Indologist.)