I recently had an interaction with a young man from India over the Facebook. He wanted to know what a “real man” meant.
I gave him the example of the Gurkha retired soldier, who defended a young girl from being raped by a mob of 40 people. (It wasn’t that difficult for him apparently to face 40 people, once he got into crazy mode, he just had to kill 3 of them with his Khukari, cut another 8, and the brave rapists then fled despite their heavy numerical superiority.)
The guy was upset over the example!! Hard to believe for me. The guy was uttering words like patriarchy and misogyny (hatred of females) and all. I didn’t get it – what did he want, the Gurkha should have let the young girl get raped, in the name of female equality?
The young man didn’t make any sense in his ramblings. I basically told him, as he seemed to be an intellectual young fella, look – you all should just go and learn how to use condoms, and go out have sex between willing boys and girls! India has a lot of sexual repressions, which leads to rape. Be revolutionary, destroy your chains.
He ignored this sage piece of advice, and kept ranting and raving about how I didn’t understand patriarchy and misogyny.
I still didn’t get it. What patriarchy? That’s a Western Abrahamic concept, in India the deities include women (Durga, Kali) etc, and the society is a mixed patriarchy-matriarchy. What misogyny? He was the one saying the Gurkha should have let the young girl get raped… If that’s not misogyny, what is?
Then I realized. The dude had no clue what “patriarchy” and “misogyny” meant. He had read it in some Western articles, rote-memorized the words, and kept repeating whenever something involved with women came along!
This, I felt, is rather sad. When even your intellectualism, your deep thoughts, are not your own – you have to borrow from an alien world without understanding that world’s concepts – how can the young face the real problems in India? Using the tools (concepts) from an alien culture cannot help them, they have to invent their own tools that really apply to the situation!
You nailed it , ‘Abrahamic Concepts’. Right or wrong we do not know , but perception of anything is colored when looked through the filter of an alien concept. I mentioned to you once before … you would like the books / TED talk of devdutt patnaik http://devdutt.com/
In the Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – the prophets/deities are not remembered along with any female concerts. Moses, Jesus, Mohammad stand alone. Moses is usually considered the “patriarch”. People brought up in these religions think like that, hence “patriarchy”. Though the word can be used, obviously, anywhere that applies.
But in Hinduism, there is Krishna/Radha, Ram/Sita, Shiva/Parvati and so on… And there are even standalone goddesses, Kali, Durga. People brought up in these religions have these as their archetypes.
That’s why I feel the concept doesn’t really carry over to the Indian culture directly. Indira Gandhi was elected just a few decades into independence. In the US, more than two hundred years post independence, so far there hasn’t been a female president!
So the youth using words like “patriarchy” in the Western way, doesn’t really fit very well to me. At least to me, the word brings to mind a whole way of thinking and talking, a way of history – a way that’s not Indian. In the West, it brings to mind decades of feminine struggles, and all its arguments and successes and failures. India hasn’t seen anything like the Western feminist movement, as far as I know. There have been arguments ranging from whether to wear saris or pants, and whether to grind spices or buy them in tubes… But it’s a whole-society type of argument, rather than the feminist revolutionary arguments.
Mukesh, I was intrigued that you so astutely pick up the essence of what Hinduism seeks to embrace in its plurality. In our youth, religion was there, an abstractness that didn’t really touch us in any way and NDA made it comfortable – I guess the pagri parade for the Sikh cadets was the closest military requirement that lightly touched it; only to make the tying of turbans meet a strict consistency. The first intimate touch that I had was during my engagement ceremony when the pundit asked for my gotta and my Mom quickly stepped in to answer seeing my puzzled face. Age has allowed me to grow comfortable in its embrace and yet I get troubled on rightists ownership of what is private and privileged to me. The youth who interacted with you represents the confusion that is manifest in the society. Good of you to articulate your thoughts my friend and may the ink in your pen continue to find a regular outflow.