Ram Puniyani
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| Painting: Raja Ravivarma |
Women’s struggle to break the
shackles of patriarchy and come of their own is a part of
democratization/secularization process of society. In India while this equality has been granted right
with the implementation of Constitution in free India , the social realities are far
from those of equality. With the rise of cultural, religious and social norms,
which accompany politics in the name of religion, the matters are worse off as
far as struggle for gender justice is concerned. While women’s movement has
been asserting the longing for equality, this process has got several obstacles
and these obstacles, when couched in the language of religion become much more
difficult to overcome.
The observation of Bombay High
Court (March 2012) that married women should be like Goddess Sita and should
give up their all to accompany their husband like Sita did, is what is
desirable. The learned judges were opining on a case of divorce in which woman
is not willing to join her husband, who has got a job in Port Blair and she is
living in Mumbai. The judge’s observation and taking a cue from the
mythological figures itself has lot of problems. On the top of that the analogy
of Sita may be most painful as far as women are concerned. Despite various
versions of Lord Ram story prevailing around the most common and well known in
this part of the country is the one of Valmiki. This Valmiki version has been
made more popular by Mahrshi Ramanand Sagar through his serial Ramayan.
Here the character of Sita is most servile and subservient to the Lord. For
example when Ram faces the dilemma of banishing her to forest on the alleged
rumors of Sita’s chastity, Sita in Ramanand Sagar’s version herself prods her
husband to send her to forest, quite a retrograde fall over the version of
Valmiki himself.
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| Mumbai High Court - Courtesy: Wikipedia |
As such in most versions of Lord
Ram Story what is common is that Sita is an abandoned child found by Raja
(King) Janak while doing the ritual and ploughed the field. She is married off
to Ram, who is exiled by his father Dashrath to keep the promise to one of his
queens, Kaikeyi. From here the misery of Sita starts. Ravan, who wants to take
revenge of insult of his sister Surpnakha at the hands of Ram- Laxman duo,
abducts Sita and takes her to Lanka, where she is made to live in Ashok Vatika.
Ravan, himself shows a desire for him but she refuses. Her rescue is
also full of insult for her. Lord Ram tells her that he has rescued her to save
his own honor! Sita is made to give ‘Trail by Fire’, agnipariksha to prove
her chastity. She passes the test and is brought back to Ayodhya to be
coroneted along with her husband.
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| Agnipariksha - Painting by an unknown artist c. 1820 Courtesy: Wikipedia |
The misery intensifies. There is
a rumor questioning the chastity of the queen. The King, Lord Ram, is witness
to the agnipariksha. At this
point instead of protecting his wife, who is pregnant, he asks his loyal
brother Laxman to dump her in a forest. Exiling a pregnant wife can not by any
standard be part of the justice at any time in the history. Years later when
Ram meets Sita by coincidence, Ram hesitates to take her back and at this point
Sita commits suicide. Probably amongst all the mythological figures, Sita’s is
the most tragic tale.
While all this is part of the
popular folklore, how come the learned judges give the advice to any married
woman to emulate Sita? No woman can have a life worse than this. The other
point is in the present society trying to march towards democratic values; can
we think of giving the examples from mythology to be emulated today? The period
of society depicted in mythologies is the one which was having values of
kingdoms. Kingdoms had the values of ‘birth based hierarchy’ of caste and
gender. While the claims are that in ancient India, women had a glorious and
respectable life, the truth comes out from the values given in the Manusmirti, a book where the women has
the status totally subservient and secondary to man. It was precisely because
of the caste and gender hierarchy of this ‘holy’ book, that Dr. Ambedkar burnt
it.
With women’s movement coming up
and gender subservience being questioned, surely our laws and courts have to be
sensitive to the aspirations of women. The very concept of woman losing her
basic identity after marriage has to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
The adjustment between couples has be more innovative, few examples of which
one sees in the contemporary times more so in western countries and in good
measure around here as well. Here in India also there are couples who
chart their own course for togetherness, without losing their basic identities
and choices. We need to bring our thinking in tune with the times, the
democratic set up, away from the birth based hierarchies towards the concept of
equality. The intrusion of feudal and other primordial values has been wearing
the garb of fundamentalism, in various religions. Christian Fundamentalism,
Islamic Fundamentalism and Hindutva are examples where the subordination of
women is legitimized in the language of religion.
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| Engineering Students - Courtesy: Outlook |
The analogy of Sita in particular
is very painful but as such any analogy from mythological and periods of
history before the democratic culture starts coming in has to be shunned. One
hope courts and legal structures think of the fate of Sita before ordaining
such a life for women in current times.
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