I live in a society, where religious matters have overtaken various core issues such as poverty, education and health. I live in a society, where rational sections are harassed and heckled, whereas staunch communal elements are praised. I live in a society, where people are fed with hate messages, imparted by their dearest communal leaders, and thus these communally beefed up minds take up to the streets to commit violence, while their dearest communal leaders enjoy in AC rooms. I live in a society, which has forgotten to question ill-faiths and ill-traditions and continue to suppress the voices of the downtrodden.
Yes, it took a long struggle by our social reformers like Raja Ramohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and M.G. Ranade to fight for the rationalist cause in our society, which somewhat bore fruits, but with the recent events, we as a society are returning to our pathetic states once again. Our society has, right from the ancient times, stood against any reforms with the Brahminical hegemony contributing for the major part of the period. Even though, with the emergence of Indian National Congress, we saw a rise of its social wing called as the Indian National Social Conference, it lost its steam after few years because of the lack of support and the upper class interest within the Congress. We were gifted with great minds but very few had rational minds with scientific temper embedded inside it.
Where we boast about our traditional advancements in science and technology, we have completely lagged in bringing about an equal society, as most of our technological and scientific upper hand was with the Upper Class. Manusmriti was injected into every individual and the sense of inequality was never thought as an inequality, as it was considered as the "Law of the Land".
Today, when we witness some of the landmark judgements standing for equality in our society, major sections are creating a blockade on this road leading to an equal society. Upper Class hegemony, or more precisely Brahminical hegemony, intermixed with Patriarchal thinking has been on the forefront for creating an unjust system. Today, when I switch on to a news channel, I witness nothing but religious news everywhere. On one side, there is instability over the Sabarimala issue, on the other side, I see news dedicated to the visit of our PM to Shirdi on account of 100th birth anniversary of Sai Baba or RSS chief calling on for building Ram Mandir at Ayodhya or Shiv Sena calling for the same. Whole media space is being conquered by these matters, as a result, people who are watching these channels forget about the main issues faced by our country and tend to get diverted. The stiff opposition to the Sabarimala verdict is nothing but a mixture of the above mentioned mixture of Brahminical hegemony and patriarchal behaviour of the society.
Society always forgets that we are all born from the same so called "menstruating impure woman" (term used by these groups) and continue to target women on the basis of their menstrual cycle. If menstruation was impure, then we all are impure as well, and hence we do not have any right to claim for us to be pure. All these protesting saints must keep all these in their minds before protesting.
But alas! this is not their sole main motive.
The other motive is nothing but to have a grab at the vote banks in the name of Saving Sabarimala They have not left any stone unturned in creating a ruckus over this issue. I can confidently say, that if the State Government of Kerala would have filed a review petition over the Sabarimala verdict, these right wing groups would have stood against the review petition and would have created an issue supporting the cause for women's entry.
With days going by, I, as a human being, am becoming more human, by getting disenchanted with religious philosophies and in this way, I have broadened my mind to create more space for core issues.
Yes, it took a long struggle by our social reformers like Raja Ramohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and M.G. Ranade to fight for the rationalist cause in our society, which somewhat bore fruits, but with the recent events, we as a society are returning to our pathetic states once again. Our society has, right from the ancient times, stood against any reforms with the Brahminical hegemony contributing for the major part of the period. Even though, with the emergence of Indian National Congress, we saw a rise of its social wing called as the Indian National Social Conference, it lost its steam after few years because of the lack of support and the upper class interest within the Congress. We were gifted with great minds but very few had rational minds with scientific temper embedded inside it.
Where we boast about our traditional advancements in science and technology, we have completely lagged in bringing about an equal society, as most of our technological and scientific upper hand was with the Upper Class. Manusmriti was injected into every individual and the sense of inequality was never thought as an inequality, as it was considered as the "Law of the Land".
Today, when we witness some of the landmark judgements standing for equality in our society, major sections are creating a blockade on this road leading to an equal society. Upper Class hegemony, or more precisely Brahminical hegemony, intermixed with Patriarchal thinking has been on the forefront for creating an unjust system. Today, when I switch on to a news channel, I witness nothing but religious news everywhere. On one side, there is instability over the Sabarimala issue, on the other side, I see news dedicated to the visit of our PM to Shirdi on account of 100th birth anniversary of Sai Baba or RSS chief calling on for building Ram Mandir at Ayodhya or Shiv Sena calling for the same. Whole media space is being conquered by these matters, as a result, people who are watching these channels forget about the main issues faced by our country and tend to get diverted. The stiff opposition to the Sabarimala verdict is nothing but a mixture of the above mentioned mixture of Brahminical hegemony and patriarchal behaviour of the society.
Society always forgets that we are all born from the same so called "menstruating impure woman" (term used by these groups) and continue to target women on the basis of their menstrual cycle. If menstruation was impure, then we all are impure as well, and hence we do not have any right to claim for us to be pure. All these protesting saints must keep all these in their minds before protesting.
But alas! this is not their sole main motive.
The other motive is nothing but to have a grab at the vote banks in the name of Saving Sabarimala They have not left any stone unturned in creating a ruckus over this issue. I can confidently say, that if the State Government of Kerala would have filed a review petition over the Sabarimala verdict, these right wing groups would have stood against the review petition and would have created an issue supporting the cause for women's entry.
With days going by, I, as a human being, am becoming more human, by getting disenchanted with religious philosophies and in this way, I have broadened my mind to create more space for core issues.
