[Reader-list] Fw: reeling from discontention 2.

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear Subhrodip jee

I am sorry on this account, but I am quite unlucky to have studied during my
prime period of adolescence (Class 7th to Class 12th) in a boys' school at
Bhopal. And then I managed to come to IIT-Madras, which is not different
from my school I referred to, simply because there are 3 girls in my branch
out of 37 students. What a pity!

May be the govt. should seriously consider reserving 50% of all seats under
each category (general, OBC, SC, ST) for women to empower them rather than
wasting those seats in the Parliament, where the legislators' wives would
gain entry. This will achieve so many objectives. For us, our interaction
with girls will be great as required in the college (or so we all boys feel)
and we will stop growing desperate (which we do in four years here). For the
nation, the educated women would actually mean economic and social
empowerment of women (after all, IIT women graduates are not going to be
housewives and automatically get empowered socially and economically). What
a win-win situation!

I hope all Hindutva ideologues, Communist supporters and Centrist workers as
well as others have no objection to such a step if it were to be taken. I
also feel no boys or girls school should be allowed to be kept. We should
have Co-Ed schools.

On a serious note, I believe the problem is also about the way we look at
women in our society. The woman is looked upon as a mother or a daughter.
When a girl is raped somewhere say in a city in India, the words used for
that in Hindi aren't 'ek ladki ke saath balatkaar kiya gaya', but 'ek ladki
ki izzat looti gayee'. In other words, a girl's dignity can be torn to
shreds if raped. Think of it. When India is pointed out as a mother by our
Hindutva ideologues, some of them constantly refer to the fact that the
mother is being raped. And I remember Aashish (one of my friends and also a
member on this forum) who said ' This means that the father has gone away,
the son has to take responsibility of the mother, and so if the mother is
being raped, the son has to go and kill the rapist'. This immediately
creates a resonance with the idea that Muslims (rapists) are raping the
nation (mother) and Hindus (sons) have to save it.

Look at even the abuses in Hindi used in our society. They are based on
mother (maa ki.....) and sister (behen ki....) by and large. This gives us
an indication of how females are looked down upon in the Indian society by
and large. Now even Tamils in Chennai use such abuses, ironical in a society
where ideologues like Periyar always stressed on equality of women.

Look again at how we look at pre-marital sex. If a boy does it, everybody
feels jealous. But when a woman does it, people just think of her as a
prostitue in our society. So a boy doing such sex is fine, but for a woman
it's unacceptable. Why?

Look at the reaction one gets when one finds that one's girl is in love, and
when one's boy is in love.

After thinking of all this, one realizes why a girl's parents are always in
worry right from the day she is born till she dies. She can be subjected to
dowry, can be raped (and rape can still be dealt with, but what about the
society which feels the rape victim is to be blamed and looked down upon,
and decide that her dignity is torn to shreds), can be maimed and tortured,
and our society accepts it. And what' s more, it gets further
institutionalized.

So much so, that a woman is the biggest enemy of a woman. Patel women were
reported to have helped their husbands in burning Muslim women or even
raping them. What a shame! We always hear tons of stories regarding burnings
due to non-payment of dowry, and saas-bahu problems. A woman, in order to
overcome patriarchial domination and prove her own worth, assaults her own
daughter-in-law, or bahu, is that acceptable?

And now we have the Mangalore pub attacks and attacks on girls on the
Valentine's Day celebrations.

Personally, I believe I am conservative, though the extent is difficult to
tell. May be the reason is what you said Subhrodip jee, but yes I do feel
awkward with girls easily mingling with boys when I am with boys (rarely
will I be with girls, I don't have friends in them. I am so unlucky that
even when I send friend requests to women on this forum, they are not
accepted. And this is just about online talk, not personal meeting).
However, I am not the moral police going to stop someone from this inter
mingling, for that I believe is personal opinion and taste. And that is
where I am liberal (if I am at all liberal, that is).

So my point is that it's fine with me if people are conservative for
themselves. What is wrong and should not be tolerated is their infringing
upon other people's rights to do as they wish. Just because I don't like
going to pubs doesn't mean I forcibly stop someone else from going to pubs.
I can stay put at my home. It is all fine if you convince me by arguments
that my stand is wrong, but using force for the same would be wrong. And
equally, me using force to support my own arguments would also be wrong.

The Togadias and the Thackerays may kindly re-consider their stands on such
issues.

Regards

Rakesh