Last night I was watching a ‘serious’ discussion as part of the ‘State of the Nation’ surveys conducted by CNN-IBN on women across the country regarding different issues. The topic was ‘Morality and the Indian woman's mind’.
Let me quote one of the participants:
“This agenda of liberation that women have—which has come with financial freedom and changing roles—has made them prisoners of war in confines of morality. They want to free out of that. A prisoner of war is good only when he is free. I am not sure if the survey indicates that (women believe) marriage is a freer of women and live-in relationship enslaves them.”
Good. Except for that huh comment…like when a POW is free s/he ceases to be a POW. And how smart is it to call women prisoners of war…who is at war? No one knows. It just sounded so smashing tough that it made the grade.
This is a so-called ‘modern’ woman. Now let me get to the bottom of it. The survey showed that 48 % of Indians women want a ban on inter-caste marriages and 50 % want a ban on inter-religious marriages.
I would like to know how anyone can ask such a question in a survey at all. Who has given the media groups the right to butt their noses in what would amount to a legal provision? You might say this is hypothetical. Fine. Then, hypothetically the query ought to have been: do you believe in such and such marriages? We are not living in a dictatorship where we can have banning on certain kinds of alliances.
Now comes the ‘let us scrape the surface’ scenario. The above-mentioned modern woman, wearing two strings of pearls with a black outfit, who spoke openly about live-in relationships, about pre-marital sex, said that she would not be comfortable as a Hindu to be married to…uh-huh…a Muslim. Yes, she said it. She also added that she was being politically incorrect, which immediately made her feel veryyyy brave. This is not political incorrectness; it is prejudice. Her reason: The two religions are completely different ideologically. Yeah, sure. Like Hindusim is ideologically the same as Catholicism and Zoroastrianism. Come on now, we can see through this…
So would a Hindu be comfy marrying a Hindu from a ‘backward’ community? Or with less education? Or whose financial status was not good? Or who did not socially fit into one’s idea of an asset? All this because the gods are pretty much in agreement?
Worse, the anchor, known to be liberal who usually baits right-wing politicians, did not counter-question the lady. She just accepted it.
And this sort of nonsensical acceptance is what is passing for debate on television and numbing people’s thoughts.
FV:
ReplyDeleteRubbish is meant for dustbins, not for blogposts!
Hello, hello??
ReplyDeleteIt is like this...
The statement is not asserting that it is rubbish, the title is not "Surveying the Indian woman rubbish".
Here it is questioning the assertion by stating it is rubbish.
i.e. the statement is not right. Rubbish in that context, not kachra...
Kaiku khit-pit karta? Apun ko TV dekhna mangta na...
I saw the program,surveys are unrelible.Did you listen to prahlad kakkar?
ReplyDeleteI did. Kakkar's views were not relevant to the discussion, though. I would have liked to hear more women's voices.
ReplyDeleteThis is the media, this is what they do. See, more than half the people, in the country at least, have no idea about other cultures and religions. So whatever you give them, especially from the hands of some people who look like they know something, they'll accept it and then they will ignore the right reasons and issues from a common man who would try to correct them.
ReplyDeleteAnd about the inter-racial marriages, I've always believed it's all about the money. If you have enough dough on you, no one gives a damn about your caste, color, height, width...
Anyway, Happy Day.
(Was listening to this song when at your blog so want to dedicate it to you: Judas Priest - You Got Another Thing Coming)
SM:
ReplyDelete"And about the inter-racial marriages, I've always believed it's all about the money. If you have enough dough on you, no one gives a damn about your caste, color, height, width..."
Well, have you seen a dark woman with a fair man, or a shorter man...we won't get to width!
Of course, money is the great leveller.
Thanks for the song...
"If you think I'll sit around as the world goes by
You're thinkin' like a fool cause it's a case of do or die"
Marey mere dushman...