Look deeper...

We always say that things are not always what they seem to be and one should look closer and deeper before making a judgement about anything and anybody. Sometimes, you do get sucked into something that superficially looks genuine and rational. But the core is rotten and you realize this after a while.

One of the ways that right-wing seems to attack feminists/liberals is to pick up some isolated cases and generalize it. They get a few people who are supposedly victims of some injustice and they use them to create enough noise to compel lawmakers and people on the fence to believe that their cases are genuine and that the feminist movement is evil. Interestingly, I see it happening more often than not with the communists. There is a wide-spread belief that communists are anti-development, trouble makers, etc, etc. Why? Pick up any paper on any given day and you will never see anybody discussing the communist's point of view. Moreover, it is likely that you will see cartoons and articles deriding the communists without looking at their messages. Before you start accusing me of being a communist, let me just say that I am not. But I do not think that there are pure evil in the way the media seems to portray them and they do make some relevant points. I am more likely to pick a communist newspaper/magazine because I feel that though there is a definite communist bias in them, they report things in meticulous details and they report things that are generally ignored in the mainstream media, which seems to be obsessed with things urban.

Recently, a bunch of 'activists' spam-posted on my friend, Jaya’s, blog. The first post sounded quite reasonable. (for the uninitiated, the law basically protects women from the harassment they receive from their in-laws regarding dowry. The law makes this offence un-bailable) Well, there is nothing wrong with protesting against unjust usage of the law but the misogynous nature of their views is there for us to view right in this post.

"See growing rate of divorce. Few days back there was news in HT, as per which majority of divorce cases are because women are having extra-marital affairs, why this situation is there, it is because certain women feel with weapon of section 498A on their side, they are much stronger than their husbands and In-Laws. My appeal to President of India, Prime Minister, Cabinet ministers, and Judges is please examine this issue on priority and save Indian culture. Introduce Law, which will protect innocent - both women and men."

Look how quickly they make the connection between divorce and the power given to women by the law. It is connection that is neither substantiated nor correct! And they go to further make the pronouncement that this law is against Indian culture! First, there is no proof that this law really is the cause of divorces nor do they bother to give any. Second, their idea that divorces are against Indian culture and thus, evil would be hilarious if they were joking. For the patriarchy, divorces are dangerous as it challenges their claim to power by giving women the option of getting out of a marriage that are not happy in. One of the reasons why people are forced into marriage early in their life is because of the fact that it takes a long time and education for an average person to be able to get a decent paying job and be independent. So, parents try to get their children, especially daughters, before they are able to "stand on their own legs". Daughters are put under more pressure because they are supposed to live a life that is subordinate to their male counterparts. Most women succumb to this pressure and get married to someone that their parents pick out for them. For people like Satya, this is Indian culture. It is sad to see our culture being derided by such obnoxious people!

People give anecdotal stories of how they have been harassed by their better halves but they are always the victims of some malicious woman whose seems to be worse than the devil, according to them! I am not saying that there wasn't any genuine case of the law being misused. I am not saying that all women are angels but neither are all men innocent. Besides, it is men who hold all the power, both economically and socially. And the dowry system is a real social problem, which these guys never seem to address. To break away from an abusive family, the women needs to be economically and socially empowered but that is sadly not true in the majority of the cases. Most men and their families expect the women to give up their career once they get married and take care of the household. This makes the women economically dependent on her husband. Secondly, a woman who leaves her husband is looked down upon in our society. She might even get turned out of her own parent's home because it is no longer 'her home' and that her husband’s home is 'her home'.

Jaya is pretty sane and she is definitely not interested in encouraging such spammers on her blog. She basically tells them to go look somewhere else because she is not interested in their 'activism'. Sadly, they do not want to leave her alone and there is this barrage of comments on her blog that she is forced to post a series of posts titles, tongue in cheek, 'Save Indian Sanity', spoofing their movement's title -- 'Save Indian Family'. :)

Here's what she has to say –

"I can't say anything other than this that these people are behaving pathetically. Look here - if a law, any law in the world, is being misused by anyone, its wrong. Who would be foolish enough to go against that stand? Okay, here is another law that probably is being misused by some. Its a great idea if one could help people who are unnecessarily being troubled by that. But as Abhaya rightly pointed out, what the heck does that have to do with Indian culture and family and divorce!! I mean, that's just too much. Misusing a law is just that, misusing a law. Has got no cultural connotations please… Then think of how pathetic it is to appeal to IITian sentiment for that; or for that matter to bash Feminism as a whole."

Derision of feminists is not uncommon. The image of feminists as bra-burning, male-hating, lesbians is now so common that it could quite easily manage to get into the dictionary! So, this response that she gets wasn't really that far off..

"Damn every evil thing in thise world is related to evils of feminism , sowry.
NCW is planning to steal the houses from IITians under the new domestic violence law.
IITian suffer the highest percentage of those trapped false dowry cases.
So are just makies all teh freshies aware of how these laws operate.
Dear IITian
The mere fact that you are not a dowry monger is no excuse for you to avoid jail .
That is the beauty of of our Dowry laws drafted by our misandryst feminists"

For being stubborn and unmoved by their incredibly inane bombardments, she gets bad publicity on their blog (I do not want to link them here but you can find the link on Jaya's post)! She just wants to be left alone and her blog unspammed but she does not get her wish...

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-ii/#comment-1046

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-ii/#comment-1048

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-ii/#comment-1056

"Some people prefer to be adamant with their own view and never has courage to try putting onself into other’s shoe!!"

She doesn't give in to their views and resists their attempts to make her 'understand' and she gets derided for lack of empathy! I wonder whether these people ever empathize with the women who do get harassed by their in-laws for dowry.

Just when you think that it just cannot get more stupid, we see this. I think this is where they realized that their shouting was not having any effect on Jaya and out comes their hatred for what they call "modern supernakh" (shoorpanakha is a character in the Indian epic, Ramayana. She is the cultural stereotype of a bad woman – immoral, head-strong, lying, conniving, lustful, etc, etc).

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-ii/#comment-1060

scroll further in those comments and you find this self-righteous comment...

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-ii/#comment-1068

"Jaya
You had been exposed , though you try to best to take a msk of Modern Sita , but SIF volenters exposed your real face , you can not hide the coments in your bolg .
This for your reference , let the whole world observe how you are killing our age old parents and pregent sister by doing the legal terrorism in india ."

In fact, it is they who have been exposed! Their lack of rationale and ridiculous perseverance in saying the same things over and over again without trying to understand what the other person is trying to say can be attributed to their mind-numbing stupidity or is it their lack of English skills? One will never know!
When they realize that their shouting is not having any effect on the listener, they come out with their real inner views.

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-iii/#comment-1082

I really do not know which portion of the comment to put here. So, I am going to ask you to follow the link and read the entire thing. If you do, you can see how the person has traced the root of all problems to the education of women! This is classic. The reason why women were never educated was exactly due to the fear that they might rebel against their second-class-citizens status. It is a classic example of how much the patriarchal thinking is ingrained that people resist change and resist things that seek to point out the injustice present in the system. Men are so privileged that they do not realize that they are suppressing women. It may not be willful but the practices of our society that ensure that women so not get equal opportunities and chances do just that and many men do not realize that suppression need not be an individual thing. Just because it is societally accepted practice does not mean that it is right.

"Why a women have to be fed till her death after marriage in India?"

Hmm.. Why is it that it is a woman who is expected to forsake her career, cook the food, clean the shit of the babies that she is expected to produce, work seven days a week and 12 hours a day without pay, and still is expected to be grateful to the man who brings in the food! And why is a woman who refuses to live under these conditions considered evil, immoral and cast out of society leaving her little choice regarding her course of action? And why is a law that seeks to equalize this disparity just a little bit a cause of such heartburn to you?
The misogynism in this person’s post is an inner peek at what these people are really seeking. "Better keep her ignorant, lest she becomes untamable". They are afraid of women. After all, they do make up 50% of the population (well, not quite, thanks to female feticide and infanticide).

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-iv/#comment-1074

" Feminists are Hypochondriac Hypocrites.
Every year women drive 23000 men to suicide and go simply scot free."

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-iv/#comment-1083

"Root problem
Infact, the problem is our Indian ppl are poisoned by the Feminists organisations dangeroulsy. Whether a male or female, a child doesn't know. They acquire knowledge throgh the society. This society contains most vultures than any other as NGOs. So, continuos spread of hatred towards a man and dowry made these little children prone to poison. Dowry is a social custom in India for centuries. Crime by dowry demand is nothing but greed. we already have laws for cheating, greedy, characterless fellows. why this 498a? and 'mental tension clause' ...nothing but corruption."

'Poisoned by feminists organisations'? Really? I hardly think so. There is so much prejudice against feminism , it is hardly feasible for a person to become a feminist without conviction. It is not something that you do because of peer pressure because, lets face it, there is no peer pressure with regard to feminism. Besides, isn't dowry a social evil? Don't women get abused and killed because their in-laws are not satisfied with the dowry? Dont the woman's family get held for ransom just before the marriage in the wedding hall with threats for more dowry or no marriage? Just because we have laws does not mean that they are effective. If it were, people would not be able to break it with such impunity.

"If they were in USA, by now they would have met their fate. Rascals of the country, devastating the culture of my country."

ROFL! Interestingly, they attribute feminism to the western world and they also expect feminists to be non-existent and brought to 'justice' in the western world. Sometimes, I wonder why they seem to idolize the western world at the same time resisting the change saying it is western and against 'our culture'. Perhaps, it is our culture to be corrupt and being rascals?

"if you notice, population increased highly after sometime, this IPC498a is enacted by legislation. Main reason, marital discord between men and women. women were not capable of earning, but learn about this law by parents for their selfish reasons. Men being not happy with his marrid wife, he is always under 498a threat, wisdom got lost. The men who are in threat are greatly public servants, social ppl, highly educated, scientists in urban areas participating infrastructure design for the country. what happens when these ppl. are not healthy in living? That naturally gets affected on the rural areas. No proper planning, infrastructure got affected, wisdom got lost and the country led to 48% poverty level now(eating one meal in a day)."

Just how flawed is this guy's thinking. He is blaming one law for everything going wrong in this country! It is incredible that men are considered to be good at logic and reasoning! I mean, look at this guy reasoning. Whatever he may be, he definitely is not teaching 'Logic and Reasoning' to some maths graduates somewhere, that's for sure!

"Britishers who directly ruled India are far better than these ppl, who have already poisoned the society."

You know who makes this statement more often than not? RSS. About the congress governments that ruled India for the majority of our independent lifetime. Listening to the same view put forth by this guy made my suspicion that this person is coming from an RSS grooming stronger. Not that it wasn't already evident in their blatant misogynism and anti-feminist tirades but there are some statements that give a very clear view of their background. And this is one of those statements that mark them out. There are several variations of this statement and I have heard them primarily from an RSS source –
"We were better off under british rule. I wish we were never freed."
"These people have ruined my country. Thanks to the britishers that we have atleast this much."

This person's comment really brings out the entire thing. Their's is not a movement that seeks to make amends to an unjust law but to maintain what they call "Indian culture" (or what they perceive to it to be), which is basically the patriarchal world where the women are uneducated, ignorant, and subordinate. Their's is a movement that seeks to wage a bigger war, a war against feminism, against liberty, against radical movement that seeks to eliminate injustice.

I believe that today's radicals would be tomorrow's liberals and today's liberals would be tomorrow's conservatives. Change is the only constant in this world and there is no way the right wing is going to succeed in its anti-change, status quo agenda. It is simply not possible! So, here's to a better world!

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PS. Two things.
1. you are not going to get free publicity on this blog. So all posts with links to places like 'harassed husbands' will be deleted.
2. If you have something reasonable to say, say it. Dissent is not unwelcome but posts discussed above are NOT welcome. They will get deleted.

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Thirdly, Before you jump up and post something, re-read my post. Try to see exactly what I am criticizing and then, if you have a counter-point, say it.
An example of something that is not a counter-point is arguing that there are cases where the law is misused.
If you still persist in inane comments that give me the impression that you havnt read the post, I will ignore (or delete it if I consider it fall under the above two categories) your comment.