We must try to understand real pain and agony of riot victims

I recently read a blog post "We are more than our name" by Zahir Janmohamad. It's really disturbing and painful to read any riot survivor's account, this one is more painful for me as I know about this incident as it happened when I was still living in India. These riots happened in February 2002 when I was supposed to travel by train from Varanasi (UP) to Pune (Maharashtra). I read the news about the train bogie fire at Godhra station in Gujarat which killed 58 people, and communal riots followed after this. Due to the possibility of communal tension in other parts of the country, my relatives were worried about my travel as it was during the days following this incident. More than ten years have passed since this incident happened. Many people died during riots in Gujarat. This is not the only riot that happened in Gujarat or in India, there were many communal violence incidents before and after that. For example, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, or Mumbai riots of 1992-93, or the issue of Kashmiri Pandits who were forced to leave their homes because of communal tension in Kashmir valley and live like refugees in their own country, or recent 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. Many people lost their lives and survivors are still waiting for justice to be delivered in most of these cases.

This post is not about the Godhra riot or any other riot. Depending on which community or religion they belong people are more sensitive to particular riots compared to others. Their reactions are extreme if their community is at the receiving end in any of the riots. I can understand the anger and frustration when people from their own community suffer but can not understand when the same people justify other riots where people from some other community suffer at the hands of people of their own community. Somehow they feel the pain and agony of riot victims belonging to their own religion but are totally immune to the pain of victims of other religions. Every communal riot or violent incident (including wars and terrorist attacks) leaves behind victims and their relatives who suffered during that conflict and continue to suffer even after that for a variety of reasons. Most people who are not directly affected by this incident read about it in the news, watch it on TV, feel sad for some time but move on with their lives, which is very natural. Even some people who get affected by these incidents also try to overcome that stress and trauma and move on, but there are many for whom the memory of those painful days becomes a major problem in their life. It's very difficult for them to forget these events. Their physical wounds heal with time but their psychological wounds don't. These traumatic incidents leave a very deep impact on their mind and affect them psychologically. Zahir's post is one such post that displays such an impact. It shows the pain of the person who is still suffering from the trauma he faced during those days, his life is not yet normal as those painful memories are so deeply rooted in his psyche that he cannot remove them.

In India, some political party or leader gets accused for either instigating these riots or for not taking timely action to prevent it. Some political leaders owe their political careers to some of these riots. These infamous and tragic incidents made them famous and helped them to win elections and become very powerful leaders in their party and state. Many of these political leaders from various parties do get charged for some offenses related to these riots, some inquiry panel tries to investigate these riots, but I have not yet seen any powerful political leader getting punished for their involvement in these riots. Most of them get clean chit because of lack of evidence, it doesn't matter which party they belong to. I am not in a position to say for sure whether any of those accused politicians were really involved in those incidents or not as fortunately, I have not witnessed any riot myself personally but there seems to be the presence of a reasonable amount of evidence that hints towards indirect or direct involvement of many of these leaders. Many of these leaders are very powerful and popular so it is very difficult even for investigating agencies to gather any evidence against them, they always get the benefit of the doubt but that doesn't mean they are not guilty. Some of them may get punished eventually after a couple of decades once their fame and power wane, but this is useless as justice delayed is justice denied. 

It's easy to say "move on" but in reality, it's not that easy, especially for victims who faced such a horrible incident in their life, and that too when they feel that justice is not delivered to them. It must be really difficult for them to digest the fact that people who they think are responsible for these riots are free, getting rewarded, and not even regret what they did. It is easy for people like me who are not directly affected by these riots to look at them objectively, analyze them, talk about them, and even debate about them, but how many of us really understand the real pain and agony of these victims. How many of us who justify some of these riots as acts of revenge are willing to put ourselves or our loved ones in that situation? Just try to imagine the trauma of these victims before trying to justify any of these heinous acts. Our desire for revenge dominates over our ability to feel pain and compassion for our fellow humans and if it is related to our religion or country then we passionately justify these killings. Once we decide to justify any heinous act then the question of right or wrong doesn't matter much.

Most of the world will move on or even forget about these riots, but posts like Zakir's will remind us about that ugly past, about the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of our legal system. It might make some of us uncomfortable but we can not blame people like him for digging into the unpleasant past unnecessarily because for them the pain and trauma are real. We need to allow people like him to express themselves. We should hear victim's stories if they are willing to share them, maybe this will help to relieve their pain to some extent. We all should try to understand the pain and agony felt by riot victims like him. I believe communal riots are avoidable incidents. We need to spread awareness about them and have strict laws and an efficient law and order system to catch and punish the culprits, no matter who they are. As long as we allow people responsible for these riots to walk free, and reap political benefits from these riots these things will keep on happening, the names of leaders will change but whenever possible they will keep on using communal violence as a tool to get political mileage. We need to diffuse this weapon, we need to make it totally ineffective so that they stop using it, and as long as we don't do that we will be forced to read such articles and wonder if we are living in a civilized world or some jungle.  

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:

1. We are more than our name: A Gujarati Muslim ponders life under Narendra Modi- Zahir Janmohamad
2. 2002 Gujarat violence
3. 1984 anti-Sikh riots
4. Mumbai riots of 1992-1993
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmiri_Pandit
6. 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots

Fight for gender equality is far from over

So far, the most popular post on my Blog is "Chanakya and his views about women." I wrote that post with a specific intention and mentioned it clearly in that post. The intention was not to display Chanakya in a bad light, to question his intelligence, or to criticize him. However, some people blinded by their faith and love of their idols didn't even bother to read the post carefully. Many such people took the post as a direct attack on Chanakya and somehow they also thought I was questioning his wisdom. They just couldn't tolerate my objections to some of his statements about women. They thought how can a person who was so brilliant and expert in many fields can make any mistake, and even if he made any mistake who am I to question it?

The post itself came into existence because of my two posts related to Prabhupad's book Gita as it is. In this book, he (Prabhupad) used some of Chanakya's quotes about women to claim that women are generally not very intelligent and trustworthy (compared to men). He also claimed that women are more prone to (moral) degradation, ironically this all was written in a book in which he claims to explain Gita as it is, this means Prabhupad claims that Gita is also a gender-biased text. So, the post "Chanakya and his views about women" was an attempt to show that an intelligent and wise man like Chanakya can also be biased about women. Such statements by influential people like Chanakya could be used to suppress women, hinder their progress, and restrict their freedom. Therefore, we need to question such statements, that's why I wrote that post. I thought it was a very simple thing to understand but unfortunately, some people failed to get it. This current post is not to defend that post or to justify it, I don't think I need to do that but I want to share my experience in dealing with some people who aggressively commented on that post to defend these views of Chanakya. Actually, this was not a totally unexpected reaction but in this process, they also shared their misogynist views like women are indeed not equal to men, women have some "natural flaws" that make them somewhat inferior to men, etc. One can see that even in today's world people are still nurturing some age-old misogynist beliefs.  Surprisingly not only some men but some women also claimed that indeed they were somewhat inferior (or weaker, having more problems, basically they meant inferior) to men. This shows how strong is the prejudice against women in our society. The years of brainwashing and suppression have made even women themselves believe that they have some natural flaws that make them less competent compared to men.

In the last few years, many laws have been created to protect women from social and sexual abuse. These laws were required because there were many cases where women were harassed for dowry (especially in India) or exploited sexually (all over the world). These laws helped to reduce these cases to some extent, at the same time nowadays there are many incidents reported in newspapers for misuse of anti-dowry laws and sexual harassment laws. Few women use these laws to blackmail their partners for selfish motives. Misuse of any law is not a new thing, many people exploit some loopholes present in any legislation. This is wrong and strict measures should be taken to stop it, but people should also try to understand why in the first place these laws were introduced. These types of laws were needed to stop those crimes against women and like many other laws some people misuse them for selfish purposes but that doesn't mean that we don't need these laws or only women misuse laws and men don't do it. Our society still needs these laws, we need to fine-tune them as much as possible so that people can not misuse them, but a few people misusing them can not be a reason to blame all women and conclude that we don't need any such laws. It's very foolish to generalize and conclude something like this. This is just one example that shows how some people want to use certain isolated incidents against women, based on a few incidents they like to jump to the conclusion that women should not be given equal status to men in society and that women must only perform certain traditional roles. They are eager to turn the wheels of the women's liberation movement backward.

The fight for gender equality has been going on for decades. A lot has been achieved by many feminist movements but still lot needs to be done. This fight is far from over. We can clearly see that still many think that men and women are not equal, they want to force women to do only some particular jobs, want to put boundaries around them, and suppress them. However, whether they like it or not those days are gone or will be gone very soon. Women have already proved their capabilities and earned respect and equal status in many societies around the world, and societies where they still don't have equal status they are catching up very fast, but as long as people with discriminatory mindsets are there, the fight for equality continues.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:
1. Chanakya and his views about women 
2. Bhagadvad Gita-As it is or As it is NOT..Part-I
3. Bhagadvad Gita-As it is or As it is NOT- Part-II

We all are beautiful

The recent Miss America crowning of Nina Davuluri, an American lady of Indian origin attracted a lot of media attention in India as well as in the US. Here in the US, it was somewhat controversial because of many racist comments on Twitter about her origin (some thought she was Arab or Muslim or from some non-American country), most of them were angry that how come a person with non-American looks could win Miss America beauty contest. All this was because of her looks and origins. I am personally not at all interested in these beauty pageants, they are heavily commercialized events and solely intended for the marketing purposes of beauty products targeting specific markets, these titles are awarded to target markets of specific countries or ethnic groups, and there is no real purpose behind these contests except to attract media coverage and make money. Every country has its own version of Miss, Mr, or Mrs something. But this post is not about these pageants or their relevance but about some people's obsession with fair skin. Some people are obsessed with fair skin so much that having dark skin is considered ugly and unfortunate. I already wrote one post about the definition of beauty but in this post, I want to focus on the stigma associated with dark skin in some cultures.

Most contestants entering beauty contests fit into the commercial definition of beauty as far as their bodies and looks are concerned. The only difference in developed places like the US or Europe is that the skin color variety is more, one can find both dark and fair-colored (and in between) contestants participating in the event but in most Asian countries by default, all contestants are fair skinned even though in some countries (like India) most people are dark skinned. This is not because dark-skinned people are not allowed to compete or are being barred from participating but because they don't make the cut, they either don't participate or get rejected in preliminary screening. The main reason behind this is an obsession of people from these countries with fair skin. One can clearly see this just by looking at the names of some of the most popular skin care products in India like "Fair & Lovely" or "Fair & Handsome." The companies or people who advertise and sell these products don't even see anything wrong in these names or in the contents of their advertisements. 

I have no idea where this skin color bias has originated. I think at least in India it can be linked to the presence of the British or Europeans, they were very powerful and ruled the region for a long time, so I think people relate white skin with some kind of superiority. Maybe the same logic can be applied to some other places in the world where white skin is considered as more superior to dark one. Apart from this, I don't think there is any other reason, according to me any skin color is beautiful white, black, brown, dark, or fair all are beautiful, at least I can not pick one over another. Therefore, the preference for one particular skin color in people's minds must have some social reason as it has absolutely nothing to do with beauty. Commercialization of beauty products has resulted in aggressive marketing of all brands, in this process they don't care what they show in their ads or what they claim their products can do. All they want is to sell their product at any cost and they take advantage of these types of social perceptions. They also encourage people to mold themselves to fit into their definition of beauty. In India, I have seen the stigma associated with dark skin. Parents of children with dark skin worry about their kid's future, especially about their marriage. Parents of a girl child are more concerned, they even have to pay more dowry in many cases just because of the dark skin of their daughter.

People who think fair skin is better or more beautiful than dark don't even realize that indirectly they are being racist. Calling someone ugly just because of their skin color is a form of racism. We need to question this attitude and object to all advertisements that encourage such thinking no matter which company is making them and which celebrity is endorsing them. These companies have the right to sell their product in any market but they should not advertise them in a racist way. The advertisement that Shahrukh Khan did for Fair and Handsome is really disgusting. I wonder how he didn't realize how disgusting that ad was. I hope people get over this false notion that one skin color is more beautiful than another. We all come in different colors, shapes, and sizes, we all are beautiful no matter which advertisement says what. We need to remove the stigma associated with any skin color. A person's skin color or external appearance should not be the criteria to judge that person and brand them as beautiful or ugly. I think our society has evolved to such a level where we can understand that beauty is more than just external appearance and we all are beautiful, no matter what shape, size, or color.  

Thanks for reading and please share your views about this topic. 

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing] 

Links:

1. http://www.darkisbeautiful.in/

2. Dark is beautiful-Lakshmi Krupa

3. http://www.nanditadas.com/nanditawrites30_inc.htm

4. Dark is beautiful

5. India's unfair obsession with lighter skin

How can we justify any war?

Recently I came across this article (warning: graphic images) about the effects of weapons used during the Iraq war on the general public. The images make you feel really sick and tell us how devastating war can be even to its survivors. Any war or armed struggle on a domestic or international level results in a lot of physical and emotional damage to people directly or indirectly associated with it, but still people choose violence to settle disputes. People kill each other for very trivial reasons (communal riots are an ideal example of this). Violence is not new to humans. We have seen many wars and massacres at various levels (including two world wars), and each time when it happens we feel sad and devastated. After each war, we talk about the futility of using violence to solve any dispute but again next time people forget everything that happened in the past and engage in fresh violence in the name of God, country, or whatever reason they can find, expecting that it will produce better results this time. People do not realize that it is futile to try the same thing again and again and expect different outcomes, they do it all the time. Many great epics (like Mahabharat) are also full of stories of war heroics and bravery which directly or indirectly inspire people to think that violence is a very legitimate and effective option to settle disputes or to achieve justice.

Any war results in pain and suffering, the use of violence to curb violence rarely works, and even if it works or brings peace most of the time it's temporary, it's just a matter of time before violence in the form of revenge erupts. All groups involved in war often justify their position using their own logic, normally both sides claim that they are fighting for self-defense, justice, and peace. This is what happens in most of the wars and communal riots, both sides feel they are killing others for the right cause, no one is willing to compromise and ultimately everyone suffers, but they still refuse to learn the lesson. People think that the use of violence can bring a quick solution to a problem. Somehow, people believe that the use of devastating weapons like atomic bombs can save many lives. People also think that long, tedious, and complicated negotiations cannot settle complicated issues between two nations and that war is an attractive option to settle issues quickly. However, in reality, rarely does it work like this. Lengthy wars, ethnic clashes, and continuous communal tensions between two communities are examples to prove that violence rarely brings any permanent solution to a problem.

Nations kill people to show that killing people is wrong, there is so much contradiction in this that's why the use of violence to stop violence rarely works. There are a few crazy dictators in this world, a few fanatic religious leaders who don't hesitate to put their entire country or community at risk just for their own personal selfish motives. These people somehow hypnotize people from their countries or communities who support their crazy ideas without even thinking about the consequences. Any war is an unfortunate event and its result is always tragic. No matter which side declares itself as a winner, there are tragic scenes on both sides, precious lives are lost, bitterness is created between countries or communities that last generations and people from both sides suffer for a long time.

Many people who support the use of wars or violence use a lot of reasoning and logic to justify it. They feel it's perfectly fine to lose some lives to save some. There is also a feeling that some people don't understand the language of peace and only violence is the way to teach a lesson to them. But this is not always true, there are rarely completely right or wrong sides in most conflicts that result in war, most often the winner is always right, and the loser is evil. But most wars rarely produce the result they are supposed to deliver. For me any war is a story of pain and failure of humanity, they leave permanent scars on our psyche.

I wonder when people will realize the futility of using violence to settle any dispute? I wonder when they will realize that every human life is equally precious no matter which religion, race, caste, or country they belong to. After reading about any war I always wonder how people can justify any war? Every war kills many innocent people for no fault of theirs, I can understand that sometimes on rarest of rare occasions, we can not avoid war or violent conflict but I still wonder how can we justify violence on such a large scale that takes many innocent lives? And if wars can solve disputes, why do we still have so many of them even after fighting so many wars to settle the same disputes? Why every time some new dispute emerge after each war? As I said, I know that sometimes it's really hard to avoid war or the use of violence (especially for self-defense), but I fail to understand when people glorify and justify it as if they did something great by killing some innocent people during this process. Loss of innocent lives is called collateral damage and I think this collateral damage itself should force us to avoid any war. Questions are many but answers are difficult to find. I am still trying to find a proper explanation and understand why two sides want to engage in an act of war and how people can justify it? 

Thanks for reading and please share your views about this topic. 

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing] 

Links:
1. Iraqi birth defects worse than Hiroshima (warning: graphic images)

Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav - is it serving the purpose?

Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav or Ganapati festival is a public festival celebrated in different parts of India in honor of Ganapati (or Ganesh, a Hindu God). This festival is very popular in Maharashtra, and it is celebrated in many homes privately as well as by various mandals publicly (mandals are public trusts that collect money and celebrate festivals like this). Public Ganesh festival or Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav as it's popularly known was started sometime in the 1890s by one of the Indian freedom movement leaders Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak. His intention was to unite people from diverse groups, enhance their social belonging, and instill a feeling of patriotism while celebrating the festival. His aim was also to promote the dream of Indian independence and home rule. According to me celebrating a public festival in this manure was a great idea to educate and unite the masses for some common cause. During those times, under British rule, people were prevented from gathering in large numbers, so the public celebration of this festival gave people and their leaders a unique opportunity to gather together and share their ideas without inviting the wrath of concerned authorities.

This was all fine during the pre-independence era or even a few decades after independence. Festivals like this provided a much-needed occasion for social interaction on a large scale, but we see a very different picture altogether today. The way this festival is celebrated today is totally different than the way it was started. Public education or spreading awareness is hardly a motive today behind celebrating this festival. I know that things change with time and different generations look at things differently but this festival has undergone drastic changes in a bad way. Except few honorable exceptions, most mandals celebrate this festival for the sake of public show-off. Their main aim is to celebrate it as lavishly as possible by using public donations with hardly any noble motive behind it.  The collected money is wasted on useless activities. Also, the use of loudspeakers creates a lot of noise pollution in that area creating discomfort to elderly people and young kids who are sensitive to loud noise, While collecting donations for this festival many mandals forcibly extract money from many business owners who oblige under pressure to avoid any unpleasant scenario. Many mandaps (pavilions in which idols and decorations are installed) are erected in such a way that they interfere with traffic and create inconvenience to commuters.  Now, there is one mandal at each corner of the street, so instead of uniting people this festival today is dividing people. Every neighborhood wants its own mandal and there is fierce competition among them to collect donations and have grand celebrations. During Ganapati visarjan day, thousands of idols, big and small, are immersed in lakes, ponds, wells, rivers, and sea. Many of these idols are made of plaster of paris and use synthetic colors, immersing so many idols in streams creates a lot of water pollution and puts additional stress on our environment. These all are very serious issues and we need to address them properly, many other festivals are also celebrated publicly, which also create more or less the same issues and most importantly nowadays these festivals divide people, create some tension rather than bring people together. The main purpose behind celebrating these types of festivals is lost, what we see today is just a waste of money and resources in the name of God.

Unfortunately, any effort to reform anything related to such festivals is seen as direct interference in people's right to practice their religion. It hurts their religious sentiments and may result in protests and even communal riots. Because of this, it is considered a very sensitive issue and any government rarely wants to interfere in it. Despite all these things some rules related to the use of loudspeakers and the construction of mandals have been introduced. Many organizations encourage people not to immerse their idols in rivers or lakes. Actually, not all rules and regulations are followed strictly but some of these things show some positive signs and help to reduce the impact of such festivals on people and the environment.

Fights between two groups because of some trivial issue during these festivals are common. This raises an important question, whether public celebration of these festivals unites people or divides them? Are these festivals giving some people another opportunity to create communal tension or to display their strength? As I mentioned earlier celebration of festivals publicly was a very brilliant idea when it was introduced, but the current state of affairs begs the question, do we still need it in its current form? Do we really need so many mandals? Can't we have just a few limited mandals in each city and celebrate the festival without using loudspeakers that actually play totally unrelated songs at full volume? Can't we avoid all water and noise pollution just by taking a few simple steps? Is it that difficult to change the way this and many other festivals are celebrated to take care of our environment and be considerate towards people living in that area? We also need to ask, in its current form is it the same festival that Tilak started? Is it serving the same purpose for which he started this festival? Answers to all these questions may force us to introspect and come up with some major reforms.

Last year I wrote a post about Ganesh visarjan, in this post I asked some questions about the impact of this ritual on our environment. We need to ask similar questions about all these festivals and practices which put unnecessary stress on our environment and cause inconvenience to people. It doesn't matter to which religion such festivals and rituals belong, we need to introduce some major reforms for all of them. Most things related to this festival have changed, the money involved is huge, the songs they play are from current movies, and techniques used for decoration are the latest, so why not have a new eco-friendly way to celebrate the festival? What's wrong with it? Social interaction in a friendly and healthy atmosphere is always a good thing, but, are these festivals providing that atmosphere? If not, why not? We must ask such questions if we want to bring back the original spirit of this and many other festivals which seems to be totally lost in all this glitter and loud music.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:
1. Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav
2. Do we need to do Ganesh visarjan??

Don't use your wrong hand

My son is a leftie, which means his left hand is his dominant hand. Naturally, he uses his left hand for most of the major daily one-handed tasks (like writing, eating, and throwing). Actually, if we look around, we can easily see that the most commonly available things (like a computer mouse, cricket gloves, musical instruments like guitar, etc.) are designed with keeping right-handed people in mind just because they are in the majority. It is good to see that now left-handed versions are also available for most of these things. because of this most of the time lefties don't face any major problems, there might be a little inconvenience in getting such things but things are available for lefties also. But my son faces a huge problem whenever he goes to some Hindu religious gathering or to some pujas (a religious ritual), there he is always instructed "to use his right hand," or instructed "not to use his wrong hand" to perform rituals. This used to create lots of confusion and trouble for him. Now he is old enough to understand why people around him say this, the reason is that as right-handed people are in the majority these things are designed by only keeping them in mind. He understands this bias, but at the same time, it is puzzling to him why it is wrong to use the left hand during religious rituals? For him, the left hand is his strong and dominant hand, when someone forces him to use his right hand he doesn't understand the logic behind it. In many places he obliges and wherever possible he just ignores the instructions. If people are too rigid and adamant about using the 'right' hand then he tries to avoid those places. He tries his best to avoid any confrontation on this issue (this was one of the reasons he stopped going to ISKON gatherings). 

There are some theories and logic proposed to explain why one should use the right hand during rituals. One very common belief is that since the left hand is reserved for personal hygiene (wiping or cleaning ass after howl movements) one should always use the right hand as it's cleaner (so more pious). People from India should understand what I mean by the left hand being reserved for personal hygiene. However, this assumption is only true for right-handed people, and not every right-handed person cleans their ass with their left hand. In the past when proper sanitizers (like soap and sanitizer) were not available this thing might have made some sense, but today with all these methods at our disposal to keep us clean this tradition of using "only right hand" doesn't make any sense. It is also important to note that by insisting on using only the right hand we knowingly or unknowingly hurt people who are not right-handed, or for some reason cannot use their right hand or sometimes both hands. Such exclusionary traditions make excluded people feel awkward and abnormal. This is not a sign of an inclusive society.

I explained to my son why people insist on the use of the right hand, I also told him what are his rights as a person living in a free and democratic country. He is free to reject or accept things based on his own personal beliefs like others. I also offered him some suggestions on how to deal with these types of situations, but finally, I left it to him to choose his response and allow him to deal with these things on his own. I don't interfere unless he asks me for any help. I think now he understands people's attitudes better, he is not confused or surprised by their comments anymore, but I think not all kids get this type of support or explanation. They might start thinking that something is wrong with them or they are different than others just because they use a different hand. This might affect their confidence and behavior. Actually, we all are different and unique in some way, but still, we all are equal. We all are equal because we all are humans. Minor differences like skin color, gender, race, use of right or left hand, and sexual orientation should not result in any discrimination or discomfort to any of us. Every human should be treated with equal respect and dignity. I want my kids to grow up in a society where these differences have no place in it, where one can use whatever hand or leg (for people with no hands) to perform any ritual (religious or non-religious). This is a sign of a truly tolerant and inclusive society. I am willing to work towards building such a society and culture, are you willing to be a part of this journey?

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)

Links:

1. Why use right hand?

Why different attitude towards son-in-law and daughter-in-law?

Some time back Chandu uncle (Chandrashekhar Vairale) shared a status update by Pallavi Trivedi on my Facebook wall and from that, I got an idea for the subject of today's post. Why do most in-laws treat very differently their son-in-law compared to their daughter-in-law? The same can be said about the son and daughter, and I feel the same feeling of gender discrimination that discriminated between son and daughter translated into a different attitude towards son-in-law and daughter-in-law. This is the case observed in most cultures, and definitely in Indian culture. I can confirm this about the Indian culture because I have spent most of my life in India and don't know in detail about other cultures. Normally, the son-in-law always gets preferential or even royal treatment whenever he visits his in-laws home but similar treatment is not offered to their daughter-in-law (except when she arrives for the first time). Now before people jump with their emotional statements and arguments about culture and traditions I know that this issue is not as simple and straightforward as it looks, there are many aspects associated with it and that's why I am writing this post, and also want to know what other people think about this topic. 

I also know that some people want to continue with such discriminatory traditions and I am interested in listening to their views also. I am not against all traditions or any culture but want to analyze things that directly or indirectly contribute to encouraging gender discrimination. Frankly, I don't care from which culture or tradition they such practices come from. So, coming back to the topic of the post. One justification people might provide is, that the son-in-law visits the house of his in-laws rarely or on specific occasions and that's why he is offered such exceptional treatment but it doesn't make any sense to offer similar treatment to the daughter-in-law as she is a permanent resident in her in-law's house. It is a very weak argument in today's world where families are becoming more and more nuclear. Most couples do not live with their in-laws anymore. However, if they do, they live with the boy's parents and not with the girl's parents. Take this very common scenario, it's expected from the daughter-in-law that she should help with household work whenever she visits her in-law's home but the same thing is not expected from the son-in-law. Isn't this a very classical example of a difference in attitude towards son-in-law and daughter-in-law? This is not an issue of culture or tradition or a natural role assigned to man and woman by God/society/nature (or whoever else), but this is a classical case of gender discrimination. This is a convenience offered to men by themselves, because of the presence of a patriarchal society for centuries there are many traditions heavily favoring men and biased towards women. Patriarchy and misogyny have designed our societies and cultures to favor particularly one gender.

The second point that people often raise is that most of these rules and restrictions are forced on women by women themselves not by men, for example, the mother-in-law forcing the daughter-in-law to follow gender-biased traditions, so, it's not fair only to blame men for gender discrimination against women. Again, it sounds very valid argument, and there is some truth in it but this is not entirely true. The issue here is not about who is implementing or forcing the rules or traditions but who designed them and why? Most bullets fired on Indians during the freedom struggle movement were fired by Indian policemen but we don't blame them for this, all blame goes to British officers who gave the firing orders. But somehow in this case it seems people want to put the blame on women just because some actions against women are performed by other women, but very seldom do people want to look into the problem carefully and understand the actual reasons behind it. I am not saying that women are not responsible for gender discriminatory practices, they are very much at fault, but at the same time, we need to consider social conditions that force such behavior. Social conditions, which involve everything from religion, culture, and traditions are the main reason for this type of behavior from both genders, and the blame rests on the shoulders of men more because they designed most of these traditions.

Gender equality is a need in today's world. We need to change our attitude and modify all traditions and rituals that openly discriminate based on gender, race, or any other thing. I am sure there will be resistance or even uproar against this change but without struggle, there will not be any change. Son-in-law or daughter-in-law are the same, there is no superior or inferior here, and they should get the same treatment. I don't think any sensible person will oppose nondiscriminatory traditions. Old is not always gold, sometimes it is trash and we need to get rid of it. Let's start new nondiscriminatory traditions and let's begin it from our own homes.

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)