The Innocence Lost called Durga Puja

    The months of October/ November have this special thing in them. Autumn is approaching, the leaves are brown and once they are stepped on, they crumble with a munch, like hearts breaking. But despite a sad aria in the air, there is somewhere a euphoria brewing. For Bengalis the world over, this is that time of the year when they establish and express themselves as who they are. For the 4/5 days that the festivities last, there are no social stigmas, no mother telling their children to return early at after dusk sets in, no limitations on the amount of junk food that would be consumed, the city which runs its own slow pace 360 odd days of the year, is suddenly like steeds of mad desire, running, shouting, chaotic, colorful. 
     And yet, for people like this author who are in the wrong side of their thirties, such euphoria has its own shades of cynicism in tow. Growing up at a time when the mad rush for publicity and Mount Everest hoardings had not yet engulfed the city sky-scape, the Pujas had their own share of charm and enigma. Like an estranged lover on a quickfire visit to your city, the days leading up to the D-Day were spent in expectations and the night of the Dashami, the final night, was one of a searing heartbreak. Time for the beloved to return with the everlasting promise of a return next year. And then, we would slip back into our mundane, clerk like lives again for the next roughly 360 days.  
   But things have changed so much. Nowadays with the world moving at a breakneck pace, with more and more natives of the state living outside of it, these few days have acquired something that had been unthinkable in the previous decade. Added to the festive spirit, is a competitive edge, with more awards being given away for the best idol, the best "pandal", the best arrangement of lights, the best of everything. The city comes to a standstill and there is nothing of the old world romance here. There are people on the streets to populate the entire Tibetan grasslands. Earlier, during our formative years, the innocent heart and mind would rank the clothes in order of preference. Which meant, the least preferred dress would be designated for the first day of the Puja and as the days progressed, our most favourite acquisition would be set aside for the climactic night of the "navami." The same went for friends as well. The ones closest to the heart, or the one we hoped would be close to the heart would invariably be sought after for the "navami" night. The less popular ones, cousins who were lower down the pecking order were granted "Shashti" evening at the most.
     Unfortunately, these days we are enamored by the number game. India as a country and society is somewhat obsessed with statistics. Who scores more runs, what is the batting average, what is her age, her salary, marks in school exams, in school leaving exams, in short in our numbered days we bother too much about numbers. We are caught up with the "no" of "likes" our picture gets on facebook, how many comments, and how many shares. Everything we indulge in is for an ego-massage: whether we have visited the so called big pujas in the city, whether we have dined at the most happening of restaurants and most definitely whether we have posted pics of our adventures. Selfies, Groupfies, have entered the parlance and are uttered more often than the "mantras" around and in the "pandals" themselves. The "dhaakis", the traditional drummers who would bring life and zest to the entire atmosphere are at the risk of losing out on their livelihood, with pre-recorded audio cds of the drum beats doing the rounds and sometimes more preferred over their more human counterparts. We all want the best of everything, the best of the Pujas, the best of comments.Even the pictures where we are caught off guard, where there is too much teeth, or too much light, can be deleted or even better instaedited and uploaded. Such perfection and such longing for the times gone by.  Let's put up a status update to that...Cheers...



Shayan Aich

 

To Beef or Not to Beef: Holy Cows and Unholy Deaths in the Indian Badlands

Mohammad Akhlaq, the man killed over suspected cow-slaughter [Photo Courtesy - Gajendra Yadav and The Indian Express]

India is a land of many wonders. And now we are on the fast track to becoming a vegan paradise. In a land where selling meat can be temporarily banned, just because some vegetarians are celebrating a religious festival or a person may even be robbed of his life, just on the assumption that he may have killed an animal deemed sacred to a religious community, the angelic wings of veggie salvation are fluttering with the roar of a thousand thunders. Surely, the thirteenth incarnation is at hand!

Of course, like most miracles of such kind, there are some teething contradictions. As anyone who has read D.N. Jha’s The Myth of the Holy Cow and such other books and articles on ancient Indian history would know, Hindus in India, long before they identified themselves as Hindus, actively slaughtered cows for sacrificial purposes and even consumed beef on various occasions. Several scriptural texts and statements by famous sages like Yagnyavalka have condoned and sanctioned such actions without any ambiguity. Even Swami Vivekananda accepted their logic. But then again, politics and facts are rare bedfellows and the same conglomeration of forces that had once led to the burning of D. N. Jha’s book and him receiving death threats, has now resulted in the death of Mohammad Akhlaq, a resident of the village Bisara, near Dadri in UP, along with serious injuries to his son Danish.

However, in the badlands of Indian cowboys, the life of a human being costs infinitely less than that of a cow and virtually nothing if the human being in question happens to be a Dalit or a Muslim. In fact such is the significance of this animal, which is also a byword for stupidity, that one eminent politician has even claimed that the upcoming elections in Bihar must be seen as "...a fight between those who eat beef and those who are against cow slaughter... Now, people must decide whether they want beef-eaters or those who want to ban it." This is false consciousness at its bovine worst. If people can be overwhelmed with anti-beef sentiments, obviously they need not bother about rising prices, staggering poverty, crimes against women, murders related to the VYAPAM case, violations of the fundamental rights of all Indian citizens and such other apparently trivial details. 

Such sparks are generally designed to fan communal fires which seem to spreading fast across India. Not only was an independent MLA from Kashmir beaten up by cow-loving MLAs for daring to host a beef party in the MLA hostel, a mob also went on rampage in Mainpuri of UP over alleged rumours of cow-killing after the carcass of a cow was discovered in a field. The availability of a vast army of illiterate, semi-literate and often unemployed youths, who can be easily mobilised through fundamentalist hogwash, certainly adds to the strength of the rabble-rousing groups intent on causing such mayhem. It would not be surprising if such rumours and consequent violence soon becomes an electoral strategy for other parts of India as well. 

Unfortunately such incidents rarely cause the kind of furore they should as even those Hindus, who are in no way associated with violence, refuse to bother about the murder of a 50 year old Muslim man or the injuries incurred by his son. In the national imaginary Mohammad Akhlaq and his son had already been relegated to that peripheral position where the application of everyday ordinary morality, common sense and law becomes irrelevant. They belong to a zone of otherness where our righteous indignation, if we are still able to experience it, remains conspicuously absent. 

Of course this otherization is not limited to Muslims. In 2002 in Jhajjar, Haryana 5 Dalits were also brutally murdered who had been suspected of killing cows. Here again a mob of thousands overpowered the victims and the district administration played the role of helpless observers. Isn’t it remarkable that a land that regularly boasts of its legacy of non-violence finds it so easy so assemble and rouse angry mobs who can unleash murder and mayhem with absolute impunity, almost at the drop of a hat? Or should I say at the mooing of a cow?

Newspaper reports and articles from Bisara, home to the traumatized family of Mohammad Akhlaq, have confirmed how the Gau Raksha Dal or the Samadhan Sena, which have been recently flourishing around Bisara communicate through social networks and WhatsApp to swiftly connect with each and mobilise their members. How does medieval barbarity and inhuman atrocities find such suitable partners among the most facile markers of modernity? In India, as in other parts of the third world religion thus continues to function as that strange opium (should I say dope/coke/heroin/crack?) of the masses that not only ensures the temporary suspension of morality and intelligence but works as a seminal anti-dote to footsteps on the path of progress which other Indians in various walks of science, culture, education or sports continue to make - both in India and abroad.

However, NRIs must be questioned as well. What explains their unmitigated euphoria over a leader that presides over such horrors? What explains their amnesia regarding the horrors of Gujarat? What explains their guiltless donations to those wings of the Sangh Parivar whose Indian arms continue unfurl such virulence? Whether it is the ban on the books of D.N. Jha or Wendy Donniger or Rohinton Mistry, riots and murders in the name of cows, systematic assassination of rationalists (Dr. M.M. Kalburgi being the latest) - nothing seems to stir their conscience as their self-serving, misplaced nostalgia and the search for ‘cool’ ethnic identities swallows all consideration of moral condemnation.

Perhaps it was E.M. Forster who had it right. India - and Indians too - is a muddle. A land where cultural plurality coexists uneasily with maniacal satraps of fundamentalist hatred, a land where vegetarian practices coexisted with delicious feasts of fish and meat, where sartorial sophistication cannot hide the most primitive instincts and customs, where growing billionaires in imported cars ride past acres and acres of suicidal poverty, where celebrations of manifold goddesses cannot thwart the increasing violence against women. Can reason make sense of this land we call our own? What is the idea of India, beyond the tricolour and the national cricket team? The answer my friend is nowhere in the wind.

Feminism, They Say

Arpita Sinha is a freelance model based out of Kolkata, India. She has a Masters degree in English Literature and holds a degree in Mass Communication. Her areas of interest are gender theories and the subaltern.

The Oxford English Dictionary states that Feminism is “The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes”. Quite a simple idea. So, a Feminist believes that girls in poorer countries should go to school, and would be obviously opposed to those music videos that consist of, for ex., three minutes of boob-shots. And she/he/they work towards such a society. In short, Feminism is good, common sense. 

On the other hand, the portmanteau Feminazi, popularized by Rush Limbaugh in the 1990s is used to describe “an extreme or militant feminist”. Wikipedia further goes on the clarify that “the term is pejoratively used in popular culture to describe either feminists who are perceived as extreme or radical, women who are perceived to seek superiority over men…”. The sad truth is Feminazism is rapidly replacing Feminism in the popular quotidian domain, and is being mistaken to be what Feminism stands for.

Feminazis are not feminists. Feminists believe in equal rights for all, Feminazis just make us look stupid. Feminazis believe that all men are idiots, wearing a bra is a symbol of oppression (personally I find bras to be quite comfortable), shaving our legs is apparently giving into male pressure to be attractive, snowmen must be called "snowpeople" and so on. Like patriarchy essentialises women, Feminazism too takes away the choice of personal preference from us and essentialises men into a herd of potential rapists and molesters. Ultimately, the claim that feminazis are apparently against sexism makes them huge hypocrites.

The Indian Govt. has passed quite a few legislations to ensure that women receive the fastest and surest justice in cases of any crime perpetrated against them. But recent surveys show that a very alarming percentage of dowry and rape cases filed are false; they are filed by women trying to avenge some personal beef. The problem with feminazis is that they are always already scorned by proxy, and hell hath no fury as a woman scorned. Feminazism, as the name aptly alludes, almost takes on the role of a mindless dictator with a vendetta against men.

The Sexual Harassment Act, made effective on April 23, 2013, is in support of women. However, this has opened up a freeway for a certain section of women who want to take undue advantage of the law. I would like to cite the recent Jasleen Kaur incident that took the national media by storm a few weeks back. The story was turned on its head when newer evidence came into light which made it quite apparent that the case was possibly quite the opposite. Analyzing the implications of the case is not to take side of any specific party, but to bring into attention that such an incident can act as an eye-opener where the law might have been taken for a ride. 

Whether Jasleen's allegation is right or not, it is certain that the way the incident was handled was definitely wrong. The sensitivity of such cases is overturned by their immediate sensationalism. Of all the actions taken, flashing the alleged criminal’s face all over the media should have been of least concern to her when the plethora of legal measures available would have easily sufficed. In any case, even the victim has the right to self-obscuration, not to have their face splashed all over TV and computer screens. Even before any formal investigation was conducted and any verdict passed, all the media houses started slamming the alleged, publicly shaming him by labeling him as a ‘pervert’ and launching hate campaigns against him. Mass media, as an all-pervasive construct, should act as the beacon of objective reportage that bridges the gap between the individual and his surroundings, instead it has come down to mobilizing shaming and lynch campaigns without the slightest hint of proof. The media’s proactivity in mobilizing mass-suppport against Jessica Lal’s murderer has justly been appreciated by the society. But the media should still desist from shaming a person on a mere conjectural basis. 

The Jasleen Kaur case casts aspersions on not just our gender, but the concept of women empowerment in general too. It widens the gap of mistrust between men and women, and also between women. Such acts hinder the progress of equality a considerable amount. Even innocent women would live under the fear of being called frauds the next time they actually decide to speak up on a molestation incident.       

And as far as the laws of the land are concerned, if they are unjustly tilted to one side, men run the risk of being victimized by preying women. The current laws and their handlings give too much power to women under the good intention of stopping sexual harassment. Understandably, it might stop a hundred people from harassing women, but it remains possible that five innocent people might fall prey to a biased legislation. The system must be held accountable for even one victimised innocent, even if it prevents a hundred criminals.

And ultimately, it is a strangely patriarchal habit to conveniently place women in the position of victims. Such habits keep gender inequality intact. This is why we need to be feminists and not feminazis, because we need to recognise the fact that men and women are equal. Despite the heinous crimes perpetrated against them, women are not by the mere virtue of existence victims. Patriarchy must now fall, and with its dying breath, it must grant women the capability of evil. Women must be individuals and stop becoming their gender.

                                                                                                               

                                    – Arpita Sinha