and “bravery” involving self-immolation and chastity. They would have probably chosen to become brave Rani Laxmi Bais than submissive Satis! Treating these notorious rituals as those of pride and honor will be doing injustice to the current crop of strong, capable, and educated women who came a long way to be where they are, doing what they are doing. They are still carrying the torch, running for their right, a right to live life their way, strongly, individually, tak- ing one slow torturous step at a time. Hence, now to bring out an evil practice of days gone by such as Jauhar and Sati and call them acts of bravery, pride and honor, will dangerously push the clock back in time where women were just commodities bargained for power. In addition, it will undermine the hard work done to change the same. Women are already fighting modern day murder in the name of dishonor where Jauhar kund (a special well-like chamber for women and children to commit mass immolation) has moved from Rajput palaces to radiologists’ ultrasound chambers where the sex of the fetus is revealed and later relieved if it’s a fe- male. Bringing back the glory (sic) of Jauhar and Sati
in marriage or in exchange for other favors to stronger rulers including Muslim kings is a well chronicled fact and has been a consistent point of shame to the Rajputs. To counter attack these ignoble deeds it is believed that Rajputs and their poets had many gallant poems writ- ten in the name of their valor, turning absolute defeats into pride-filled chivalrous deaths. The Rajputs dram- atized almost all losses including that of Prithiviraj Chauhan to make them look like treacherous and de- ceitful murders by the invaders. They say that best poems come not from the winners but from the losers in war. One such fantasized story is that of Rani Pad- mavat of Chittor, a poem written by a Muslim poet Jayasi (who was then serving a Hindu king) just as Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. Both of them though well- known fictions loved by all but can’t be misinterpreted as history. History needs to be viewed through the prisms of time and date and move on from there. It’s not about Hindus against Muslims those days. It is just about winners and losers and everyone wanted to conquer as much land as possible, all of them, whether Muslim or
Depiction of Jauhar
Hindu. Sati and Jauhar are cruel practices invented by upper caste Hindus in the name of false prestige and pride at the cost of women and children who absolutely had no say in the matter. When have forced suicides be- come prideful acts? If women were left to fend for themselves they would have probably learned to fight their wars and shed those unnecessary acts of “pride”
would be death knell (pun unintended) to Indian women’s fight for freedom. Do we really want this re- gressive time-travel in the name of misplaced honor, pride and bravery? Hell no!
66 www.indiaparentmagazine.org
School Special 2017
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker