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 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” 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 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! To a casual young observer, it would seem horrific that in this age and day we are fighting to celebrate the pride of a woman who was literally forced to self-im- molate to save her honor. Instead of blaming and recti- fying the culture that forced women to do so, we should be condemning it, making sure such practices in the
name of Dharma are not glorified. If we really need to glorify a historical woman’s ac- tions to inspire the current generations, we should probably glorify the actions of say a Rani Laxmibai in- stead, basically for three reasons: One, she was REAL, not fictional; Two, she actually fought the British, who was in true terms an outside force bleeding India; And three, most importantly, as a widow, she did not com- mit Jauhar to save her so-called modesty-she FOUGHT instead as a true hero. India as a country and Indians as a people need to focus more on economy, education, environment, heath and infrastructure and keep questioning the Govern- ment about them. Let not politicians divert us from such real issues to those fringe ones such as Padmavati and her self-immolation, national anthem and stand- ing up for it in theatres(before watching an item num- ber), and beef eating . Culture need to make us better, happy people and not maniacal, self-righteous bullies.
Kangana Ranaut in her upcoming biopic Rani Laxmibai.
As a widow, Rani Laxmibai did not commit Jauhar to save her so-called modesty-she FOUGHT the mighty British instead as a true hero.
13 www.indiaparentmagazine.org
November 2017
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