[Guest Post: SOJ]
Picture Source : Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues
A comment by a distant uncle at a recent family gathering left me completely zapped. He said:
Indian women have a tough act to follow – the sacrifices made by Sita, Sati Savitri, Parvati. These were the true great women of India, and they have set the highest standards of moral standing, self-control and moral behavior. Future generations of Indian women must idolize and compare themselves to their role models.
On second thought, his words aren’t such a shocker. They only reflect the mentality of the society we live in and its obsession with ‘Sita’. The wife must be ideal – the moral anchor in a marriage, which stays unswerving in her loyalty and righteousness no matter how opposite her husband, might be.
Everyone’s looking for Sita. Take a glance at matrimonial classifieds, every second ad in the ‘Bride Wanted’ section starts with a sentence like: “Wanted a fair, beautiful, cultured, educated and homely girl from a good family.” One would think that there was a sea change in the thoughts and attitudes of the modern Indian society. But such advertisements only prove otherwise. Families continue to look for a woman who can cook, sing and regard their laadla as her parmeshwar till death or divorce do them apart.
Ideal woman, ideal wife?
There’s a bit of an irony here. As young girls we are advised and inspired to look up to public figures like Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, Indira Gandhi and Kiran Bedi as role models, but on reaching the threshold of a marriageable age, we are expected to follow Sita’s footsteps. At this point, the distinction between an ideal woman and an ideal wife gets blurred and the two images coalesce.
In today’s ‘modern’ society, would you consider ‘Sita’ to be ideal role-model for young women? Does it not, in one fell sweep, rubbish everything we have fought for and achieved to a certain degree– from equal rights in the workplace, to redressal of harassment charges, to regarding marital rape as rape and the domestic violence act?
For what reason must we act like Sita? If’ the answer is ‘to keep the family system going’, then I’m afraid that that argument holds no ground anymore. We are too far gone in accepting that women are human beings who deserve equal rights, and will fight for them if we must, even if it is at the cost of dismantling a marriage that regards one partner as a demi-god, and the other as a slave.
Depressing as it sounds it is a common sentiment among Indians that ideals set in mythology must be emulated in this day and age. We continue to perceive Ram and Sita not as remote figures of a distant past but as living role models who have raised the bar for us inhabitants of the “corrupt” age, the kalyug.
Interpreting Sita differently
I grew up thinking of Sita as a much-wronged woman – a slavish wife given neither a mind of her own nor any agency. And precisely for that reason she was for me not a symbol of inspiration, but a warning. She was all that I did not want to be. To me her suffering was a product less of masochism, and more because of the complete lack of selfhood, patriarchy has enforced upon her fabled character. Fortunately, she was never held up as an example for me and, therefore, she did not seem an important reference point – positive or negative – in my life, until now.
Is it possible to read Sita differently? Can she be someone who does not endorse female slavery or validate a husband’s right to behave unreasonably and a wife’s duty to bear insults graciously? Can’t she in fact, be seen as a person whose sense of dharma was superior to and more awe inspiring than that of Ram’s – someone who put even maryada purushottam Ram – the most perfect of men – to shame.
It is interesting to note that while there has been a lot of discussion and analysis of the demands put on women in the Hindu tradition, the sacrifices expected of ideal wives, we have failed to evaluate the demands put on an ideal husband.
Interesting view point.
Ofcourse a lot of men want us to be like Sita – why wouldn’t they? Subservient, unquestioning women who do the bidding of the men in their life without any thought to what they (the women) want for themselves.
Ram is my least favourite Hindu deity for this very reason & I’ve never been able to admire him or worship him (even when I wasn’t an atheist). I remember being seriously offended by his treatment of Sita, even as a child listening to the Ramayan.
On another note – how awesome is Sita Sings the Blues!?
Ramayan like any other scriptures is just a case of a story written by a “dude”! May be if Jhumpa Lahiri or Shobha De had been asked to write it, the perceptions and the expectations could totally change.
It is a historic fact that the dominant few (one who have much more to lose) would like to hold onto their hegemony and birth privilege by using various tactics – varnashastra by brahmins and kshatriyas, the screwed Bible by Constantine, Apartheid/Slavery/Plantation workers by the white people, etc…In this case, it is subservience and total surrender to the Man.
And then there are always those morons – Bal Thackeray, pseudo yogis, billy graham, the pope, Osama, etc..who just use this to their advantage.
That said, I think Ramayan and Mahabharata are both uber-cool as epics like many other mythical stories! There are always good and bad people in a story and my favorite in Ramayan was always Hanuman 🙂
The morality, idea and the principles are totally Fucked up in the Indian epics but they offer good entertainment.
There are feminist readings of Sita too. One is she did all that was asked of her but when when she was abandoned while pregnant she promised herself she’ll never see Rama’s face; she kept her word. When Rama sent Laxman to fetch Sita to the palace she refused and prefered to die than follow blindly or rejoice the invitation. She declares herself as a daughter of earth and not as
wife or more so wronged wife. She removes the label all together.
This last part of the story is never emphasized on coz’ it will give ideas of identity and personal right. Ram, is the role model for all spineless squid mentioned [Link]
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Peace,
Desi Girl