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| Women Empowerment-An Indian viewpoint | | | Mahesh Kaul | 2/11/2015 11:24:00 PM |
| West thrives on democracy and liberalism based on symbolism
derived from laws and force their societies to adhere to them maintain
social order. Even Western societies have never shrieked to flaunt that their concept of democracy and social equality is based on the separation of the church from the state or if we can make it simpler then it implies that they want to convey their objectivity of social justice by saying that the religion and the state will adopt their divergent paths and religion will not come in the way of the sate to impose the rule of law. So if we make it more simpler to understand it in the relative sense of the East and specially in the context of the Indian nation, we will learn that their mode of justice is based on reverse as compared to our socio-religious matrix. And it helps us to understand the attitude of the West towards its women and the feminist movements that have dominated the centre stage. It goes to the credit of the Indian civilization or if we want to be idiomatically correct; Indic civilization-India has matured as a socirty that gave primacy to culture based on social justice and equitable development in all terms whether environmental or issues related other areas where delegation of authority to the most minute structure was delineated in a very sharp manner to avoid conflict as the wise men (present day political scientists and sociologists) were scientific in their theories as they practiced them in perpetuity. They understood well the role of women in the social emancipation and nation building. Not only that men were in the forefront of developing the social matrix, women were the progenitors of the evolution of the cultural edifice of the civilisational Indian nation. That is why inspite of many social and political upheavals inflicted on India; it emerged more wise and resurgent. Our epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata are replete with the examples that showcase the society of that era and the central role women played in the decision making and policy formulations for the collective destiny of the masses.
The episode of Savitri is the hallmark of women power and represents the infinite range of women power in the Indian context having the tendency to empower man and even restore the life of her husband by even defeating the imminent death. Sri Aurobindo,the foremost exponent of the spiritual and intellectual legacy of Indian thought has explained with the metre of vast magnitude in his interpretation of the epic and situated Savitri as the embodiment of empowerment of all and establishing the fact that Shakti manifests in feminine power, having capability to re energize her deceased husband. The freedom enjoyed by the women in terms of the selection of their attire and articulation is testimony to the fact that India understood well the might of the women power. This basic tendency of the Indian society became inherent to the Indian culture and rituals that for the core of the Indian religion. All sects of the Sanatan Dharma lay stress on the feminine power of the deities. The epitome of Indian religion as far as the intellectual level of the religion is concerned, Shaivism is both scientific and realistic version of the importance given to the feminine power. Shiva the supreme power can act only through His consort Shakti, who is the embodiment of His energy. He may be the nucleus and fountain of all wisdom and divine secrets but his power is redundant and inconsequential till it is set into action by Prakriti the vehicle of the Purusha-the Shiva. Shiva may be potential source of energy but it can turn into kinetic energy provided Shakti is in good mood and willing to channelize his might that is the cause of this whole cosmos. This philosophical undercurrent is the basic principle of the Indian religion making it women centric and recognizing the infinite potential of the women. Our religion is based on natural science of Prakriti that is why it least requires the whip of the state to make the religion fall in line with the reality as it is already beyond the domain of reality and has inherent in it the spiritual essence of feminine power. So in India religion has played a key role in shaping the women empowerment having negligible tendency to take sermons from the artificial entity called state.Not only that water bodies like rivers that are basic element for thriving of the civilizations have the feminine names like Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati, Kaveri, Vitasta, Godaveri signifying that the Indian society identifies the lifelines like rivers with the feminine power.
Everything that signifies Shakti(Power) is feminine in India. So the message of the Indian religion and philosophy is vivid and clear that women is the representation of power .So when we talk about Women Empowerment in the western sense it makes us laugh at the term itself. It may be a need in the West where every ting is commodified and needs legal sanction before it becomes a norm to be adhere able under compulsion. But beauty of Indian religious thought lies in the axiom that it defines women as the symbol and manifestation of power itself as it is the Divine Mother consort of the Lord Shiva who is the power personified. Even in the Indian martial tradition, it is not the masculine God that is invoked but the feminine Mother who is the source of weaponry and might to emerge victorious n the battle whether in the form of Kali or Durga. So In the Indian context it is the reverse of the western order that gives preponderance to masculine power and has the compulsion to retrieve women from the male stranglehold and empower it.
That is why it has a compulsion to rectify its fallacy to restore women to glory by devising a term women empowerment to reverse the injustice.The need in the Indian context is to delve deep into philosophical and epistemological foundations of our religion to wipe the dust of ignorance imposed by the thought alien to our ancient wisdom by the forces that made it sure to malign the Indian thought to market their impotency and ineptness as civilization in the garb of pseudo proselytizing intrusions. They were clever enough to implement our philosophy in their societies after rupturing our social fabric and implementing it in their societies as their own but they failed to justify it in their realm as the foundations of it all were Indic. That is why the wandering monk of India swami Vivekananda was prompted to speak while delivering his lecture in USA that west has prospered because it has given freedom to women to define societies .They have prospered because they have allowed women to explore her infinite power in the Vedic sense and Shakti has manifested there, unknowingly. The time has come for India to allow the Shaktis to flourish in their original habitat to make India empowered with already empowered self in the Prakritic sense.
******(writer is a PhD scholar at SHTM, Faculty of Business Studies, University of Jammu and Member, Patriot's Forum ,National Security Think Tank, New Delhi) |
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