There is a disingenuous outcry against statements made by the honourable Ramesh Bidhuri of the “party with a difference.” The former MP had said that if elected he would make roads in Delhi as good as “Priyanka Gandhi’s cheeks”.
Bidhuri subsequently, against strong backlash, made that customary and political ‘take-back-what -I-said-if-sentiments-hurt’ statement which we have become used to.
He also said about Atishi that in “changing her name from Marlena to Singh [the Delhi CM dropped her last name a while ago]”, she had changed her father – ‘baap badal dala‘.
The uppity-progressive, so-called modernist holier-than-thou outrage that follows misses the larger point that informs Shri Bidhuri’s concerns.
Put squarely, this uproar once again suggests how out of sync our elites are still with the profundity of our civilisational values.
Did not the Manusmriti, that scripture of scriptures which missed out becoming our constitution because of the rational misdemeanours of some of our founding fathers, enjoin upon us that women are to remain in protective check of first the father, then the husband, and last of the son?
But no, our founding fathers, corrupted by the high-falutin principles of pernicious events like the old French Revolution, and then the even worse, the Bolshevik one, had only a deaf ear for the wisdom of our civilisational instructions; they had to inscribe equality of all disastrous sorts for women when Nature clearly had no such equality in mind.
For more than seven lost decades, we have had to make political noises to conform to a constitution which contradicts our civilisational treasure-trove of insights in every line and paragraph.
But how long may such arbitrary compulsions hold in check the truths of Nature and the teachings of Manu?
What wonder then that dedicated civilisational soldiers like Bidhuri feel constrained now and again to voice that deep frustration with the undesirable prominence of women in our public life which Manusmriti, had cautioned us against?
Notwithstanding the sins of these lost decades, however, the tide is turning. Thank Prajapati, this Vishwaguru nation is stridently returning to the timeless tablets of ancient sagacity.
Those that still foolishly seek to stand in the way may not have too long a rope left to keep from descending into the pit where they truly belong.
Clearly, Macaulay who still stirs a hand or a foot in his coffin is now set to be truly dead and buried without hope of resurrection.
Let it be said clearly: in Bharat, women are to be worshipped, not respected, and, god forbid, not to be made equal. That would be constitutional, not civilisational.
Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
