Gandhism
Gandhi is regarded as symbol of peace & is accoladed by many world leaders for his impact on the world & he will remain as a cult figure in the history of the world, but the real question remains, “did Indians imbibe his ideology?”
The harsh reality can be projected by a simple English word “No”. Sadly Hindu fanatics to some extent are successful in tarnishing the image of Mahatma in his own country, by brutalizing facts & by spreading rumors.
All freedom fighters & congress leaders only thought to fight British either by armed forces or internal rebellion, but none tried to foresee the greater problems that rested in the society, for uniting common man against the British. Gandhi is the only leader who foreseen problems with immediate departure of British, which he feared may disintegrate India into many smaller nations & may again leave India as a prey for foreign imperialists.
Mahatma is only remembered for his struggle for independence, but more than that he is a messiah who tried to unite India, which is a forgotten truth. He is the only freedom fighter who believed in the power of common man. He traveled throughout India and studied the problems faced by people, before his plunge into freedom struggle. His extensive travel and his sensibilities to people’s problems made him a mass leader. He extensively fought against untouchability and termed untouchables as Harijans. He is also the first person, who stressed on Grama Swaraj.
Non violent resistance, SatyaGraha as a form of protest, is preached in religious scriptures, but there is no living practitioner until Gandhi, who extensively united people on the same. SatyaGraha, arms the individual with moral power rather than physical power. Although Gandhi was not the originator of the principle of nonviolence, he was the first to apply it in the political field on a large scale. His ways of protest are simple to understand and risk free which attracted masses in every corner of the nation. He is highly successful in trembling the mighty British empire with his passive resistance.
Gandhi & Nehru believed in democracy & also feared India’s disintegration post British departure. So they tried to inculcate & formulate democratic principles in India especially among congress men. They understood the diversity among people and batted for unity in diversity. They concentrated & fought on social stigmas like casteism, untouchablility, poverty, religious extremism, Language & regional barriers as equivalent to their fight on British.
They are highly successful in uniting all Indians to a common cause of freedom for united India, but both of them disregarded & underestimated Jinnah as a threat that resulted India’s division. Congress leaders underestimated Jinnah’s influence on muslims and utterly failed in addressing their concerns. Jan Sangh, Hindu fanatics & Muslim fanatics are highly successful in inculcating fear & there by divided India. No doubt, Jinnah is the sole reason for division of India but in equivalence, congress men underestimation too costed India.
When the political situations are obvious of division, Hindu fanatics geared up to create Hindu Rashtra, Hindustan for hindus. Gandhi & Nehru took a serious stand to control hindu fanatics & promoted secularism. The inclusion of single word secular in our constitution costed thousands of lives. And I often feel anguished when few BJP & RSS workers criticise liberals as sickularists. Secularism is the binding principle & essence of India & will remain forever irrespective of constant endangerment from hindu fanatics.
Gandhi said “I do not claim to have originated any new principle or doctrine. I have simply tried in my own way to apply the eternal truths to our daily life and problems…The opinions I have formed and the conclusions I have arrived at, are not final. I may change them tomorrow. I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and nonviolence are as old as the hills.”
This single statement proves his immense ideological maturity & humble greatness. No person or ideology is perfect, it matures over time, if he or ideology is open to positive criticism. He didn’t originate new principle but he shown the world, the way to practice a non violent protest & showcased its eminence & fruitfulness to the democracy aspiring world. He is a living example of liberalism, and his views had great impact on Nehru, whom I consider more liberal than Gandhi.
Sadly, Nehru had to use Gandhi’s martyrdom as a political weapon to silence all advocates of Hindu nationalism as well as his political challengers. He linked Gandhi’s assassination to politics of hatred and ill-will.
Using love as a weapon through passive resistance, Indians overthrow colonial rule. Can’t we unite with love & tolerance to fight hindu fanatics who are endangering the secular fabric of India in 21st century? Love conquers hate.
Sexism
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on a person’s sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls. It has been linked to stereotypes and gender roles, and may include the belief that one sex or gender is intrinsically superior to another. Extreme sexism may foster sexual harassment, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. Sexism can be attributed to suppression of female sexuality.
The suppression of female sexuality can be regarded as one of the most remarkable psychological interventions in cultural history tracing back centuries unknown. Either men in general, or women in general, cooperated implicitly to stifle women’s sexual desire and behavior.
According to Sherfey, the sex drive of the female is naturally and innately stronger than that of the male, and it once posed a powerfully destabilizing threat to the possibility of social order. The way Cleopatra controlled Egypt by using her sexuality as an asset & weapon to control the most powerful Ceaser & Antony, is regarded as a classic example projected by historians that necessitated to stifle women sexuality. They injected a strong message that for civilized society to develop, it was allegedly necessary for female sexuality to be stifled.
Countless women have grown up and lived their lives with far less sexual pleasure than they would have enjoyed in the absence of this large-scale suppression. Socializing influences such as parents, schools, morality, guilt, peer groups, religion and legal forces have cooperated to alienate women from their own sexual desires. Female sexual suppression can be studied by few theories, which burden either men or women, religion, parents & peers responsible for sexual suppression.
The male control theory
The natural condition of the female is to desire a high amount of sex, including frequent copulation’s with multiple partners. Men band together, to stifle this female sexuality. Men’s motives for doing so could encompass the jealous desire to prevent their mates from having sex with other men, an envy of women’s greater physical capacity for intercourse, and a recognition that unrestrained female sexuality might potentially produce chaos by undermining the social order. Men are particularly concerned with stifling the sexuality of their wives and other mates.
Historically in many civilizations, sex is considered as a resource that men desire and women possess. To obtain sex, men must offer women other desired resources in return, such as money, commitment, security, attention, or respect.
Men do in some cultures lock their wives up in harems or purdah, restrict their contacts with other men, install chastity belts to ensure fidelity during male absence, and in severe cases beat or even kill their wives for having sex with other men. Men are undeniably possessive of their mates. In this, they are hardly unique: Women seem quite possessive too, and some evidence suggests that women are even more sexually possessive than men.
The female control theory
Women have worked to stifle each other’s sexuality because sex is a limited resource that women use to negotiate with men, and scarcity gives women an advantage. Women might be able to garner two kinds of benefits from restricting the supply of sex available to men. First, women in general might be able to extract better treatment and other resources from men. Sexual scarcity improves women’s bargaining position with respect to all rewards. Second, widespread suppression of female sexuality reduces the risk that each woman will lose her male lover to another woman. Infidelity represents a significant risk factor for marital breakup, so women conspired for mutual suppression of their sexuality.
Females from many centuries convinced each other not to be highly sexual. Women might also punish overly sexual women through informal sanctions such as ostracism, character assassination and derogatory gossip. Women together restrain female sexuality, in illusion of benefiting all women.
Reiss’s findings convey that, when women lack political and economic power, they may need to use sex to control men and gain resources, and so they might try to restrict each other’s sexuality very strongly. In contrast, when women have plenty of alternative sources of power, they have less need to restrict men’s access to sex, and so they can relax the controls on female sexuality.
Sex as a weapon
Principle of least interest contends that having less desire for a particular relationship gives a person greater power in the relationship. Hence, if a woman desires a sexual relationship less than the man, he is at a disadvantage and will have to provide her with other benefits to induce her to have sex with him. Women use to deprive men from having sex inorder to control them & thereby benefit.
Women sexual power can also be viewed from basic economic principle of supply and demand. As Cott propo said, if sex is the main asset one has with which to bargain for other benefits, one wants the price of sex to be high. As with any resource, scarcity increases the price. Keeping supply below demand enables the monopoly to extract a high price.
In contrast, if sex was freely available to men, then most individual women would be in a weaker position to demand much in return. Female cooperation is needed to suppress female sexuality, So women punished other women, who make sex too freely available to men. Women use to derogate such a promiscuous woman as “cheap”.
Religion & Morality
Some historians believe that, women have strong sexual urges, that cannot be tamed psychologically and hence need to be restrained behaviorally, religiously & morally. The role of religion in suppressing female sexuality deserves to be considered, Religious traditions have generally advocated sexual restraint especially on women. Undoubtedly, many women have felt guilt about sexual pleasures, and religious faith has provided one source of such guilt.
The double standard of sexual morality preached by religions has condemned certain sexual activities by women, while permitting the identical actions for men. Religions, lack the encouragement to women to explore and enjoy sex & also viciously propagated the message that, sex is bad rather than teaching sex is good to suppress sexual thoughts in women.
Many cultures & religions place strong pressures on men to maintain public esteem and reputation, often called honor. Promiscuity on the part of a wife or daughter is taken as a disgrace to the man. Even today, some countries allow parents to submit medical examination reports to establish virginity proof for their daughters. Male prestige has been linked to female chastity or fidelity, it is not surprising that some men have resorted to various coercive measures to ensure female sexual virtue.
In some cases, surgical procedures have been used to prevent women from enjoying sex. Undoubtedly the most severe are the measures, such as cutting off the clitoris (subincision) or sewing the vagina shut (infibulation). Such procedures directly reduce women’s capacity to enjoy sexual intercourse. Most shockingly these practices are supported and carried out by women.
Christian religion (like other religions) has long been a restraining influence on sex. Christian doctrines and sermons encourage sexual restraint as a virtue. Christianity is far more hostile to sex than any other religion that was common at the time. It extended its disapproval to many sexual practices that were tolerated by other religions, such as masturbation, homosexuality, and bestiality and also propagated anti-sexual campaigns, such as efforts to eradicate prostitution or suppress pornography.
The ideal for men as well as women was to have neither sexual desire nor sexual pleasure, and for individuals who could not live up to this high goal, procreative sex within marriage was the only legitimate alternative. Many women have clearly been influenced by these foolish religious messages to restrain their own sexual desires. Religion is a strategy that women use, to control the sexuality of other women. Religious women feel more guilt than other women about many sexual activities. Sex slavery is common in all kingdoms and also in all religions, but in the pretense of serving god & culture.
“Feminization of religion is need of the hour to promote sexual freedom of women”
Parents & spouses
It seems fair to assume that most young women get some of their lessons and moral influences from their parents. Mothers are the main source of anti-sexual messages for daughters. Mothers and female peers, rather than fathers and male peers, are the main sources that teach adolescent girls to refrain from sexual activity. Boyfriends/spouses, one male source, do have some influence, but they push in the opposite direction towards more sexual activity.
Adult women seem more disapproving of female premarital sex and other female sexual activity than adult men. Women have supported the double standard more strongly than men.
The most relevant question was whether a woman who engaged in premarital sexual activity was immoral?, the condemning judgment that would presumably be central, to efforts to suppress female sexuality.
Prostitution & Pornography
Prostitution, pornography and other forms of sexual entertainment offer men & women alternative sources of gratification & stimulation. By satisfying some of the male demand for sex, these inexpensive entertainment forms could undermine women’s monopoly & negotiating power, and so women would naturally have an interest in stifling them. But the times have changed in 21st century and women are more open to pornography than prostitution. Recent ban on pornography in India was dissented by Indian youth especially by Indian women, which forced the government to revoke the decision.
The world’s oldest profession is prostitution, a profession like any other was tried to be stifled by many cultures, civilizations & governments from many centuries, but prostitution thrives for ever & is increasing at a rapid pace in the internet era. The experience from other countries where prostitution is legal, show that legalized, regulated prostitution thrives as an industry which can reduce sexual crime rate, safeguard women health & also boosts economy. Countries where prostitution is legal are Netherlands, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Germany, France, Greece, Canada,Brazil, Belgium, Austria, Australia etc. Pornography & Prostitution should be legalized for sexual liberation of both sexes. India sexually liberated the world through the famous book Kamasutra, & restraining sexuality in India will be a futile exercise.
What consenting adults do behind closed doors, whether they pay for it or not, is no concern for any individual, society or Government.
Marriage Vs Free love
Free love is a social movement that accepts all forms of love. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, prostitution, pornography and adultery. It claimed that such issues were the concern of the people involved, and no one else. Both men and women have the right to sexual pleasure without social or legal restraints. It advocates two strong beliefs: opposition to the idea of forced sexual activity in a relationship and advocacy for a woman to use her body in any way that she pleases. Free love movement challenged the institution of marriage & advocated its abolition. They propagated marriage as a social institution encourages emotional possessiveness and psychological enslavement & termed it as legalized prostitution and promoted live in relationships.
“Platonic relationships between two different sexes may prosper based on the maturity levels of the individuals concern.”
Free love movement of 19th & 20th century in western world gave impetus to free human sexuality from social & government norms & now in 21st century RGV is doing the same. His GST, God Sex & Truth is an iconic film that advocated against ensnaring female sexuality. RGV, Mia Malkova, Sunny leone and all others are pioneers for free love movement in India.
Professor Marston & the Wonder Women
In my view, hollywood didn’t capture, human psychology in relation to human sexuality which is a dominant motivational force & this film is surely a milestone in exploring the same. It is an iconic film in exploring & unmasking Love, Sexualities, Women Power, Societal strings etc.
Malena
Malena is another iconic film that portrays the struggle of a lonely women in a prejudiced society. It projects how some strong women end up into prostitution with societal prejudice & economic pressures.
Conclusion
Change is the only constant & human culture matures & changes over time. Anyone who fears for changing culture & who relates it to human sexuality, have to understand it’s the nature of human evolution process to change & none can stop it. Films play a pivotal role in educating & advancing the culture of the society. Sexism can be tackled by education & sexual liberation & not by sexual suppression. Human sexuality has no relation to human morality. In this “TINDER” era when sex is just a phone swipe away, restrictions on human sexuality will not sustain.
As Charles fourier said “One could judge the degree of civilization of a country by the social & political position of its women”
Feminism is not about bikinis & glamour but its all about giving the right of choice to women and not being judgmental of them and considering them as equals to men.
Theism
If J.K.Rowling was born five centuries ago, then Harrypotter would have been the “GOD”.
The greatest creation of mankind that touched every human on this planet is “GOD”. And this creation is spread by “Religion” which coexisted & thrived with human evolution process from many centuries & is highly dominant even today in 21st century.
Religion can be explained as a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency, usually involving in devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
There are five main religions in this world Christianity (33%), Islam (24%), Hinduism (16%), Atheism (10%), Buddhism (7%). The percentage projects the followers worldwide. Humans fear, mental trauma, righteousness & eternal hope gave birth to God & religion. Priests & Kings used this emotion state of humans to safeguard their power from public mutiny. They are highly successful in creation of god & religion through stories & rumors & also built temples for their own state treasury.
Any religion which obstructs reason & societal change is useless to mankind. But, are religions & humans open to change?? Humans in general are subjective (emotional) and always look up to someone to solve their problems, rather than believing in oneself. This emotional dilemma will exist forever & religion gives them solace from their mental weakness, so religion will also exist.
Existence of religion is not a problem, but if the religious followers are not open to change & envy other belief systems, that results in terrorism & societal chaos. Every true scripture only gains from criticism, but humans are too self righteous and are not open to criticism to their belief systems & in extreme cases envy other belief systems.
To some extent religion helped humans to attain mental peace from societal pressures. Is religion good? Yes it is, if humans are mature enough to realize change is the only constant and if they are open to criticism to their belief systems.
Theism can be better understood by a liberated mind, when one study related contrast human belief systems that thrived from 18th century. Some of them are
Theism – Belief in existence of God & religion
Atheism – Disbelief in existence of God
Agnosticism – Existence of any God is unknown or unknowable
Deism – God exists, but don’t interfere directly with the created world
For deists, humans can know God only via reason and by observation of nature, but not by revelation or by supernatural miracles. Deism is related to naturalism because it credits the formation of life and the universe to a higher power, using only natural processes. i.e Nature is God. Deism holds that religious beliefs must be founded on human reason and observation of nature. It also rejects religions that are based on books that claim to contain the revealed word of God.
Theism can also be understood with some basic concepts of psychology & philosophy by my personal favorites Sigmund Freud & Ayn Rand.
Subjectivism: People in general are influenced by their personal feelings, tastes or opinions.
Objectivism: Something not influenced by personal opinion, fact based.
Transference: Transfer of feelings by a 1st person to a 3rd person, based on his belief in 2nd person. Ex: People loving a hero’s son, Hating someone who resembles ex lover.
“People strive for objectivism (facts) but are influenced by subjectivism (personal feelings), driven by transference (Religion, superstitions).”
There are very limited universal truths like “sun rises in the east”. But unfortunately humans always live in the illusionary belief of majority universal truth’s preached by religion & relate it to every scenario of their lives. Ethics, morals are subjective & differ from person to person, religion to religion, profession to profession.
Freedom is not worth having, if it doesn’t include the freedom to do mistakes – M.K.Gandhi
So lets do more and more mistakes and learn from them & lets inject in ourselves that doing mistakes & learning from them is part of life, than preaching eternal truths. Let us explore life by reason & self learning.
Do god exist?
Nature, Science, Reason, tolerance & humanity are God.
Regards
Satya Gandhi
(B.Tech, MBA, LLB)
Executive Director
SAGA Group
Satya1159@gmail.com