Suppressing facts, reality and
scientific reasoning at the altar of scriptural justifications is in bad taste.
My views are
neither right nor left oriented but ambivalent here [because I know some
statements are true however the real practices are totally contradictory and
hypocritical].
I am neither
for or against all tradition but then I am against suppressing facts and
reality.
They are not
only ambivalent but irritating too because whenever I listen to these types of presentations which emphasis justification based on cherry picked scriptures
and traditions and totally brushing aside facts and reality on ground.
Suppressing
facts, reality and scientific reasoning at the altar of scriptural
justifications are in bad taste even if spiced with pleasant tales, appealing anecdotes, usage of
logical fallacies either intentionally or unintentionally, they all blunt the
enlightened intellectual and social emancipation of human beings based on
ground realities.
I feel like
telling these people often this, "Don't look for ideas to confirm your
thinking, rather look for trends that will disrupt your thinking" - Rich
Simmonds.
India and
Indians practiced and are still practicing gender bias and discrimination in many areas and probably this is the case in many
parts of the world or perhaps all over the world too, but that is not a
justification.
With all tall
claims and small practices we Indians still treat women badly.
I can give many
examples starting from how old widows are left to beg at the banks of Ganges by
her own children to weaving multiple taboos around certain mere biological
inconveniences.
Prefixing a
Gowri to Shankar or Lakshmi to Narayanan or Seetha to Raman in name have not
changed the status of or state of treatment meted out to women in many parts of our
country.
At various
times as reaction I have written about the gender issues and feminism in many
places. Here I am giving links to some of them.
We are talking about human beings as a species and this question of Western Values or Eastern Values do not come in, it is all created by vested interest groups.
For all human beings there could only be one set of values and that is humane values though that too can have certain differences in space, modifications, variations or differences either nuanced or blatant to be in tune with the frequencies of predominantly [though right or wrong here is purely relative] prevailing customs, traditions, socio-cultural practices etc but even they need not be and preferably must not be thrust upon everyone and may be avoided if they are detrimental to human happiness, freedom and cause damage to the environment.
We are talking about human beings as a species and this question of Western Values or Eastern Values do not come in, it is all created by vested interest groups.
For all human beings there could only be one set of values and that is humane values though that too can have certain differences in space, modifications, variations or differences either nuanced or blatant to be in tune with the frequencies of predominantly [though right or wrong here is purely relative] prevailing customs, traditions, socio-cultural practices etc but even they need not be and preferably must not be thrust upon everyone and may be avoided if they are detrimental to human happiness, freedom and cause damage to the environment.
This was written as my reaction to Visaka Hari's lecture for which I was asked to write a review and instead I wrote my views. After that obviously they stopped asking me to write on anything.
