Amrita Shah in The Indian Express:
“The Mangalore incident has served to highlight an aspect of the Hindutva ideology customarily sidelined in the greater preoccupation with religion and anti-minorityism, which is its strongly patriarchal attitudes.
“Much has been written on the sexual underpinnings of the Hindu revivalist movement. Scholars like Paola Bacchetta have described the vividly sexual imagery of the movement — the idea of the country as a goddess in turn ravished and saved by men; others have commented on the sexual competitiveness that contributed to the horrific assaults on women during the Gujarat violence of 2002. Within the Parivar too, women, while they may enjoy a certain status as leaders, not granted even to women in the more progressive Left, are discouraged from developing a radical vision of womanhood.
“The Sangh way, writes Tanika Sarkar “does not confront them (women) with the larger problems of their socially exploited sister, so that the Hindutva women are never forced to choose between gender and their own class/caste privileges. It keeps them tied to family interests and ideology while spicing their lives with the excitement of limited but important public identity”.”
Read the full article: Sexual politics
churumuri 
Doesn’t time move for these leftist writers? Still talking about 2002 “horiffic” riots! I do not read anyone expressing horror over the killings by the Christians in the North-East. They are not even reported properly, much less evaluated.
I think the writer is directionless. To think of Bharat Mata image as “vividly sexual”, is hight of perversity. Only MF Hussain has seen sex and nudity in Bharat Mata. And now this writer. Is tying women to family values exploitation? Doesn’t family provide both physical and economic security to its memebrs? What about exposure of women’s flesh in the Ads for marketing of goods and services, though they may have nothing to do with women? Isn’t that exploitation? What about casting coach in the film industry? What about varieties of reality shows which necessarily require women participation and living for days together with perfect strange men? If the exploiters use modern lingo and fashion, it is “opportunity” for women. If family values are promoted, that is exploitation. I strongly feel that it is the powerful liquor lobby of VM and the like who are behind these protestations, and promotion of Pub culture, helped by no less than “anti-capitalist” left wingers. Strange bed fellows indeed!
People who condemn family values should realise that after more than a decade’s experimenting with “live-in” concept, now the live-in women partners require security. Maharashtra State is about to bring a law for this purpose. Isn’t this family coming through back door?
Destruction of families as a social institution in the USSR is one of the reasons why Russia has still not economically recovered, even two decades after the demise of communism. Who would toil for the economic benefit of society? It is one’s family that one works for, toils for. With no family to work for, there is no incentive for anyone to excel anywhere.
Today’s newspapers showed scene of gathering of girls protesting against the events in Mangalore. That ws under the sponsorship of two leftist student organisations. Perhaps, the participants do not even know the socio-economic implication of proliferating drinking habits. They are merely cheer leaders prodded by controllers from behind.
LikeLike
Ram sene does not represent Hindutva. You can find such goonda organizations dime a dozen in every locality in India.
The philosophy of Hindu cultural nationalism has been a rapidly evolving and revelatory concept among the Hindu intellectuals. For example the Rastrotthana Parishath which is the propoganda and publishing division of RSS in Karnataka has been instrumental in translating and publishing works of Osho Rajneesh, J Krishnamurthi, atheistic Sankya and tantric literature. These liberal streams of Indian thinkers and thought have been co-opted into mainstream Hindutva. Hindu Nationalists are not all Savarkarvadis or Golwalkarwadis,there are many different shades of people in there from atheists, nihilists, liberals and highly open minded thinkers – men and women included. This has been my personal experience in my interaction with many of the prominent Hindutva ideologues.
The essential idea of Hindutva is cultural preservation against malicious and well directed foreign propoganda and all else is secondary. The discourse on caste preservation is an appopriation on Hindutva and that is given no prominence in any of the RSS meetings and literature. So are the views on patriarchy. There are several elements of tantricism which have been part of the hindutva cultural polity that are highly empowering to women.
But the anti hindutva media likes to impose a rigid view of Hindutva based on their own preconceptions and framework which is used time and again to analyze and measure their staunch enemies which are Hindutvawadis. Give a dog a bad name and kill it is there motto.
Unfortunately you cannot counter a growing cultural movement like Hindutva unless you understand what they really stand for. Basing your understand as the author has done in this articel on false presumptions on Caste and Patriarchy will not help in any clear logical debate as the very premise on which it is based is false. All the author has done is used an unworthy rowdy attack on a huge and growing cultural movement of Hindu Nationalism. The anti Hindutva intellectual gang is a virtual cottage industry armed with cliched school boy (and girl) logic dissertation of a movement of ehich they have no idea.
LikeLike
@BNG
I think u are the directionless one here. How and on what terms are u even connecting “tying women to family values” and suppression of the free rights given to every citizen by the constitution(in this case the freedom of women to drink)?? Women are adults and they have their choices, they are developed enough to think and act. Every girl/woman i have met (esp the ones who are all modernised and into new fads and booze) are all aware of their commitment and requirement to their family and to their jobs. I haven’t seen a single one till date who has messed up the importance of family among their priorities.
Talking about family values, acc. to ur own theory aren’t guys suppposed to get into family and take care of his family? If thats the case, then why are ur sangh members and all harassing others, a lot of them are married, go stick to ur family! why are u roaming around leching and young girls, eve-teasing them, raping them? Pardon me, but is that ur way of tying them to family values?
Oh, also what gives u the right to go preach these girls about “family values”, u think their parents teaching them about values is not good enough? or are u better than their parents???That of course goes against the hindu ideology of parents are equivalent to gods!
Get a life and stick to it dude, let others choose and do what they want, doesn’t matter if that other person is a girl/guy/woman/man! If u don’t like watchin reality shows/girls with fewer clothes, don’t look at it! I ll bet anything that u will sit an lech at Mallika Sherawat in any of her movies/songs! Here u shout about girls and family values!
BLOODY HYPOCRITES…the LOT of YOU!
LikeLike
B.N.Gururaj – Me thinks this is one Liberal-Left dope that still gets pushed in a market that does nt want it. True Communist style economics :)
Its little wonder that Liberals and primacy of “individual rights” wallas never ever take responsibility for the anarchy they let lose on society.
LikeLike
Prajwal – Sad and stupid outburst.
LikeLike
I am surprised to read some of the insane comments linking sex into religion. Every religion be it Muslim, Hindu or Christians have their own way in sexual life also. Those some of the comments are in very bad taste. Once reading these comments it has been proved that educated are more worst than animal. Se some of the comments every uneducated also think about such bad comments on sex and religion. It seems those making comments are lust and not had satisfaction in sex in their life. I humble request you to go to some brothel and enjoy the girls how much you can. You can choose Kamatipur in Mumbai or G B Road in Ajmiri Gate near New Delhi Railway Stations. Even in Bangalore also there are several such areas are there. Even if you stand near Jalahalli circle or IISc road there are many call girls are available and you can pick up these girls and enjoy.
LikeLike
Palahalli
For once, I agree with Prajwal
Let’s face it. We Indians ARE are a hypocrite lot.
Having said that
This post is ridiculous
LikeLike
Sandesh, we Indians are a “self-sacrificing” lot. Hope you get my drift. We are totally into sado-masochism.
Prajwal’s is not a reasoned response but pure emotion.
LikeLike
A
Please this Los Angelis Times story on Mangalore attack
ttack on women at a bar in India raises fears of ‘Hindu Taliban’
The attack by Hindu extremists who say they are protecting traditional Indian culture shows a disconnect as some classes rapidly Westernize. But some observers see a political ploy as elections near.
By Mark Magnier , January 29, 2009
Reporting from New Delhi — There was a bit of a street brawl outside a pub, nothing too unusual on the face of it, except for what happened next. After pushing a few men out of the way, the 40 or so attackers revealed what they were really after: young women at the bar, whom they slapped, pummeled and yanked by the hair, in what they later justified as a bid to safeguard traditional Indian culture.
Video of the smashed-up pub, Amnesia: The Lounge, and of several women being assaulted, with at least two being pushed to the ground, has topped news broadcasts for days. One Indian minister described the incident Saturday in the southwest city of Mangalore as a bid by Hindu fundamentalists to “Talibanize” India; others suspect a political ploy.
The Mangalore attack, captured by a TV crew, has been condemned by police, civic groups and the central government, but it follows several other actions by conservative Hindus who believe that women should not wear Western clothes, drink alcohol or have an independent lifestyle.
It also underscores the growing gap, social observers say, between an India that has rushed headlong into the 21st century — as seen in the shiny world of call centers and slick urban skylines — and a more traditional world that, while also changing, still has a good deal in common with the 19th century world of ox carts, closeted village women and deep-rooted patriarchal values.
“You have Muslim Taliban and this Hindu Taliban,” said Kuldip Nayar, a New Delhi-based journalist and political analyst. “Tradition has not been jettisoned as quickly as people in the West think. This class of people going to pubs, dancing, is still very small.”
The group that took responsibility for the attack on the young women, Shri Ram Sena, is a radical wing of the Hindu nationalist movement whose most mainstream element is the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP.
We “are not a group of mad men, we are a patriotic group,” said Pramod Muthalik, Shri Ram’s head, in an interview in the local media. “We are the citizens of this nation, and I feel it is our duty to discipline indecent behavior. It is out of this sense of duty that we feel the need to safeguard our culture.”
The Mangalore attack is the latest high-profile attempt by various Hindu fundamentalist groups to “safeguard Indian morality” and fight “polluting” Western influence.
About two dozen members of Shri Ram, including Muthalik, have been arrested, though the Karnataka state government has been accused of dragging its feet and one of the suspects was released on bail within hours.
Targets of various hard-line Hindu and nationalist groups have included Valentine’s Day, kissing in Bollywood films, open displays of affection, cheerleaders and Hindu-Muslim relationships.
“Moral policing is completely deplorable,” said Niraja Gopal Jayal, a professor at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. “I’m afraid that given all the attention, fringe groups might be emboldened to repeat this sort of thing.”
The opposition BJP, which hopes to return to power in national elections expected to take place from April 8th to May 15th denounced the attack as an “unacceptable act of hooliganism.”
But some analysts and media said it could have happened only in a state like Karnataka, a BJP stronghold that espouses Hindu nationalist values and elected the party to power in May. On Wednesday, the chief minister of another conservative state, Rajasthan, said he would work to ensure “the culture of boys and girls going hand-in-hand to pubs and malls for drinking is stopped.”
Some have criticized the news media’s role, questioning how the TV crew happened to be there, whether ithad advance knowledge and why it didn’t intercede. Some also see more political calculation than cultural backlash in Saturday’s attack. The hard-line BJP needs to bolster core supporters for the elections, said Dipankar Gupta, a sociology professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
“They attack soft targets to keep their base active and alive,” he said. “And on the other side, when they say it’s against Hindu culture, we get into a debate. It’s a trap. Then they have you exactly where they want you. We should just put them in jail.”
Nirmala Venkatesh, a member of the central government’s National Commission for Women, breezed into her office wearing a long coat and fur collar over an off-white striped sari. Since she was put in charge of a three-member panel to investigate the incident, her phone has been ringing nonstop with queries from politicians and journalists.
The way she sees it, Venkatesh said, women have the right to enjoy themselves but should also recognize societal limits. As part of her inquiry, she said, she plans to meet with the attackers, the bar owner and the families of the young women to see whether their parents allowed them to go out to pubs every night at midnight.
“My personal advice: Women should be very careful,” she said. “I can’t just roam after midnight.”
The attack took place about 4 p.m.
Venkatesh disputes any comparison with Muslim extremists in Afghanistan. “We can’t treat all men as Taliban,” she said. “Men are lovable. Without men, what are we?”
Rather, economic difficulties, unemployment and frustration motivate a small group to act badly, she said.
At the upscale Khan Market in south Delhi, four college girls out for a lunch of shish kebab and pita bread discussed the incident. They frequently head out to bars and restaurants for fun in the evenings, they said, though never alone. They also never tell their parents what they’re doing, saying they’re staying with a girlfriend or celebrating a friend’s birthday.
“I feel caught between two worlds,” said Tina Chopra, 21, a college student. “At home, it’s the old traditional India. When I go out, it’s the new India. . . . I’m like two separate people.”
mark.magnier@latimes.com
Pavitra Ramaswamy in The Times’ New Delhi Bureau contributed to this report.
LikeLike
What happened in Mangalore was very bad. It was a total erosion of democracy and the perpetrators should be punished so that such incidents don’t happen again.
However, after reading this article I feel sad, because the basic ideologies of Hinduism have been grossly misinterpreted in the article. The fact that a country is seen as a goddess is something to be proud of, because it brings a sense of respect and devotion to the country. Its not only in India, but other western countries also have concept of motherland. I don’t see anything chauvinistic about it.
The idea that family is a place where women are belittled and constrained is wrong. It provides a sense of security and identity to everyone, man and woman. There are many other positives of family, but this is not the right forum to discuss them.
I see that there are many comments regarding freedom to choose whatever one wants to do. I completely agree that everyone should be allowed to make a choice and it should not be forced on anyone. However, if that choice is inhibits the development of that individual, then such a freedom should be curtailed. Let me give an example, consider the burning issue of consuming alcohol. I agree that everyone should be allowed to consume alcohol when they want and no one should interfere. But of all the people who make this choice, how many are educated enough to understand the ramifications of their actions. I believe that a small percentage of them are educated enough. So in order to prevent them from making a wrong choice, some source which educates them is needed. Religion is one such source and so is family. Till a person is mature enough to understand the results of his actions he/she should not be allowed to make a decision. This is my view of why there should not be unrestricted freedom for all.
Finally, I want to point out that Hinduism is not represented by what the goons did in Mangalore, but it is represented by the broad democracy we all enjoy as Indians. It is represented in the tolerance and respect for others and their ideologies. So don’t equate Hinduism to actions committed by few.
LikeLike
Thanks rafik. Another reason why the Hindus need their own media and news agencies. Trust Liberal louts to send preposterous messages about their own people!
Kuldip Nayar as usual takes the “Scumbag of the Year” crown!
LikeLike
>>Scholars like Paola Bacchetta have described the vividly sexual imagery of the movement — the idea of the country as a goddess in turn ravished and saved by men;
Wow ! This is something from a very fertile mind of a pervert. No wonder, psuedos will always loose the battle and the war as they score selfgoal. Any sane person will be outraged by this.
Its women that preserve(d) the culture, religion from the onslaught of modernists, secularists in Europe in 20th century and primary reason for its revival today. WOMEN REPRESENT CONTINUITY, PRESERVE RELIGION. In India however there is no principled modernist, or secularists- all are psuedos.
Brinda Karat & Co supported unform civil code, equal rights for ALL Indian women till Shah Banu. As soon as Shah Banu was delivered, BJP started supporting UCC, Brinda Karat & Co took a U-turn. They deny even basic equal rights to 7.5% of Indian women (half of Indian muslim pop).
As far as Hindutva , place of women in it are concerned- who are these fundoos to define that? The largest women’s organization (also largest labor organization, student organization) belong to a Hindutva ideology.
Its personalities like Sister Nivedita that define what a Hindu woman will do. Not some obscure US Professor, or follower of failed communist ideology like Tanika Sarkar.
As rightly pointed out here by Gururaj, let her understand the plight of family, women in USSR under Marxists. Its the ONLY MAJOR COUNTRY today, that is going to see a drop pf population in foreseeable future and very strategic interest of Russia is at stake.
LikeLike
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Time_for_blasts_Malegaons_just_a_trailer_Muthalik/articleshow/4050361.cms
The Ram sene chief justifying terrorism.
LikeLike
folks– its same old wine in a new bottle. Hindutva bashing, Hindutva terror….Blah Blahh.. Good luck :)-
While media went euphoric over Malegaon, Karkare WHY MALEGAON WAS NOT MENTIONED AS ACHIVEMENT OF KARKARE that was read before the President on Jan 26th? Batala House encounter was mentioned as a terrorist hiding place in citation of Ins Sharma.
Psuedos run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.
LikeLike
But then bomma, you are against any kind of action that involves Hindus protecting themselves. Fact is, he’s more a child of Multi-cultural kooks than of Hindutva. Deal with this reality and more of such reality :)
You’re intellect understands but will not accept.
LikeLike
Bomma- those who for decades did NOT face the terror, tried to suppress it under carpet for political reasons (mainly minority votebank), are those who now coined the term “Hindutva terror”.
Yes, what Rama Sene did is not acceptable. But its NOT terrorism. Its the same guys who are unable to see terror are terming Rama Sene’s acts as terrorism.
Neither Indian IPC, acts term acts of hooliganism as terrorism. Psuedos, activists tried to equate real terrorism with Hindutva hooliganism, BUT WHEN CHIDAMBARAM ENACTED NEW LAW, THAT WAS NOT INCORPORATED. Please go and check.
People are NOT fool. Psuedos term BJP as Communal. But is they who are communal and communalized terrorism.
LikeLike
Palahalli,
Remember the cliche: ‘assumption is the mother of all…” before you post.
Defending Ram sene on the one hand and distancing ‘hindutva’ from it on the other. Sakath tactic guru.
BTW what self-protection of hindus was this Muthalik guy and his ram sene guys upto when they beat up the women in the pub? Who were the non-hindus involved?
Why does the words ram sene make you so pissed :) These guys gave the name themselves with blessings from leaders after all.
LikeLike
bomma – I think you’re in dire need of you’re own cliché’..
I have not distanced Hindutva from Rama Sene. In fact, I am not in a position to either distance or attach “Hindutva” to them. I’m not a member.
Violence of the kind Rama Sene indulged in, will take place because of the stifling “intellectual” environment Liberal folks have created in this country. Violence is the only language these people understand. Hence the responsibility lies with the stiflers.
Piece of advice – Why not talk to you’re pals in the MSM about the harm they cause?
LikeLike
“Violence of the kind Rama Sene indulged in, will take place because of the stifling “intellectual” environment Liberal folks have created in this country. Violence is the only language these people understand. Hence the responsibility lies with the stifflers.”
This is not merely a chilling threat borne out of cowardice. It is the classic justification for violence by fundamentalists of all variety. You not have the resources or intellectual ability to face the “stifflers’. So, you turn to the defenseless, the women, the children.. or anyone who is not armed and is easy target. It is sheer cowardice and spite and hatred passing for ‘ideology’. It is draining your humanity, good sense, civility, but grants you the pleasure of easy violence instead. It is the complete evil.. The people who advocate such vileness (but may not take up the weapons because they are cowards, really) are more evil than the inspired foot soldier who perpetrates the actual violence on the ground.
LikeLike