Sena's wisdom: Girls are asking for it - Newindpress.com

Sena's wisdom: Girls are asking for it - Newindpress.com

The Shiv Sena is nuts! They don't understand Indian Cultural values at all and yet they try to police it!

Dressing that way (provocatively) is definitely not good - but that is not the main reason. The cultural degradation and depraved nature belong to the men who perpetrate such crimes.

In fact Manu-smriti says - yatra nAryastu pUjyante ramante tatra devatAH. Gods dwell happily wherever women are worshipped. That in a nut shell explains Hindu Culture. Assaulting women is definitely not worshipping them. Just because girls dress that way, can they be treated in whatever way?

kAma is a puruShArtha in the Indian Cultural system. It has been most unfortunately translated as lust into English. Indian Culture tended to be more open than the present American cultures. European culture now is depraved. Indian Culture believes more in a balance.

If we just look at the sculptures in temples, we can understand the view Ancient Indian Culture had towards this much tabooed kAma. Indian Culture did not encourage an open exhibition of such acts - but neither did it discourage it. Satisfaction of desires had to take place within the system of marriage. Second and third marriages were done for the same reason. Balance was the order of the day.

Islamic and Victorian mores have changed the Indian perception too. Indian people tend to be too frigid and timid when it comes to these matters. Some people are going to the other extreme, though, because of the blind aping of the West - which, feeling repressed for quite sometime, has broken the shackles violently.

Buddha's suvarNa-madhyama-mArga (The Golden middle path) applies here too. Krishna in the gItA also says - ati sarvatra varjayet (Excesses everywhere should be cast away). Extreme denial is not good. An excess of enjoyment is not good either.

There is a wonderful book in Kannada which deals with this topic. It is called kAma - ondu puruShArtha. It is by a Samskrit expert - Prof VK HampihoLi. I just went through the introduction and it is an illuminating read. Books like that should be read by our people to understand what exactly constitutes a healthy attitude towards these matters.

I am not mentioning the word as I am writing this from within work ! ;-)