Durga Ad from the Abused Goddesses Campaign[/caption]Some people applaud Abused Goddesses campaign. Some like Gautam Benegal critique it (you can read it here) for, amongst other things, once again strengthening a patriarchal exhortation that "that we must see women as goddesses of a particular religion."
He does make a significant point but I support the campaign for the very opposite reason--that women and Goddess have stayed unlinked by orthodoxy, that the two have belonged to separate realms and this campaign heals that fracture.The campaign for me is not so much about saving sisters as it is about saving Goddesses from the clutches of patriarchy. And that liberating the Goddess itself opens up corridors of emancipation. And here is why.
In the fantastic book edited by K.Erndl, & A. Hiltebeitel, “Is the Goddess a feminist: The politics of south Asian goddesses?” Scholars have teased out some reasons why Goddesses have failed to be feminists.
One of the overwhelming reasons is that socially speaking, in India there exists four genders (five actually including the third gender). They are God, Goddess, man, and woman. The Goddess is Mahadevi, Mahamaya, Shakti—but she is NOT human woman. In an essay in the same book by Humes, 100 male and female reciters of Devi Mahatmya were interviewed about the difference/relationship of the Great Goddess (Mahadevi) and woman. A quote of one male reciter from the essay:
“Women are the untouchables of this earth in comparison with Durga (the Great Goddess of the Devi Mahatmaya). Woman’s true nature is composed of eight evils. In all women, all eight faults are found; even in Sita and Savitri. Their very pores are permeated with these evils, so what comparison can there be of women with the Goddess?”
This split ensures Ma Durga is worshipped by a male priest, not a “polluting” woman during Navrathri celebrations.
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Evening Arati in progress in a Durga Puja pandal in Chennai[/caption]The second powerful reason is that patriarchy over centuries have co-opted certain set of Goddesses—the domesticated varieties as their symbols of virtuous women and begun to shun/decrease practice of fierce, independent Goddesses with various narratives. For example, if you had an image of Kali at home—there would be narratives that this would bring suffering to the family so on and so forth. Instead impossible but complex narratives of Savitri who could follow Lord of Death across his journey and get her husband back alive or that of Sati who self-immolates herself because she cannot bear humiliation of her husband or portrayal of Lakshmi as a woman who sits at the feet of a sleeping Vishnu are thrust upon human women as virtues to be followed.
These impossible narratives are, however, different from the Christian narratives of the Virgin Mary. No woman can give a virgin birth so she is always the opposite—the whore. Indian goddesses are not virgins nor do they refrain from drinking or flirting. The Indian psyche perceives the woman quite differently from how she conceived in post-Industrial wage-based narratives of the West (for more on this read Liddle and Joshi’s Daughters of Independence). In Hindu social structure, she is held to be powerful and requiring a man to leash in her energy. In the west, she is considered as “weaker” sex. Thus domestic violence narratives in India has tended to be, at the roots, the “taming the shrew” kind. To imagine her as a creature to be protected is more a contemporary import into narrative. Many interviews of rapists in India show that men think they are "teaching" women a lesson by raping them! (Again with no dataset scientifically analyzed, this is more my speculation based on cursory observations)
In other words, the oppressive discourses around Goddesses are created by patriarchal structures to restrain and constrain women but the Goddesses themselves never lost their potential to be empowering symbols for women.
It is the very beauty of Indian mythology and system that while a certain part oppresses and terrifies, another part slips, unravels, confounds its users. The Indian Goddess structures and rituals are varied and dynamic and co-exist with clashing patriarchal narratives. For example, the Shakta structures are horizontal in nature and give both men and women equal access. The Goddess possession rituals and rhetoric of the possessed –like when women speak out against abusive in-laws and husbands and have ritual legitimacy to do so—are some of the examples by which the split/fracture between Goddess and Woman is healed.
And yes, unlike much of any other part of the World, India still has the Goddess alive and kicking. Where would you find that the divine forces that govern learning/wisdom, health and prosperity, and strength and courage to be all Goddesses (Saraswati, Lakshmi, Durga)? Ahem, women per se! That in the great war against Ravana, Rama invokes Mahadevi for blessings! And all these Goddesses sit in your face across the varied landscape of your country.
Abused Goddesses campaign womanizes the Goddess. It genderizes her in earthly terms. It heals the fracture between the Goddess and the woman. It brings to light what was denied by patriarchy—that the feminine, the Goddess is conceived in a woman’s body and that the body is sacred.
Abused Goddess campaign to me is not so much about saving sisters as it is about saving Goddesses from the clutches of patriarchy. Let us save our Devis so that we can co-create emancipatory conversations ourselves!
Bhavana, I am truly, deeply impressed. You write with such power and force! I had no idea that goddesses were not considered to be women. That is why I was always confused how a nation which worships the goddess in some form or the other can have such scant respect for its women. Now, thanks to this post, I know.
ReplyDeleteI am wow-ed!
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