No doubt what happened to Ahalya is unjust. Lord Rama in the Ramayana himself says so!! Then how does it becomes patriarchy when the male hero of the epic declares it to be unfair? Even Rama’s sons (males) question Rama and fight against him seeking an explanation to the banishment of Sita. Is this too patriarchy? Rama goes to the forest renouncing his rightful kingdom because his father had given word to his wife, a woman. Is this patriarchy? Rama dares the dangerous army of Ravana to save his wife, kills the brute Vali because he has defiled Sugriva’s wife. Is this also patriarchy? Women of Ramayana fought wars, governed kingdom when required, sat with the king on the throne, no yagya could be complete without the wife. Is this patriarchy? Rama himself never marries again, Sita has learnt shastra Vidya as well as Shaashtra Vidya, Gargi and Lopamudra compose verses of the most revered Vedas, Gargi questions the authority of Yajnavalkya, is appointed as the judge to decide who is the greatest of the wise. Signs of patriarchy? I could go on but I wonder which weed have these friends taken when they read the Ramayana, if at all? I suppose the opium of Wokeism and Marxism is quite potent in its effect that people stop thinking by themselves and turn into brainless fanatics who believe whatever lie is peddled to them without caring even to ascertain facts including simple facts about the story of Ahilya. Anyways in the process they at least believe in the existence of Rama and the Rishis!!
However I have an antidote for their opium. Ask these friends the following questions.
– Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake much more recently. Patriarchy?
– A whole British army chased and killed a woman while she was fighting with a one year old by her side, Rani Laxmibai. British patriarchy?
– Okay forget about these past incidents as isolated aa Ahalya and ask your friend if he is a genuine man, will he fight for the Women’s rights in Islam where patriarchy in its worst form continues to openly exist? Countless women are deprived of even right to education, oppressed, kept as in harem, alas, I suppose because there is no Rama or Hanuman in that decadent society to rescue them. It is even openly justified by the scripture. If this friend is a man enough will he take up the cause of existing crudest patriarchy rather than bothering about Ahalya which is a long back history? But present day Islam is real threat to women and danger to their basic rights. Will he take up the real fight against real present day blatant patriarchy? Ask him and you will see the intoxication of the weed vanish like proverbial horns from the donkey’s head.
Sometimes I wonder if the Indian youth has stopped thinking for themselves under the impact of Macdonald culture where women are openly used as pleasure objects in the name of sexual freedom or to sell a product. What would you say to a ‘civilisation’ which grants sexual freedom to women so that the men can freely enjoy their lust and cover it with the justification that the woman is free!! Is this the ideal of matriarchy, women liberation, emancipation of women to put a bottle of champaigne in their hands, dress them to please a man’s lust, and hook them to all the ills to which men are prone??
As to the story of Ahalya it is no doubt unfair when we look at it from the evolved humanity today but to call it unlawful is silly. Each Age had its own laws which people of that Age felt was right. It has changed and evolved as mankind evolves. Nobody except the most primitive beheads anyone as punishment but there was a time when almost all societies practiced it. But most have moved past that stage except one. The story of Ahalya is in fact a deeply mystical story with a powerful symbol ingrained in it. One has to be too crude to believe some curse can turn a woman into physical stone or that god Indra comes to earth assuming a human form and the moongod becomes a Cock etc. I have written about the mystical side of the story in my book The Eternal Feminine but perhaps that won’t interest your friend since it will bust his hypothesis that wants to simply put down Mother India. Oh yes, in the passing you can ask him if there is any other country in the world that calls the nation as a living mother, a piece of sand as a woman who is a goddess, Bharat Mata. Or this too is patriarchy?
Affectionately,
Alok Da
