Title: The Neo Mayos
sniffing around Indian gutters
Author: S. Gurumurthy
Publication: The New
Indian Express
Date: February 7, 2000
Before Independence two
persons wrote on the title "Mother India". One was Maharishi Aurobindo,
who saw Mother India as Divine Mother. The other was Catherine Mayo, who
saw the same mother as filth.
Mayo wrote her book sometime
in 1927. Though she had addressed the book to India, she published it in
the west; "for the Englishmen and Americans", as Gandhiji said. She condemned
India, as Gandhiji had noted, "for their sanitation, morals, religion".
She also described India as a "world menace" , the Hindus "as unresisting",
"insanitary", "superstitious", and note, even "sex-ridden".
Responding to Mayo Gandhiji
had said in Young India (15.9.1927) 'it is the report of a drain inspector
sent out with the purpose of opening and examining the drains of the Country
to be reported upon, or to give a graphic description of the stench exuded
by opening the drains. If Miss. Mayo had confessed that she had gone to
India merely to open out and examine the drains of India, there would perhaps
be little to complain about her compilation. But she says in effect with
a certain amount of triumph "The drains are India" '.
This happened over 70
years back. But the gutter inspecting culture has not stopped. If anything
it has become more respectable, and has acquired greater legitimacy. But
after Independence, the Indian sons and daughters of Macaulay who devised
the English education plan for the intellectual subordination of India,
have ensured the continuity of Katherine Mayo's work.
And now, Deepa Mehtas,
Shabana Azmis and other daughters and sons of Macaulay seem to continue
this Mayo tradition.
The latest themes of
the neo Mayos are indeed exciting, why even sexiting. How the Indian husbands
sexually starve their wives, forcing them to turn lesbians. This was the
theme of the film 'Fire'. And now, the next film 'Water'. Here, the theme
depicts how the widows of Varanasi and Mathura are condemned to prostitution.
Inevitably, the husbands
who do injustice to their wives are Hindus; and the wives turning lesbians
are again Radhas and Sitas. Of course, the widows of Varanasi and Mathuras
cannot be Muslims or Christians. The message is subtle, yet the targets
of attack and hurt are obviously selective.
This is Mayo in continuity.
Otherwise, why talk about lesbianism among wives and prostitution among
widows when there are million good things about Indian women and Indian
widows.
It is the Indian family,
woven around essentially women, which discharges the greatest burden that
the governments in the West are reeling under. And that is the care of
the elders at home, widowed and unemployed sisters, and brothers, the ill
and the infirm.
The bill for the care
of such people is met by the state in the west, and this accounts for more
than half of the public expenditure in many of these countries. They are
struggling to bear this bill. Here in India, millions of sisters and brothers
take care of their dependents. It is the Indian women who keep this dharmic
tradition of family as the delivery mechanism of social security.
Millions of widows sustain
their families through work ranging from cooking to papad-making. Ask Mahila
Griha Udyog Lijjad Papad. They will give you true-life stories, which will
shame the gutter-inspecting Mayos, the original and the neo.
Likewise there are thousands
of good things about Varanasi too - it signifies the greatest unity of
India, it is a centre of learning, it is a production centre of 80% of
the small fans produced in India and so on.
But obviously these neo
Mayos do not have an eye for anything good about India. They seem to look
only for gutter and stench in India. Compared to the millions of widows
who bring up their families by honest work, how many are prostitutes? And
compared to the crores of Indian wives who enjoy the conjugal bliss how
many seek relief in lesbianism?
Those like the neo Mayos
who inspect the gutters are bound to smell stench. Otherwise why would
they be disinclined to see the million great things for which our women
and widow are demonstrable examples, and project them as lesbians and widow
prostitutes.
For them it does not
matter that it hurts. That it hurts the millions of widows who do great
work for their families. That it presents even the contented women of India,
as sex-starved and as lesbians, or millions of widows as prostitutes. That
it presents miniscule exceptions as the universal Indian rule. That it
erodes the national confidence.
The tragedy is that the
work of Mayos and her neos does create an indelible impression about the
entire nation, even as one Morarji Desai advocating urine-therapy had made
the west think that all Indians do secretly what Morarji was saying openly.
But one cannot even dissent
against these neo Mayos without getting abused and labelled. It is anti-secular
to oppose them; it is communal if one agitates; dissenting against them
is fascism. Contrast the Mahatma with the present day leaders. They are
with those who hurt; not just that, they are against those who are hurt.
Terrorised by the abusive might of the secularists, the BJP government
has cleared the script of 'Water'. But the government must know that the
stench of Fire and Water cannot be sanitised. Because, the idea that Fire
and Water represent is gutter, stench. It cannot be sanitised, merely by
re-scripting it.
Will it not amount to
gutter inspection, as Gandhiji had said, to script the plight of the HIV-infected
the catholic priests of America among whom the HIV incidence is four times
the US national average; will that not pervert the personality of the thousands
of other priests who maintain strict catholic discipline? Will that not
over-shadow the service, which they are rendering to the needy? Fortunately
the secularists will ensure that such a thing will not happen in India,
against non-Hindus.
But what about the Hindus?
To day there is no Mahatma Gandhi to expose the Mayos and her neos. The
Hindu society must pray for one like him who can successfully dare the
children of Macaulay, and the secularists.
