Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Drishtikone

Home
Hindu
Why is a society of Sunny Leones, Power-Money, Ramdev/Hazare-bashing so clueless about the Rape Epidemic?

Why is a society of Sunny Leones, Power-Money, Ramdev/Hazare-bashing so clueless about the Rape Epidemic?

Last updated on: December 18, 2012 at 2:54 pm by Desh Kapoor

Why is a society of Sunny Leones, Power-Money, Ramdev/Hazare-bashing so clueless about the Rape Epidemic? 2012-12-18T14:54:11-06:00 Desh Kapoor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

When Gautam Buddha was setting up his Sangha, he admitted only male monks. He is supposed to have said that if he admits women as well, his spiritual path that he was offering, will remain spiritually active for about 700-800 years. With male only students, it will remain active for over 2500 years.

Even Buddha didn’t trust his own monks beyond a certain limit.

And that was in isolation, with hard spiritual sadhanas and austerities.

India of today has porn stars like Sunny Leone, Poonam Pandey, Sheryl Chopra, and Priya Rai as staple diets of the TV audience. To watch and be acquainted with Sunny Leone or Priya Rai, the American audience, where Leone is amongst the top 20 porn stars, you need to go behind a age-checking website; in India, you can watch them slithering suggestively on prime time TV.

Meanwhile, religious and traditional systems and rituals as well as behaviour is passe. Do you still live with your parents? Do you still go to temple? Are you religious? Really??!!

Religiosity was a lay man’s proxy for Spiritual Pursuit. Some would get the point and move to the real stuff at some point. No more. Spiritual Gurus have to literally sell Spiritual Sadhana to make it worth the while.

Also, India as a society has been hijacked by the combination of Power and Money. And the guy with Power and Money is not just powerful, but abusively so. If you have to get work done, it is not enough to shove it down people’s throat. It should be done accompanied with choicest of abuses and insulting the other guy.

Added to that, we have a society which is full of passionate, Secularly/Politically/Religiously/and “Rats ass” correct individuals that instead of discussing a situation from all angles – including uncomfortable ones, expertly use the weapon of denial. Lest it may piss someone off.

In such a situation, Single ladies come along wondering where her freedom to wear short skirts in public on a lonely road at night went? (I Am Scared, I am a Single Woman in Delhi).

When Pooja Bhatt cast Sunny Leone as the epitome of sexuality and titillated the audience which was already drunk on power and money, without any social structures left to reign in with “good sense”, this “Single Woman from Delhi” was quiet. She probably celebrated it by reminding everyone and sundry about Kamasutras and Khajurahoes.

I often wonder if feeding alcohol to a toddler and hoping that he will not become an alcoholic and start committing crime when he has the wherewithal – is bravado or lunacy? Is it Freedom of Expression? Freedom of life?

More importantly, once I have triumphantly fed this toddler alcohol in his formative years, can I suddenly show up at a crime scene when he is 20 and lament the degradation in social values?

Karma is the central theme of Indian Spiritual traditions. Contrary to popular lore, it is NOT a proxy for punishing or rewarding someone’s socially relevant or inappropriate (which is different in every society and time) acts. It is the expression of CAUSE and EFFECT. Essentially, it means in simplest terms – if you smoke, you get ailments like cancer. If you drink alcohol, you get drunk. So, when you find yourself DRUNK, please be rest assured that YOU drank alcohol at some point in the past. As simple as that. And no, your being drunk is NEITHER God’s doing nor your bloody destiny! You… YOU.. AND ONLY YOU are responsible for your drunkenness!

If I have to feed porn to the masses, I need to have MATURE masses. Maturity can mean different things to different people. Some would say that Frida Kahlo lived in a society of “Mature” individuals. But sometimes one is not sure if she was raped by so many men or she consensually had casual sex because she had poor self image? Our “Single woman from Delhi” may have termed it as rape for all you know.

Even Buddha knew the limits and terms of “Sexual Maturity” when he evaluated his own Monks. Buddha was Buddha. But Monks as disciples were not. They were ordinary individuals of society yet to proceed ahead. He knew he dangers. And he wasn’t in denial, however gender-wise political incorrect his stand may have been.

Reasons??

Someone I know declares “I am not ashamed to be an Indian – I am ashamed to be MALE!”

All the well-meaning people stand around and applaud this self-deprecating “honesty”. But it does nothing to stop the next rape. If rhetorical indignation was enough to stop a society’s slide to crime, then poets and writers should have made the greatest leaders and reformers.

Unfortunately, even the rhetoric is only so deep in our society now. Just enough deep so it can cause tingling, but not deep enough to cause pain or hurt. That is a taboo.

The next rapist-wannabe is happy with all this. He laughs his head off at the pusillanimous and the rhetorically confused generation. He knows that no laws would be changed. Even if they are, no one would give a “Rat’s ass” about their implementation. And if someone like Ramdev, Kejriwal or Anna Hazare do take up the fight, these same so-called “violated people” will build careers and greatness out of running them down because “Yoga and politics don’t mix”.. “Because Activism and Politics don’t mix”.. because…. well.. “Humanity and Politics don’t mix”.

And then we wonder why we are a society of animals being governed by yet more ruthless animals. Forget Divinity, we have placed even good ol’ Humanity on a pedestal!

Of course, our “Single woman from Delhi” will never realize that there is DIRECT relation between silence on Sunny Leone’s mainstream acceptance, Ramdev’s bashing, and her being molested, as well as that girl’s gang rape.

Oh well! But then, as the story goes….

Related articles from External Sources

Previous Post

December 18, 2012

Ironically, Adam Lanza lived on "Yogananda Street"!

Next Post

December 18, 2012 Fred Rogers' message on handling kids after tragedy goes viral

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Aarti Achievement and Leadership AfPak Africa Annual and Year-end Asia Audio Australia Behavioural Sciences Bhagwad Gita Bhagwad Gita Blogging Blogs Business Business Intelligence Business Strategy Cannes Careers Chanakya China Conservation Corruption Creative Daily Links Desh Poems Development & Welfare Devotional Audio Devotional Songs Drama Earth Economics Education Entertainment Environment Europe Everyday Quotes Featured Articles Featured Songs Finance Flickr Pictures Food Geo-Political Global Warming Globalization Health & Medicine Hinduism Historic History Humour India Indian Culture Indian music Indian Weddings Israel Issues Legal Link Love Minorities Misc Motivation and Personal Development Movie Lists Movie Reviews Movies Mumbai terror attacks Natural Disasters Nature News Outsourcing Pakistan Parenting Personal Philosophy Poetry Politics Poverty Quotes Recipe Regular Blog Post Relationships Religion Religious/Spiritual Audio Sciences Showcase Slideshow South Asia Special Stories Spiritual Quotes Spirituality Sports Stories Strategy Technology Technology Terrorism Travel Uncategorized US Video Women Women_s Rights Worship Yoga

Select a Month December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 June 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 September 2014 August 2014 January 2014 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What is the first book of the New Testament?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Matthew Luke Mark John