If Education Was…

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” The profundity of this thought reflects upon the significance of knowledge and self-expression. For centuries, education has been an uplifting attribute of self-awareness. Education leverages one’s personality, character, and moral consciousness. As a spearhead to extricate the self from dogmas and nuances of fear, education has been the handbook of insight that edifies positive behavior, indoctrinates intellectual expression, and stimulates self-exploration. But what happens when education is no more than a paper qualification? Or when an educated mind is stormed by pseudo effect that supersedes logic by bigotry and narrow-mindedness? Most people identify education with know-how and erudition, a mechanism that benefits them with employability and professional development. However, education is rarely taken as a supplement to enlightenment, open-mindedness, and refinement of the self. Had education been the core of mastery in life, man would have been much wiser and content than he is today. Negative thoughts, sulking behavior, greed, jealousy, anger and betrayal would thus have been replaced by joy, good nature, and peace of mind.

Moreover, violence, carnage, and abuse would have been infinitesimal currents in the life’s oceanic expanse had education been the force behind life’s flow. But the truth is that it is not. Perhaps it is one reason why many educated professionals live a duplicitous life where they perpetually craft ill means to put down others. For instance, many cases of dowry harassment and assault in India involve in-laws who are educated professionals, but have still made their daughter-in law’s life a living hell. Being educated and belonging to respectful families, these in-laws forget to be loving and respectful to their son’s or brother’s wife. They apparently forget that education does not teach them to suppress someone’s belief system, curtail their aspirations, or command their life. In such unfortunate and indeed unexpected circumstances, delicate relationships go haywire. Education also does not preach double standards where there are contradictory principles set for family members, such as privileges for the daughter and boundaries for the daughter in-law. The situation worsens in cases where an educated sister-in-law (who is a year younger to the daughter in law) acts as the second mother-in-law with her list of pretentious demands. The relationship decays when the same sister-in-law (aka junior mother-in-law) with her obsessive personality meddles in the day-to-day affairs of the married couple. The sister-in-law’s excessive intrusion of the married couple’s privacy puts the couple’s life on the edge. What then is the purpose of being educated if we do not learn to be progressive in our thoughts, or learn to be less self-indulgent and give time to new relationships? It’s like bringing a budding flower from someone else’s garden to replant it in your soil and expecting it to grow without any nurturance. The same flower may survive thinly for a couple of days in your garden, but without love and open air it would ultimately perish. Having the depth to understand such sensitivities in relationships is not just a matter of degree, but a matter of maturity and mindset. 

Copyright (c) 2011 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot

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It’s Dowry, Not Gender

With recent heed to the brutal crime of female infanticide, and the plans for imposing stringent regulations against the offenders of such crime, Indian government may also need to fasten its anti-dowry laws under section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The dowry system in India has been a cultural relic that over the years has proved to be pagan and covetous. As a hedonistic practice, dowry has made marriage in India a predatory tradition indeed. Eons ago, dowry was a custom that ensured economic security of the bride, and was not overwhelming for her parents. Today, however, it is an inundated obligation that leads to a massacre of innocent souls who are entrapped and pushed into a burning pot. Often, girls’ education, including the costs associated with her professional standing is a financial responsibility of the parents in India. Dowry though is an expense over and above this. Also, both rural and urban parents aspire to accomplish their responsibilities towards the girl child amiably. However, parent’s socio-economic statuses and the uncouth social and cultural pressures in society play a significant role against this endeavor. A majority of parents who are working class or are in the rural areas with least economic feasibilities can thus only fulfill bare necessities.

The fear, threat, and demand for dowry are so massive that a bridegroom’s family can easily chaff the grains from the grass while looking for a match for their boy. What counts as a suitable match for their ‘boy’ is a list beyond a girl’s character, values, or her professional education. It instead has to do a lot with her parent’s economic background, their bank balance, and ownership of property. Demand for dowry gets double in cases where the groom has a sister of marriageable age. There are requisitions and expectations that include expenses for the groom’s sister’s marriage reception besides marriage accommodation and travel expenses. This all is a collective burden on a bride’s helpless parents. Ironically, most gold digger in-laws are those who have daughter(s), and most dowry demands are initiated by mother-in-laws who have been someone’s daughters themselves. Insufficient dowry is also a prominent cause for family feud post marriage. In cases where the in-laws are not satisfied with the overall marital transaction, they continuously harass the daughter-in-law for dowry. However, if the daughter-in-law is not submissive enough to the pretentious and imposing demands of the in-laws, she is finally type casted as the ‘black sheep.’ Dowry is also an antecedent to domestic violence in India. Some of the Indian states with dowry as a rising criminal offense are Uttar Pradesh (UP), Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh (AP), Kerala, and Punjab. 

In addition, there are innumerable cases of dowry deaths and harassment that go unheard and unnoticed because of a patriarchal society that favors sons over daughters besides a failing law that hardly prohibits the lustful practice of dowry. Unfortunately, dowry is a social evil that mainly victimizes and traumatizes a girl, including her parents. In India, girls who are dowry survivors rarely have a strong social support system and anti-dowry laws are barely a blazing agenda among the political parties as well. Also, there isn’t enough political picketing against dowry and thus many poor and urban Indian families wish that they never bear a daughter. Dowry is a big devil that costs an exorbitant price for being a girl and for having a gender that is so ruthlessly knocked off in the womb or slayed at birth. Saving India’s unborn daughters from the clutches of a social evil like dowry would thus be a tribute to its lost and slain daughters.   

Copyright (c) 2011 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot

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Support A Mother, Save Her Daughters

Mitu Khurana is a doctor by profession and is also an activist by choice. But many know her as a mother who has tirelessly fought for the survival of her two daughters. Post marriage, Dr. Mitu Khurana’s life came to a halt when her in-laws constantly harassed her for dowry. Later on, Mitu’s in-laws in connivance with her husband who also is a doctor demanded that Mitu abort the two female fetuses that she was carrying. Mitu’s husband and her in-laws ruthlessly and relentlessly compelled Mitu to either kill her unborn babies or put them for adoption. During pregnancy, Mitu had been constantly victimized and terrorized to change her decision of bearing her two little daughters. After invariable humiliation, physical abuse, and debasement of her dignity, Dr. Mitu Khurana went public about her atrocities. She filed a case against her husband and in-laws under the PC-PNDT (Pre Conception & Pre natal Diagnostic Technique) act. Since then, Mitu Khurana’s case has glared much media publicity and her story has been a marked column in several newspapers and magazines in India. However, amid the blazing uproar in the Indian society against female infanticide and sex selective abortions, Mitu’s mayhem remains forgotten. Her turmoil and trepidation to protect her daughters awaits a firm resolution and hope not only from Indian law enforcement authorities and the judicial system, or from the people of India, but from anyone who pledges their allegiance to end a vehement crime, such as killing the girl child. 

Today, Mitu’s little daughters are nurtured in Mitu’s fervency with unconditional love. They are growing up in an environment where girls are not feared, but treated fair and embraced with a dream. As auspicious they may have been to Mitu’s fight for her right, the little girls are also opportune to be born to a mother who has devoted her life and courage to a fecund cause. Mitu’s daughters have gifted her with a belief that when life is stormed with the unknown, one’s timidity turns into tenacity. In this hurricane of emotions, Mitu’s daughters have become her sole anchors that firmly hold the harbor of her life. Mitu’s little girls have inspired her to survive a violent storm since the day the girls were conceived. From that moment, the little girls’ lives have intertwined with Mitu’s life and her endurance to evolve out of insanity and shenanigans of her in-laws and husband. However, Mitu yet again faces a threat, an intention full of deceit that may even be misleading the Indian judicial system. The court has awarded Mitu’s husband the visitation rights of the children whom he desperately desired to kill in the embryonic stage, and subsequent to their birth never showed any interest in parenting them. A visitation right to the father of the children may also encourage visits from Mitu’s in-laws who nearly beat her to death and starved her while she was carrying the babies. Media reports suggest that Mitu’s in-laws have neither shown interest in loving and accepting the little girls as their granddaughters, nor have they ever shown any kindness and respect for Mitu. If this is the grudge that Mitu’s in-laws and her husband still carry against Mitu and her daughters, then the jurisdiction may be putting Mitu’s daughters’ innocent lives into jeopardy and, thus making Mitu more vulnerable. 

It seems any contact of the little ones with their father and Mitu’s in-laws may expose the kids to the risk of emotional abandonment. It may even lead to the chances of child abuse or neglect. In the given scenario of the harassment that Mitu has been put through, the potential harm that was plotted against the kids while they were in the womb and after their birth, and the evidence of a forged ultrasound on Mitu during her pregnancy proves that little girls would be best served and protected in Mitu’s custody only. Mitu’s case is an ordeal that many Indian women face being born and raised into a patriarchal society. Her story, however, is an inspiration of beating all the odds that surround the enthusiasm of her little girls. Mitu is a hero whose story is yet another chapter in the lives of those women who have survived at the cost of greed, treachery, and abuse, all that a girl is thrust upon when she brings values, ideals, and education in her marriage instead of ‘dowry.’ If Mitu loses her battle, we shall all loose our fight against a social evil. Eventually we shall loose hope on a nation, which is of the people, by the people, and for the people. Mitu’s sacrifice for her daughters is priceless and her appeal is to all those people who see a Mitu in them who constantly tussles till the last hopeful breath. If Mitu fails in her endeavor to save her daughters, a nation would fail and that ultimately would be a miscarriage of justice. 

For further information on Dr. Mitu Khurana’s case, refer http://barbararaisbeck.wordpress.com/. If you read this post and believe that Mitu has not been served justice, please support her cause and back her up with picketing at your level and spread the word. Perhaps that would be a foundation to an action. 

Copyright (c) 2010 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
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Female Infanticide: A Decimating Horror in the Land of God

Over centuries in India, the female manifestation of divinity has been venerated and glorified as ‘Devi,’ the invincible and omnipotent that has both creative and destructive powers. She, the divine mother is worshipped in many forms, such as ‘Durga,’ (the creator), ‘Lakshmi,’ ‘Parvati,’ ‘Saraswati,’ (the preserver), and ‘Kali,’ (the destroyer).  The Hindu mythology is an epic of her celestial gallantry, beauty, and artistry that kindles the eternal life that every Hindu desires.  It is said that without her the male manifestation of the supreme is incomplete. She is revered in faith, invoked with prayers and fasting, and implored for blessings and forgiveness. But if this is the devoutness for ‘Devi,’ the feminine figure of adherence, then why does so much abhorrence still exist for infant girls in India? Why is that ‘she,’ the goddess is adorned in every Hindu temple, but ‘she,’ the female infant is slaughtered through violent means? Can devotion for god contradict with the principles of life? Or has religion become a gimmick of greater good? 

Sadly, discussion on female infanticide and feticide has remained a mute argument despite substantial picketing against it. There are spoken and unspoken stories of the 50 million girls that have gone ‘missing’ on account of female infanticide and feticide over the past century in India. CBS news reported that in 2006, upto 10 million female fetuses had undergone selective abortion since 1976 in India. UNICEF reports that India has been experiencing a decline in child sex ratio. Based on the 1991 census, there were 947 girls per 1000 boys, a figure that had fallen to 927 girls per 1000 boys ten years later. The census as latest as 2011 reveals that for every 1000 boys, 914 girls are born. Today India’s population has hit 1.21 billion, but the country has been impuissant in ending sex-selective abortions. The figures indicate the widened gender imbalance that India has been experiencing in every decade since its independence. 

Some horrific incidents of female infanticide in rural areas include mother killing the newborn through poisonous potion, especially if she has already bore a daughter in the past. Other incidents include killing the fetus while it is still in gestation after the sex has been confirmed through an illegal prenatal diagnostic test. Sometimes it is the in-laws that pressurize the daughter-in-law to sacrifice her unborn through a forceful abortion, as happened with Dr. Mitu Khurana (http://mitukhurana.wordpress.com). However, most distressing is the fact that such decimating evil is not just a conservative call in rural areas, but an oblivious practice among educated urban Indians too. Gender discrimination in India accounts mainly due to male patriarchy in society. Cultural mores like dowry, ignorance, and perspectives, such as sons as the sole bread winners, or sons as the superior ascendants are some other significant contributors to the heinous crime of female infanticide and feticide. Girls rarely are seen as propitious investment in the long term and, thus are discouraged and deprived from education and gaining independence. In the given scenario, attitudes towards infanticide become more permissive and less sinful. 

Over the years, the Indian government has enacted anti-feticide laws and stipulations to prevent decreasing sex ratio though these efforts do not seem as rigorous. In addition, it is important to reform attitudes, which is a long drawn process of social change. Much action needs to be uprooted at individual and institutional level (private & public), including the corporate sector. Indian youth whose voices have the power to plead should be encouraged in societal change. As ideologues, the youth can educate and empower besides initiating radical changes at the policy level. For starters, spreading the word may be an action in its foundation. Also, the Indian Medical Association should undertake uncompromising and punitive action against those health centers or professionals that practice illegal abortions. Perhaps media can act as a goliath in discouraging negative messages and encouraging positive messages of parenting a girl child and the corporate sector can fund such powerful campaigns. In addition, state governments need to establish stringent statutes against corruption, which is one of the main causes of unreported infanticide and feticide cases. The Indian Diaspora abroad can also get involved in many ways. 

A mindful way to end this post would be to remember a verse from the ‘Guru Granth Sahib,’ a pious religious scripture that says “of woman are we born, of woman conceived; to woman engaged, to woman married. Woman are befriended, by woman is the civilization continued. When woman dies, woman is sought for. It is by woman that the entire social order is maintained. Then why call her evil of whom great men are born?” 

Copyright (c) 2010 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
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Greed Is Contemptuous

On the Wall Street greed and fear may be the psychology behind an investment portfolio that helps analyze social, cognitive and emotional moves behind a financial decision but on the main street, greed is simply a social evil. As a ramification of a scornful mind, greed is a derisive act, which pushes us to an overwhelming desire for more and an unending hunger for money, temporal pleasures to faking relationships and hurting other’s emotions. Greed is not about acquiring wealth and getting richer. It actually is like entering a glittering passage to experience the darkness of ignorance and concealment that robs us of our moral values and good deeds to ultimately make us poor.

If King Siddhartha, more commonly known as the erstwhile Gautama Buddha had been greedy, this world would have been deprived of Buddhism’s spiritual teachings and awakenings. If Aristotle had been greedy, a comprehensive system of western philosophy of morality, aesthetics, logic, science, politics and metaphysics would have remained obscure. Had avarice been the motive behind Wright brother’s gliders and jet plane inventions, long distance travel would still have been a mystery. Moreover, had Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and other revolutionists been grabby, freedom would have remained a word coined just in encyclopedias and dictionaries.

Greed is a negative emotion that has multiple hidden faces and can lead to pseudo-behaviors that spoil the harmony in relationships and sanctity in humanity. Power through unethical means, satisfying lust through extramarital affairs, breeding violence and extremism through terrorism, wealth maximization through stock scams and fraudulent practices, reaping higher profits margins through selling fake and defected products, are some common illustrations of greed. One of the fundamental principles of greed starts with ‘I, Me, and Myself’. Knowingly or unknowingly such feeling is the greed for control, the home of ego and the state of prejudice.

Like other negative emotions, greed too can take any form and slowly alienate us from valuable moments and small pleasures of life. Joy and gratification that we experience in love or a hearty laugh can be viciously eaten by greed. To illustrate further on this, trading educated and professionally competent sons for material wealth is a common practice that revolves around the concept of marriages in India. Unfortunately even if the girl is well educated, cultured and belongs to a respectable family, she still is weighed against money and material assets in a greedy trade-off. Predominance of such behavior in the form of greed in a sacred institution like marriage disturbs the theme and belief that marriages are made in heaven. More importantly, such behavior blots the initiation of new relationship between two individuals and two families that can otherwise begin with a positive note and on a leveled turf. If greed is the culture our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters are made to breed, then our society is certainly heading fast towards an apocalypse of hope, optimism, trust and respect in human relationships. An educated and matured women once said to me, ‘Do you think dowry death cases that are reported in the press and media are really true? I don’t believe it.’ Her conscious statement perhaps had a subconscious message. She may have been sailing the same dowry boat when she married her son and her statement was a mode to conceal her emotions and greedy self.

Bitter, yet true, such is the veil of greed that superimposes the real us. It takes us to a no-return point in life and in relationships to ultimately distance us from our family and children. Greed also takes us to a mental and emotional level where genuine love, impartial actions, honesty and sincerity seem inferior to abounding wealth. Erich Fromm, a German social psychologist and humanistic philosopher rightly said, ‘Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction’. Some of the ways to get out of greedy shackles is to limit our desires so that aspirations today do not become over ambitions tomorrow. Also, valuing relationships more than material assets is yet another way to track greedy behavior as relationships may be broken just in seconds but it takes a life to mend them back. Most importantly, as parents we should be cautious of not deterring from our morality and ethics. If we have greed nesting in us today how would we stop our children from such an unhealthy contagion tomorrow?

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