Sitaram/Sitaraman; Gowrishankar; Gangaprasad; Umamaheswaran; Sitapathi; Bhavaniprasad; Kalicharan; Mariyappan; Girijaprasad; Janakiraman; Radhakrisha/Radhakrishnan, Radhakanta, Sitakanta, Srikanth, Umakant….

and

Siyavar Ramchandra ki Jai!

Namah Parvati Pataye!

What is common to all the above names and lalkaris?

Yes, the name of the woman comes BEFORE that of the man. What is more they are all men’s names! Have we ever heard of someone called Ramsita or Prasadganga? Yes, this is how we also refer to our Deities as you can see in the lalkaris.

By contrast, the western woman has to tag the family name of her husband to hers after marriage and became Mrs So and So. Also, consider this: Does any Western man has a name like EmmaEthan or RoseJack? Sounds absurd doesn’t it? Well, the fact of the matter is, women don’t come first in their social scheme at all! Our colonisers made sure that we followed ‘their’ custom and forced us to accept their regressive social mores. I will come to that later.

the Hindu custom of putting women first or giving them so much prominence in other spheres is not a token gesture either but exemplifies the status held by women in our culture. Not just taking precedence in names, women have always stood alongside and even higher than men in our dharma. No amount of distortion of our itihasas, Puranas and plain old history will ever change that truth.

In Hindu dharma, Shakti is the creator of the Universe and is one-half of Shiva (Ardhanariswara). But without Shakti, Shiva is literally lifeless.

Elders in our families admonish a weakling trying to do some difficult task: ‘சக்தி இல்லைன்னா சிவனேன்னு இரு!’ which can be loosely translated into, ‘If you don’t have shakti (energy), be still like Shiva.’ Shakti IS pure and vital energy, which is why we worship Her in so many forms and manifestations, especially during the Navaratris.

No ritual is complete without the wife being present. We all know of how even Sri Rama had to have a golden murti of Sita made during the Ashwamedha yagna since she had been banished to the forest by him. A widower is not authorised by our shastras to conduct the wedding of his children. Only a couple can do it and so a close relative takes up the duty.

Humans have both male and female characteristics, both emotional and physical, where one or the other might be more dominant. But it is only our culture that acknowledges it openly in our literature, daily lives and our very worship. So open is our dharma, that there is a place for the other gender too, without demeaning them.

Given all the above, what changed, when and how?

The answer may sound hackneyed, but it must be said yet again: Invasion by barbaric races and colonisation by the European nations. Both these alien cultures held women inferior to men and subjected them to humiliation, perversion and subjugation. When they came to a society that did not subscribe to their ideology of female subjugation, they set about destroying it.

The former did it by force as only barbarians can, through slavery, rapes and conversions and slowly eroded the exalted place a woman held in Hindu society.

Muslim women still suffer from one-sided sharia laws as well as being repressed socially in other ways. Ironically, the Leftist ecosystem along with the radical I$l@mists and western media dub them as being ‘empowered’ while deriding ‘Brahminical Patriarchy’, whatever that stupid term is supposed to mean!

The Europeans were more ‘refined’ and ensured that women became the LESSER gender through other devious means.

Those of you who have read the ‘glorious’ stories of British knights-in-shining-armour, would perhaps not have read about how these so-called chivalrous men literally ‘locked’ their wives/betrothed in the horrific contraption called chastity belts, to prevent them from ‘straying’ or losing their chastity. They were made of iron had locks whose keys were taken away by the “knights” when they went in search of adventure, leaving the women to suffer untold physical and mental trauma. If the men didn’t return, their women were doomed to die in those ‘Chastity belts.’

These colonisers brought their regressive and patriarchal customs to the more open societies of the east and even Africa.

I sometimes wonder if it is the frustration of the Left ecosystem and radical I$l@mists at their helplessness that makes them so vicious against the Hindus–their customs, festivals and freedom. It is like saying, ‘I can never get this kind of freedom, so why should you?’

We should begin memes against these people on Hindu festivals, much before they start their ugly propaganda against us, thus pushing them on the defensive.

Offence before defence should be our motto.

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