c-360:dhrupad:Hari Prasad | Pitting Love against Love, the Hindu Moral Code on Sex and Sexualit

c-360:dhrupad:Hari Prasad | Pitting Love against Love, the Hindu Moral Code on Sex and Sexuality:The Hindu system of caste, sexuality and morality survives and respires on the avowed purity of the caste Hindu woman, whose chastity and singularity corresponds to the power and privilege of the caste Hindu man. The preservation and perseverance of endogamy built on this avowed purity sustains the hegemony of the caste system. The avowed purity is both a saddle and a privilege reciprocated on the upper caste woman whose conferred dignity, howsoever dubious, extends indifferently and despairingly to the Shudra and Ati Shudra woman. As the Hindu legal texts1 ordain the lower caste women to serve the Brahman and upper caste men, as maids and mistresses, upper caste women are identified with Strisvabhava and Stridharma in their essential role to reproduce castes, in their strict fidelity to the caste Hindu husband. Jenny Rowena, in her brilliant essay titled “The ‘dirt’ in the Dirty Picture: Caste, Gender and Silk Smitha’ remarks thus:“Hindu religious traditions institutionalize the use and exploitation of Dalit-Bahujan women’s bodies for the sexual pleasure and entertainment of men who are placed higher than them in the caste hierarchy. This works to legitimize various other violent forms of oppression such as rape, formal and informal workplace sexual exploitation and networks of prostitution, involving adivasi, Bahujan and dalit women. All these firmly hold down the body of the subaltern woman within a sexualized structure of abuse, violence and exploitation.In great contrast, the caste system approaches the upper caste woman’s body in a totally different manner. It makes her body the adored and worshiped site of caste purity. The upper caste woman’s body comes to be protected/controlled by father, husband and son (Manusmriti, IX, 3) under a caste Hindu morality, based on notions of chastity, virginity and docile femininity. As a consequence of such a caste/gender differentiation, the sexual energies which are made to be brooked with regard to the upper caste female body often gets unleashed onto the figure of the subaltern woman, who becomes the favored site of male sexual pleasure, violence, entertainment and release”It is such distinctions that manifested in the Joginis, Mathammas, Devadasis and it is on the non-brahman, lower caste women, on their suppressed humanity, that the state and society builds the Kamathipuras. Thus the conferred dignity on the caste Hindu woman, irrespective of its dubiousness has no meaning for the lower caste woman. The sexuality of upper caste women in her sati-savithri avatar and such ideals is exemplified in prime time national debate, whilst the notions of ‘impurity’ and sexual tyranny of lower-caste women kindles no emotions. The brilliant design of the caste system thus translates into different sets of axioms for the upper caste women and indifferent sets of axioms for the lower caste women. The Kiss of Love protests and the surrounding nauseating euphoria in mainstream media and academia vividly represent this brilliant design of indifference that leads us to the dialectics of morality and sexuality as represented from the extremes and medians in the caste hierarchy.Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s arguably most famous work is Elippathayam, The Rat-Cage (1982) which is a film that deals with the feudal system in Kerala, patriarchy, and the way women get destroyed in the lines between. However, it is important to note that Gopalakrishnan only addresses feudalism and patriarchy with regards to the lives of uppercaste women who are directly linked to the upholders of it. Most texts I have read analyze this film with direct reference to the four central, uppercaste characters: Unni (the male inheritor of this feudal lifestyle as well as ultimately the last) and his three sisters Rajamma, Sridevi, and Janamma (who are each different type of women). The narrative revolves around the sisters each address the type of oppression they suffer through in the face of uppercaste/fedual systems of patriarchy. The youngest (Sridevi) fights for her autonomy, the oldest (Janamma) fights for her share of the spoils of landownership, and the final sister (Rajamma) does not fight for anything and thus is ultimately the one who suffers the most. Unni is the epitome of the post-colonial feudal lord who has “refused” to adapt to a new Kerala. He lazes around and relies on his sisters to selflessly care for him. Again, a lot of the focus is on how the uppercaste Hindu woman is repressed by these norms and the suffering they endure because of this strict control of their bodies. Yet we also have a pretty important character in a nameless woman-servant (pictured in the first screencap). This woman makes Unni nervous in each encounter they have. She flirts with him openly and in a scene where she and her son are stealing cashew nuts, attempts to “seduce” him. A lot of texts talk about how her open control of her sexuality frightens him because it directly challenges uppercaste/feudal repression of women’s sexuality and she herself is a foil to the sexually chaste, yet tortured forms of say, Rajamma and Sridevi. I disagree completely because these readings absolutely ignore the caste-blind approach of uppercaste directors such as Gopalakrishnan, which is typical of a lot of auteurs who talk about the oppression of women sexually and yet ignore that their focus is only on the already desexualized bodies of uppercaste women. Lowercaste women in contrast are already hypersexualized in a caste society as the article above talks in great detail about.To say that the character of this woman servant (who is casteless in the film, but definitely from a lower caste) directly “challenges” a feudal lord like Unni with the brazen wielding of her sexuality is so, so, incorrect! Or that she is in a more liberal and free position than uppercaste women in the film! Savarna auteurs like Gopalakrishnan stick to their views of lowercaste women and in this film this nameless woman-servant is hypersexualized to the nth degree! This is not a liberal, feminist portrayal of women—he is merely contributing to the demonization of lowercaste women with his uppercaste male gaze! We talk about the dissolution of the feudal system as uppercaste women in this film find liberation in their own ways, and yet what of the woman servant? Feudal systems may collapse, the uppercaste women may finally become CEOs and landowners themselves and be free with their sexual desires, but what of the lowercaste woman who is already given this so-called “right” to labor, who is already seen as a sexual being? The uppercaste woman may break free from the control of her body by uppercaste men, yet the lowercaste woman will always have these markers of “freedom” on their body as a way to be oppressed, manipulated, and used by both uppercaste men and women and society at large.Elippathayam and Adoor Gopalakrishnan completely ignore how lowercaste woman have and continue to be marginalized by both feudal systems and uppercaste men. We see the sensitive and sympathetic narratives of uppercaste women while the only lowercaste character is left as a caricature straight from Manusmriti.  -- source link

More pics about