Isn’t violence against women in India, as in the Badaun rape case, caused more by the casteist society and not by the obscenity in the culture?

From Paul John:

I read your article on the Delhi gang-rape and though well-written, I found it somewhat simplistic in its analysis of the cause of rape. In the UP rape case, the cause is clearly discriminatory Indian caste system that commodifies women who are meant to be honored or dishonored.

Transcript

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thank you the Ramayans because if we consider the recent gang rapes in Uttar Pradesh they are caused more by caste calculations and retribution based on caste than on pornography or things like that because this kind of violence against women in the midst of India has been happening for a long time and it is I would say the traditional culture of India with its deep rooted casteism which treats women as trophies to be honored or defiled that is the cause of violence against women and not simply the pornography that is there on the media today answer yes I agree fully that we cannot just blame pornography alone for all kinds of violence against women and certainly there are other factors involved so even in the Sripadakha article I mentioned that power is also one factor in rape that article was meant to highlight one factor which is often not talked about in today’s society but that is not the only factor by any means so now for example in the recent heartbreaking rapes that happened in Uttar Pradesh Madhav we see that the violence was so brutal and the women were tucked into these doors and were left hanging from trees now when we see this kind of brutal violence it actually makes us question the brutality of human beings that can go through such monstrous violence so certainly if the purpose is only sexual gratification then that sort of brutality is not really required so one just wants to exploit a female form for one’s sexual perverted fantasies but this sort of killing there are other factors involved so you see in Mahabharata also when when Duryodhana and Karna decided to dishonor they said dishonor Draupadi by disrobing her the purpose was not lust, the purpose was honour the purpose was actually to dishonor Draupadi and that went through some of the Pandavas so yes pride and arrogance in forward these are also factors and is it that this is only something which is a part of Indian tradition no not at all we see if we look at the Regency culture in Britain which was there in centuries, Britain had a substantially better than Europe, had significantly different traditional culture, there was a Christian and non-Catholic Anglican church and their cultural dispensary was different in many ways but even there dishonouring women would be a way of taking revenge and often then what would happen in Britain, and Britain is just one sample of how things would be in various parts of the world, that if a woman is dishonoured then her protector, maybe her brother or father or husband would call out the offender for a killing and then they would sometimes kill each other or one would kill the other so now of course later on this whole practice of killing was legalised, but the whole idea was, this is not meant to commodify the woman as a moral attitude would suggest but it is meant to honour the woman a woman’s honour is meant to be protected and it’s the whole family’s responsibility, the whole society is responsible to protect the honour of the woman, and in fact if we see the Pandavas before the war primarily because Draupadi was dishonoured and her honour had to be maintained of course there are other factors were there so now we see we are not trying to say that everything that was in the traditional culture was good and everything in the modern culture is bad but broadly speaking there are multiple factors, the idea that women are meant to be honoured there is intrinsically nothing wrong with the idea and does the idea that women have to be honoured mean necessarily that they are going to be commodified not at all women are honoured because they are cherished they are cherished members of the family and now this whole idea can get distorted into what is today called honour killings where in the name of family honour the wish of the if say a boy and a girl decide to somehow get married and then in order to honour the family name they go on a killing vendetta now this is simply a distortion of original culture principle where women are meant to be honoured and the honour of the women is considered to be the honour of the family now that is distorted so this was ultimately meant for protection of their honour and this is what Arjuna talks about in the Bhagavad Gita that women are the indicators of the next generation and to an extent they are protected and cherished to an extent they live to protect and cherish the next generation, that’s how society will progress so it is the hand that rocks the cradle shapes the world and there is someone who has to protect the hand that rocks the cradle so the principle of honouring women is a very important principle now that is distorted when the purpose of ultimately facilitating people on the path of righteousness and virtue is lost and the whole issue is made into just caste based honour which is actually a very bodily based conception of life connection with our true identity as souls and a direct role of life then the whole issue becomes unnecessarily violent so now especially with respect to these sort of cases, yes caste system as it is present today is a horrible evil in Indian society and it has led to perpetration of great atrocities and there is a group denying that in fact if we see the devotional cultures the bhakti traditions whether it is the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition which has gone as a part or whether it is the Srinivasa tradition or the Madhava Vaishnava tradition these traditions have far from being defenders of the caste system they have been victims of the caste system there are many great saints who were persecuted because of their being of lower caste and despite that because they were too many spiritually advanced they were close to God and the caste conscious caste proud Brahmins were not able to operate that in Maharashtra Tukaram Maharaj was persecuted by the Brahmins in Bengal Haridas Thakur he was beaten by the Muslim rulers but that was because the Hindu upper caste people complained to the Muslim rulers so again the point is that when we talk about the ancient traditional culture of India based on the Bhakti tradition and the other important Vedic culture actually what we are talking about is quite different from what is present today like we see within Srinivasa movement there are devotees from various various castes various backgrounds so to speak of castes within the Indian society there are people who are outcastes in the sense of people who were born outside in India but if they are devoted to Krishna then that will give you spiritual advance then they are respected by everyone devotees and non devotees in fact there are many spiritual masters, gurus and they are born in they were born in a rich family but they have become gurus of people who were born in Brahmin families and these people are born in Brahmin families they accept the gurus from western families also because they are spiritually advanced so Bhakti will actually is a way to go beyond all these caste discriminations and to center the purpose of life the purpose of life is to love and serve God and to love and serve all living beings in relationship with God so if we move to when we talk about Bhakti and spirituality it is quite different from what is considered traditional in mainstream India today and it is quite different from what is considered normal in the mainstream society today so what I mean normal is the free and excessive exhibition of obscene and pornographic culture that is not considered normal in today’s society and the whole idea of traditional where everything is seen from a different point of view and even the whole idea of honor instead of being used as an impetus to act honorably in spiritual progress according to spiritual dharma that concept of honor is distorted into just body based honor and power calculations which lead to confrontations and that those may take ugly forms like this so the idea is if we practice Bhakti then that Bhakti will help one to rise above these body based passions and confrontations and that can take us beyond lust which is one factor which is causing this kind of horrible violence and can take us beyond even greed even arrogance and pride and hunger greed for these things which also leads to this casteist politics and casteist violence so it is a genuine spiritual culture based on deep spiritual understanding and a great spiritual experience that will help approve the problems now of course when these sort of problems are there at an administrative level they also have to be dealt with very strongly so as to send a message to the wrongdoers that this will not be tolerated and that is also a duty of a responsible administration but along with that if you want to talk of things from a perspective of philosophy and spirituality then we shouldn’t think that some parts of the traditional cultures in India are a part of the problem that is not the problematic part is not what is being recommended by the Bhakti traditions in fact that is what is being confronted and categorically condemned by the Bhakti traditions for long and that is actually incurred and transcended by the practice of Bhakti in India thank you question