Questioning Custom and Practice

Deepavali – A Drain

A few lines on this heading appears to be necessary as the festival is to come off early in the next week. We chanced to come across in a certain English weekly that the “national festivals are a source of great inspiration and knowledge”, and hence people should “make them international and interreligious”. It is a pity that this amusing remark should find a place in a journal intended for the modern youths instead of adorning the pages of the “Punch” or the “Tit-Bits”. The writer has suggested a sure way for the attainment of knowledge. It is by celebrating festivals like Vinayaka Chathurthi, Saraswathi Puja and Deepavali. If we only follow his suggestion in the last case to its logical extremity, an attempt for a greater amount of knowledge will we fear, end in more smoke in India and more money to the manufacturers of explosives and fire works in the foreign countries. Then it is sure to become “international”. It is the irony of Mother India that whereas other religions spend their money in establishing hospitals and schools for the use of the people belonging to our religion, Hinduism enjoins its followers to waste crores on smoke, in memory of the ‘heroic’ deed of one of its Trinities. And the protagonists of this religion have no shame in cringing the Government for bits of charity. …. The cross word puzzler wanted the name of a religion which deprived its people of health, wealth and intellect and yet was loved by them. We suggest Hinduism.

Revolt, 27 October 1929

The Tyranny of Custom (By Ritus)

Custom, age-long custom tyrannizes over woman more than over man. Woman has seldom the advantage of education and culture in India and feels fudgy when a new idea is introduced which may be quite reasonable and acceptable. In the matter of dress and toilette she is more radical than the most liberal of males. Stuffed with old-world ideas of duty, obedience and submission she is repulsed by anything original or which smacks of the modern. Hindu woman do not sit with their husbands at dinner. They think it a sin to mention their husbands’ names and feel it indecent to hold converse with them in the company of others. The idea of husband worship is centuries old. Every ceremonial occasion at home, in the temple or elsewhere needs the presence of the thread-wearing priest who is relentless in the collection of his tax.

The sraddha is a typical instance. However modern and up-to-date the man of the house may be, the mistress of the house holds sway in the performance of ceremonies and in the dispensing of charities. It would be ominous if a Brahmin does not make his appearance on the scene of every domestic occurrence. All this is due to the virus of the puranic stories learnt by women by hearsay or handed down to them traditionally. It is hard to convince them that they must change with the times. The departed do not hover in the air on the day of their anniversaries for their share of the sacrifices made by their heirs or successors on their behalf. The priest is for the nonce looked upon as a deity and the sacrifices are made to him as to a supernatural being. Ignorant men prostrate at his feet and beg that the offering made be accepted with grace.

What is called the “Ama Sraddham” where large quantities of rice are substituted for a sumptuous meal for the performer show not only the unthinking slave mentality of the offerer but the greed and selfishness of the puranic writer and follower. As the proverb goes, what is bred in the bone does not easily get out of the flesh.

The enormity of the sraddha is thus a heavy drain on the purse, slender or long, of every Hindu from his cradle to his cremation. The Brahmin is shrewd enough and he feeds Brahmins (does not give raw or unboiled rice). The stupid non-brahmin gives rice and every other food and curry stuff not merely to the officiating priest but to his family sufficient for a day or for weeks according to the means at the disposal of the giver.

Since 1911, when my dear mother passed away, I have, after a solemn prayer, offered food to my kith and kin and to poor and good souls on the anniversary days of my parent and am keeping it up, despite my too wise younger brother who with a tincture of English education blames me for not revering the memory of my blessed parent in the time honored way he is pursuing.

The selfish practices inculcated in the puranas are being repeated in all vernacular readers lest they cease to be acted upon by coming generations. If Brahmins edit such readers, they seldom fail to describe with approval the customs and practices conducive to the interest of their class. Even readers published by the British firms in India contain arrant nonsense of the kind which is likely to perpetuate the slave mentality of the masses. Mr. Kincaird’s Indian story books err egregiously in this respect.

All puranic and legendary lore which elevates the Brahmin and degrades others neither sifted nor refined but widely spread as if it were soul saving balm. I happened to read the series of Tamil readers published by the Teachers’ Publishing House, Madras and found them no exception. The idea of superiority attached to birth has not yet left the best English educated Brahmin’s mind, and he still believes and makes others believe that his word of anathema and the fire in his right palm will work ruinous miracles on the blasphemers who dare to call a spade a spade. The skin-deep western education and outward civilization have served only to weave tangled webs of sophistry and deception and to throw dust in the eyes of those who have something to give.

The heavenly sanctity and chastity of women is made ridiculous by Kamban in his description of the ravishment of Sita by Ravana by tearing up the earth on which she sat. Here the poet’s high sense of Tamilian chastity has outrun his reason and discretion. Despite his knowledge of the Tamilian modes and rules of warfare, he blindly followed Valmiki condemning Ravana and he did so, simply because his epic should contain nothing derogatory to Rama and to Sita and nothing that would be a marked deviation form the original.

In this particular Valmiki’s account is quite natural and in perfect keeping with the Aryan’s self-importance, but Kamban’s delicacy is inexcusable and unpardonable in the light of his knowledge of the Tamilian mode of punishing offenders and of the cruel retribution adjudged to Ravana as his due – to Ravana supremely wise (ten-headed), supremely valorous (twenty-armed), supremely musical (his Yal [musical instrument – editors] being his sign and motto), and supremely pious (his daily worship of Siva securing his longivity and his invincible sword).

The title Ramayanam is a misnomer: it ought to be Ravanayanam as Ravana is the real hero by whose side Rama’s individual or personal heroism dwindles into nothing and is most unbecoming in a professed ascetic helping out wanton trespassers in Ravana’s realms. Can the tyranny of customary clan pride go further?

Revolt, 2 January 1929