Periyar, Marx, Mao And The Delusion Of 'Women Liberation' Through Destruction Of Family

A sleaze scandal has erupted in the Tamil cyber world that has embroiled many influential ideologues and prominent followers of the Periyarist movement. Periyarists claim to follow the teachings of Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy Naickar (1879-1973) aka EVR, who they reverentially call as ‘Periyar’.

The unsavoury controversy has resulted in a renewed debate on the 'feminist' ideas of EVR.

EVR believed in a strange conception of women's liberation. He alleged that the institution of marriage and concepts like 'fidelity' were created by patriarchal forces to enslave women. He also advocated that women should not bear children. He stated that it would free men from responsibility and would give women freedom.

However, most leaders of his movement continue to nurture a strong family with their loyal housewives raising their children. Mostly, these wives played the role of the stereotypical traditional Hindu housewives, even as their well-known husbands gave rhetorical speeches on radical women's 'liberation'. This naturally created an atmosphere where there is a strong possibility of women being drawn to EVR’s version of a crudely formulated, quasi-feminism. Some of these women are likely to have become vulnerable to men who follow EVR-ism.

Here, one should also remember how Marxism saw the monogamous family. In the unused draft Friedrich Engels prepared for the Communist Manifesto, he argued that in the Marxist utopia ‘the relations between the sexes into a purely private matter that concerns only the persons involved and into which society has no occasion to intervene.’ But Marx himself sexually exploited Hellen Demuth, the servant maid. When Marxists acquired State power in the USSR and China, there was institutionalised exploitation of women, which was as bad or even worse than what the women suffered in the traditional families.

When reports about the abuse of female prisoners and ordinary female citizens of the USSR reached him, Stalin nonchalantly said that, 'Comrade Beria was tired and overworked’.

Women removed from family bonds become vulnerable and even willing targets of predators.

What is true about the secular cults like EVR-ism and Maoism is also true for ‘spiritual’ cults. From Rajneesh to the now absconding self-styled ‘Supreme Pontiff of Hinduism’, the women taken away from family seemed to have undergone more exploitation at a place that promised liberation.

While Rajneesh Chandramohan alias Acharya Rajneesh alias Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh alias Osho was the other extreme to EVR, both envisioned a world where children were a burden for liberation, especially for women. Rajneesh manipulated his disciples to go for sterilisation as a test of love towards the Guru. One third of Rajneeshpuram (Oregon Ranch) had sterilised themselves for their ‘Bhagwan.’ Had EVR the same means, it is likely that he too would have tried that with his followers.

‘Osho’ ’s life long care-taker Ma Prem Nirvano, 18 years his junior, (born Christine Wolf) committed suicide when she was 40, 41 days before Rajneesh died. Clearly Buddha-field, proximity to 'Master', and promise of liberation could not prevent depression and suicide.

Interestingly, Maniammai, who was the caretaker of EVR, got married to him in his old age. She was 38 years his junior. But she lived a long life and did not remarry. She was revered by EVR-ists as 'Annai' Maniammai, meaning 'mother'.

So, here we have the anti-family, anti-marriage EVR practising the institution of marriage. Both EVR and Rajneesh Chandramohan were charismatic personalities and cult patriarchs. Both spewed venom against family. Ma Prem Nirvano was in a relationship with Rajneesh but never entered into marriage with him. She suffered depression and committed suicide (at least according to official accounts). But Mani Ammai, who got the protection of marriage, lived long and respectfully even after her husband's death.

Despite all reformist rhetoric of EVR, she did not remarry, though at that time it was quite common among the Hindus. She was in every way the stereotyped Hindu wife or the quintessential Hindu widowed matriarch of a large family. In other words, the Hindu-family system helped her cope with the possible psychological pressures she faced. The pop-spirituality of Rajneesh could not supply the same.

Grander the promise of family-bashing, children-free utopias, faster their descent into hellish dystopias

So, what is happening here?

Marriage and the institution of family have been products of evolution. Human society has developed in its course various forms of institutions to procreate and raise children. Human children are altricial – that is they have a much longer period of helpless dependence on the adults of the species – particularly the biological parents. The woman of the human species needs here a dependent male partner to take care of the infant throughout this altricial period that runs for nearly two decades. One should remember that the child birth in human species is almost a rebirth for the mother.

Females of the human species need assistance and unassisted child births can be fatal to both mother and child. The severely painful process of labour in human species is related to the relatively developed infant head. If the female of the species goes to near-death to bring out an infant then it has to make sure that the infant survives. In human species, the survival depends on successful and sustained nurturing throughout the altricial period. Hence the female has to choose her partner carefully. It cannot be a one-night stand partner. Incidentally, the Hebrew Biblical myth of relating pain in child birth to the acquisition of moral behaviour is one of the earliest insights into this evolutionary connection, as pointed out by Carl Sagan.

While the male of Homo sapiens has an evolutionary propensity to increase the number of its offsprings, the female intends to increase the number of its descendants. Marriage as an institution tamed the male and provided protection for the female in a fundamental way. But the male has to ensure that the child for whom it cares is its own. What Susan Blackmore writes regarding this is worth quoting in detail:

One should note how the gender discrimination in 1970s Oxford University is almost a watered-down version of the gender discriminatory laws of medieval period – be it canonical laws, Shariats or Dharma Shastras. It also explains why the attempts to undo this patriarchal discrimination has often deteriorated in an accelerated manner to ruthless predatory sexual exploitation of women – from the tea-serving girls of Mao to the alleged abuse of women in Lulu group in Tamil internet world.

The human family has to be understood as a bio-cultural phenomenon. It is the product of natural selection. It has survived for a reason and that evolutionary reason has factors and networks which we have not yet fully understood. At the same time, we are also individuals with an incredible sense of atomised self who yearn for a higher integration. This is the basis of religion and this too has strong biological roots. In all human cultures, irrespective of immense diversity, the family and religion are intertwined. This has created what we today consider as unjust conditions for one gender. (Although, there have been course corrections against extreme gender biases even in the premodern course of humanity).

Ultimately, the breaking away from family in pursuit of one’s inner call cannot be made into a norm. The family is going to exist most probably till humanity exists. Extreme family-bashing, posturing as 'progressive' can make any individual, particularly women, vulnerable to situations of exploitation. Unfortunately, in Tamil Nadu, the extreme stances of EVR are taken as serious progressive thoughts and the pathway to women liberation. Sadly, opportunities for course correction and introspection are also lost upon the Dravidianist stock because they would love to see all the allegations as ‘Brahminical conspiracy.’

Here, the biological relation and the social-contract are both subordinated to the individual’s right for self-realisation. Such a space of egalitarian spiritual growth within the institution of marriage and family was taken to the masses of Tamil Nadu in the cult movie Thiruvillaiyadal. Siva as Arthanareeshwara (with Sivaji and Savitri united equally) filling the screen took the message of need for gender equality to Tamils more than all the collected works of EVR and the rhetorical flourish of all his memetic bred black shirts.