AMU: Dr Jitendra Kumar's Slides Were Just Symptoms; The Disease Is Entrenched Deeper

Dr. Jitendra Kumar, during a Forensic Science lecture in the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), displayed a slide in which he mentioned two Puranic instances of 'rape'. The lecture was actually for a forensic science class.

The university had him suspended and he had to offer an apology for the inadvertent mistake. He had been charged by the Registrar of AMU, Abdul Hamid, for 'deliberately and maliciously' outraging the religious feelings of a particular community.

Here, the problem should not be outraging the religious feeling of any community. The problem here is that Dr. Jitendra Kumar did not speak the truth.

A person in a free democratic civil society should have the freedom to 'outrage the religious feeling' of any community, provided he or she is not peddling hatred and is telling the truth.

Kumar although presented a distorted, wrong picture to impressionable students. That remains his crime.

The Hindu tradition abhorred non-consensual sex. The core value system of Hinduism is that it values the freedom of the individual - man or woman. In fact, in the case of women there is an emphasis.

There are two striking instances in Hindu literature in this regard.

One is the curse on Ravana. It is well known. Ravana molested Rambha, who was then living with Nalakubera. Now Rambha was also an apsara - a famous dancer in the assembly of Indra. By a distorted logic it could well have been argued as per the norms of the days she could not complain of rape. But this was not seen so. The emphasis in the subsequent development in this story is on the consensual part. It did not matter how a woman was perceived in the society. The only thing that counted in this case was the nonconsensual nature of the act. So the curse heaped on Ravana was that should he ever touch a woman who was unyielding, he would die that a horrible death that very instant.

One should note here that the emphasis shifts from the physical to the psychological. A woman could be overcome by a rapist physically. Then the rapist could argue that it was consensual. In fact, in a recent interview to a Tamil channel, a prominent Catholic priest, while discussing abuses in the Church, argued that rape was an impossibility. Even today, this patriarchal thinking is widespread in the society and victims are stigmatised. In this context, the story, that has been made a part and parcel of popular culture, provides a strong counter point.

Though not as well known throughout India as the Ravana-curse story, the life of Thiruneelakanda Nayanar is well known throughout Tamil Nadu. A potter by profession, he was named as the foremost of the Shiva bhaktas by Sundramurthy Nayanar - one of the principal seers of the Saivite Trinity.

When his wife suspected an extramarital relation, she declared to him that in the name of Shiva he should not touch 'us'. Neelakanda, the potter, adhered to what his wife said and never again touched his wife but they both lived as an ideal couple under the same roof. Because his wife said 'us' in plural, he never touched any other woman either. Today, when we discuss marital rape here is an instance of how the wife could decide and have her say in these matters.

Both these instances—where Rambha, a Puranic court-dancer, and a housewife who, for all probability was historical, could assert their rights to their bodies and their rights formed a part of the Hindu Dharmic value system—are exceptionally important. Had any other religion possessed such narratives then they would have been highlighted to define the greatness of those religions.

But not for Hinduism.

Why? This is the question we have to ask.

But the larger and more concerning question is that why is there a systemic unavailability of credible and positive elements of Hindu culture to a person who wants to show the problem of non-consensual relations in ancient society.

Why for Dr. Jitendra Kumar, a medical doctor who is definitely not a religion expert, these instances were not available when he prepared those slides.

The answer is that our educational system is created that way. 'Nothing Hindu can have anything inherently valuable leave alone spiritual'.

Note the slide Dr. Jitendra Kumar has made: two wrong instances of 'rape' and two modern cases led to stringent laws against rape are listed. The implication is that Hinduism was in darkness for millennia and is seeing a new dawn with modernity.

The slide is a symptom of a sickness whose causes is the enshrined Hindumisia in the educational system. When we try to rectify the symptom without addressing this primal cause then what happens is that we take recourse to the 'outraging religious sentiment' argument. Hindu Dharma, from being the spirit that directs the nation, gets reduced to a religion that can be outraged with a slide.

The system will continue to produce Jitendra Kumars in various fields. They will be at once victims and serial abusers. At one point of time this will be normalised. At one point of time the righteously indignant Hindu responses will start to look like gross intolerance.

This is where the enemies of Dharma and Rashtra secure a strategic win.

In that way, Dr. Jitendra Kumar has done as all a good deed. He is a timely warning and indicator of the enshrined hatred against Dharma in the system. It is a hatred that has been institutionalised in our educational system right from the colonial times and has marched on unchecked since - if anything with more renewed vigour.

So Hindus should wake up and reform the educational system. Again it is easy to blame the government. This reform has to come from within the society - through the parents' bodies; through constant scrutinising of the text books for Hindumisia; by organising discussions and workshops; creating alternative textbooks and the movement should attain a critical mass so that the politicians cannot ignore it. And all these need to be done at war footing.

It is easier typed than done; this is a task that demands thousand and one selfless Bhagiraths spending their lives in sleepless tapasya.