It’s time again to go knee-deep in flood of sweets; it’s time again to don an artificial smile and wish Subho Bijaya to every Tom, Dick and Harry, whether you like them or not; it’s time again to feel customary grief for Devi Durga is retreating to her Himalayan abode for a year, even if you actually feel delighted for life will return to normal and people would, hopefully, recoup their sanity which they usually lose in these carnivalesque madness. Do I sound like Malvolio? Yes, I do. But I care a damn!
How many of us actually remember that Dashami is the fateful day on which Ravana lost it to Ram? Any ‘mythologically’ conscious Hindu remembers that quite vividly, and, in fact, draws from such memory more energy to celebrate Dashami or Dasera with all its paraphernalia. Any politically conscious ‘normal’ human being should however hesitate to participate in this euphoria. For, doesn’t this day mark the official beginning of a very long era of colonization, whereby the Dravidians, once and for all, were demonized in the popular imagination to be culturally, socially, economically, and politically ruled over by the fairer and better looking Aryans? Doesn’t this day celebrate awful racist tendencies whereby an entire tribe was constructed as sub-human or demonic in order to consolidate the hegemony of a foreign race? And, unfortunately, this racist drama that saw its climax in the killing of Ravana, never saw a dénouement. The buzzword across borders and within nations has been ‘Kill! Kill! Kill! For, they are not us.” Racism, fundamentalism, religious bigotry, nationalism, purity — the endless list of words that have now entered common parlance and are often pronounced with disgust, was always, already there.
How many of us actually remember that Dashami is the fateful day on which Ravana lost it to Ram? Any ‘mythologically’ conscious Hindu remembers that quite vividly, and, in fact, draws from such memory more energy to celebrate Dashami or Dasera with all its paraphernalia. Any politically conscious ‘normal’ human being should however hesitate to participate in this euphoria. For, doesn’t this day mark the official beginning of a very long era of colonization, whereby the Dravidians, once and for all, were demonized in the popular imagination to be culturally, socially, economically, and politically ruled over by the fairer and better looking Aryans? Doesn’t this day celebrate awful racist tendencies whereby an entire tribe was constructed as sub-human or demonic in order to consolidate the hegemony of a foreign race? And, unfortunately, this racist drama that saw its climax in the killing of Ravana, never saw a dénouement. The buzzword across borders and within nations has been ‘Kill! Kill! Kill! For, they are not us.” Racism, fundamentalism, religious bigotry, nationalism, purity — the endless list of words that have now entered common parlance and are often pronounced with disgust, was always, already there.
Let’s shove aside our misti doi, rasgolla, and all that! Let’s hold hand and shed some tears, for it was on Dashami, that such fashionably ‘great’ terms as tolerance, love and brotherhood had already been immersed into the river. So all those viswa-nyaka Bengalis who dance to the beatings of the dhaak, and drape themselves in red-bordered saris to play with vermillion, turn your heads (the women are especially requested to recall that soon after the Dashami celebrations, came the notorious fire-trial or the agnipariksha that underscored the beginning of a patriarchal, anti-feminist discourse, in which women have been interpellated to accept an eternally subordinate status)…it’s high time, you actually, ‘thought’!
4 comments:
couple of days ago i read in the paper that "scientific study" has proved that there is no genetic difference between North and South Indians.
as if the study will take away histories of stereotyping and marginalization.
Well i think one reason for not taking part in the Bijoya Dashami mishti-gorging ritual is watching the waistline.
I agree in not participating in the ritual for ritual's sake but there are some genuine emotions for some relatives & friends, whom we do not manage to visit except for this time of the year,thanks to our hectic schedules.
Viewing through the postcolonial lense, we cannot but agree to your interpretation of the Ram-Ravana racial hegemony but "Ramayana" is a theological epic, akin to "Paradise Lost" and Ravana,like Satan, is viewed as being opposed to goodness. In this regard, Dussera is quite a triumph of good over evil, through which we optimistically try to retain our faith.
The "sindoor-khela" is a very interesting phenomena.It is a kind of female bonding and the uninhibited joy experienced by the women, excluding any male member.I am sure the feminists won't object to that!
Are you sure, Pritha di, that feminists would not object to sindoor-khela? Female bonding? ok, I agree. But don't you thing most females are 'bonded' by their interpellation into the patriarchal system? And what does vermillion stand for?
thanks dada for pointing out the "ravana" issue. i completely agree with you. in fact, once i started thinking on these lines but never articulated that. i thought people would consider the whole idea outrageous and far-fetched since it happens to probe deep into matters related to caste and race. but it really feels great that you voiced the issue so appropriately.
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