Love Ensures Equality

Recently, on the eve of Teej festival, a friend of mine, noted for his intellectual standing, took to his social media handle to take exception to the sentiment of a Teej song which bears the line "uni chan ra po sindoor ko artha cha, natra bhane zindagee bayrtha cha" which roughly translates to "he is there to signify my marriage and by extension, the core of my being." His point was that women should not consider themselves tied to men in any way. My point being, should it not work the other way round too? 

If it should and does, there is a high chance of creating a relationship with self-centred people. His opinion doesn't contribute to social and family cohesion and harmony because there is an inherent air of mistrust in spousal relationships. I see nothing wrong with this song as it is a part of literature, which essentially is supposed to enable us to link our sentiments and imagination to something else to draw various inferences. If he refuses to digest such songs and starts nitpicking about their lyrics, he should stop listening to music altogether. I think the song is about devotion and love. Our Eastern philosophy has the stories of Sabari devoted to Ram, Radha and Sudama devoted to Krishana, etc. If we start looking at them through the lenses of gender equality and social class, they will make the worst literature.

There are many people like my aforementioned friend who regurgitate the usual platitudes of gender equality just to sound sympathetic towards womenfolk. What they can do instead is rise above the equality paradigm and stand for the whole of humanity, along with ecology and environment. In fact, they are the areas that are currently more under threat in the contemporary world. We have robust laws in place to address the equality issue, and there are more pressing issues the world needs to address than the issue of men and women being equal. What's more, we have achieved major milestones towards women's emancipation. The cases of violence against women in various forms can be brought near zero level by means of vigilant public quarters, stringent police administration, and a fair and quick justice system.

They speak of women's freedom in such a way that it ends up portraying men as the inherent stumbling block towards women's liberty. Their lopsided argument makes it look like men don't need freedom. Come on, grow up a bit! There has been a saturation of a kind in terms of gender equality. The alarming rise in the number of handcuffed women every day getting off from police vans to be presented before the court in the recent decade, ironically, serves as a testament to that end. I have taken time to notice such a spectacle whilst passing through District Court roads. Now, it's time to give the issue of gender equality a new justifiable name so that people would still feel the need to adhere to values that promote women's gross happiness, which ultimately pervades the family and benefits everyone. The word equality has almost become a hackneyed subject.

Love ensures equality, but it doesn't work the other way round. Try as you may, you cannot bring true love when you start calculating things in a spousal relationship. If the theme of the song is inappropriate, it should be so from both perspectives. We are all human before being a man or a woman. The discourses of one group should not aim to annihilate or negate the other. Nature, after all, has created us as complementary units to each other.