Rita Banerji -- Writings

Was the film 'Eat, Pray, Love' "Culturally Relative" About Women's Rights?

2010-11-23T11:35:00.001+06:00

‘Eat Pray Love’ was showing in theaters in India about two weeks ago, and I have to admit, that like most here, I too went to see it just to see how the country looks on the big screen. But the one question that’s been nagging at me since is, “Why did they have to get Tulsi married?”

The seventeen-year-old Indian girl, Tulsi, who Liz Gilbert befriends at the ashram, has a colorful wedding in the film, which she does not in the book. True, films often distort their source to suit the audience’s whims. And a Bollywood style wedding would certainly spice up the visual appeal. Yet I found Tulsi’s wedding to be a symbolic slaughter of the spirit of this book; a mockery of one of its core issues.

Since Liz already travels, explores and writes, doing all she truly loves, what was her big soul-searching journey all about? In her own words: “I don’t want to have a baby,” an issue she wrestles with incessantly. “That deadline of THIRTY loomed over me..and I discovered I did not want to be pregnant.” And again, “I well know what desire feels like. But it [the desire for a child] wasn’t there.” Her real concern about motherhood, it seems is how she would be perceived if she openly admitted she didn’t desire children. She agonizes over how people would “judge” her. “What kind of a person does that make me?” Read the article here on Pickled Politics

"The Bitch"

2010-09-25T17:31:00.001+06:00

from WikiHow

A friend once joked about how much easier it is for him to be gay in India than in some parts of the U.S. In India, it is not uncommon to see two men demonstrating their affections for each other openly in public. Holding hands, hugging, entwining fingers, engaging in kitten play or riding pillion on a motorcycle wedged together like bread and butter. Are all these men gay? Who knows? Yet the same is not permissible for heterosexual couples.

Last year, walking down Camac Street, in an upscale neighborhood of Calcutta, I witnessed a disturbing incident. A man and a woman, probably in their early twenties, were walking ahead of me, laughing and joking, when the woman playfully reached out and grabbed her friend’s hand. They walked along, still talking and swinging their locked hands in a carefree manner, when a group of men, vendors who run little snack stalls that line the pavements, came charging. The men stopped short a few paces of the couple, and began to shout at them. “Bitch!” “Whore!” And a string of such epithets.
The young couple released their hands and ran like their lives depended on it.

The couple had clearly violated an unpublished public code of morality!! While it is perfectly acceptable for men to unzip and urinate just about everywhere and anywhere in India, in full public view, with no concern for anybody else’s sensibilities, it is lewd and offensive for a man and a woman to hold hands in public. Were this couple lovers or just friends? No one really knew. And it didn’t matter. All that mattered to the men who were standing there by the road, straining their necks and howling like dingoes about to attack a prey, was they were guarding public moral territory.

For me, the most unsettling aspect of this incident was how the rage was directed towards the woman. Why only the woman? What was it about this woman that was so threatening to the men? Was it in that she was the one who reached for the man’s hand and in doing so, exercised choice and free will which to the men was daunting? Or would the woman still be the “bitch” if the man had reached for her hand? Is there a potential “bitch” in every woman regardless of what she does or doesn’t do?

So, for all those brave couples who want to hold hands in public in India, WikiHow has step-by-step do it instructions for you! Go on!! Be a maverick!

When Is A "Genital Nick" O.K.?

2010-07-30T13:12:00.001+06:00

When I heard the recent May announcement by the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP), to take a neutral stand on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and allow doctors to do a genital “nick” on little girls, I remembered the girl I will call “Lily. “

She was a Hmong-American girl and one of my best friends when I was in college.

Lily came across as a cheerful and carefree person, but it was only when I got to know her closely that I found out that she had a deep and painful secret. When she was about thirteen years old, and living in the mid-west, a Hmong American man kidnapped her and held her hostage in his house, where he also raped her. In the eyes of the Hmong American community Lily was now “married” to this man. Read the whole article here

11 Tips on What to Do With Photo Thieves

2010-05-20T21:56:00.003+06:00

Photo theft is one of the banes of the internet.
It is not o.k. to sneak into a store or home, pick up something that catches your fancy and slink away without asking or paying for it. Then why do people do that with other people’s work – their photos?
Like this travel writers site Road Junky had an unauthorized photo of mine on their front page. Not only did they not ask my permission, they did not even bother to give copyright acknowledgment. And I found out only because someone recognized it as mine and reported it to me. They wrote back asking – which one? How many stolen photos do these people have on their site? They finally removed my photo without so much an apology.
Usually that’s how we find out our work has been stolen. But last month, for the first time I experienced the direct shock of opening a magazine and seeing my unauthorized photo stare back at me. Someone had handed me the magazine, Kindle, a glossy new magazine that all the Barista cafes in Calcutta stock, and said, “It’s very progressive and targets a younger readership. You should write something in here about your 50 Million Missing Campaign.”
Well I did write ! An angry email to the editor demanding an explanation. The magazine has a disclaimer, which says any photo not credited is courtesy of Reuters. Reuters! Really? The editor hurriedly disclaimed that too. No – it was the sloppy work of some untrained intern who probably thought that stealing was one of the magazine’s policies.
O.K. – I was willing to buy that and give them a chance to make amends. So I emailed that if they reprinted the photo with proper credit, paid me for it and sent a complimentary copy, I would accept that as an apology.
There was no response.
Well – things can happen that held up the response.
We’ve had fires and storms in this city. So after a while I sent a ‘test email.’ I said: The silent treatment won’t work with me. I am NOT going to disappear. I am writing to Reuters and I will circulate a blog on this extensively!
Bingo! An immediate response. This time accusing ME of “impatience.”
I retorted: BUT YOU HAVE ALREADY USED MY WORK. SO MY PAYMENT IS PENDING AND NOW I DEMAND YOU MAKE IT IMMEDIATELY. HERE IS THE SWIFT CODE FOR MY ACCOUNT.
Again the wall of silence!
May 25, 2010. Kindle put in an apology in their May issue and sent me a copy of the magazine along with the payment.
If you want to know how things end for me with Road Junky come back to this blog! For this isn’t the end yet! It is very important that all independent writers, journalists and photographers fight back against this kind of rampant unethical behavior on the net and by the media.

If you too have had your photos stolen, here are 11 tips on how to deal:
1. Put a notice on your site informing visitors that if they see any of your photos used on any internet site or magazine without copyright acknowledgement you would appreciate their informing you.

2. By the same token, keep your eyes open for other people’s photos. Often people in a photo community group like flickr do recognize each other’s works. For eg. this photo by Dutch photographer Mirjam Letsch was used in the Statesman newspaper in Calcutta. And I recognized it immediately and informed her.
3. Be wary of photos that are credited to ‘Reuters’ or ‘AFP.’ Some magazines do throw them in like a red herring!
4. Once you have located your thief, contact the internet site or magazine immediately. If they don’t have an email or respond to one, send them a registered letter at their mailing address with a return acknowledgment required.
5. Very clearly, point by point, state what exactly you require them to do.
6. If it is an internet site, don’t be afraid to tell them that if they don’t meet your conditions then you require that they remove your photo immediately.
7. If they start bargaining, and give you their sob story about being ‘non-profit’ and poor – tell them it is too late. You don’t bargain with thieves!
8. Make a blog on your theft and post it EVERYWHERE. On flickr, twitter, facebook, orkut – and tell your friends to circulate it extensively. Remember everything on the net stay on the net. So periodically do a recirculation. Make sure that every time some one types the name of that magazine, your blog about their theft shows up somewhere.
9. If a magazine has stolen your pictures it is likely to be a habit of theirs’ and there may be others they have done the same to. You might want to put a note in your blog asking others who have had this magazine steal their work contact you. That makes your circulation circle bigger. And where it is a waste of time taking a magazine to court over a one time theft of 1 photo – a group of people with the same issue with that magazine have more clout. Probably even a class action law suit!
10. If you find sites where this magazine is mentioned, post a link to your theft blog. They think that if they stay silent you will become silent too! Well don’t!
11. And if they say they will pay you and put an apology and acknowledgment, but you must delete your blog – don’t ever agree. That is BLACKMAIL! They do not have the right to do that. Also they will continue doing it to others then. Just tell them that the best you can do – is put in a note at the end of your blog telling your readers that they have paid and put in an apology.

Is Caste India's Brand of Racism?

2010-05-14T15:19:00.002+06:00

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Finally the U.N. has woken up and is moving towards declaring the caste system as racist and discriminatory.

What is India’s response? Defensive and unconcerned. Surprise! Surprise!
Some argue it’s just a form of “social organization.” That’s what Gandhi said too. He opposed its abolishment. But is that so?

The Sanskrit for caste, ‘Varna’ literally means ‘color.’ India’s ancient texts designate caste on basis of color and race. The supreme brahmin is ‘white,’ and the lowest caste, also sometime called dasa (slave) is ‘black.’ In between you have the browns and yellows. Hindu scriptures are littered with pretty little epithets like "bull-lipped," "nose-less," "goblin," and "demoness." Indian scholars spend lots of time trying to explain these away as "not racist."

Through centuries of mixing India now is a conspicuous brown cocktail (of many hues), but not so to the Indian eye! A Brazilian journalist from the magazine Super Interessante, while interviewing me last year, said that some Indians have explained how she can spot caste. The highest caste are very fair. The lowest are very dark. I challenged her to randomly pick out a few people from the streets and test that theory.

The only real give away to caste in India today is a person’s last name. When an Indian politely asks another Indian for "your good name,” they are trying to figure out where precisely they fit in the whole caste scheme, and how exactly they want to interact with them.

A few years ago, at the British Council in Calcutta, a very articulate young woman from an NGO that works for the empowerment of lower-caste women, described to the audience, how random strangers who are very friendly towards her at first, immediately turn away soon as they hear her last name. The occasion was the launch of British author, Valerie Mason-John’s book Broken Voices, a personal account of the lives and experiences of India’s “untouchable” women.

“Untouchable” of course is used not as in “fragile” or “delicate,” but as in “I think you are filthy like the rats and vermin” sentiment. Even today this scourge thrives. The ‘untouchables’ are not allowed into many temples and homes. People will not hire them. And in villages if a low caste person drinks from an upper caste well the whole clan is punished through rape and murder and their homes are burnt down.

But how would India’s educated elite respond to caste? Here I was sitting in the British Council in Calcutta among the crème de la crème of India’s intelligentsia listening to women talk about how they have been treated because of their caste. When it was the turn of the audience – quite a few asserted they were Brahmins and needed to protect the purity of their lineage through marriage.

And then a discussion ensued that was flabbergasting! It was on what last names represented the kuleen Brahmins – the highest of the highest. Many on the panel, academics and their likes, jumped in enthusiastically. Not one person objected to this highly obscene and insensitive response. The three women on the panel who had just shared their first hand experiences watched through this proceeding without uttering a word. At one point I interjected. "Caste," I said, "is a created category. A brahmin is the highest caste only because it is socially designated that way. If we want, tomorrow we can designate it as the lowest caste." The audience looked displeased. One woman said,"I don't understand what you are saying." After the discussion, the audience was invited to drinks and cocktails. I had a good conversation with the two women from the NGO and we talked about their tying up with my own campaign The 50 Million Missing. But what I noticed with interest, was that though everyone was running for the free Vodka and Whiskey, hardly anyone walked up to the three main guests, not even for a little chit-chat.

Here's another example of India's caste based attitude. Some time ago an ugly little exchange on caste had erupted on my flickr photo site – this was a response from a middle-class, English speaking, internet savvy, Indian. So given all this, what is my take on caste-based reservation? That will be another blog!
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ARREST THE POPE? WHY NOT?

2010-04-05T17:17:00.004+06:00

Arrest the Pope? Why not?

Last night I watched a panel of journalists on BBC’s Dateline London discuss the Pope’s direct role in the cover up and protection of paedophiles in the Catholic order. I realized with a bit of a shock, that the discussion was not about whether the Pope was responsible or not; with all kinds of evidence pouring out from all corners of the world, and a BBC documentary, the Pope’s explicit role in all this was irrefutable. What the BBC panelists were discussing – was what could now be done with the Pope.

Suddenly one of the panelists said something like, “Well you cannot possibly arrest the Pope!”

And I immediately thought, why not?

If this was any other large, multinational organization with evidence of harboring an international ring of paedophiles, would not the topmost authorities be immediately liable to investigation and police action? If the CEO of that organization had this kind of direct evidential pile-up against him of actually leading the cover-up would he not be put under arrest?

So what excuses the Pope is what I would like to know?

People come up with the weirdest retorts. Some say, the Catholic church has also done much good for the poor around the world.

Well, so what if it has?

I don’t see what the logical connection here is! Are these people trying to say, well since the church has done so much good they are allowed this ‘folly,’ if at all we could call it that?

And if these are the worms coming out of the cans in wealthy, western nations where the laws that deal with paedophilia are infinitely better defined and implemented than in the third world nations, can you imagine what might be going on in Asia, Africa and South America – where the Catholic Church has the largest recruits?

Recently reports have been emerging from N-E India, where missionaries are most active in India, of massive child sexual trafficking. In fact one of the priests wanted for trial in the U.S. has been living and working in India for the last few years.

It makes this kind of a pathetic, and deferential treatment of the Pope that much more dangerous. The EU has a high-handed attitude about secularism and human rights. But if it does not move forcefully now to investigate the Vatican and the Pope’s role in this ugly pedophilic saga, and act according to the existent EU laws, then it will be complicit in perpetuating the grossest international violation of children and human rights.

Will the Indian Woman Challenge Her God?

2010-04-05T15:47:00.006+06:00

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay is one of my grandmother’s favorite novelists, and she says so with an air of superiority. To like Sarat Chandra is to be acknowledged as a true connoisseur of literature in India.

So it is at the risk of being rebuffed that I say this: Sarat Chandra's novels, particularly at the storyline level really get up my nose. I have tried reading them through all kinds of lenses—rose tinted, myopic, historic etc. etc. but they seem to always end up in the same place.

The female protagonist is always bovine and sweet-tempered. She has all but trashed her sense of self and individuality, and happily submits to the whims of her male counterpart, her family, and society, serving them all diligently, and allowing them to do with her life whatever they please. The male protagonist is almost a mirror opposite – self-seeking, irresponsible, thick-skinned and narcissistic. He believes that the world – including his family and the female protagonist are there to serve him and submit to his will. This in a nutshell is Sarat Chandra's idea of an ideal male-female relationship.

Parineeta, continues to be one of Sarat Chandra's most popular works among Indians as indicated by the huge popularity of its recent movie adaptation. It is the story of a 13-year-old orphan girl, Lalita, who is raised in her uncle’s house and is infatuated with the neighbor’s son, Shekhar. In her relationship with Shekhar she willingly renders herself choice-less. All her decisions and activities are dictated to by his wants and moods. If her going out for a movie with her friends displeases him, then she sulks and sobs but eventually obeys his whim. On one occasion, she garlands Shekhar on a certain day deemed auspicious, when by virtue of that prank she is considered betrothed to him. There upon she begins to regard Shekhar as her husband. Shekhar who seems bored and aloof, however knows that his father would never accept his marriage to an orphan girl with no dowry to her name. Yet, he is smug in the knowledge of the hold he has on her.

Sighing deeply, Shekhar said aloud in a stifled voice, ‘What is to be done?’ He knew Lalita only too well, having all but brought her up himself; what she once decided was sanctioned by religion, she would not go against under any circumstances. Lalita was certain that religion recognized him as Shekhar’s wife.

Of course Lalita's age could be considered a factor here. She’s a child and he’s a man. But putting aside, for now, this Lolita factor, (uncanny how close those names are), which was a common phenomenon then as it still is in much of rural India even today, it is clear that to all and sundry in the story, Lalita was not a child but a young woman of marriageable age. Indeed her behavior, mannerisms, beliefs, etc are all modeled on the ideal woman image that she and young girls are expected to emulate.

For me, the critical issue is – that this very gender dynamics that we see in Parineeta, its underlying conviction and mindset, is in fact still in place in India even today.

Lalita, the character, comes across not like a person but a piece of furniture. Her uncle, Shekhar and all the other male characters in the novel ponder over questions like: Where can she be put? What is to be done with her? Who will take charge of her? Who can she be married to? Which house can she be moved to next? And this is exactly how girls and women are viewed in India even today! It is as if to be female is to be a non-entity – with no voice, opinions and choices. Her life is not hers to decide what to do with. She does not decide who she wants to be or not be, what she wants to do or not do, and where she wants to go or not go.

Worst of all, it is not like these women are devoid of strength and willpower – ah! the lauded Shakti! Indeed many of them have their own pot of venom and can spit like a cobra when need be. But they almost never use it in self-defense. That strength is used to uphold traditions, defend family honor, and sustain the community, even when those very elements negate them.

Indeed my grandmother, who is 91-years old now, Sarat Chandra's biggest fan, is very much within this line of Indian femininity. She attended college at a time when more than 90% of India’s women across all class boundaries, were illiterate. As a young woman she played Portia in an enactment of the Merchant of Venice. She was forced to marry the man she did not love – a marriage which was the equivalent of rape. And all her married life she endured the most horrific violence. And at the end of all that she would still raise her head and honor her husband.

I look around at my family, community, and country and bewail that this is the ideal form of womanhood that has now resulted in the killing of more than 50 million women in India – killed at every stage of life. Depersonalized, usable, movable, and disposable objects like Sarat Chandra's heroines. Sometime back, a journalist questioning me about the 50 Million Missing Campaign I founded, asked how I thought Indian women were responding to this female genocide in India. And I said: Like cows going to the slaughter. Bells around the neck, mooing all the way!

What harbors this grotesque form of femininity in India? What makes the girls and women adhere to it like it were a hypnotic conditioning? The answer is in what Shekhar said: Religion. Hinduism is the ONLY religion in the world where the husband is put on par with god. The Laws of Manu, India’s ancient revered scripture merrily informs women: they must worship their husbands like God and Master, even if he is a brute, is promiscuous, and has no redeemable qualities. The important question is: Will the Indian woman dare to challenge her God?

The Potato Cartel

2010-04-03T13:16:00.003+06:00

March 24, 2010

A young potato farmer, Maktabul Hussein, only 18 years old, committed suicide today in Jalpaiguri, (West Bengal, India). Why? Because the price of potatoes have dropped so much that he could not make up the money to pay back the Rs. 500,000/- loans he had taken to cultivate his crop.

Maktabul was getting only Rs. 1.80/kg for his potatoes. And this is what is bizarre! Over the last few months everyone in town has been complaining about how the cost of potatoes has been soaring, along with that of onions, lentils and rice. At one point potatoes was selling for Rs.20/kg! If the middle-class was feeling the pinch, just imagine how it has been for the poor. Potato after all has been the poor’s sustenance! What more – recently the West Bengal government announced that there has been such a surplus of potatoes that they are going to be exporting them!

What are we supposed to gather from this? Is there a potato cartel at work here? That odious middle-man? Does he hoard the potatoes – and rips off the poor farmer who breaks his back cultivating it. And then turns around rips off the customers by charging them 10 times the cost?

The book Needless Hunger -- explains how this is the kind of mechanism that created an artificial famine in Bangladesh when thousands died of hunger.

Needless Hunger: Voices from a Bangladesh Village

Female Genocide With a Question Mark?

2010-03-06T10:58:00.006+06:00

As an administrator of the 50 Million Missing Campaign against female genocide in India, one of the most frustrating challenges I face is when people question the term “female genocide”. Even more puzzling is if I ask ‘why?’ I don’t get a definitive explanation!

I lay bare these facts: More than 50 million women have been killed in India over 3 generations. EVERY YEAR -- more than a million unborn girls are selectively aborted; thousands of new born girls are strangled, poisoned, drowned or buried alive; girls under 5 are 40% more likely to die than boys the same age because of starvation and deliberate neglect (their parents don't think girls are worth spending on); more than 25000 young married women are murdered for dowry; thousands more are tortured; 1 Indian woman is dead every 5 minutes because of pregnancy complications often due to forced and repeated abortions to rid the girls. Companies are now selling kits online to select out girls even before they are conceived!

Females in India are killed because they are regarded as undesirable -- but usable and disposable objects. Like victims of any genocide. Then why is this systematic dehumanization of women and their massive annihilation not recognized as ‘genocide’?

What I have realized as I work with this campaign, is that what people are really uncomfortable with – is the killing factor here. Where it is generally assumed that genocide is committed by groups alien to each other, in India the killing factor is the family. Girls and women are being killed by their own – parents, grandparents, husbands and in-laws. For India where family is a sacred altar, immaculate, and untouchable -- perhaps the easiest way of dealing with this genocide is through denial and apathy. For the rest of the world – where family is still assumed to be the ultimate safe haven, India’s female genocide is incomprehensible.

It is this refusal to call it ‘genocide,’ that has resulted in all kinds of ridiculous attempts by government and NGOs to stem the killing. Attempts that have failed miserably! Attempts to plead for mercy – ‘Save the girl,’ ‘Please let girls be born,’ or to provide incentive for why women should not be killed. Who will the men marry? Who will bear the children? Some have attempted to add “economic value” to the girl – through education or vocational training so their families could be tempted to keep them! Some of the highest rates of female fetal abortions are among the wealthiest, “a life-style” choice, and educated, upper-class women are also victims of dowry violence and murder.

If the subject of this genocide was a religious or ethnic group – the above endeavors would be unthinkable. Even distasteful ! Statements like ‘Please let the Tutsis live,’? Or ‘Don’t kill the Jews because they good for our economy’ would be unthinkable. Then why is it different for women as a group? Why do we have to justify why girls and women should be allowed to live?

The bottom line is – that every girl and woman in India has the fundamental human right to life. Even if she never marries. Never has children. If she is illiterate, uneducated, and poor. This right to life, nobody has the right to take – not even her family! Till such time India and the world contend with this, and accordingly deal with this genocide, there is no hope for change.

Relevant Books:

Femicide in Global Perspective (Athene Series)
Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies

The Endangered Sex: Neglect of Female Children in Rural North India (Gender Studies)
Death by Fire: Sati, Dowry Death, and Female Infanticide in Modern India
Disappearing Daughters: The Tragedy of Female Foeticide

The Pink Panties Movement in India

2010-02-10T18:48:00.001+06:00

The Pink Panties Campaign:
The Indian Women's Sexual Revolution

First published in Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific Issue 23, January 2010

...However, what is interesting, is that if India's historical traditions are the determinants of what the culturally- and socially-acceptable limits are to be of women's sexual roles in modern India, then India's long, chequered past throws up quite an assorted mix of options. While on one hand, way back in the first millennium B.C.E. women in the ancient Vedic texts were regarded as vixens, sexually promiscuous and opportunistic, who not only swindled men of their precious semen but through their menstrual blood inflicted pain, torture and even death on men, then the first millennium C.E. provided a radically different vision of women's sexuality and sexual freedom. Not only do the texts from this period declare that women had the same rights and freedom to enjoy sex as men did, but that they too could indulge in it for pure pleasure and not simply for reproduction. Moreover, the kamasutras speak of the issues of female orgasm, how different it is for women than for men in that it is foreplay and not coition that leads to orgasm in women, and how it is men who need to know and understand how to pleasure their female partners. Data from this period indicates a tremendous degree of freedom and choice for women in selecting their sexual partners, even if they were married, and in expressing their sexual needs and wants. Read more >>

Relevant Books

The Emergence of Feminism in India, 1850ÃÂ1920
Indian Feminisms: Law Patriarchies and Feminism in India
Toward a Politics of the (Im)Possible: The Body in Third World Feminisms (Anthem Press India)
Feminism in India (Issues in Contemporoary Indian Feminism)
Motherhood in India: Glorification without Empowerment?
Urban Women in Contemporary India: A Reader
Women in India: Women's rights, India, Dowry, Dowry death, Sex-selective abortion, Feminism in India, Women in Sikhism, Women in Hinduism, Sexism in India, List of Indian women in dance
Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies

For Rita's other published works click here

Indian Women in Pubs -- A Crime?

2010-01-27T13:53:00.001+06:00

Indian Women in Pubs -- A Crime?

First published in Fight-Back website.

A group of women, who are out for the evening at a pub, get thrashed and sexually molested. This is filmed and flashed on T.V., so all of India sees...One would expect a fleet of police cars to rush into action, lights flashing, sirens blaring, to arrest those baboons, the T.V. cameras still rolling, so a clear message is sent out to all those other baboons watching in India: This is criminal activity. And it will not be tolerated.

But No. With women in prime positions of power...the government and its agencies tip-toe gingerly around the case like cats on a hot tin roof, hoping things will cool down, so they can go away and pretend it never happened. Why? What is it that brings the government so close to selling the constitution to the raddi-walla? Read more >>

For Rita's other published works click here

Out of the Box (How India deals with pornography)

2009-12-25T12:27:00.000+07:00

First published in India Today, November 26, 2009.

46 per cent of married men and 64 per cent of married women [in India] say they would not see porn films with their partner. While it is all right for the married to reproduce in India, it is indecent for them to admit to indulgence in sex for pleasure.
Indeed, the father of our nation was vociferously opposed to married couples having sex for pleasure. Gandhi declared the sole purpose of sex was reproduction. And if couples intended not to make babies, then they shouldn't even be sleeping together. . .

It is a pity though that modern India does not seek its sex education from the gurus who preceded Gandhi by about 1,500 years, and not only wrote mammoth anthologies on sex but were so versatile in their knowledge of it that they were bestowed with the title of acharya. It would have solved many of our current sex-related problems, including overpopulation and squeamishness about porn.

India's ancient sexologists proclaimed that sex solely for the purpose of reproduction is what animals do. For humans, the aim is pleasure. And they asserted this applied to women as well. This pleasure was to be attained through the stimulation of each of our senses-sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, as well as intuition and balance was expounded on in the Kama Sutras. Read more here..

For Rita's other published works click here

Female Genocide in India: and the 50 Million Missing Campaign

2009-11-24T20:47:00.000+07:00

First published in Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific
Issue 22, October 2009

Female Genocide in India
and the 50 Million Missing Campaign

Even before I had initiated ‘The 50 Million Missing Campaign’ in December 2006, it was clear that one of the toughest challenges for the campaign would be to overcome public skepticism both within and outside

India

, about the veracity of its claim. How could fifty million plus women just disappear from a country in a period that spans less than a century? That number is about the size of the entire populations of Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Portugal put together.

Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies (Non-fiction Book)

2009-11-24T20:38:00.000+07:00

Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies

Published by Penguin Books, India, 2008

Released by Penguin Global, 2009.

An extraordinary take on a subject..still a taboo.. a new interpretation of Indian history. — The Telegraph

This book will place place Rita Banerji’s feet firmly and solidly on the world stage…in the position of people like Frederick Douglas…Simone De Beauvoir, Gloria Steinem. — The Word Worth Magazine (U.S.A.)

Long-listed for the Vodaphone Crossword Non-fiction Award

NO.1 ON THE CROSSWORD BESTSELLER LIST IN MARCH 2009

Why does a society's concept of sexual morality change over time? This is the question this book asks using India as a paradigm.

READ THE FULL SUMMARY HERE

EXTRACTS FROM THE BOOK

READ REVIEWS

Buy Online at These Sites

Grandmother's memories (essay)

2009-11-24T20:31:00.000+07:00

First published in Word Worth: World magazine of ideas and arts, October 2008, Vol 8, No.10

Grandmother’s Memories

My grandmother’s only picture from before her marriage is a studio portrait in sepia which offers little information of the time. In fact, but for the processing, it could have been shot today. She is in a dark sari, sitting, with a serene, expressionless face, looking into the distance…I hear from second-hand sources that the picture was taken just before grandma was leaving for college. At a time when most women in India were unlettered, my grandmother’s father, a barrister, had encouraged her to continue her education, just as he had taught his own wife to read and write.

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The Role of Media in the War between Environment and Development

2009-11-24T20:12:00.000+07:00

First published in the Global Media Journal October 2009

The Role of Media in the War between Environment and Development

In 1992, while I was an ecology student at a University a block away from the World Bank in Washington D.C., an incident occurred that caused the well-heeled Bank a good deal of embarrassment, and gave us environmental beatniks, much cause for hilarity. A memo by the then chief economist of the Bank, Lawrence Summers, got leaked out to the public. In it he commended the “economic logic” of “dumping a load of toxic waste” on the poorest countries as “impeccable” and recommended that the Bank come to terms with the idea.

The memo in essence summed up the prevailing attitude in government and corporations towards the environment at large. An attitude that was largely dismissive of environmental conservation and pollution management as the whim of neurotic tree-huggers who in Reagan’s famous words wanted to keep the world hot in the summer and cold in the winters. The real goal of business and government was seen as economic growth – for therein was the answer to society’s problems and the key to the nation’s triumph. In the process it mattered little what the cost of the environmental fallout would be, or who would bear the brunt. Read more here

For Rita's other published works go to www.ritabanerji.com

Memory of an assassination

2009-11-24T20:06:00.000+07:00

First published in The Times of India, 11 Nov 2009.

Memory of an assassination

At the time I lived in Washington DC, and shared an apartment with a Taiwanese friend in the suave Foggy Bottom neighbourhood. Every morning at 7, I would sit at the breakfast table and watch people stream into the city to work - stiff grey and black suits, striding briskly, decisively, towards their destination. Each strider maintained an impervious bubble of personal space, taking care never to collide bubbles or intrude into another. And in-between the bubbles was the city’s uninhabited space -organised, methodical, clinically sterile. It is why some think of it as an impersonal city - a transit lounge where people disembark temporarily to participate in some momentous event of national or international significance.

Early morning on 21 May in 1991, my roommate, came rushing to my bed, newspaper in hand. “Look, an African woman has killed your prime minister!” Still disoriented, I scanned the front page trying to avoid the gory photo there. “He was not our current PM and she is not African.” Read more..

My Life Without T.V. (essay)

2009-11-24T20:03:00.001+07:00

First published in Word Worth: World magazine of ideas and arts, September 2008, Vol 8, No.9

My Life Without T.V.

A childhood without television may be inconceivable today – but that’s how I

grew up. And no, I wasn’t a deprived child; none of the inhabitants of the small Indian

towns I grew up in owned a T.V. In the absence of canned entertainment,

children had to get imaginative with their time between homework and school. We

organized cultural shows and fetes, invited the adults and charged them for ‘tickets.’

We investigated our fields and forests. We raided fruit orchards. And we read –

voraciously, competitively – competing for the number of books we read, how fast,

and how big the words were. Read the full essay here.

The Schizophrenia of Moral Systems

2009-11-24T20:00:00.000+07:00

First published in Word Worth: World magazine of ideas and arts, September 2006, Vol 6, No.10

The Schizophrenia of Moral Systems

A question that a Swiss friend recently set before me is what got me thinking on this issue of schizophrenia of moral systems, including the one I was raised in. As someone who grew up in India I find it extremely distressing that an estimated fifty million women have already been intentionally targeted and weeded out from India’s population. This is India’s silent genocide… My response thus far has been one of outrage directed largely towards what I regarded as a ruthless and self-obsessed patriarchy. But the query that my Swiss friend put to me, for the first time made me wonder about the internal thought processes of this patriarchy. What my friend wanted to know was how Indians reconciled this genocide with the basic Hindu concept of karma? Would this not amount to an accumulation of bad karma for the nation? Read the full essay here.

The Boxed Identity

2009-11-24T19:55:00.000+07:00

First published in Word Worth: World magazine of ideas and arts, October 2008, Vol 8, No.10

The Boxed Identity

Delineating human identity—be it national, state or cultural—by drawing lines on the face of the earth is perhaps one of the most illogical and peculiar activities that the human species engages in. Perhaps no other animal species feels such a compulsion to self-assort…In reality, boundaries are nonexistent. They cannot be touch or seen. Their existence is on paper only and precariously dependent on human desires and conflicts. History shows us these lines shift often. New nations are born. And old ones disappear. And like there was a magic pen involved, the lines are erased and redrawn. The new lines enclose new identities—and this is what makes them particularly illogical and bizarre.

Three Poems

2009-11-24T19:49:00.000+07:00

First published in The Word Worth Magazine Vol 2, No.6, June 2002, under the pen name Ilina Sen.

To read click here

Poem Titles:

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Twenty Eggs

The Last Monkey Dance

From Sex to the Supreme Bliss (essay)

2009-11-18T13:02:00.000+07:00

First published in The London Magazine: A Review of Literature and the Arts, April/May 2003 pp.56-63

From Sex to the Supreme Bliss

The erotic sculptures of the magnificent 13th century sun temple of Konark in eastern India, and the 11th century temples of Khajuraho in central India, probably generate more sensation and debate today than they did a thousand years ago. For these sculptures and temples were unquestionably not anomalies in their own time. Between 100 B.C. and 1500 AD there were temples built all over India that as a matter of normality sculpted into their walls exquisite and detailed carvings of men and women in various positions of love-making.

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The Pink Turban (short story)

2009-11-18T12:53:00.000+07:00

First published in the New Orleans Review, Vol 31, No.1, 2001 pp41-56.

Pink Turban

One evening in 1972, sitting in her courtyard, stirring a large cauldron of boiling lentils, Guddi, with her practiced eye, studied the sun outside. The sun that maneuvered the affairs of the Siwalik Valley then, hasn’t changed much since; but nor has much else.

The sun Guddi was regarding looked very red and pregnant, as if anytime it might plummet like a dead bird into the dark belly of the hills.

“It is almost time,” she announced loudly. “The procession will be here soon. We must hurry, Goonga, else we’ll miss them. The dough still needs to be make. The lentils?” She plucked a plump yellow grain from the cauldron and squeezed it between her thumb and forefinger. “O dear Rabba! The lentils are still raw.”

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As I Am A Woman

2009-11-18T12:44:00.000+07:00

First published in Women's Era, Jan 2005

As I Am a Woman

I balance on the beam
of the round moon as it wanes
exulting in the fullness
of my radiance,
resting in the hollow
of my dark.

I ride the white crest
of the ocean waves,
rising and falling
with the cycle of tides,
celebrating the power
of my formidable might,
reflecting in the depth
of my soul.

I circle the earth
with the time of seasons,
bearing the life
that bursts from my womb,
burying the dead
so they rest in my tomb,
feeding the weak
to help them grow,
weeping for the weary
who couldn't wait till tomorrow.

But the sun will rise again,
this I know,
surely as it will set,
the tides will rise again
surely as they will fall,
spring will knock anew
surely as winter will bid adieu.

This I know
for I am the sun, the moon,
the tide, the earth, the seasons.
This I know surely
as I am a woman.
This I know
as I am the rhythm of existence.

Ask the Moon

2009-11-17T14:13:00.000+07:00

Ask the Moon

Last night, to my head on the pillow,

you sent a letter

through an eighth century Chinese poet.

I read it

with my eyes closed.

I didn’t even know I knew Mandarin.

You said, each moon in the sky

brings me to you,

because it comes

only after

I have lain my eyes on it.

My father died: you said,

just like that,

abruptly.

I will be afraid to ask

should our roads cross again,

and should I discover

that you really did send that letter,

and that we were never really apart.

The moon is witness.