Searching for 'Sita'

A comment was left on this post. Here a part of it that got to me big time....

"Indian Women have a tough act to follow, i.e., to idolize or take into consideration the sacrifices made by Sita, Sati Savitri, Parvati, etc. They were the great women of India and whatever they did in their possible manner meant that the Indian women had to follow their act, which is and was extremely difficult. So you have a predecessor who has set the highest standards for moral standing and self control and moral behaviour. So Indian women till time immortal would be compared with this role models."

The above comment as well as few comments in my previous posts do not only reflect the attitude of few bloggers but also includes the Indian society (atleast a part of it) and it's obsession with a 'Sita'-like image for every women !! According to them a 'woman's role' is portrayed in a highly focused manner as an ideal wife who acts as the moral anchor in a marriage, and stays unswerving in her loyalty and righteousness no matter how ill-matched be her husband's response.

The search for modern-day Sita can be seen everywhere. If you glance thru matrimonial classifieds practically every second ad in 'Bride Wanted' section would start with a sentence like this..."Wanted a fair, beautiful, cultured, educated and homely girl from a good family." One would think that there was a sea change in the thoughts and attitudes of the modern Indian society. But the ads prove that the Indian man is still looking for a 'Sita', inshort a women who can cook, sing and regard him as her 'permeshwar' till death or divorce to them apart. Many people in India find it difficult to justify or reconcile themselves to the fact that in a culture which worships Saraswati as the Goddess of Learning, so many girls are deprived of even primary education; in a culture which worships Lakshmi as the Goddess of Wealth, so many modern-day Lakshmis live a slavish life of economic dependence; in a culture where male Gods have had to appeal for perfection to the feminine Shakti, women among many communities are not allowed to venture out of their domestic confines without male protection.

In today's modern and crude society, would you consider 'Sita' to be ideal role-model for young women? Here are my views on this question. I grew up thinking of Sita as a much wronged woman - a slavish wife without a mind of her own. And precisely for that reason she was not for me a symbol of inspiration, but a warning. She was all that I did not want to be. I believed she deserved her fate for being so weak and submissive. Her suffering was seen as a product of masochism, lack of selfhood and supine surrender to patriarchy. It was not as though I were deliberately and consciously rejecting Sita as an ideal. Fortunately, she was never held up as an example for me and, therefore, she did not seem an important reference point - positive or negative - in my life, untill now. As young girls we are advsied and inspired to look up to public figures like Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, Indira Gandhi and Dr. Kiran Bedi as our role models, but when on reaching the threshold of marriage we are expected to follow 'Sita's footsteps. At this point of life, the distinction between an ideal woman and an ideal wife seems to get blurred in the minds of women.

It is a common sentiment among Indians that the ideals set in bygone ages are still valid and worth emulating, though they admit few people manage to do so in today's world. This attitude contrasts sharply with the popular western view that assumes that people in by-gone ages were less knowledgeable, were far less aware and conscious of their rights and dignity, had fewer options, and therefore were less evolved as human beings. This linear view of human society makes the past something to be studied and kept in museums but is not expected to encroach upon the supposedly superior wisdom of the present generation. In India, on the other hand, Ram and Sita are not seen as remote figures out of a distant past to be dismissed lightly just because we are living in a different age and have evolved different lifestyles. They are still perceived as living role models having set standards so superior that they are hard to emulate for those living in our more "corrupt" age, the kalyug.

Frankly, I have no issues against Indians who consider 'Sita' as a perfect role model....as long as they do so for the right reasons. As in when, Indian women are not endorsing female slavery when they mention Sita as their ideal. Nor does accepting Sita as an ideal mean endorsing a husband's right to behave unreasonably and a wife's duty to bear insults graciously. She should be seen as a person whose sense of dharma is superior to and more awe inspiring than that of Ram - someone who puts even maryada purushottam Ram - the most perfect of men - to shame. Sita's agni pariksha should not be put in the same category as the mandatory virginity test Diana had to go through in order to prove herself a suitable bride for Prince Charles, but rather as an act of supreme defiance on her part. Since it only underscores the point that Ram was an emotionally unreliable and who had been unjust in his dealings with Sita and that he behaved like a petty minded, stupidly mistrustful, jealous husband and showed himself to be a slave to social opinion.

However very few would agree on the above. Instead many try to find lame justifications for Ram's cruel behaviour towards Sita in one of the following ways:

Ram did it not because he personally doubted Sita but because of the demands of his dharma as a king; he knew she was innocent but he had to show his praja (subject) that unlike his father, he was not a slave to a woman, that as a just raja he was willing to make any amount of personal sacrifices for them.

He banished only the shadow of Sita. He kept the real Sita by his side all the time.

While for some women Sita represents an example of an ideal wife, but I am happy to except her as Sita mata (jagjannani), not just the daughter of earth but Mother Earth herself who inspires awe and reverence. However I would gladly incorporate the role of 'Modern Sita' the day the Indian Society rejects 'Ram' as an appropriate husband. It is also very interesting to note that while there has been a lot of discussion and analysis of the demands put on women in the Hindu tradition, the sacrifices expected of ideal wives, we have failed to evaluate the demands put on an ideal husband.

P.S....the above post is not written to hurt anyone's religious sentiments. I'm simply expressing my view-point.