Deepa Mehta's _Fire_

[Samar Abbas]

On Thu, 7 Jan 1999, Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:

> Christianity introduced prudery into
> Europe and Greece and the moslims did the same in India and other countries
> in the Far East.

Things are not as simple as I had perhaps implied in my first post on this
topic. There are 2 viewpoints on this:
1. Neo-Tantrik view: " Islam and Christianity introduced primitive notions
of prudery into India, which during its Hindu age, was free from any such
restrictions, as is eveident from the various sculptures on temples."

This is opposed by:  

2. The Sang Theory ( followed by the Sangh Parivar )  " Islam introduced
corruption and perversion into pure ancient Vaishnava society. That
ancient Orthodox Vaishnavite society had very high moral standards is
evident from the practice of Sati and Jauhar, and from a reading of the
Manu smrti.  The perversion of lesbianism was introduced into India by the
Moslems, who with their huge harems led to the advent of this (ie. 
sapphism) and other aberrations practiced by Moslems (eg.  polygamy,
paedicatio etc.) that were unknown in ancient India. Regarding the
sculptures, they are found in Dravidian Shaivite temples, or Tantric
temples which were akin to European witchcraft cults, minor and
unimportant introduced by Tibetans into East India. The European
Christians, encouraging female freedom, then introduced further
debaucheries that corrupted the Indians. "

So, here we have two diametrically opposed viewpoints, with apparantly
equal strngth. What was India like in the old days ? Were the Muslims
those who introduced prudery, or did they introduce debauchery ? And what
about the Christians ?

Q What is Sanskrit for `Lesbian' ?

> I think you're mistaken here, I cannot tell from experience, but being
> familiar with Plato's Symposion and remembering stories about cynics and
> knowing many a antique Greece myth, the qualification of prudery doesn't
> seem to me to be fitted for Greece in the mentioned period. 

This was meant in an ironic tone, "As long as people [ like Mira Nair,
Deepa Mehta ] think that ancient India was akin to Greece in prudery [ ie.
that it was absent in both cases ], people will continue to make films
like Fire. I agree with you, but I should have made by point more clearly.

> 
> you made your point, but then again what's hindu�sm?
> 

The Arabs used `Hindwi' to denote any Indian, and never used it in the
sense of a religion. The Persians used Hindustan to apply to North India
only, while Arab Hind is all of India. The Portuguese used `Gentoo' to
apply to all non-Muslim Indians, and was a synonym for pagan. The first
English traders had no idea about Indian religions, and confaounded all
non-Muslims under one word. Initially that word was Gentoo, adopted frm
Portugeuse, later they (on account of their greater Mideaster connections) 
adopted the Arab Hindwi distorting it into Hindooi or Hindoo, and applied
it indiscriminately to all `Indian Pagans'. When the Indologists arrived,
they could not get rid of the by then deep-rooted term. Thus, cannibal
Tantric Shaktas, cockroach-eating Chuhras and vegetarian Brahmins, puritan
Vaishnavites who dare not think of `immoral conduct' and linga-worshipping
Dravidians are all confounded under this appelation. This suited the
missionaries, since they could discredit all Hindus as `cannibal heathens'
and thereby undermine the fact that Brahmins had arguably `higher morals'
than the Christians. Even now, the Christians refuse to recognize the
Hindu claim that they are followers of different religions, but insist on
using the word Hindu. The people who suffered most from this were the
`Hindus' themselves. Thus, the creators of Hinduism are the British
colonialists.