The last word on “Water”

This is by a long shot one of the best critiques that I have come across of “Water”. It is balanced and makes all the points in a crisp, logical way

Please read and circulate widely. It needs to get more attention. Use this link in your email while forwarding the article

“Water – A Review” by Ramkumari Ramsundar

“Deepa Mehta’s latest film on Indian society “Water” has recently been screened to plaudits and praise from Western intelligentsia whilst at the same time arousing the concerns – and even ire – of the ordinary global Hindu community.  This film is the last in the Indo-Canadian’s trilogy (others being Fire, Earth and Water) which focusses on religion, caste, and gender inequalities in a manner which is deliberately set to appeal to the Westerner’s mind and to denigrate the Hindu and her spiritual and social condition.

The film tells the story of the life of widows in a run-down ashram.Set in the 1930s it has its characters questioning a religious tradition (i.e Hinduism) that condemns widows to a life of misery.

The uninformed viewer would be forgiven if by the time the film ended they left with the impression that Hinduism was a barbaric social ideology which condemned and oppressed women.

The characters are drawn sympathetically and the photographic effects serve to provide the viewer with a pleasurable and thoughtful consumer experience. Buried deep within such a pleasurable experience the villain of the piece, however , is shown to be Hindu Dharma ancient and therefore irrelevant, patriarchal and there fore outmoded, inexorable and therefore merciless in the fate it metes out to powerless Hindu women.

Such a mono-chromatic viewpoint is propagated in this film in spite of the fact that analysis of any phenomenon in such a complex society needs to take account of its polychromatic nature. Such a multi layered view of the society she examines is deliberately excluded from Ms Mehta’s gaze.

“Water ” opens with a quote from the much abused ManuSmrti – “…a widow should be long-suffering until death, self-restrained and chaste”. This tactic is no surprise to any aware and conscious Hindu – accustomed as she has become to the many slings and arrows of Hindu-baiters.

To the non- Hindu this quote serves to represent the Hindu oppressive attitude in its treatment of women .particularly its widows.� One Western reviewer erroneously refers to this cultural, religious norm which has prevailed for thousands of years without any fear of correction or retribution.

In fact the ancient text of the Vedas make reference to widows remarrying. Kautilya’s Arthashastra (300BC) mentions the marriage of widows as accepted norm and the “Atharva Veda” appeals to the Hindu widow to get up from the side of her husband’s dead body and offers a prayer for her future life with wealth and children.

Over the course of time there seems to be a shift in society from advocating remarriage to recommending celibacy and then to sati. This phenomenon seems to have coincided with the invasions from outside of India when rape, enslavement , mutilation and concubinage became the lot of Hindu women. Higher caste widows were more likely to live in ashrams. Some of them were sent away from the marital homes and maltreated not because of Hindu philosophy but because of human greed ( to usurp the widow’s property, dowry) desire and revenge.

In more recent times it has been reported that remarriage of widows in the disadvantaged castes was customary and that young widows often returned to their parental homes. In the 18th and 19th centuries social reformers worked ceaselessly to rehabilitate widow remarriage culminating in the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856.

Ms Mehta herself is not alone in her efforts to disseminate powerful stereotypes to justify the West’s civilizing mission in India. She uses Western feminist discourse to prove the backwardness and cruelty of Hindu society.

Her critique of the treatment of Hindu widows serves as a useful reminder to Indians for their need of a benevolent globalization from the West.

The Universities in Europe and America are peopled with Indians of Ms Mehta’s ilk-Western educated (usually in elite missionary schools), English speaking, busily and profitably engaged in creating works which hold Indian society up to the prism of Western analysis.

Their Western education which infuses them with it s novel and new ideas, breeds and increases their feelings of inferiority which leads to a strong desire to exaggeratedly point up the flaws in existing social structures.

Invariably such scrutiny finds Indian society wanting . We know that India is a pluralistic society with many cultures and faiths. What holds all these cultures and faith together is the leit-motif of Hindu pluralism ,acceptance and tolerance.

Yet all the films and writings by Indians settled abroad focus on the shortcomings and drawbacks of the Hindu majority community. In fact the Indian writers themselves invariably bear Hindu names.

The non-Indian viewer generally draws negative conclusions about the nature of Hindu society which serves to further bolster and justify the persistent and pernicious undermining of Hindu society as it struggles to accommodate and survive such assaults from other global anti-Hindu forces.

Regrettably we as Hindu women will continue to hear our experiences articulated through the minds and mouths and pens of Westerners and Westernized Indians and feminists until such time as we sufficiently dare to construct an authentic, positive discourse and argument from within our own traditions.

Image Courtesy: Wikipedia