Nair women with the support of all Hindu women are up in arms against Shashi Tharoor for the way he has depicted Hindu women in his book, The Great Indian Novel.
Tharoor on page 85 of this book, states: “You know, if you read our scriptures, there was a time when Indian women were free to make love to whomever they wished to without being considered immoral. There were even rules about it. It was decreed that a married woman must sleep with her husband during her fertile period but was free to take her pleasure elsewhere the rest of the time. …In Kerala, the men of the Nair community only learnt their wives are free to receive them by seeing another man’s slippers are not outside her door. Our present concept of morality is not really Hindu at all. It is the legacy of both Islamic invasions and the super imposition Victorian prudence.”
Here Shashi Tharoor says:
Ancient Hindus did not have a sense of morality…
Marriage was not a sacred institution
Such immorality had the sanctity of Hindu Scriptures and so was not considered as immoral
That the morality you see amongst the Hindus now, was taught to us by invaders
In just two paragraphs Tharoor shows his ignorance, arrogance and contempt for his own country, religion, heritage, community and tragically the women of his own family.
Every Hindu girl grows up hearing of the devotion of Seetha and Ram, Shiva and Parvathi, Krishna and his wives. All these scriptures that is the Ramayana, the Bhagavatham and the Shiva Purana predate any invasion or invaders.
We are taught from childhood, that Hindu women marry for life… we r told of devotion of Savitri and the accidental fall of Ahalya,of the purity of Seetha, the strength of Draupadi and the Determination of Kunti…
Where in this do you see immorality Mr. Tharoor?
I as a Hindu woman ask Shashi Tharoor to quote with proof the Hindu scripture that sanctifies such immoral behaviour.
Coming to his second paragraph he singles out the Nair community as examples of zero morality… what he describes there is prostitution… Not Sambhadham as he is now claiming it to be.
What is Sambhandham?
Sambhandham was what the marriage of the Nair community was called. Sama Bhandham means a relationship of equals.
Being a matriarchal society the Nair women had the right to choose their husbands, to withdraw from a marriage if it did not work out and to remarry if she so chose. She also inherited the family property and so was financially independent.
This does not mean that she was free to choose many partners at the same time because the marriage itself was sanctified by a ceremony and the community. As long as she was married she was loyal to her husband.
Tharoor speaks about slippers outside a Nair woman’s door… this is the most insulting perfidy that any man can throw against the women of his own community. Fact is hundreds of years ago not many people wore slippers in Kerala. And even if they did, Hindu homes did not and still do not allow for slippers to be worn inside homes.
Though the book was written 30 years ago, the fact that social media was not there then, explains why this venomous statement against the Hindu community has not been highlighted until now.
Shashi Tharoor stands exposed as a person whose ambition surpasses all sense of decency towards his own religion and community.
The people of Trivandrum must decide if they want such a person to represent them in Parliament in the coming elections.
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