Is The ‘Rights’ Perspective Always Right?
By Nixon Fernando
The recent verdicts by the Supreme Court on the entry of women to the Ayyappa temple in Kerala and women as cadets in the National Defence Academy (NDA) have a deep impact on indigenous beliefs, traditions and lives of the people. And the failure (if any) to understand the significance of these decisions, and to mitigate the negative outcomes on society (if any), lies on the shoulders of neither the Indian Judiciary nor the Executive; it would be the failure of the Indian parliament.
The temple of modern democracy, the parliament, ever since Independence, has been performing as anything but a temple. Much of its responsibilities it has known to abdicate to the Executive; it is almost routine now that the Prime Minister and his cabinet decide on important policy matters. But in a democracy the parliament is the forum where the ideas that impact the lives of citizens must be debated upon and laws made accordingly.
The Parliament has with it the powers to call upon the best of intellectuals and the highest of ideas/ideals from across the world. It has at its disposal the academicians of the various universities of the nation and then the public forums ranging from the best of magazines right down to Whatsapp University where a lot of thought can be tossed around. And it must use all this to generate a view on those significant matters that affect the nation and its peoples. The parliament’s performance is therefore no better on the issue of women’s rights.
So then what is wrong in the ‘advanced’ thought of giving ‘equal’ rights to women?
Despite all the hype about wanting to give equal rights to women in India according to the present global scheme, the truth of the matter is that this ‘rights’ language goes only half the distance. When a ‘rights’ based approach is applied on a ‘duties’ (Dharma) based civilization like ours, a lot needs to be thought through before moving on it.
Lecturing Indian civilizational thought on the issue of equality is like showing a torch to the sun. Atrocious though this may sound, the essence of Indian thought does indeed celebrate the equality of man, woman and transgender. And even more surprising is the fact that the equality of one and all is inherent in the essence of the caste consciousness too.
According to the wise the primacy provided, to the ‘highest’ known to man, is another way of expressing the truth that we all are equal in laughter, joy and death. Man (male, female or transgender) is essentially spirit it says and that spirit is universal. According to this line of thought, that person, who is respected as the ‘best’ amongst all, is the one that has found the permanent source of joy within himself and is neither bound by wealth nor the lack of it.
When one says ‘namaste’ to the other it means ‘the divine in me salutes the divine in you’. This universality, inspired by sublime thought, thus gets infused into the life and traditions of the land. Therefore, celebrating the fullness of this contented life is inherent in the lifestyle of the Bharata clan. The term used is ‘dharma’. A dharma inspired life has a certain sense of ‘completeness’ and ‘excellence’ integral to it and it constitutes the heart of the approach to life in Indian civilization.
What passes for living tradition in India currently is flawed alright and is subject to attack western thought. But that flaw in the traditions is on account of wrong application, which, in turn, is inconsistent with the core indigenous thought. But despite the flaws and the dubious reputation there is no denying the fact that essential ancient Indian wisdom contains the recognition of the ‘highest’ known to man, and that in turn points to a life of identical fulfilment to every person; no matter who.
In military terms this core thought says that there is celebration in one’s participation in a righteous war, regardless of whether one meets death on the battlefield or not. It speaks of warriors going for battle as complete/fulfilled individuals seeking to perform their duty (dharma) rather than incomplete individuals seeking power, prestige or wealth.
Be that so, what does it have against women’s rights that are propounded in the global scheme of ‘human rights’?
The human rights perspective, according to this ancient scheme of thought, is a limited view, and to understand how it may be limited one must understand what human right exactly is.
The simplistic view of the origin of human rights is this: “I am Government in this country, you are government in that country, and he is government in that country, let us all get together and promise that when we govern our respective countries we ensure that so and so rights of citizens and non-citizens will be protected.”
So in signing the rights pact, the Indian Government has taken upon itself that it will do justice according to those rights. Essentially the governments are pledging themselves to high goals and it is a good thing. But what happens if an individual adopts this approach in his own life and applies it to himself? He reads it as: “This is my right! Give me my rights! I live for my rights!”
The contrast is deep. The Indian civilization thought ‘I am complete. Please tell me what my duty is’. This alternate approach by individuals says “I am incomplete. I want to be full. Give me my rights”. This promotion of rights based existence actually promotes individuals to live in a ‘deficit’ attitude of existence as against the tradition-promoted ‘fulfilled’ existence. Experts know that there is no excellence in the deficit mode.
Therefore, the ideal scenario would be for Governments to ask “What rights should I protect?” and for individuals to ask “What duties have you assigned for me (towards us collectively protecting those rights)?”
I had a choir group leader who used to say “Men are cool! Women are wannabis!” (They want to be men)
Well no, they are not wannabis: but trying to say that a woman will have fullness only if she does everything a man can do is an absurd way of going about it. Instead, it needs to be all about allocating duties to all members of society in such a way that the ‘human rights’ are protected for everyone.
This allocation must be such that everyone experiences essential equality and everyone lives in a society that is tuned to excellence. And it must definitely not imply the simplistic solution that everyone (read men and women, king and pawn) must be given identical resources and be doing exactly the same thing…
The judges will go by the established law and they are doing their jobs. But it is for the parliament to debate and generate laws that not only does justice to human rights but also upholds the well instructed civilization thought that underlies indigenous tradition.
And therefore, in the context of the order by the Supreme Court on the entry of Women into the NDA, a lot remains to be done by the stakeholders to generate a well thought out view not only about the impact, of this application of human rights (and the associated laws), on indigenous tradition but also the direct impact of the order on the traditions, strength and excellence of the armed forces.
About The Author
(Nixon Fernando is a post graduate in physics, government and business administration. He served as lecturer and counsellor at the NDA for 10 years from 1996 to 2007. A versatile sportsman and ballroom dance instructor, his services were appreciated and commended by the Commandant and Principal of NDA. Currently, he is a research assistant to TN Seshan, former CEC of India. He can be reached on Email: [email protected])
