Only freedom of expression can shelter Vibhuti Narain Rai

Only freedom of expression can shelter Vibhuti Narain Rai
Published in youthejournalist.com on August 14, 2010 By : Premchand Sahajwala

Newspapers of 2 Aug 2010 were hot with a news item that the HRD minister Kapil Sibal has taken exception to an interview by Vibhutinarayan Rai, Vice Chancellor of the Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University Wardha, in which the latter said that today’s women writers have started competing with one another to prove that there is no bigger ‘chhinal’ than them (this word has been wrongly translated as ‘prostitute’ by certain English journalists).

Women leaders like Brinda Karat and Girija Vyas approached the minister for stern action against the VC. Among writers too, as I personally verified through numerous phone calls, there is a wave of resentment over the VC’s statement. The first thing I did was to contact Vibhuti Narain Rai himself to know what he might have to say on the matter. He explained that this word he used w.r.t what we call ‘bewafa’ in Urdu language and he said that the word ‘chhinal’ is used more for men in his area rather than for women. However, it was more necessary for me to read the actual interview since VC’s answer was too brief and also the resentment expressed to me by writers was not consistent with the VC’s explanation.

The interview by Vibhuti Narain Rai appears on pp 31-33 in the journal ‘Naya Gyanoday’ edited by prominent Hindi writer Ravindra Kalia and published by India’s biggest publication, the Bharatiya Gyanpeeth which has honored legendary figures like Tarashankar Vandyopadhyaya, Ashapoorna Devi, Agyeya, and many others.

First, that the interview appears in a special issue entitled ‘Bewafai Super Visheshank -2’ of the journal! One could easily gauge the mindset of the editor Ravindra Kalia himself over the phrase ‘Bewafai’ which means unfaithfulness or it can be called ‘adultery’ w.r.t man-woman relation. Ravindra Kalia himself beyond 60 years age, couldn’t have thought of modern phrases like ‘extra-marital relationship’ just as in changing times we now find the TV channels and newspapers abuzz with phrases like ‘pre-marital sex’ or others. The word ‘bewafai’ is too old in this 21st century to discuss sexual relationship between men and women other than their spouses. Says celebrated Hindi novelist Pankaj Visht who had suddenly shot to fame with his novel ‘Lekin Darwaza…’ that naming a special issue as ‘bewafai special’ just shows how feudal is the mindset of the editor Ravindrfa Kalia and it points out to his under-developed personality.

He shouldn’t have been where he currently is’! A quite known Hindi poetess Archana Tripathy quipped that ‘bewafai’ is a generalized word which many people even use w.r.t. their children when they abandon them and friends who deceive them. It couldn’t be specifically related to husband-wife or lover couples. The special issue on this so called ‘bewafai’ looks like de ja vu and has mainly what the magazine says Kaboolnama (Confessions) by writers of yesteryears like Rajendra Yadav, Manu Bhandari, late Kamleshwar, etc. and short stories too of mainly forgotten writers like Gyanranjan, Chitra Mudgal, Abid Surti and others.

It can only be unfortunate that at present, the Hindi story and novel do not possess any specific shape and after the 9th decade, the Hindi literature became too much of an unguarded turf. There has been no specific identity of the short story like we had at one time: the Prem Chand story, the post-Prem Chand story (with luminaries like Jainendra, Agyeya, Renu, and many others), Nai Kahani or the ‘New Story’ (with fashionists or Indian Chekhvs like Mohan Rakesh, Kamleshwar, Rajendra Yadav and others), the post-60 story with literati like Ravindra Kalia himself, Gyanranjan, Govind Mishra, Mamta Kalia and others. There was some recognition of the 8th decade short story which focused on crime and politics. But thereafter the short story lost its space and became more or less a deserted one, rather free for all. The young generation couldn’t make any mark. Anyone who claimed to be writer could take any path to tread and pen down a story irrespective of the contemporary creative values or the technicalities.

Not many reviewers are left now and the tendencies or salient features of the contemporary story have never been underscored to a notable extent. Many poets too, still write poetry which simply laments the disappearance of the earlier scruples as they miserably fail to accept modern ones. Their lamentation for the dead social system does not really come as nostalgia but rather as a formula. The critical condition of Hindi literature of which the notable part is still being written mainly by established senior citizen writers of yesteryears and that too with outdated bents of mind is attributed to the disappearance of Hindi magazines like Dharmayug, Saptahik Hindustan once edited by legendaries like Dr. Dharmaveer Bharati and Manohar Shyam Joshi. But companies like the Bonnet Colman and the Hindustan Times which owned these magazines attribute the death of these magazines to the disappearance of readers. It was said that there are no readers now left to read a story in Dharmayug, Ravivar, Sarika or Saptahik Hindustan. Many (may be rightly) point out that the horizontal story was actually devoured by the vertical one through TV serials.

Under the same outdated mindset is set the interview by Vibhuti Narain Rai to Rakesh Mishra in the just quoted ‘bewafai special’ (read Adultery Special) of Naya Gyanoday.

Vibhuti Narain Rai wants us to understand ‘bewafai’ in the light of the birth of modern religions. On p 32 he says that religions are based on patriarchal power and as such, in every religion the God is a man! He says that the woman is especially treated as ‘bewafa’ by the male chauvinist society. While the desire for sincerity from the spouse can be in both man and woman, the tendency to deceive and acquire the ‘other’ can also exist in both. Man still possesses the tendency to treat woman as property or an object of pleasure and he can buy her, make her his keep or concubine etc.

But under the same feudal mindset of a religious origin, Vibhuti Narain Rai quips at women writers saying that off late the women writers have started racing against one another to prove that there is no one more ‘chhinal’ than them. The word ‘chhinal’ according to Hindi dictionaries is vaguely defined as ‘bad character’ or ‘bad woman’. In actual society, the word is used in the sense of the one who maintains relationship with men other than her husband. It doesn’t have any technical sense but rather comes as an insulting and accusing phrase similar to calling names. Munshi Prem Chand used it more as a dialogue in which some woman character of a story is accused by someone of being ‘chhinaal’. However, it doesn’t mean ‘prostitute’ as some misguiding journalists/women activists fed to the minster.

When we read between lines, the whole interview by Vibhuti Narain Rai to Rakesh Mishra, we find that questions as well as answers do not show any tendency to make an in-depth analysis of the extramarital relationship. There is a latent blame-game over the situation and some sort of idealism, which at times has been used sarcastically and like taking potshots. The whole approach is therefore superficial (off the field too) and at places, light as well. For instance in answer to a question, Vibhuti Narain says that at present any deliberation on women comes like a festival of ‘bewafai’! He quips at some, (in his words) ‘over-rated much-promoted female writer’ and says that her autobiography had better be entitled ‘kitne bistaron mein kitni baar’ (how many times in how many beds!). In the same answer only he asserts that women writers are currently racing to prove that there is no woman as bad as they.

May be, the autobiography of a female writer took many a reader unawares since the first part of the autobiography is dedicated to her mother and she says that her mother was a lesbian! Another such writer would inform the readers that her son is not from her husband but from some comrade! She proudly states that she could never not maintain any account of how many men around her she spoiled. But on this, I got very typical answers from some writers. While Dr. Dharamveer and Archana Tripathy are critical of such writings, some told me what Vibhuti Narain himself also says in other words.

Vibhuti Narain, as already said, referred to the possessive & bright nature of male due to which he can just ‘own’ her. But he agrees that some women from upper middle or rich classes are financially independent and as such, under a power equation, they have the guts in them to disclose (nay declare) what they have done (remember ‘Sach ka Samna’!). However, if we go through such autobiographies, we find more of a crispness and desire to draw attention rather than the Gandhian style of the offer of Truth! No Jesus, no Gandhi… simply self exposure motivated by desire to draw attention. This may have some sort of analogy to models who are happy to pose nude or in bikinis. A septuagenarian journalist would explain such a tendency in his puritan way by saying that if you walk on two feet, nobody notices it, but if you start moving on head, the whole world starts looking at you. So, are such autobiographies like a ‘movie masala’ or sexual acrobats to tempt the male reader! May be or may not be, but any commentary on them should come as a part of review or evaluation and not in the language that touches sarcasm or comes like a potshot.

Dr. Sumitra Varun, a doctorate in English literature and retd. Financial Advisor from Indian Railways defends these writers by saying – ‘When male writers brazenly describe their affairs in novels and autobiographies, they sometimes have prize catches of prestigious literary awards. Why then question women who too have equal right to describe these human happenings in their novels and autobiographies? Do the men suffer from female phobia and feel that women too would get prestigious awards that way or emulate them and take their spaces? Dr. Varun takes exception to Vibhuti Narain Rai’s language and asserts that such a language should not come from a person of his stature especially because he himself is a writer and a social thinker. Some people would go to the extent of attributing his language to his earlier profession as Indian Police Services officer. They feel that from the cops, such a language is just natural.

To me, however, such persons seriously miss the point. The question here could be more of a mindset rather than incompatibility with stature or suitability to some earlier profession. Once the JD (U) leader Sharad Yadav irritated women MPs when during a debate on ‘Women’s Reservation Bill’ in the Lok Sabha, he said that this house is not for the ‘baal katis’ (women with cut hair). But Sharad Yadav could be treated as a person with illiterate bent of mind while Dr. Vibhuti Narain Rai is a learned person with propensity towards culture and religion too. He can therefore be understood only through his sacraments rather than professional lifestyle.

Dr. Vibhuti Narain Rai can only be questioned through the spectacles of ‘Changing Times’. These are times when many a celebrity is known for enjoying ‘Live in Relationships’. Sometimes we read Supreme Court judgments which would reject the conjugal rights petitions by men whose wives have deserted them and are enjoying ‘Live in Relationships’ with other male friends. A recent judgment by Supreme Court led a TV channel to hysterically launch a hot debate within a few hours of the judgment over whether pre-marital sex should be permitted or not. This was because w.r.t some petition, the Supreme Court gave a judgment in favour of pre-marital sex by boys and girls. How much tangential was Supreme Court’s approach to that specific petition was not the concern of the channel but it simply occurred that this is a subject over which the modern thinkers must have brainstormed often.

In the world which shamelessly possesses the other extremes too where adulteress women (say in Iran) are stoned to death, it can only be a source of light that the urban Indian woman is sufficiently enlightened and has blessed India with women presidents as well as women space scientists! We are unfortunately living in a world order in which some hapless girls are still being circumcised in continuation of some pre-Judaic traditions irrespective of the mental or physical pains they suffer. Among them are also those even more hapless ones whose vaginas are fully stitched leaving a tiny hole for urination so that when they grow up and marry, they are offered as ‘pure girls’ to their bridegrooms!

Living amidst these extremely barbaric (in) human civilizations, can Indians not take pride over an ‘all women crew’ flight from Mumbai to New York covering 11 countries, on the International Women’s Day (8 Mar. 2010)? Will this not become a source of light for the hapless girls who are honor-killed for marrying in the same gotra or off -caste in the Hindu caste hierarchy? Dr. Vibhuti Narain Rai simultaneously calls the extra-marital relationships of some male writers as ‘ku-kritya’ (bad deed) and the women narrating their affairs as ‘chhinaals’! Even a few decades ago, the social philosophers had ample consideration of the divorced woman, or woman who has become widow at young age or those who never marry due to some cause.

There has to be some space for consideration of the peculiarity of circumstances in which some women live. In this very ‘bewafai special’ of the ‘Naya Gyanoday’, there is a passionate story which is a part of Nayantara Sehgal’s famous book ‘Relationship’ which is a long series of love letters between her and EN Mangat Rai (her 2nd husband) while she was living with her first husband Gautam. Nayantara Sehgal says that she landed herself into seemingly unending troubles after she disclosed to her first fiancée Gautam that before engagement to him, she, had a relationship (which she herself never understood fully being a teenager), with a man much elder than her! She simply invited miseries in her first marriage by disclosing such a personal secret to her fiancée. Alas, she did so! But then came the moments when she revolted though again inviting mess. But the translator of this piece ‘yeh mera sach’ (This, my truth) of the book ‘Relationship’ honestly calls the act of mud-slinging by society on the extramarital Nayantara-Mangat Rai relationship as ‘sins’ and rather offers to apologize for these ‘sins’ of the society since he himself is a part of that society!

To this we have to add the 21st century situation wherein an infinite number of women work with an infinite number of men at odd places and hours like performing night duties or working in riot hit areas etc. The Supreme Court has used the phrase ‘Changing Times’ in many a petition. The culture of a country is not the one defined by founders of its religions or the holy books, but by the contemporary societies on the equation of ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. Dr. Vibhuti Narain Rai’s interview therefore falls apart as an outdated document with use of feudal age phrases and cannot be accepted at a moment when a section of women are even gasping for freedom to be lesbians! His comments unfortunately have an accidental similarity to the medieval culture in which if a girl dared to inadvertently walk a distance away from her house, she was turned out as ‘chhinaal’!

However, to be fair to him, one must not forget to add that in spite of the above critique of the interview, Dr. Vibhuti Narain Rai doesn’t attract any stern action against him. At this moment interestingly, a news item comes to my memory which I cannot help describing here. About a year or so ago a married young woman in Junagadh Distt (Gujarat) stunned the passersby in a bazaar when she just walked through the bazaar in bikini in order to protest against her in laws’ excesses. This was a novel way. But a week later, I read an interesting assertion by Soli Sorabjee that we should not criticize her since this was a question of freedom of expression for her! So just as we have to read frank and financially independent women writers on the turf of evaluation and review, we must also do the same to Dr. Vibhuti Narain and read his ‘approach’ to women writers who describe sex-life openly, as male chauvinist rather than read any cheapness in his words.

Hindi papers later informed that he has personally met the minister and taken his words back. But that is not what the situation warranted. Dr. Vibhuti Narain Rai stands safe on the turf of ‘freedom of expression’ and on this, a leading Hindi author Ganga Prasad Vimal has to say that: ‘There should not have been any uproar or feeling of outrage over this issue at all’. He also took serious note of the journalists who translated the word ‘chhinal’ as ‘prostitute’ and even said that such journalists who lack etiquettes of translating words should be immediately dismissed by their bosses. He further said that it is by virtue of the ‘freedom of expression’ that today there is so much frankness in the writing world. Could it, as such, be said that women activists like Brinda Karat and Girija Vyas had no need of going to the minister!