Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

27 April  2019

We Hindus Mr Siva Senai ? – Don’t lie

Sometimes our communications in free environment become favourable to the needy. My yesterday’s communication headed ‘Is Mr Gotabhaya Rajapaksa the next Defence Secretary of Australian Territory?’ was one of them and it brought to me the communication from Siva Senai leader Mr Maravanpulavu K. Sachithananthan, to the President of Sri Lanka. (Appendix)

The letter concludes as follows:

‘We Hindus of Sri Lanka request Your Excellency to legitimise immediately this request of All Sri Lanka Ulama Council through an ordinance.’

First of all it is so very wrong to profit from the pain of Muslims at this time and worse when such comes from Tamils who continue to suffer similar pain in Sri Lanka. Lord Siva is the destroyer of body consciousness  and therefore is the Lord of the mind. Siva Senai therefore has the duty to think at the level of the mind and not the body. I believe I am a Hindu and a Shiva devotee because of this mind based commonness.

In his article headed ‘Indian election a battle for hearts and minds’ Journalist Umar Manzoor Shah reports as follows:

 

[Indian artists and intelligentsia have no history of political interference. These perceptive people were too busy to care about politics and changes in government. But the last five years of BJP rule have forced some of them to come together and take a stand for freedom of expression and secularism.

The appeal cited Indian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's poem, Where the Mind is Without Fear, saying its lines reflect the values of India's constitution that stress equality and freedom of all citizens.]

Where The Mind Is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

The mind without desire is without fear. Women in traditional structures – including Hindu structures are recognized as Shakthi. Lord Shiva’s equal half is Shakthi / Energy. The woman who is ‘not seen’ is therefore Shakthi. Mr Siva Senai ought to be worshipping the women in burqa as Shakthi and not telling them through the president.

If indeed the Sri Lankan government bans the burqa – then it has the duty to ban all religious and cultural robes including those worn by men. The Muslim woman who takes second place to her husband but works at equal level accumulates Shakthi. Shakthi takes the form of courage as highlighted by the above poem. Minorities who reap relatively lesser rewards than custodians of power, accumulate Energy. Once it is Energy, we access that anytime in the form we need. If the man has a need to lead and the woman accommodates the man despite being capable of doing the job herself – the woman accumulates that submission as Energy. Burqa-wearing could be such a cultural process.

Mr Siva Senai reports in his communication:

[Tamil Poet Mahakavi Bharathi condemned out rightly wearing of face cover, terming it as an abhorring custom introduced by Delhi Sultans]

Poet Bharathi was only 15 years old when married Chellamma who was 7 years old. Subramania was crown ‘Bharathi’ for his talent – at the age of 11. Since he married a child after that – one could conclude that he did not have the freedom  to talk about liberating women. As per reports – his wife suffered much without being unable to enjoy average economic independence. The woman in us needs to be liberated as part of ourselves. That is called transformation.

As leader of a Hindu organization, Mr Maravanpulavu K. Sachithananthan needs to limit his ‘telling’ to his own group. Until he drops the Maravanpulavu (the name of geographic area) in his name – he has no moral right to recommend that any woman including a Hindu woman – changes her/his traditional attire.

If the President of Sri Lanka heard him – then the president would drop the veshti / higher class sarong and wear trousers as majority working men do.

 What next – asking Traditional Christian mothers not to cover their heads in church and not to wear sari but wear jeans?

Appendix

26th April 2019

To.

His Excellency

President of Sri Lanka

Colombo.

BAN BURQA DRESS CODE FOR WOMEN IN SRI LANKA

Your Excellency,

Today, 26th April 2019, All Sri Lanka Ulama Council has called upon women is Sri Lanka to give up wearing face and head covering dresses, otherwise called Burqa. https://newuthayan.com/story/11/பொது-இடங்களில்-புர்காவுக.html

This is a welcome move.

Muslim majority countries like Syria and Turkey had banned by law, wearing of Burqa. Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world. Majority of women as a custom do not wear Burqa in that country.

Quebec province of Canada, New South Wales State of Australia also has banned wearing of Burqa in public places.

For more than 5,000 years, women of Sri Lanka, both Hindus and Buddhists do not wear any head or face cover as a matter of civility. Gender bias has never been an issue in Sri Lankan civilisation. 20th century Tamil Poet Mahakavi Bharathi condemned out rightly wearing of face cover, terming it as an abhorring custom introduced by Delhi Sultans.      

With the arrests of men in many places in Sri Lanka after the 21st April 2019 carnage wearing burqa to perform under-cover operations, it is natural that the peace loving citizens of Sri Lanka will salute the All Sri Lanka Ulama Council on its bold stand of counselling Muslim women not to wear Burqa.

We Hindus of Sri Lanka request Your Excellency to legitimise immediately this request of All Sri

Lanka Ulama Council through an ordinance.

Thanking you

Yours sincerely

Maravanpulavu K. Sachithananthan

Siva Senai