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 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.
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
No comments:
Post a Comment