The Myth of Independent Women

Amid corona Epidemic, a tiny virus has proved that our so-called scientific advancement is just another deception. The modern society’s education and information system contributed to building one more hoax that materialism, consumerism can lead to a contented society. 

 

Today I came across a picture on social media. It is one more bluff spreading like a virus. The picture shows a woman named ‘Sandhya’ who is carrying a piece of heavy luggage on her head. A bold headline says that she is the first female coolie. The picture also provides some more information about her husband’s death & how she is maintaining 3 kids and herself. She has to travels every day 45 Kms to reach Jabalpur and then go back to her hometown to cook foods for the kids. The picture has become a symbol a women empowerment and people are congratulating how as a society we are developing where a woman can work like a man, lift heavy weights, and feeds her children. This is considered the achievement of a society where women are equal to men. 

 

This may be true for a society who never studies the glorious and rich Vedic culture of India. For the person who has studied, the Vedic Scriptures understand that women played a significant role in society as a mother and chaste wife will be horrified to see the image of Sandhya where she has to suffer a lot in the absence of any security by the family. 

 

Manu Samhita 3.56 says:

” Yatra Naryas tu pujyante Ramante Tatra Devatah Yatraitas tu na pujyante sarvas tatraphalah kriyah” 

“Where women are honored, the gods rejoice, and where women are not revered, all undertakings become fruitless.”

 

However, most of the modern middle-class families in the absence of proper Vedic education have become influenced by the western idea of women liberation and freedom. In modern India higher-middle-class and middle-middle-class society, the culture of the full-time mother looking after household and kids has become a taboo; or maybe a compulsion because of no opportunity to work outside. 

 

But the other side of the story is a bit different the number of workplace sexual harassment cases registered in India jumped 54% from 2014 to 2017 and almost 70 % of women never report workplace sexual harassment in India. 

 

https://scroll.in/article/898327/five-charts-show-sexual-harassment-in-workplaces-is-being-recognised-but-much-more-must-be-done

 

https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/70-working-women-do-not-report-workplace-sexual-harassment-in-india-117030400227_1.html

 

These figures show that Independent women are unprotected exploited and unhappy. Srila Prabhupada noted in this regard that, ” in the name of freedom of woman they are being exploited…foolish women are being cheated by intelligent men. 

 

India’s traditional Vedic Culture provided woman protection at every stage of life. She was given protection by the father in her younger days, by the husband in her youth, and by the grownup sons in her old age. During the Vedic Culture, the protection of women maintained the chastity of society, by which we can get a good generation for peace, tranquility, and progress of life.   

 

Manu Samhita 9.96 says that women were created to be mothers. But today we see that feminist will consider that to be a stay at home mother and housewife is the most absurd, demeaning, anti-female thing a woman could do. Due to the collapse of Varna Ashrama Dharma & Joint Family nowadays it has become difficult to protect women as they are left alone to work on railway stations, on roads, and in an unprotected environment. 

 

Photograph of ‘Sandhya’ which is trending on the internet must jolt us a preaching society to establish the Varna-Ashram Dharma through the farm community programs to expose that modern bluff where a stay at home mothers and housewife are considered absurd and irrational. This is only possible when people will see the happy community at farmhouse living within the principles of Varana Ashrama Dharma as desired by Srila Prabhupada. 

 

Sources (Vanipedia & Mothers & Masters by HH. Bhakti Vikas Swami Maharaj)