India, as we know, is a land of rituals and celebrations that are closely intertwined into the fabric of our lives. Age-old practices and traditions are still highlighted in many of our experiences and also showcases influences of how religion and history have shaped these rituals and celebrations.
Historically, celebrations as a practice were started for
people to come together and rejoice with or without a reason. Eventually, as the practice of rituals began, celebrations mostly got associated with the same. While many celebrations still remained
harmless reasons to get your loved ones together like a birthday, many others
gradually developed as deeply problematic and became roots of traditional
conditioning done to propagate ideologies that have been proven, to be not at
the best interest of human evolution.
With the waves of change each generation got with it, many
of the problematic rituals were called out and even stopped like the ritual of
“Sati” which was the practice of the widow forced to die, jumping into the pyre
of her husband. The newer generations were able to disassociate a few other
rituals from the celebrations and maintain it to be a reason for the whole
family to come together and get to know each other. But over the years when
celebrations were getting associated with rituals, it got intertwined in ways
where the rituals associated were very subtle that it looked harmless at the
first instant, but became successful tools to propagate problematic social conditionings.
One such seemingly harmless yet deep-rooted tool to
propagate the idea of protection and patriarchy is Rakshabandhan; where a piece
of a thread is tied around the wrist of a brother (younger or elder) by a sister
after doing Pooja and in exchange the brother gifts pocket money or sweets. The idea of tying the thread is like a sister asking her brother to always protect
her. The idea of this ritual has many origin stories and the two oldest of them can
be taken as one where nobles tying Rakhis to Mughal emperors and another a legend from 320 BC, where Roxane the wife of Alexander is believed to have tied
a Rakhi to King Puru, so that he would spare her husband’s life during the war.
Although the most famous example of Rakshabandhan remains to be women tying
Rakhi to men and making them their Rakhi brother. Interestingly irony did slow
claps when many women had to resort to using this ritual with men who were
constantly harassing them so that they would stop. There are many movies across
the country, where the hero refuses to go to college terrified whether his love
interest (often the female he is constantly stalking) will tie Rakhi on his
wrist, and is used as a plot for comedy.
All these stories and conditionings have over the years formed the foundation of the symbolic meaning of the ritual of Rakshabandhan, wherein all of them the essence is about the brotherly duty to physically protect the sister in times of distress. From advertisements to songs to full on feature films have been made on this concept of Rakshabandhan, where brothers set out on a quest to avenge the wrongs done to his sister or portraying brothers as the rightful protectors of sisters, who are more often than not damsels in distress. Such conditionings not only reinforce the belief that it is the brother’s “job” to ensure the well-being of his sister and also to “protect her honor” but also subtly gives him the idea that he has the right to morally police her choices, decisions, and life. While these negative conditionings are wrong at various levels, majorly it starts the instilling of toxic masculinity in men and also the normalization of moral policing in a woman’s life, and paves the way to affix the idea of unequal power relationships between both the genders, from an early age.
Although with the newer generations, many rituals have changed or at least taken new meanings, the symbolic meaning behind Rakshabandhan more or less seems to be the same.
The popularity of the ritual
with even celebrities to big shots of the nation endorsing the ritual and the entertainment industry cashing in on it, Rakshabandhan is actually getting more
popular than it used to be. Growing up in a south Indian state, I never knew
Rakshabandhan but with the internet and information explosion over these past
decades, I could see even states down south practicing the ritual.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the idea of
having a day to celebrate the bond between siblings, which by the way is the
newest “woke” explanation given to the ritual or some went higher on “woke”
level and started tying Rakhi to sisters or stating the explanation that on another day called “Bhai
Dooj” sisters wow to protect their brothers too, which begs the question, when
has ever, a gender role reversal helped solve a gender-related issue? That is
just another depiction of how shallow our understanding of issues related to
gender in this country is.
The idea we need to reconsider is the concept of protection; instead of being the macho sibling with superhuman capabilities, why don’t we teach our future generations to grow as equals, who don't protect but empower each other.
On the same day, vow to empower each other emotionally or financially and to provide each other physical or mental support in times of distress. Instead of doing Pooja and tying Rakhis, why not spend the day together doing things they love, as most of the time, the day of Rakshabandhan is the only day when siblings meet at least once in a year.
Change is the only constant and we have seen how beautiful
and better can some celebrations be when we allow the underlying problematic
rituals to change. So from today to the times ahead, let’s stop protecting and
start empowering.
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