First of all, I am very sorry to say that those who are saying Hinduism is anti-Women have Zero knowledge of Hinduism.
Hinduism is the religion in which Upanishad says “Yatra Naryastu pujyante! Ramante tatra Devata!“, which means Where WOMEN are respected, GODS reside there.
So, women are given a place above men which means giving equality will lessen their current status in the society.
Before proceeding further on current issues, I will first clarify some myths which are projected as part of Hindu society only to defame it.
I will be discussing child marriage, sati and dowry all at simultaneously as all are related.
First let me ask intellectuals that if Indian history is divided into ancient, medieval and modern then these evils started to be followed in which period? Yes you are right, if your answer is medieval period.
But then the question arises, if these are all a part of Hinduism then why was it not present during the ancient period.
The answer is simple and straightforward that these impurities came after the Muslim invasion in India which was followed by brutal treatment of Hindu females by the Muslim invaders. To make it explanatory, here is the sequence of events that occurred at that time which after being followed for some time became tradition, in which our only fault was not understanding the reason why it was being followed.
After Muslim invasion, many males were killed and the females were raped brutally, some were made sex slaves which completely destroyed their lives. Few historical evidences also tell us that even the bodies of dead females were raped by invaders as one can also see in case of ISIS today. So, to save themselves from these types of torturers, the females of the families whose males were killed in war started burning themselves with the bodies of their mates. It is evident from the very fact that even today the major cases of sati are reported from the areas of Rajasthan and adjoining Madhya Pradesh, which have history of fighting with Muslim kings and invaders.
Child Marriages:
Child marriages and dowry are deeply connected. It is a matter of fact that the Muslim rulers used to kidnap virgin Hindu girls to satisfy their desire irrespective of their age. As it can be seen today also, jihadi from around the globe are told that if they kill kafirs they will be getting 72 virgin in heaven. That’s why, in fear of their daughters being kidnapped and tortured, the Hindu parents thought of an idea that they should marry their daughter early so that the danger on their daughters can be avoided to some extent.
At the same time, some boy’s parents refused to marry their sons. So, to convince them to have the sons marry their daughters, the parents of the girl started to bribe them which after some time started to be followed as a tradition and is now known as dowry.
Shani temple at Shingnapur:
This shrine issue is in the news now-a-days due to the sudden sound created by anti-Hindu intellectuals lead by a Christian convert Trupti Desai. Starting with the Shani temple at Shingnapur, first of all you are only eligible to visit any religious spiritual place if you believe in it, and if you want to visit Shani Shingnapur you must believe in Shani and the story behind it.
The story behind Shani dev is that Shani dev was cursed by his wife that any lady on whom Shani will have his eye on will start to suffer from bad luck and all her good qualities will start degrading and this is the main reason why women are prohibited from visiting Shani Shingnapur temple but to ensure equality to both, even men were not allowed to enter the area around the main shrine from 2009. So, there was no question of discrimination based on gender as the hype has been created by anti-Hindu establishments.
Sabarimala temple:
Now, let me come on the case of Sabarimala temple where women from age of 10-50 are not allowed to enter. To be more accurate, to enter the temple a 41 day purification routine is followed which, due to biological structure of females, can’t be followed by them that is why they are denied entry. Even men who don’t follow the 41 day purification can’t enter. So, this case is also not the case of discrimination, as preached by pro-western and anti-Hindu establishments.
Same can be said for a few other temples which have these kinds of restrictions because if Hinduism has to discriminate women entry, it would have been banned for all temples not just some of them. Few temples have restrictions due to their peculiarity and these restrictions cannot be stated as discrimination.
And now, if someone wants to postmortem the views of Shankaracharya on these issues, must know that in Hinduism we don’t have the concept of prophets whom we blindly follow and Sarupanand is making nonsense statements just to be in news which has nothing related to Hinduism in it.
~ Dharamkriti Kumar
