A couple of years back the Tamil actress Khushboo gave an interview to a magazine saying that modern males should not expect future brides to be always virgins. Consenting adults may live together without formalizing. This was translated and published in Tamil papers insinuating enough. Some Hindu zealots and obscurantists took it upon themselves to organise loud protests and also filed more than 2 dozen criminal complaints in that many locations and courts saying that the actress has committed the offence of hurting the sentiments of Hindus and their traditions.. Khushboo appealed to HC to squash the cases but the HC did not accept it but compounded all cases into one to be heard at Chennai. She appealed to the SC against the HC verdict. The case came before a 3 judge bench a few weeks back. During the arguments the judges asked the complainants several quarries about the law stating that Khushboo’s utterances were criminal. They had no answer except repeating that they are against our traditions. This prompted one judge to observe that the relationship between Radha & Krishna also is in our tradition. One an obscurantist reader outraged by the observations wrote in two papers vilifying the judges as ignorants and they should not have made any observation on the divine relations between Radha and Krishna that hurt the religious sentiments of people. Still this guy did not say that Radha and Krishna were married. Finally a few days back the verdict was pronounced conveying that the complaints are too frivolous and should not have been admitted by the lower courts.I know about Radha Krishna from several sources including that of Gita Govindam. There is no Gopi named Radha in Harivamsam and Bhagavata Puranam where Krishna’s childhood plays are detailed. Harivamsam is part of Mahabharata and I did read it twice. I had no opportunity to read the second but know very well the stories from Narayaneeyam by Melpathur Narayana Bhatathiripad. It is a concise version of Bhagavatam without omitting any parts of the stories. Reading the introduction to Gita Govindam I found that the Radha Krishna story is from Brahma Vaivartha Puranam. I went on to the web and a number of portals that give info on Puranas.
Some recent developments here make me concerned about our future. The issue of Khap Panchayat role in choosing partners by its members was debated in NDTV. There were a couple of people vehemently asserting the Khap’s right to enforcing its rules even to the extend of murdering the young ones. Strangly there was a mother daughter duo both literate enough defending the Khap actions. The political and police authorities are also hand in glove with this criminal Khaps in Hariyana, Panjab, Rajastan and many more Northern states. All newspapers called for action against the Khaps but so far no Govt. authority has come forward to initiate any action. If this goes like this, Khaps will dictate rules tomorrow.
Another development is that of including caste in the coming census count on the violent demands of the Yadav trio: Lalu, Mulayam & Sharad of RJD, SP & JD(U). Caste counting was discontinued since Independence. The leaders heading the national struggle wanted to ensure a caste less society in India. However as the years passed new forces have come forward vitiating the national consensus. At first it was the RSS inspired parties then the regional parties and again caste based parties today. Today almost everyone understands that national politics are fragmented among all these groups. The caste count will only encourage more divisions in the country. Muslims have expressed their demand to have separate representation in legislatures an old forgotten demand of the defunct Indian Muslim League. No one is farsighted enough to foresee the outcome of all these divisive forces. Politicians and even many intellectuals are seemed shortsighted as of now.
By
K.N.Krishnan
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