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Mohenjodaro’s Dancing Girl


The Dancing Girl of Mohenjodaro looks only about 15 years old. But there she stands, apparently in front of many people including elders, “looking perfectly confident of herself and the world,” in the words of British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler. John Marshall, the archaeologist who announced the discovery of the statuette in 1926, was struck by the “half-impudent posture” of the young girl. He just couldn’t believe that the statuette belonged to the period of 2300-1750 BCE. Was she really dancing? No one is sure. “She was good at what she did and she knew it,” says archaeologist Gregory Possehl.

Today, some 4000 years after that Dancing Girl was carved in bronze by an artist living in Mohenjodaro, the status of women in society deserves a probe. I would like to look at it just from two angles.

One is the Sabarimala issue that rocked Kerala three years ago. According to tradition, women in the menstruating age-group are not allowed to visit the Sabarimala temple since the presiding deity there is a confirmed bachelor. Well, let us not divert from the current issue by apparently blasphemous questions like whether gods are worse than men when it comes to feminine temptations.

The Hindu right wing in Kerala, including thousands of women, came out on to streets in loud protests against the judicial decision to let women enter the bachelor god’s temple. A few women did enter too. Nothing apparently happened to the god’s chastity because the women entered his chaste premises. But the right wing was appalled by the potential threat posed by women to their god. In the end, the verdict to liberate god Ayyappan from a silly tradition was revoked. Women continue to be banned from Sabarimala. And the women themselves asked for it!

Mohenjodaro’s dancing girl must have snickered.

The second example I would like to present is a more recent one. The hijab issue that raged in Karnataka. The same people (belonging to the same religion, I mean) who wanted to keep women out of a temple now wanted women of another religion to unveil their heads. Muslim women should not use the hijab in certain places like college campuses. Who decides? The same people whose concern for their god’s chastity kept women out of a temple altogether!

Obviously, it’s not about the hijab. It’s about political hegemony. One group is trying to show the other who the Master really is in this country.

Now let’s look at this hijab issue from the other side. Why would Muslim women insist on wearing that headgear in a place like India where the weather conditions don’t require such a dress at all. Forget the weather, why would the women want to restrict their freedom by putting blinkers on like horses?

In both cases mentioned here, I think the women defeated themselves out of certain rather witless political motives. Mohenjodaro’s dancing girl was far more advanced in her thinking.

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Comments

  1. Afshan ShaikApril 15, 2022 at 9:33 AM

    theres a scene in a movie called my name is khan where a womans hijab is forcibly removed, from then she stops wearing but that is in USA and after WTC tragedy (the premise in movie). However in India it feels like these are all sudden baseless uproars and yes women and the whole community fell in to the trap neatly and issue got blown out of proportions. I also wrote a post about general situation in India - mine may not be strong and outright frank like urs ...but tried something. May be I will post in last leg of challenge . Yes MOHENJODARO times were better

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 15, 2022 at 5:01 PM

      I watched that movie when it was released and liked it too though I don't remember that scene you mention. My personal view is that religions should constantly update themselves. Christianity calls that concept aggiornamento. Islam has much to change in itself. Unfortunately Hinduism today is following Islam in this and a few other regards. As a writer said, we become like our enemies.

      Delete
    2. Afshan ShaikApril 15, 2022 at 8:12 PM

      Yes Islam does need some upgrade. Even if i agree that there are some who r oppressed ..this is a huge topic to be not discussed in comments..your last statement is quite confusing ...anyway glad to know your thoughts :)

      Delete
    3. Tomichan MatheikalApril 15, 2022 at 9:12 PM

      Yes, it tales more space and time. Actually all religious reforms should come from within the religion itself. That is, only a Hindu can reform Hinduism and a Muslim can reform Islam. People like me can only suggest, rather futilely, from outside.

      Delete
  2. SinjanaApril 15, 2022 at 11:50 AM

    Such a well-observed piece. It's true that women often become the flagbearers of patriarchy for political ideas coming out of some men.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 15, 2022 at 5:03 PM

      Probably the mindset is a habit and hence women find it impossible to question their men. There are a few who do question the wrongs but they are too few.

      Delete
  3. Yamini MacLeanApril 15, 2022 at 12:03 PM

    Hari OM
    Well, apart from the obvious judgement that male archaeologists have placed their own p.o.v. on what they see in this statue, with no basis whatsoever for understanding what any junior lady of the time may have had to endure... I know Muslim ladies who by choice wear the hijab (which does not have 'blinkers' - the full face covering is the niqab) because this is what they wish to do with reflection on their own spiritual path. I also know some who choose not to cover their head. Fortunately they are both in societies (UK and OZ) where the choice is theirs entirely. Problems only arise where others, as you mention here, try to make decisions on somebody elses behalf, for whatever agenda. Women are now and have ever been pawns to power. No matter how 'advanced' we believe ourselves to have become, society still keeps this divide and, as you say, all too often women themselves create the issue! YAM xx
    M=Messiah

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    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 15, 2022 at 5:06 PM

      I took the Dancing Girl as a symbol and the views of the archaeologists mentioned here as the interpretations of that symbol. Symbols are not to be taken literally. They are metaphors. We don't know what the sculptor of that statuette meant. We give the meanings...

      I teach quite many Muslim students and there are more girls than boys among them. Many of these girls would be happier without the hijab that is forced on them by their system. That's the impression I have gathered. There are many who keep it just because it has become a kind of identity mark. Self-inflicted stigma?

      Delete
  4. Chinmayee Gayatree SahuApril 15, 2022 at 4:26 PM

    I loved how you analysed the Hijab controversy from both the angles. I completely agree, women in the past had better life and probably understood liberation in its true sense. The situation today is worsening every single day!

    Chinmayee Gayatree Sahu.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 15, 2022 at 5:08 PM

      Unless the women themselves come forward against the oppressions and restrictions imposed on them, there is no hope for a meaningful change. Nothing can be done when the majority of any community choose slavery upon themselves.

      Delete
  5. Anagha YatinApril 15, 2022 at 9:05 PM

    More than women pitted against women I see it as the clash of the values. India thakfully being a country where everyone can exercise their own choice, has dozens of the mindsets. These mindsets encompass a huge specturm. The far right and the far left being the two ends of it. However there are many like me who believe in live and let live, find these clashes very disturbing. Nothing except destruction comes of violence, isnt it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 15, 2022 at 9:08 PM

      Violence is the savage way of solving problems. Nothing good comes of it in the end.

      I didn't say it's an instance of women pitted against women. It's women capitulating to the systems made by men.

      Delete
  6. Harshita NandaApril 16, 2022 at 7:39 PM

    I read your post, and the comments that followed. I do get your viewpoint in taking Mohenjodaro's dancing girl as a metaphor.
    I read one of my children's books ages ago, and in it for the Gupta period it was mentioned that women had started facing restrictions. So women being crushed under patriarchy has a long history in India (and in fact rest of the world too).
    The only way the country can get out of this quagmire is to restrict religion ( and I mean all religions) to home. Religion should not invade public spaces, at all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 17, 2022 at 11:54 AM

      I endorse your view on religion totally. Religion should be a personal affair, practised at home in one's private spaces. But now we have a Prime Minister who openly performs pujas and other rituals in temples and denigrates other faiths.

      Delete
  7. BrindaApril 18, 2022 at 10:04 PM

    Extremism in any form is unhealthy and people suffer. End of story.

    ReplyDelete

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