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The Eyes have it (Sujatha)

She gazes out at you, eyes defiant, yet vulnerable. The face is a beautiful one, but hardly conventional, framed by carefully styled thick black hair, draped in a thick purple scarf. She has lost her nose, with a triangular hole framed by scarred flesh around it. It's a striking image that will stop any casual peruser of magazines in their tracks, emphasizing the accompanying headline of "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan".

Time We learn of the atrocity perpetrated on her by her own husband and in-laws, following the cruel dictates of a Taliban court which judged her a 'loose woman' for having run away to escape the cruelty. The punishment meted out is highlighted in many, many media sources as being born of the dictates of Islam and the extreme version adhered to by the Taliban.

We must stay there, the articles imply, in order to bring the light of civilization to the terrible lives of women there.

And yet, I wonder whether it is as simple a solution as dragging them from the past of extreme privation and humiliation into a present where men still call the shots and wield the knives.

Face mutilation as punishment for crimes real or perceived isn't unique to Afghan culture. It was a punishment so frequently used in many other cultures. In ancient India, for instance, it was so commonplace as a punishment for transgressions as to spawn the first nose reconstruction surgery techniques.

In the Ramayana, the demoness Shurpanakha ( of the 'sharp nails') is 'punished' for daring to have been forward enough to declare her desire for Rama, then Lakshmana, then attacking Sita in a fit of rage brought on by the rejection by both men. Her nose and ears, having been cut off by Lakshmana, now become a focal point of revenge in the story, as she complains to her brother Ravana, the powerful king of Lanka, and leads the story forward, causing the kidnapping of Sita, and eventually a war of retribution upon Lanka.

Did her eyes burn with the light of anger, pain and humiliation?  Indian readers casually accept her disfigurement as the wages of her crimes, praising Rama as the acme of Man for all his accomplishments, even the not-so-savory ones.

The dissonance is terrifying, even as the clamour of the Hindu fundamentalist crowd in India to reinstate Rama Rajya grows, similar to the rapture-ready ravings of the Talibornagain in the U.S, or the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Religion may triumph, but the women will definitely lose.

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4 responses to “The Eyes have it (Sujatha)”

  1. Ruchira

    This horrible torture / tragedy will take place whether or not the US troops stay in or leave Afghanistan. Entire male dominated cultures of spurious female purity and obedience have to be uprooted and reinvented. Brides are still burnt in a relatively open and economically upwardly mobile country like India. Acid is thrown in the faces of young women all over the subcontinent when the uninvited advances of a man are spurned.
    In a way, the Time cover seems to be a bit of a blackmail. Something like saying to the war-wary American public, “If you don’t support the war in Afghanistan, more women are going to suffer the same fate.”
    Not true. This will keep happening until Afghans themselves begin to find the practice abhorrent.

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  2. Sujatha

    That’s definitely the issue with practices embedded in societies for eons. The Times magazine, is trying to reframe the question as how far Afghans will regress, if the US troops are removed from there.
    They wouldn’t like to point out how the gains made for women’s rights even as the Soviets exercised control were totally wiped out by a Taliban resurgence funded in large part by the US in the 1980’s (Operation Cyclone anyone?)

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  3. R.Muthiah

    Dear Friends,
    Kindly don’t cofuse the Kuravan and Narikoravas. Those are entirely differend kind of culture and habits. Narikoravas are coming from North India to Tamil nadu state. Those mother tongue not in Tamil. Now a days spread in all over Tamil nadu.
    But Kuravan community mentioned in Tamil literatures like purananuru, Agananuru, Ingurunuru, silappathikaram, Kuravanchi etc,. Now Kuravan community spread all over Tamilnadu and south India. Especially more peoples are living western Ghats regions and soroundings. Kuravan community are called with different names in different parts of South India. They are called as Kuruvan or Kuruvar in Tamilnadu, Korama or Koracha in Karnataka, Kaikadi in Maharashtra, Siddanar in Kerala and Kattu Naicker in Pondicherry. In essence, all these communities form a great big community from south india. The gothras among all these communities is the same, i.e Kavadi, Sathupadi, Maanupadi and Mendraguthi.
    Prior to the British colonial rule, all these Kuruvan or Kuruvar, Korama or Koracha, Kaikadi, Siddanar and Kattu Naicker communities were part of that great big Kuravan community since there were no real boundaries in India at that time. People from these communities used to roam around freely for their trading purposes. The splitting of this great community into numerous small communities is attributed to the Indian Caste System and the subsequenct maximum utlization of Indian Caste System evils by the British Divide and Rule Policy. The Indian Independence and the subsequent formation of states based on languages like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam has split this community permanently. The people from this community in each state got their own identity and lost the relations with their brethren.
    Regards,
    R.Muthiah

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  4. Sujatha

    R.Muthiah, thanks for the primer on the difference between Kuravar and Narikoravas. I wasn’t aware of the niceties, as they were jumbled up as synonymous in my mind.
    I assume you meant to comment on my ‘Travelling in Translation’ post :)

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