Saturday, 9 April 2016

Dress codes and sandwiches......... National Law School........




NLS prof slut-shaming student in shorts is not surprising: It shows how India's premier law school behaves like a khap panchayats.

http://www.firstpost.com/india/nls-prof-slut-shaming-student-in-shorts-is-not-surprising-it-shows-how-indias-premier-law-school-behaves-like-a-khap-panchayat-2720450.html

On seeing the girl wearing shorts in her class, the professor chose to make this sartorial choice an issue of sexuality saying: "We all know why parents marry their children off - so that they can have sex. Just because the parents marry off their children for this reason, it does not mean that the children have sex in front of their parents." When the student in question objected to this statement the professor is reported to have shot back "You can come to class without a dress also. That is how your character is, I'm going to ignore you".


I have seen this kind of behavior by faculty in some of the colleges I teach. However this so called problem has been got around by having a dress code. However the fact remains that the generation gap is too wide to be bridged. Girls have come to me with dress issues along with related problems as I was also looking after their personal welfare.


The older generation tends to forget that civilization and social conditions cannot remain static, they are constantly evolving. Basically its a question of Social, Cultural and religious bindings experienced by the older generation which cannot view their off springs breaking out of these. Our perception of something determines how we relate to that thing. It is a subjective experience of something hence there is no right or wrong nor can we correct our perception. “Our Perceptions build maps in our heads: What things are or realities. What things should be – Our values. We interpret everything we experience through these mental maps without questioning their accuracy”.


The myriad of experiences one grows through, may they be religious, cultural, social and many others jell into ones nature and behavior patterns and finally contribute to our glasses of perceptions as to how the world is (our world view) and then maybe how it should be. One can understand the above as “Perceptual Restraints”. To further explain “Restraints”. If you go to an Indian village, you will often find a bull tethered with a long rope to a stake dug into the ground. Now as far as the bull is concerned, his reality is only a circle, radius of that circle being the length of the rope he is tied by. Since the bull's experience is limited to that circle, the bull is unaware of the rivers, the oceans and the mountains and the world which exists beyond that circle. This is a classic case of a "Perceptual Restraint". The restraint in this case being the length of the rope.


If in the same village a foreigner, a girl, enters wearing shorts, the villagers might stone her, or hand her over to the police for indecency. The villagers cannot accept this clothing because they are experiencing a cultural restraint, although by no means it will be called indecent in her country.


The older generation tends to forget that man evolved from an ape, evolution is a constant change and asking the present generation to emulate their times aka 50's or 60's vintage behaviors, is like going back from Man to monkey, a kind of reverse evolution.


During my interaction with parents, I ask them to imagine that say in 400-500 years what would be the scene. Earth cannot sustain this booming population. Most probably civilization would have evolved to a central earth government. Their would be no such thing as marriage and families, as earth would be one extended family. The limited resources will be diligently governed and allotted by the state. The state after due genetic testing will most likely send a male and a female to live together for some period to mate and produce off spring and return to their respective places of work. The off spring male or female would go into state care, to be genetically tested for special qualities and propensity towards specific activities, there after the child would be educated and trained accordingly.


In this kind of scenario which we are fast approaching, where would you be with your unhappiness of girls wearing shorts and having living in relationships? It is no longer a question of control verses freedom. Its a question of evolution of coming generations to a certain level which would be required for mankind to sustain itself on this Earth. Here we tend to mix up social, religious and cultural bindings with values, as discussed earlier. In India we are extremely, very extremely if I can use that expression, far away from these realities I have discussed above. In fact if one of our local moral brigades read this may be I will be stoned on the streets of Pune.


It is time to understand where civilization is heading towards. It is also time to understand that every soul or the inner self has a right to undergo certain experiences which will help it to evolve as our creator planned. Why do people want to deprive evolving souls their experiences of being earthly beings?
Its time for a fundamental change in our Thinking, Emotions and Behavior patterns or the older generation is doomed.





No comments: