NEW DELHI Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday called for shunning defensive mindsets western feminist concepts had imposed on the country about the way it treated women.
She cited examples from Vedic times to stress that India has always celebrated women and respect for women was a civilisational marker for us. “Celebration of women is a civilisational marker for us and we must talk about it in our terms and be proud to do that rather than try to fix it into some other template, and always find ourselves wanting in it,” the FM said.
She was speaking at the launch of an anthology RSS- linked Bharatiya Stree Shakti has produced on the role of women in India. Former ICCR chief and BJP leader Vinay Sahasrebuddhe’s wife Nayana Sahasrebuddhe has edited the work.
On the occasion, Nirmala said “Leftists of the world will tell us that we only look at a woman as a commodity and we don’t celebrate her”.
“What was Madhubani doing then?” she asked, referring to how North Bihar’s famed Madhubani art is all about the celebration of women, marriage, fertility and reproduction. She said it was not as though this celebration happened yesterday after the influence of Leftists.
“This happened over centuries. And there was no caste differentiation. The Madhubani painting is done by people belonging to the general caste, Dalits, everyone…,” the minister said adding that India celebrated women and their fertility as much as it celebrated women for their scholarship and courage.
She also challenged western feminist notions against marriage and said, “There cannot be a more man and woman friend-like treatment offered in any other marriage than in an Indian marriage. Look at the Saptapadi each mantra is about man woman equality. No better example than that,” she said.
Nirmala also said it was because of the superimposition of the so-called western feminism view that Indian terminologies had become influenced by them.