Who is afraid and ashamed of the Dehaati Aurat?
Some days ago, I came across the controversy over supposed remarks by the Pakistani Prime Minister about the Indian Prime Minister – that the latter was a “dehaati aurat” (literally a woman from the “countryside”/”village”/a specific zone of the Gangetic Valley). The journalist who apparently first made the remarks withdrew it or denied it [depending on your source], and neither would perhaps be surprising given the abysmal standards of journalism in the subcontinent where transnational point-scoring is concerned. But the merry drama over this dominated the media waves.
The political and diplomatic icons of both countries felt the need to deny that anything like this was ever uttered – thereby confirming that both sets of dignitaries and intellects deemed the phrase an insult and a denigration. Having thereby indirectly confirmed the “dehaati aurat”‘s status as a lowlife, the Indian regime spokespersons, Indian National Congress party apparatchiks and bureaucrats, were essentially of the same position as the one man they singularly target politically now – Narendra Modi of the BJP. The latter had taken the alleged remark as emblematic of the Pakistani attitude towards India.
Was Narendra Modi correct in his appraisal? Public domain extracts of his relevant speech seems to imply that he used the allegation as casting shadows on the weakness of image of the Indian PM – which makes the Pakistanis “dare” to say such things. If Modi was taking umbrage at the possible mindset that could lead a Pakistani to think that “dehaati aurat” is an insult, and it was the thinking behind the utterance of the phrase that was unacceptable – the intent to insult the Indian leader – then I find no fault in Modi’s speech.
If on the other hand, Modi was saying this by accepting that “dehaati aurat” is indeed insulting as an epithet, then he was wrong.
From what I have seen in the Indian doab and upper or middle Gangetic plains, the “dehaati” woman is one hell of a tough cookie. She is one not to cross the path of if she is defending her home, her children, her husband or father or brother, her honour and her rights. Even if she is often found to be illiterate or dirty (for no fault of her own and even there things are changing), here is one sample of womanhood we men (and even many women) have a lot to learn from in terms of honesty, loyalty, and dedication.
It is surprising that all the progressives of India, the left liberals, the Marxians, the pseudo-Marxians, the sophisticates of English language media, the fashionistas and tear-jerkers of sole-voices-for-oppressed-women-of-India – have not felt insulted that the “dehaati aurat” is used and acknowledged as a denigratory term, perhaps because the official self-proclaimed-secular-liberal parties themselves have de-facto admitted thinking so.
If the Pakistanis have even thought about calling Indian leadership as “dehaati aurat” as a lowlife, then it is not surprising from an Islamic mindset. Women and their sexual disposal in the hands of men are treated in their core text in a chapter entitled significantly as the “cow”. The various schools of sharia and hidaya make it amply clear, that women are for all practical purposes – chattel, the “mohar” or bride price having been explicitly stated by the Islamic law texts as the price for the “buza” or the vagina and associated private parts of the woman. This is then used to justify various clauses that give rights to the owner of that “property” to use-rights 24/7, 365 days a year, and rights ensuring proper implementation of such use-rights. This is not a joke, and is found actually stated in Islamic jurisprudence texts. From that viewpoint a Pakistani, supposedly the resident of a land created solely for the preservation of Islam from the big bad Hindu across the border – will think of the woman as milch and draught animal, to be traded, abducted, captured and used as cattle. [Something that the Pakistani muslims often practice apparently with state non-chalance, on Christian, Hindu and Sikh girls]. A dehaati or country woman therefore falls at the lowest of the pecking order within the domesticated herd.
But what drives the progressives of India that they did not come out in their droves to proudly wear the epithet of the “dehaati” woman?
My sincere apologies to the mother, sister, daughter of dehaat on behalf of the others for no one coming out to say that it is a matter of honour to be called a “dehaati aurat”.
Dikgaj's Weblog 
You are right. If only our PM could acquire the spine that a ‘dehati aurat’ possess, he could have rid himself of the dhimmi status that he is accused himself of. Even Nawaz Sharief can learn a thing or two from her.
At the same time we cannot take our eyes off from what people actually do. ‘Dehati aurat’ is the same as ‘Country cousin’ and in fact it works in the reverse direction also. The same Dehati aurat would tell her padosan, who she does not agree with ‘badi prime minister ban rahi hai’. There is an understated varna-karma factor in play too. People do understand that different people have been given different jobs. And our PM should normally not have been in the position where he is referred to in that manner.
If the underlying idea is that murti puja is only a ritual with nothing getting imbibed then even Maa Durga and Mata figures would invite only ridicule but if the rich heritage of feminine deities would strengthen any mans’ spine. So yes the so called modern world is indeed a conflicted mind.
NaMo too could have worded it all a little better. But then he oftentimes speaks extempore or at least without any script to rely on, and in such a case things do get left out at times.
ravi_g
October 14, 2013