Vandana Singh comments : Wow! A witty, original, profound piece. Yes, we need to challenge as well as respect the ancient seers of our culture. I hope you get a reply to your letter! Thank you, Mamata!
Nilima Rao comments : How much of it is relevent today? That was then :) We have moved on, haven't we?
It does not take much to rave and rant against men who lived in a distant age, whose views appear today to be anachronistic. The fact is, men like Manu and Kautilya are not unidimensional. Some of their utterances are to our 'modern' sensibilities utterly nonsensical and unjust. At the same time, they also have to their credit ideas that are insightful, transcendental and pregnant with wisdom. Neither Manu nor Kautilya wields much influence in shaping contemporary Indian character. Sometimes T-W-O wishes that India would indeed take a lesson or two from Kautilya but that is another topic.
If Ms Misra really wants to be constructive and inspire she ought to look at some other figures in ancient Indian history. How about Gargi the philosopheress from the Upanishads who discoursed with men on equal footing on weighty matters? What about Draupadi, another strong ancient Indian woman? And who can forget Savithri, that paragon of tenacity, strength and wifely loyalty who would not take no for an answer from the powerful Yama (male)? Why can't the likes of Ms Misra focus on these powerful symbols of our culture instead of tilting at windmills fueled by the well-worn rave-and-rant lust of the garden variety feminist?
T-W-O
Meenakshi comments : I found Mamata's article interesting because it just goes to show that the (harmful) conditioning and beliefs some of which persist even today has its roots that extend to several centuries and in the words of wise men hailing from a period of time very distant from today. The fact that they were spoken and written by men who displayed great wisdom in other fields is what made them important despite so many holes in them and their 'personal' prejudices and beliefs have been carried forward for ages. Lots of time and effort by several men and women had to be expended to bring about changes in those beliefs. In that sense, the wise men and women in every age have a responsibility in using their wisdom. The other lesson to learn here is that what we (as collective group and society) do and practice today is what becomes tradition and conditioned thinking with the next generation. Hence it is up to us to ensure that sensible practices and thoughts prevail through our actions and words of today.
But the moral of the story is - The wise ones are capable of saying some really dumb things.
Mamata, thanks for a thought provoking article.
Meenakshi
Jitendra Rajpurkar comments : This is really great article I had came across in last decade. Chankyas as a writer has left very great inheritence to us, just try to understand his viewpoint. Dont ignore this suggestion as just another male point of view, I would like to read your work, pls passon references on my ID.
Jai Gurudev.
Deepti comments : As a writer, I really admire the way you have written the letter and sprinkled it with the shlokas to prove your point. It is very witty and heart wrenching at the same time. There were a few points where I really agreed with you whole heartedly and some where I disagreed with you wholly. Chanakya was sure a very wise man, but sometimes even the wisest men may have to eat their words. On the whole, a very nice article.
Shakti comments : I fail to understand your intentions in writing this article. I would prefer to keep my thoughts about this to myself till I have clarified *why* in the first place you chose to write and "open letter" to a dead man? I read this, "...But I have problems with some of your work and that is the focus of this letter. I must point out that some of the statements about my gender in your neeti seem far-fetched, unrealistic, and inconsistent, quite a contrast to the rest of your work.. But what really bothers me is how these twenty-five-centuries-old attitudes toward my gender are still lurking around in our society. So I challenge you to come back to earth, and this time, please take a female form so that you can take a fresh new look at a few of your shlokas from a different perspective and create a revised edition." But (at least without your additional comments) it does not make sense to me. Why challenge a dead man who cannot read a webpage :) to be reborn and revise :). What exactly were your intentions? with this clarified, I would like to comment on your article.
Ashlesha comments : This article is very good for reading and to debate, but of no use. It seems the writer has published this for the sake of publicity. We should take & florish good things from our acienters and drop the bad ones. Such articles should be discouraged.
Anurag Shukla comments : I find this article mediocre. There is no need at all to write this article. Chanakya wrote those 25 centuries ago and we are 25 centuries later. He moved on and became a name in the history, but from this article I see that some of us are having trouble moving on. This also shows that the author does not believe in her own conscience and acumen to choose what to learn, imbibe and practice. Those shlokas are just shlokas and we should use our own volition to pick the suitable learnings. This article would have made some sense, if the author has cited present day examples of such learnings and discuss them and then citing Chanakya as one of the cause of such behavior. On the positive side, the article is well researched, though there is a room for improvement in prose.
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