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Democracy
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May 11, 2012 4:21 am
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After Kuwait, Iraq , Afganistan and Libya , Democarcy is about to land in Iran. In India , it is descending in the jungles of Bastar. welcome HER with open arms.
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Saree
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Mar 5, 2012 7:39 am
230 Views
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http://indianfriendfinder.com=1585
Political Economy of the Saree
Author(s) : Singh
This article is an unusual and sharp critique of the Indian Saree as a garment that is intrinsically designed to enhance women’s vulnerability. We realise that some may find this view of the saree controversial and provocative. We welcome your comments and responses. -- Editor
A dress is not merely a simple piece of cloth or a medium for saving oneself from the vagaries of the weather; it connotes much more than that. It is a medium for exercising power and control. It is important to keep this in mind while discussing the saree.
How should we judge any type of dress, or for that matter any other thing, idea or institution? There should be some objective and pragmatic criteria. If we have to judge anything objectively, we have to keep our emotions aside (but keep in mind that the “Personal is Political”) and judge on the basis of pragmatic criteria.
1) For a common person, the first and foremost criterion for judging any dress is its economy. This is especially true in a country like India where, as per report of a panel appointed by the Government of India, 77% of India’s population lives cannot afford to spend more than Rs 20 per day per person. The saree fails miserably on this criterion. Wrapping of a saree generally takes 6 meters; 2.5 meters cloth is required for petticoat and minimum one meter for blouse. The total comes to 10.5 meters which is more than cloth used in making two salwar-suits or pant-shirts. Thus, the/a saree is heavy on the already empty purse of the average poor Indian.
2) Clothes are worn to protect us from the vagaries of weather. But a saree does not serve this purpose, especially in case of cold. In the dominant version of the saree, a large portion of the body, including abdomen and arms, remains uncovered. Not only does it not protect the wearer from cold, it is an obstacle in wearing other clothes which may do so.
3) A dress should be made in such a way that any person, including someone who has never worn it before, would know how to wear it - on which part of the body, which part is lower and which is upper. This is true of most daily-use outfits, like salwar, trousers, shorts, shirt, pyjama, etcetera. No one can wear a pyjama on the torso or wear upper side of it below. But can we say the same thing about the saree? Can a lay person tell which is the upper part and which is the lower part of the saree? Can one say from where to start putting it on? Actually it is not worn, it is draped.
4) A dress should be such that one can wear it easily and quickly. During my training as a police officer, there used to be alarm parades. In the dead of night there would be a shrill whistle or loud banging of a metal bell and we would have to wake up, dress fully and correctly and gather in the ground in front of the mess within five minutes. And believe me, almost all of us, except one or two sloths, used to come fully and correctly dressed. Keeping in mind that the dress of a police officer is quite complicated, containing a lot of items ranging from long shoes, socks to cap but also a lot of ornamental things like stars, badges, lanyard, name-plates, etc. However, each and every item has a fixed place where it should be worn, it cannot be put anywhere else and all are easy to wear. Most officers can therefore wear these, otherwise cumbersome-looking dress items in five minutes flat. But there are very few women who can wear a saree perfectly in five minutes.
5) Learning how to wear a dress should not require any special coaching or training. Are there coaching classes to train you to wear pants, trousers, shirts and salwars? When we were 2-3 years old, our mothers simply gave 5-6 demonstrations of locking the buttons and hooks. or tying the nada and thereafter, we would know how to do it ourselves. What type of dress requires that even an adult should need to learn how to wear it for a period of at least one to two months, and even then cannot be sure of wearing it correctly and perfectly? Not only that, more often than not, the wearer has to take the help of another person to wear the saree. In this matter the nearest item of attire to the saree is the tie, but it is not a major item of clothing but an accessory which is not worn everyday but occasionally.
6) Clothes should be such that the wearer wears them and can forget the mechanics. He or she must not have to care about every detail of how the clothes hang on the body. But can this be said about a saree? A woman wearing a saree has to be very careful all the time lest the saree fall get caught or get entangled or even get unwrapped and embarrass her.
7) A dress should be such that it gives the wearer the liberty to do his or her job freely. But instead of being able to work freely, a woman wearing a normal saree cannot even walk with ease. That is why most working women, mainly those engaged in manual labour, have either said goodbye to the saree or have modified it to such an extent that it can hardly be called a saree. In brief, a saree is not a functional dress.
 In case of any emergency one’s clothing should be an asset and not a liability or a burden which further increases dangers. But the saree, in case of any emergency, proves to be a heavy stone tied around a woman’s neck. Think about two women, one wearing a saree and another a salwar kameez or pant-shirt, being chased by a ferocious dog or bull? In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, during flood and capsizing of boats, many women wearing a saree, who would otherwise survive, die. They are drowned simply because the saree makes it very difficult to swim or stay afloat.
9) One of the main issues faced by women in this highly patriarchal society is the danger of sexual harassment and . In the case of an attack, a saree becomes an obstacle that impedes fleeing the assailant. Not only that, it becomes a tool in the hands of the in facilitating the . Most women, especially those in villages, do not wear any under garment. So, the only thing the has to do is to pick the petticoat. More often than not, use the same petticoat to cover the face of the woman so that she cannot easily recognize the culprit. They also often gag her with the pallu (hem) of her saree so that she cannot shout. Though a woman in salwar kameez or pant shirt may also be , she is in a better position to put up resistance because she can run away and escape more easily. The has to untie nada (trouser-string) or unhook and unzip the pant of the victim. By the time he does this, there are better chances of someone coming along and rescuing the victim. He has nothing to cover the face of his victim or gag her unless he comes prepared, which often, is not the case. Thus a woman in saree is much easier. Rather, it would not be wrong to say that the saree facilitates .
10) Besides these emergencies, there is an increase in the occurrence of accidents. A dress should be such that it prevents accidents. But the saree is a dress with maximum capabilities and chances of accidents. Every day, there is news of sarees catching fire and women getting burnt. Cases of women falling due to the saree they’re wearing, especially while boarding a bus or a train or climbing stairs. There are a lot of cases of accidental strangulations especially those of pillion riders on two-wheelers. In year 2008 Kerala High Court advised the State government to impose a ban on women wearing sarees riding pillion on the back of motor bikes. The Centre was asked to see if it could amend the Motor Vehicles Act in this regard. Both?? the governments had to reply to the court within six weeks. A division bench comprising Justice CN Ramachandran Nair and Justice VK Mohanan, while hearing an appeal for higher compensation by an accident victim, Susamma Thomas from Kollam, observed that women pillion riders who sit sideways are more prone to falls when the two-wheelers twisted and turned on pothole-infested roads. This posture increases the risk of accidents. Here it is the saree which is preventing women to sit properly on two wheelers.
11) The washing, ironing, even folding and keeping in ward-robe of sarees is much more complicated in comparison to most other clothes like pants, shirt, salwar, kameez, shorts, jeans etc.
12) Clothes should be body-friendly and should save us from diseases. But the case is just opposite with a saree. Not only is the saree unfriendly to the body, especially skin, but it also gives rise to many diseases. According to a study conducted by Dr. Shabana and Dr.Anandan, Department of Dermatology and STD, Sri Ramchandra Medical College and Research Institute, Chennai, it is debatable whether the saree is an ideal outfit for Indian climate. To make matters worse, women wear a skirt underneath fastened securely to the waist by a cord. Various dermatoses like allergic and non-allergic contact dermatitis and dermatophytosis are more common in body folds especially when associated with increased sweating. These tight garments induce various dermatoses along the waist in females. This is often aggravated by the hot and humid climate of certain areas. The presence of skin lesions along the waistline in 140 female patients was recorded. Surprisingly, they found that most of them had some lesions over the waist, but only few of them accepted the fact. They have accepted these skin diseases as ‘normal’. This risk increases when the sarees are made of synthetic material or silk.
13) Clothes should be a means of increasing a woman’s freedom and not her restrictions and bondage. But patriarchy uses the saree for restricting the movement of women. To quote an observation from a study conducted by Susan Seymour:“... Only as they approached puberty and were encouraged to wear a saree did their behaviour begin to change. The saree tends to inhibit running around and childish antics and simultaneously symbolizes adulthood.”
14) Lastly, one of the main reasons why people wear clothes is to protect their modesty. The saree fails abysmally in doing that. The Saree in its most popular forms reveals more than it covers. So called supporters of Indian culture and staunch opponents of the skirt need to recall that the skirt only shows the legs while a saree shows the second most private parts - belly and navel.
Surprisingly, the strongest point in favor of the saree, as reported mainly by men but women as well, is that a woman in a saree looks more attractive, presentable and beautiful. More often than not, -- in place of falling into these ‘niceties’ men often straightforwardly say ‘SEXY’ .Thus in a saree, a woman is an object of desire, a thing to be presented seductively to men. But even this perception of women looking sexy in a saree is only a half truth. In a saree a woman looks older than her actual age. It is also clear from the label of ‘Girlish’ given to women wearing a trouser-shirt, jeans,T-shirt and salwar kameez on the one hand and ‘Womanish’ to those wearing a saree on other. And who can deny how obscene even a slightly over-weight woman looks in a saree? Patriarchy not only subordinates women, it creates and upholds a whole structure for sustenance of that structure. As mentioned earlier, this subordination takes various shapes - discrimination, violence, oppression, exploitation, control and insult. And strangely the saree contains all these elements of subordination in varying degree, some in lesser and some in greater quantity. Thus the saree is one of the most perfect and successful tools of patriarchy. Michel Foucault once said that the ultimate form of power is exercised when the one upon whom the power is being used does not even realize it. It seems that in the act of wearing the saree, this has happened with women in India.
Posted on February 28, 2012
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An American pilot bragging about the "joys" of napalm bombs
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Feb 11, 2012 9:29 am
327 Views
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An American pilot bragging about the "joys" of napalm bombs (used extensively during the Vietnam War):
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We sure are pleased with those backroom boys at Dow ... The original product wasn't so hot: if the gooks were quick they could scrape it off; so the boys started adding polystyrene — now it sticks like shit to a blanket ... But then if the gooks jumped under water it stopped burning, ... so they started adding ‘Willie Peter’ -- [i.e. white phosphorous] -- so's to make it burn better. It'll even burn under water now! And just one drop is enough, it'll keep on burning right down to the bone, so they die from phosphorous poisoning, anyway!
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