Countering Modern Critiques of Classics

FAITHLINE

- RENUKA NARAYANAN

My thoughts have been very much with our epics this week and I would like to share my understanding of a few epic incidents that I feel have been wrongly critiqued in modern India. My point is that if you put things through an ideological filter—through a sausage machine, in fact—you’ll only get sausages bereft of actual context and facts.

Let us take the case of Surpanakha. Over the years, I have watched attempts to portray her as “a victim of patriarchy” and “a woman wrongfully denied her right to desire,” “an outright case of misogyny,” and “what does the cutting off of her nose tell you about ‘heroic’ men?” I found such interpretations to be most unconvincing, and they grew boring because they did not acknowledge the facts of the case on the ground.

I fail to understand how anyone could want to valorize Surpanakha, who tried to destroy Sita because she wanted Sita’s men. She rushed at Sita to kill her, to get rid of her so that the obstacle to her want—or so she illogically thought—could be removed. She was struck to stop her mad rush. Wrong is plainly wrong in her case, and these ‘modern’ attempts to legitimize her simply do not cut the mustard.