OUR UNFORTUNATE SISTERS

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

OUR UNFORTUNATE SISTERS

 

 

Of all the addresses I received in the South the most touching was one on behalf of the Devadasis a euphemism for prostitutes. It was prepared and brought by people who belong to the clan from which these unfortunate sisters are drawn. I understood from the deputation that brought the address that reform from within was going on but that the rate of progress was still slow. The gentleman who led the deputation told me that the public in general was apathetic to the reform. The first shock I received was at Cocanada. And I did not mince matters when I spoke to the men of that place. The second was at Barisal where I met a large number of these unfortunate sisters. Whether they be known as Devadasis or by any other name, the problem is the same. It is a matter of bitter shame and sorrow, of deep humiliation, that a number of women have to sell their chastity for man’s lust. Man the law giver will have to pay a dreadful penalty for the degradation he had imposed upon the so-called weaker sex. When woman, freed from man’s snares, rises to the full height and rebels against man’s legislation and institutions designed by him, her rebellion, no doubt non-violent, will be none the less effective.

Let the Indian man ponder over the fate of the thousands of sisters who are destined to a life of shame for his unlawful and immoral indulgence. The pity of it is that the vast majorities of the men who visit these pestilential haunts are married men and, therefore, commit a double sin. They sin against their wives to whom they have sworn allegiance and they sin against the sisters whose purity they are bound to guard with as much jealousy as that of their own blood-sisters. It is an evil which cannot last for a single day, if we men of India realize our own dignity. If many of the most respectable among us were not steeped in the vice this kind of indulgence would be regarded as am greater crime than the stealing of a banana by a hungry man or the picking of a pocket by a youngster who is in need of money.

What is worse of more hurtful to society to steal property or to steal the honour of a woman? Let me not be told that the public woman is party to the sale of her honour, but not the millionaire on the racecourse whose pocket is picked by a professional pickpocket. Who is worse an urchin who picks a pocket or a scoundrel who drugs his victim and then makes him sign away the whole of his property? Does not mean by his subtle and unscrupulous ways first job woman of her noblest instinct and then make her partner in the crime committed against her? Or are some women, like Panchnama, born to a life of degradation? I ask every young man, married or unmarried, to contemplate the implications of what I have written. I cannot write all I have learnt about this social disease, this moral leprosy. Let his imagination fill in the rest and then let him recoil with horror and shame from the sin if he has himself been guilty of it. And let every pure man, wherever he is, do what he can to purify his neighborhood. I know that the second part is easier written than practiced. It is a delicate matter. But for its very delicacy, it demands the attention of all thoughtful men. Work among the unfortunate sisters must be left everywhere to experts. My suggestion has reference to work among the visitors to these houses of ill-fame.