Showing posts with label Gender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gender. Show all posts

Monday 6 February 2017

Blurring the gender boundaries

Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar’s film “The skin I live in” (2011) is inspired from the 1984 French novel "Tarantula" by Thierry Jonquet.


Almodovar is known for his complex themed films that remind me of complicated jigsaw puzzles where the things are never what they seem and a new surprise is just waiting for you at the next turn. His films also are about sexualities, especially alternate sexualities, and usually have a generous dose of shocking sex scenes. This film also follows these rules.

I have to confess that often Almodovar’s films make me squirm and feel embarrassed. There are times when I wish I could fast forward them.

Recently I watched “The skin I live in”. I found it deeply disturbing and provocative, forcing me to rethink on many issues.

Just a warning for those of you who have read so far – Almodovar specialises in being politically incorrect. Thus if you get easily excited or upset, you might not like to continue reading this. If long and crude sex scenes embarrass you, avoid this film. And finally, if you intend to watch this film, then be warned that this article contains a lot of spoilers.

STORY

Robert (Antonio Banderas) is a plastic surgeon. His wife was having an extra-marital affair with a man called Zeca. In a car accident, his wife had severe burns while Zeca manages to escape. Robert manages to save his wife but her face and body are severely disfigured. One day she sees herself in a mirror and disgusted, commits suicide.

Robert’s daughter Norma sees the suicide of her mother and becomes emotionally disturbed. She is admitted in a psychiatric hospital. One day when she is slightly better, Robert takes her to a party, where she meets a good looking young man called Vicente (Jan Cornet) and they go out in the park. Few minutes later, Robert worried about his daughter goes out to look for her and finds her unconscious. His daughter is in shock, is afraid of men and thinks that her father had raped her. Soon after, she commits suicide.

Robert kidnaps Vicente, keeps him as a prisoner, does surgery on him to remove his genitals, gives him female hormones to make him grow his breasts, gives him facial remodelling surgery to make him look like his dead wife and tortures him psychologically till Vicente agrees that he is now a woman called Vera (played by Elena Anaya).

Robert’s old time governess Marilia (Marisa Paredes) is the only one who knows about the existence of Vera and has some contact with her, though even she does not know that Vera was actually Vicente and was kidnapped. Vera is deeply unhappy and tries to commit suicide many times.

One day Marilia’s criminal son Zeca, who had had an affair with Robert’s wife, comes to meet his mother. When he sees Vera looking exactly like the woman who had died in the car fire, he ties his mother and enters Vera’s room and forces her into sex.

Robert comes home, sees Zeca in Vera’s room. He kills Zeca and throws his body in a swamp. However, seeing Zeca with his wife’s look alike Vera, reminds him of the past and he also seeks sex with Vera. (Image below: Zeca is surprised to see Vera's face)


Vera now starts acting like a woman, wins Robert’s confidence and then when he starts believing in her and is disarmed, kills him and Marilia.

Finally Vera can leave the prison created by Robert and go back to her family.

COMMENTS

I don’t think that it is useful to look for realism or believability in the plot, because that is not the point of the film. However, while you watch the film, it does manage to make it seem believable.

The film does not unfold in the way I have shared its story. It starts with Vera, a prisoner in Robert’s house, on whom he is experimenting a new kind of skin made from pig cells that is resistant to burns. The understanding that Vera is Vicente, comes after about 2/3rd of the film.

However, the film is very provocative and I would like to share some of the things it made me think about.

The punishment for rapists: I am against death penalty, because I don’t think that a state has to kill people like criminals and murderers do. However, for serial rapists and paedophiles targeting young children, I confess that I am in favour of surgical/chemical/hormonal castration.

The film shows a castration punishment given by a father to vindicate his daughter and I have to say it made me very uncomfortable. The film muddies the things about good and bad in different ways – first Vincent is shown as a good looking guy; secondly, he does not rape Robert’s daughter but their sexual encounter is only a misunderstanding because initially she is shown willing for sexual adventure and when she says that she does not want sex, Vicente leaves her. However, since the girl is mentally unstable and emotionally fragile, the whole episode has a big negative impact on her.

Thus, while I watched the film, I felt that castration was a disproportionate punishment for this guy. Perhaps, if the guy was shown as someone older and uglier and had actually raped the girl, perhaps I would have felt differently?

So the film did made me aware about our biases, in the sense that good looking young people are seen differently from older, uglier looking people. Norma's mental illness was another area of bias, it made me look differently at what happens to her in the film.

Identity and gender: The film is about cancellation of the gender identity of a person.

I have read a lot about transgender issues and I have met a few transgender persons. Often, their life stories are about their feelings from a very young age that they do not belong to the gender given to them at birth. They also talk of how this dissonance gives rise to suffering and they strive to look physically and become the gender they feel inside themselves. For this transformation they face society and family’s ire, undergo hormone therapy and surgery. Not everyone understands their desires and needs.

The film touches on these themes from another angle. A guy born in guy’s body and happy being a guy, is kidnapped and forced to undergo hormone therapy, surgery and psychological torture till he breaks down and accepts that he is a woman and is willing to accept sex as a woman. I think that it is much easier for people to understand his suffering. (Vicente in the image on the left)

So does the film help us to understand the sufferings felt by transgender persons by forcing us to look at it from another angle? I am not sure.

Sexuality as a learned behaviour: All the debates about gay and lesbian rights are based on the premise that it is natural to be heterosexual or homosexual, that we are born with our sexual orientation and it cannot be changed.

However the film touches on this issue in an ambiguous way. Vicente, the guy who is forced to change his body, face and voice to become a woman called Vera, does not like to be a woman sexually till Zeca forces him. After this episode, the depiction of Vicente changes in the film – he decides to use his female body to break away from the prison.

But is his sexual use of his female body just a ploy or is it because his gender lines are blurred and he starts feeling like a woman and likes the woman’s sexual role? The psychological change in Vera is shown by her immersion in yoga, both as an exercise for body postures as well as meditation to deal with her trauma - thus yoga is part of his femminisation exercise.

When the film ended, I was not sure if Vicente/Vera would continue to live like Vera or would like to go back to being Vicente (at least in clothes and behaviour, if not genitally) or may be both - be sometimes Vera and sometimes Vicente?

This confusion is reflected in deciding the pronoun to be used while talking about Vicente/Vera – are we talking of a He or a She and if there is blurred boundary between these two as well.

CONCLUSIONS

As I have written above, the film is very disturbing because it touches on taboo issues in an unconventional and politically incorrect way. Even after a few days of watching the film, I continue to think about certain aspects of this film.

If I watch it again, probably I would understand it better because knowing the backstory about Vicente’s kidnapping and forced surgery would give a different meaning to the whole first half of the film.

However, I don’t think that I am going to watch it again, though the film was premiered at Cannes festival in 2011 and it won different awards. Probably they did not find it as disturbing, as I did. Perhaps one can just watch it in a superficial way, as a horror film with surprises and twists in the plots without posing any of the questions I have posed above.

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Friday 25 November 2016

Traditional Transgender Communities in India

Indian parliament is debating a bill on the rights of transgender persons. In 2016 it is being discussed in Loksabha, the lower house of parliament. However, some groups of transgender persons (TGPs) are opposing parts of this bill, arguing that it will harm their rights.

Recently a press conference was organised in Delhi about the TG bill. Representatives of TGPs from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Puducherry, Haryana and Delhi were present. This article tries to understand their main concerns. (Below, an image from the press conference).

Before we talk about the concerns of traditional TGP communities in India, it is necessary to understand what kind of communities are these.

TRADITIONAL TRANSGENDER COMMUNITIES IN INDIA

Different sacred texts of Indic religions provide examples and stories of TGPs including the Ardhnarishwar avatar of Shiva, the Mohini avatar of Vishnu during the churning of oceans for the nectar of immortality and the episodes from Mahabharat where Arjun becomes a woman called Brihannala and the story of Irvan during the Kurukshetra war.

While ancient texts illustrate traditional attitudes and practices regarding gender and sexuality, societies do not always behave according to those ancient ideas. The attitudes towards TGPs in today's India include giving them specific social and cultural roles in circumscribed areas such as weddings, child-birth and traditional theatre, while at the same time excluding them from mainstream community lives. Some of them are sex workers, which is often used against them for their further marginalisation and exploitation.

There have been a few examples of transgender persons assuming power and playing important social roles in medieval India such as Malik Kafur, a military general of Alauddin Khilji, and Malik Sarvar and his adopted son Malik Qaranfal (known as Mubarak Shah), who ruled Jaunpur in what is now Uttar Pradesh in the 14th century. However, these can only be considered as exceptions that prove the rule of social marginalisation of TGPs in India. In the post-independence period, many TGPs have broken out of the societal boundaries to study and to take up different professions, but again, they are still a small minority among the TGPs.

"Traditional TGPs Communities"  of male-to-female (MtF) persons came up to deal with their exclusion from mainstream community lives. In different parts of India the traditional TGP communities share many similarities but are also different. These are led by senior TGPs, who may be called Guru. The members of communities also identify each other through family kinship-names such as nani, dadi, mother and sisters. Such TGP communities have specific names such as Haveli or Dera, used by their members.

Though the ancient Indic stories also include female-to-male (FtM) persons such as the Shikhandi story in Mahabharat, FtM persons are less visible in India and are not part of the traditional communities.

Different parts of India have different terms about TGPs including Hijra/Hijda, Kinnar, Kothi, Aravani, Khusra, Pavaiya, Maada and Jogappa. These terms may be used in different ways in different parts of India.

There is limited documentation and understanding about the lives of TGPs in the traditional communities. Often the documentation and understanding come from persons trained in the western/modern analytical methodologies rather than from persons who have grown up in the TGP-communities with a consequent distortion of what they understand and how they explain it.

Not all the TGPs in India live as members of these traditional communities, many of them live outside. Considering the huge amount of discrimination and violence faced by TGPs, I feel that even larger number of TGPs may be hidden in their families. However I have been unable to find any studies or even estimates of the percentage of TGPs living in traditional communities and outside these.

The traditional TGP communities of MtF persons are organised in family clans with state and regional level structures. The proposed bill has prompted the coming together of these communities to form a national level body. Male transgender persons (FtM) are also participating in the building of the all India TGP organisation.

A national meeting of the TGP communities from different states is being planned in Madhya Pradesh in December 2016, where the constitution of the All India organisation will be formalised.

TRANSGENDER PERSONS IN INDIA

The national census conducted in 2011, for the first time, collected separate data on transgender persons. According to this data, there were 4.8 lakhs (a little less than half a million) transgender persons in India including 11% of children. Around 56% of them could read and write, though literacy rates varied between different states. For example, around 68% of TGPs in Maharashtra could read and write while in Rajasthan the percentage went down to 48%.

Considering that many TGPs remain hidden in their families to avoid societal prejudice and discrimination, actual number of TGPs in India is likely to be much higher.

Most of the data regarding TGPs collected in the 2011 census has not yet been analysed. This data can provide us with important information about the lives of TGPs such as - how many of them reach old age, how many of them have university degrees and how many of them live in communities with other TGPs. I think that organisations active in the areas of human rights and in more specific issues of Queer rights need to take this up with the Census department of Government of India so that the details of this data are released. 

BILL ON THE RIGHTS OF TGP  IN THE INDIAN PARLIAMENT

The bill was originally presented in the Upper House of Indian Parliament (Rajya Sabha) by the DMK leader Tiruchi Siva on 12th December 2014. After some modifications this private bill was passed by Rajya Sabha on 24th April 2015. The bill approved by Rajya Sabha was presented in the lower house of the Parliament (Lok Sabha) on 26 February 2016. Since then, after consultations with various bodies another version of this bill has been developed.

All India Transgender Persons’ Organisation was happy with the initial version of the bill introduced in 2014. They felt that the amendments introduced in the version passed by Rajya Sabha had diluted some of their rights, but they still accepted and supported that bill. However, they express strong opposition to some of the changes introduced in the present version of bill being discussed in Lok Sabha.

Government officials have assured them that after the end of the on-going winter session of the parliament, a national level meeting will be organised in Delhi where all the different groups of TG persons will be invited for discussions on the proposed bill.

CONCERNS OF TRADITIONAL TGP COMMUNITIES REGARDING THE RIGHTS OF TGP BILL

The main concerns about the proposed bill are as follows:

Representation of the TG communities: TG persons feel that Government has consulted only NGOs about the bill. In their opinion, NGOs get funding for and are focused only on HIV prevention and they do not understand what it means to be a TG person and all the different issues that are part of their lives in traditional TG communities. Therefore, TG persons ask for direct representation in consultations with Government of India.

The Bill is against the traditional TG communities: Often TG persons, including children, are abandoned or forced out of their families. Working adults, when they decide to come out with their TG identity, they lose their jobs. The traditional TGP communities take care of and provide emotional support, peer support, help and advice to them. They feel that the proposed bill negates and criminalises these roles of the traditional communities.

Traditionally TG persons have not had opportunities for education and proper employment, while over centuries they have developed social roles such as Badhai system where they visit families during marriages and other happy occasions such as birth of children.

While better opportunities for education and employment of children and young TG persons are welcome steps in the proposed bill, making traditional activities such as Badhai as illegal is not the right answer. TG communities already have children and young persons who are going to school and who want to take up proper professions. However the older TG persons who are not educated and do not have professional skills, how will they survive if they can not take part in their traditional activities and if their traditional communities are seen as illegal?

The bill proposes punishment and jail for persons who will discriminate against TG persons. However they point out that among those who harass and exploit the TG persons, police persons are the biggest perpetrators. Thus they ask how will this anti-discrimination work?

The bill proposes jail for TGPs found begging on the streets. Such provisions ignore the prejudice, discrimination, oppression and exploitation faced by TG persons from the police. Such laws will increase the police harassment against TG persons because they can be simply picked up from streets.

Promoting work and empowerment of TG persons: The original version of the bill included incentives to private companies for employing TG persons. They feel that this was a useful provision and should be maintained.
Definitions of TG Persons in the Bill: The proposed bill also has some definitions which are problematic. For example, references to half-man and half-woman (Ardhnarishwar) are taken from ancient texts such as Mahabharat, which are metaphorical and not related to real TG persons.

A related issue is the lack of the words such as Hijra and Kinnar in the proposed bill. The bill does not use these traditional words and ignores their meanings and significance to the traditional TG communities in India.

COMMENTS

I think that the concerns of All India TGPs Organisation raise three kinds of issues:

(i) The first is a practical issue regarding lives of adolescent, young adults and older TG persons who have grown up in traditional communities outside the mainstream society and who feel threatened by the measures proposed in the Bill, because it increases the risks for their criminalisation, oppression, exploitation and marginalisation.

The measures proposing the right of TG children to live in their families, to study, to work and to live lives with dignity are important and should be promoted but without penalising those who have grown up and live in the margins of the mainstream communities.

In my opinion, traditional TGP communities are a societal response to their marginalisation. Families when they decide to expel and exclude their child with gender dysphoria, they call upon these traditional communities to take away those children. Children should have a right to live in a loving and caring atmosphere in their own families. However, the social change will not come just because a new law is made. Declaring traditional communities as unwanted and unwelcome will mean removing their existing social support system.  Thus, there has to be an adequate period of transition.

(ii) A second issue is more cultural. Traditional communities that have developed over centuries, provide specific roles of peer support, guidance, emotional support and sustenance for TGPs. Little is known or understood about these roles. Promoting their dismantling and declaring them as unwanted, without understanding the kind of support and services they provide, does not seem to me  to be a good idea.

Thus, I believe that there is an urgent need for research and studies in TGPs issues conducted by transgender persons themselves including persons who live in traditional communities. It is also important to develop adequate research methodologies which do not view everything only from western/modern analytical frameworks but which give equal importance of ideas and understandings of persons in the traditional TGP communities.

(iii) A third issue is about the role of the public institutions. As the TG persons complain about their exploitation by the police, similar complaints are also made about gender-based violence and other issues related to marginalised population groups. Measures are needed to promote institutional changes in the police and judicial system.

One way to promote institutional change in the police could be to nominate a local group of TG persons as expert-advisers for their local police stations, so that they have opportunities for regular interaction with police to inform them and to sensitise them on TG issues. However, this would also require opportunities for training of TG persons to play this role.

CONCLUSIONS

While traditional TGP communities have a long history, TGP movement in India is just beginning. I plead my own limited knowledge about the issues. From what I have understood, TGPs are divided in different groups including traditional communities, other persons outside the communities, some persons in or working with NGOs and the silent and hidden group of people who remain in their families.

These different groups may share many common goals but they also have significant differences. Building a national organisation in which these different groups can join together to share their common goals and make a joint fight for their rights would probably be a long-drawn process. In this sense, formation of All India Organisation of Traditional Communities of TGPs should be seen as an important first step.


Note: Apart from one picture from the press conference (second from the top), all the remaining images used in this post are from the North-East Queer Pride Parades 2015-16 held in Guwahati (Assam, India).

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Sunday 25 May 2014

International Festival of Trans Films (1)

The annual festival of films on transsexual themes is back in Bologna (Italy) for its 7th edition. I had discovered this festival only last year (2013) and found it to be a wonderful opportunity to challenge some of my prejudices and deeply held ideas about sexuality. This post presents some of the short and long films that I have seen so far in the festival.

Divergenti 2014 Film Festival

The festival of films on transsexual themes is organized by the Italian Movement of Transsexual (MIT) persons based in Bologna (Italy).

I missed the films on the first day of the festival, as that day I was travelling back from Geneva and was too tired to go out. I also missed some films on the second day of the festival, as I had preferred to attend a symposium organized by the festival. Finally, yesterday, the third day of the festival, I could dedicate it to watching films.

Here are some comments on the films I have seen in the festival.

52 Tuesdays (Australia, 2014)

"52 Tuesdays" is a feature film by director Sophie Hyde, and is almost 2 hours long. The film is about a teenage girl called Billie (Tilda Cobham Hervey), who is making a video diary to share her feelings and parts of her life. Billie's parents are separated but are still friendly.

Billie, who was very close to her mother Jane (Del Herbert Jane), is shattered when her mother asks her to leave home and to stay with her father Tom (Beau Travis Williams) for one year. Jane has decided to transit and become a man, and during this process, prefers not to have Billie around in the house.

Billie refuses to accept this forced separation and finally her mother relents - they will meet every Tuesday for a few hours. The film tells the story of the changes in Billie and Jane's lives, through brief glimpses of those 52 Tuesdays spread along the year. It follows Billie's discovery of her own sexuality and friendship with her school mates Josh (Sam Althuizen) and Jasmin (Imogen Archer), and Jane's journey to become James.

Stills, International festival of Trans-films, Bologna, Italy Divergenti 2014

Jane's brother Harry (Mario Spate), who is also separated and lives with his sister, and Billie's father Tom, are the other two key figures in the film.

It is a coming of age story about Billie and her final acceptance of the choices made by her mother. At the end it is Tom who makes Billie understand her mother, "You are the person he loved most. He did not want to break the close bond that both of you had. Because of you, he waited so long to become the person he felt himself to be. Inside, he is still the same person, your mother, who loves you more than anyone else. Would you have preferred that he continued to hide and not be what he felt inside?"

The film focuses on relationship issues between Jane/James and Billie, and does not go into prejudices and social discrimination around the issue of changing gender identities in Australia. Tom is almost too good to be true, very understanding and supportive about his ex-wife. Harry, on the other hand, is a more complex character.

I think that if transgender parents decide to initiate transition when their children are adolescent (and entering a problematic life phase), the parent-child relationships are likely to become even more complicated. It would be easier if the transition occurs when the child is younger and can better accept the changes. Or, it may be slightly less complicated, if the child is grown up and mature. The film explains Jane/Jame's reason (the strong bond with his daughter), for not transitioning earlier and thus becomes an opportunity to explore the impact of such a decision on an adolescent.

The film stimulated some questions in my mind - Would it be more difficult for a child to accept a FtM mother or a MtF father? How will the gender of the child influence this acceptance? For example, would it have been easier if Billie had been a guy? I am not sure how all these variables would influence the parents-children relationships and if any general conclusions can be drawn about them.

The most difficult parts of this film for me were those related to Billie's exploration of her sexuality with Jasmin and Josh. These scenes created a strong feeling of unease in me, and were probably determined by my Asian/Indian upbringing in the 1960s-1970s where adolescents, especially girls, experimenting with their sexuality, would have been culturally unacceptable. Thus, the easy acceptance of Billie's sexual explorations by her parents in the film, made me feel as some kind of old fashioned and retrograde person.

Filmed actually on 52 Tuesdays with non-professional actors, film does seem a real-life video diary, and not a make-believe world. Both Tilda and Del Herbert give authentic performances as Billie and Jane/James. You can watch the film's trailer on the film website.

Kiss from the top floor (Mexico, 2013)

This is a short film (12 minutes) and its original title is "Bajo el ultimo techo". The film is about Beto, who lives with his grandparents while his mother has gone off to live in India. One day a new person, Stephania, comes to live in the apartment next door and Beto discovers a fascinating world of art and play in her house. Quickly they become friends.

Stills, International festival of Trans-films, Bologna, Italy Divergenti 2014

One day, Stephania tells Beto that when she was young, she was a boy like him and inside her two persons lived - the boy Esteban and the girl Stephania.

The social prejudices against the transgender persons force Stephania to leave the apartment. To say goodbye to his friend, Beto escapes from his apartment and climbs to the top terrace of the building.

It is a simple and uncomplicated film that focuses on children's easy acceptance of those who are different. You can watch the trailor of this film on Vimeo.

The New Dress (Spain, 2007)

The original title of this short film (14 minutes) by director Sergi Perez is "Vestido Nuevo" and is a very moving film about the relationship between a father and his son who wants to dress up as a girl.

Stills, International festival of Trans-films, Bologna, Italy Divergenti 2014

The film tells the story of a carnival day in a school. Children are supposed to dress up as the Dalmata dogs but Mario comes dressed up in his sister's pink frock. The principle calls Mario's father to the school.

The film with its surprise ending brought a node to my throat. I think that the film is very manipulative with an absolutely adorable boy - like his father, you can't but love him and yet pity him for his desires because you know that the world will be ruthless with him. The film makes you feel hopeful - even if the world will be cruel to your child, you can make sure that he/she can always count on your love and acceptance.

Therefore, in spite of its manipulativeness, I think that the film is very effective and should be obligatory for all parents, especially for the fathers.

You can watch the full film on Youtube with subtitles in English (Thanks to Rohini for the link) - it is a film that will not fail to touch you!

You're Dead To Me (USA, 2013)

This short film (10 minutes) based in a Latino family is by American-Chinese director Wu Tsang. The film is about a Maxican woman Andrea (Laura Patalano) and her preparations for the "Dia de los muertos" (the day for remembering dead persons), and the visit of her estranged daughter (Harmony Santana) who has chosen to become a man (Gabriel).

Stills, International festival of Trans-films, Bologna, Italy Divergenti 2014

Gabriel no longer lives with his mother, because of her fear of social backlash. They can only meet secretly."Where is my lucky cap?" Gabriel asks.

"How much did I love you as my daughter", Andrea tells Gabriel, asking him to wear the white long dress and become a daughter for a short while, "You do that and I promise to give you, your lucky cap."

Stills, International festival of Trans-films, Bologna, Italy Divergenti 2014

Hidden and forced into a gender role that he does not want, Gabriel is the ghost that has come to visit his mother on the day of the dead.

The film mixes reality and imagination in a clever way to drive home its point about accepting your children as they are and not to give in to social pressures. It is my "number one" film from this festival so far and I strongly recommend it.

Both the actors, Laura and Harmony are wonderful. Their way of speaking in mixed Spanish and English reminded me of our own mixing of Hindi and English in India. You can watch a trailer of this film on Vimeo.

Conclusions

The international festival of Trans films is a great opportunity to see the films that are normally ignored on TV and cinema halls. From the first group of films, my favourites were "You're dead to me" and "Vestido Nuevo".

I also hope that my comments will encourage you watch these films, at least some of them! Even if you can't watch the full films on Youtube or Vimeo now (except for Vestitdo Nuevo), sooner or later they will become accessible on internet.

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Friday 23 May 2014

Religions and human rights

My question was: can the countries that place their highest value on sharing of common religious beliefs, create "just societies"? My conclusion is that countries that choose specific religious beliefs to guide their national laws are inherently unjust. Injustice is part of their DNA. Let me explain why.

Geneva lakeside exhibitions, Switzerland - images by Sunil Deepak, 2014

Some years ago I had read an interview of American singer Maxwell, around the time when he had won a Grammy award for his album "Black Summers night". The interviewer had asked Maxwell about the influence of his heritage on his music. Maxwell, son of a Haitian mother and a Puerto Rican father, who had grown up singing in a church choir in New York, had answered, "Your heritage is your heritage, but your soul is truly what you are."

People, not just those who do not know us, but sometimes even our friends, tend to slot us into spaces on the basis of where we come from - our religion, our country of origin, our family, our education. Sometimes we also slot ourselves in those spaces, probably because it is convenient or just a habit. Sometimes we draw walls around our spaces, finding comfort in that which is familiar, and excluding the unfamiliar.

May be similar beliefs lead to creating countries only for those who share similar religions. They choose a specific religion in their constitutions. I reflected on this issue during my recent visit to Israel and Palestine.

The contradictions of Israeli state

The foundations of a Jewish state in Palestine were laid in the 19th century to escape persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe and Russia. Israel was created as a country in 1948 from what was the British colony of the "Mandatory Palestine". The holocaust under the Nazi Germany, during which millions of persons were killed, had created some international support for Jews to create their homeland. The creation of Israel had pushed communities of Palestinians living in that part of land, to the south.

Over the decades since its creation, Israel has gone through different wars, and has continued to push Palestinians in ever-decreasing pieces of lands, occupying them and controlling them.

Travelling in Israel-Palestine, it is not always easy to understand the boundaries of where one finishes and the other starts. I encountered different groups of Palestinians, each dealing with different levels of inequalities, barriers and difficulties under the Israeli occupation/control - the Arab-Israelis with Israeli passports, the Arab residents of Jerusalem, the Palestinians of West Bank and the worse affected, the Palestinians of Gaza Strip. I also talked to some persons working with Bedouins in Israel-Palestine.

I experienced some of these difficulties and humiliations that Palestinians experience when I crossed the Israeli check-points leading into Palestinian areas.

In many ways, Israel is a liberal society - groups that often face discrimination and exclusion in neighbouring countries including the women and the sexual minorities, seem to enjoy more liberties in Israel. Yet, at the same time, it is an unjust society in the way it treats Palestinians.

In the end, my conclusion was that one reason why Israel violates the dignity of every day lives of Palestinians is because it is a religious state. As long as Israel is a Jewish country, it will be unjust towards Palestinians and Bedouins, because injustice (giving preference to the Jewish people compared to persons of other religions) is part of its constitution that is guided by its fundamental idea of being a homeland for the Jews.

Example of Pakistan

I found an echo to my thoughts from an article by Kunwar K. Shahid in The Friday Times about the situation of minorities in Pakistan, another country created on the basis of religion:
It is very important for Pakistani Muslims (97 percent of the population) to differentiate themselves from Hindus. After all it’s precisely this difference that became our state’s raison d’etre in 1947. And differentiating is the first step en route to the development of hatred that eventually inflates into bigotry...
However, what needs to be understood and underscored here is that an Indian Hindu manifesting communal bigotry contradicts the ‘idea’ of India, while a Pakistani Muslim by doing so conforms to the ‘idea’ of Pakistan. Opposition to Hindus, and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims, form the founding principle of Pakistan...
Religions in the constitutions

Israel or Pakistan are not alone in having constitutions that justify and legalize discriminations - it is true for all countries that choose a specific religion to guide their laws. This is true for countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia where constitutions are based on Islam. It is true for countries like Russia, Uganda, South Sudan, and some countries of Latin America, where some laws such as those related to sexuality, marriage and abortion, are strongly influenced by Christian conservatives. In Myanmar and Sri Lanka, officially there is no state religion but the state shows preference for Buddhism and discriminates against persons of other religions.

In European countries like Italy and Ireland, though they are officially secular, in practice, many laws influencing daily lives continue to be influenced by Christian religious ideas. For example, the laws regarding abortion in Ireland. However, most European countries have lot of debates and more open discussions about the role of religions in societies and thus, laws that favour one religion, can be and are increasingly questioned. Thus, Spain, which also had laws strongly influenced by Christianity, has changed many of them.

It is true that culture, religion and traditions are all interlinked. Thus, it is not easy to separate them. For example, there have been discussions in UK about the Christmas lights and celebrations, as being signs of cultural domination of Christian ideas. Similarly there have been discussions in Italy about the presence of Christian crosses and the mandatory one hour for catholic religious classes in the government schools. Recently, during a visit in Cambridge, I was struck by the close links between the different university institutions and the Christian church.

However, such open discussions and acceptance of criticisms are exceptions because usually religions do not accept debate or dissent about what they consider as their fundamental principles.

Religions in the Indian constitution

In India, on the other hand, persons can choose between civil and religious laws. Paradoxically, any calls to end the discriminations and human rights violations inherent in the religious "personal" laws in India are considered as "communal" or against the rights of the religious minorities. Recently, the electoral victory of conservatives has provoked some debates about personal versus a common civil law.

For example, in a recent article, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, asked the new prime minister to ignore "the old and hackneyed demand for a Uniform Civil Code". He justified it by the argument that has been used often in India, that having one common law for all citizens will threaten the minorities.

However, the personal laws of different religions including Hindus, Muslims and Christians, do discriminate - for example, against women or sexual minorities. In another recent article, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, looking at the concepts of "federation of communities" and "zones of individual freedoms" feels that India by focusing on "federation of communities" where group identities are given more importance (through personal laws as well as many other practices), has moved away from the founding ideas of Indian constitution.

It is true that in India, people can choose the civil law but I think that such decisions are easier for educated and better off persons while, the socially disadvantaged groups find themselves mired in "personal" laws. Apart from "not hurting the feelings of the minorities", I have yet to read convincing arguments about how different religious-based laws for different groups of persons are more respectful of the human rights and equality of people.

Changing the world

When countries decide that their first criteria of belonging is going to be their religion, they do not see the diversities in their own religions. I do not know of any religion that is not divided into sects and where persons of different sects do not think that only they are the true followers of their religion. Invariably, some sects assume power and slowly over a period of time, start persecuting their coreligionists from other sects.

When we are part of a majority or powerful group, it is difficult for us to understand what does it mean to belong to a minority group. People from the minorities, especially the conservatives, also create their own power-bases in this system. Thus, changing the constitutions of countries based on religions is never easy.

In my opinion, the U.N. declaration of human rights sums up the best ideas of different religions. I feel that in today's world, the human rights declaration should be the guiding principle of all national constitutions. This is even more important in multi-religious countries like India, where periodically, conservatives of different religions take centre-stage and dictate conditions that go against the principles of human rights and equality of the citizens.

Conclusions

I consider myself as a deeply spiritual person. Growing up and living in an increasingly multi-religious family, it is easy for me to know and respect different religions. However, I feel that our religions belong to our personal spaces. I believe that imposing the ideas of any one religion on the societies through constitutions based on sacred books like Talmud, Koran, Granth sahib, Bible, Ramayan or Manu Smriti, leads to violations of our human rights and conflicts.

Going back to Maxwell's words I also believe that our heritage is just a heritage, but our souls are truly who we are. And, we can't let our souls be fenced in by religions dogmas - at least not in our constitutions. Let religions remain personal choices.

***

The lakeside in Geneva (Switzerland) is a popular site for exhibitions on issues related to human rights. Here are some images from those exhibitions.

Geneva lakeside exhibitions, Switzerland - images by Sunil Deepak, 2014

Geneva lakeside exhibitions, Switzerland - images by Sunil Deepak, 2014

Geneva lakeside exhibitions, Switzerland - images by Sunil Deepak, 2014

Geneva lakeside exhibitions, Switzerland - images by Sunil Deepak, 2014

Geneva lakeside exhibitions, Switzerland - images by Sunil Deepak, 2014

Geneva lakeside exhibitions, Switzerland - images by Sunil Deepak, 2014

Geneva lakeside exhibitions, Switzerland - images by Sunil Deepak, 2014
***

Tuesday 26 November 2013

The abusers and the lynching mobs

When Tahehlka's Think Fest had started, we were getting ready to start our research on "Violence and Abuse" in north Karnataka. Reading the list of the speakers at the Think Fest, I had briefly fantasized about somehow flying to Goa to listen to some of them. About two weeks later, as the first news about Tarun Tejpal's sexual abuse of a journalist had come out, we had just started to discuss the preliminary research results. We were trying to make some sense out of the terrible situation that had come out of our research.

Our research was on "violence and abuse, including sexual abuse, towards persons with disabilities in the Bidar district of Karnataka". The research was conducted jointly with local associations of disabled persons and persons working in a community programme.

A group of disabled persons and community workers from Bidar district, both women and men, were trained to conduct the research. The aims of our research were two - (i) to gain an understanding about factors influencing violence and abuse towards disabled persons and (ii) to initiate a dialogue on how can violence and abuse be prevented.

During the initial training of the researchers, it had come out that this issue directly concerned both disabled persons and community workers. In the past 12 months, many of them had also been through personal experiences of emotional, physical and sexual violence.

Our daily feedback sessions during the research, when we discussed the information collected during the day, brought out sharing of peoples' stories and invariably had some of us crying.

In the next few weeks, I will be working at the analysis of the information collected during this research. However, the preliminary analysis of our data shows a terrible situation -

  • More than 80% of the disabled persons interviewed had at least one experience of significant violence and abuse in the past 12 months. For most of them the experiences were more frequent, some times even daily.
  • More than one third of the women interviewed had had at least one episode of sexual violence in the last 12 months.  Married women suffered more violence and abuse compared to unmarried women.
  • Disabled men were also victims - more frequently of emotional and physical violence, but about 9% of them had had at least one episode of sexual violence in the last 12 months.

Our research shows that violence and abuse are common in our homes, in our families and in our communities. Few persons had the courage to talk about the abuse they had suffered. Often, those who were supposed to protect them, including police and authorities, were themselves complices and even perpetrators.

While reading about Tarun Tejpal and the journalist, everyday I am listening to the shrill debates, to the cries for jail and stringent punishment, to those who ask for castration and death. And I think of our research.

They shout - kill the rapist, hound anyone connected with them, make examples out of them, better if they are well known persons. The shrill noise means we are exempted from looking inside ourselves, to recognize and understand our societies. We do not need to look at what we do every day in our homes and our communities.

One Nirbhaya every now and then, is fine for breaking news, prime time debates and candle light vigils, so that abuse of hundreds of silent unknown Nirbhayas in our homes, families and communities can go on.

***

Saturday 22 June 2013

Trans-gender persons and Media

As part of "Divergenti - International Film Festival on Trans-sexual issues" held in Bologna (Italy) in May 2013, a workshop was organized on how media reports about trans-sexual issues and to provide some guidance about how issues related to trans-sexual people can be communicated.

The workshop had two main speakers from the UK based Trans Media Watch - www.transmediawatch.org - Helen Belcher (director of TMW) and Jane Fae, a British journalist.

Helen Belcher and Jane Fae in Bologna workshop, image by Sunil Deepak, 2013

Trans-sexual people every where are usually surrounded by misconceptions. In India, where I grew up, there is little real knowledge about trans-sexual persons known as Hijra or Khusra or Kinnar, though they have a well defined derogatory social role - to come and ask for alms during auspicious occasions (marriages, child birth, festivals). According to the popular perception, they also work as sex-workers. In the every day reality, they are ostracised and discriminated in a vicious manner, at all levels.

Gender is about being a man or woman, and behaving as a man or a woman. It is about male and female identities of persons.

Three levels of Gender Identification

Helen Belcher talked about three levels of gender identification - at the level of genitals, at the level of chromosomes and at the level of persons' brains. For each of these levels, completely male and completely female can be seen as two extremes and there is a range (spectrum) of positions in between those two extremes. Usually, the gender at all the three levels is same, but in many persons these three levels can be independent of each other:
Helen Belcher and 3 levels of gender identity, image by Sunil Deepak, 2013
External genitals can be completely male or female or they can have some mixed characters (inter-sexual).
In terms of chromosomes, males have XY sex chromosomes, female have XX chromosomes, while some persons can have different configuration such as XXY.

At the brain level or emotional level, persons can feel male or female, even if their genitals or chromosomes may not match these feelings. Most persons can recognise a male and female parts in themselves.

Thus a person can have outwardly completely male genitals and yet at chromosome level may not have the XY chromos or at the level of feelings, may feel to be a female. Similarly a person may have female genitals and yet feel to be a male.

Trans-sexual persons have always existed in the history, though only in the past few decades, they have been able to come out in public and ask for their human rights.

Historically, the issue of trans-sexuality was treated as a mental health issue and has been medicalized, called as "gender identity disorder". There have been debates if it has a biological origin.

To be a transgender person is not a choice

It is important to understand that being a trans-person is not a choice, people do not choose to be trans-sexual. Given the exclusion and discrimination that trans-persons have to go through, if it was just a question of choice, why do people go through it? They go through it because it something too deep in them, it is not a question of choice.

All of us go through a continuous and unrelenting conditioning from early childhood that construct our identities in terms of boyness and girlness. To question that conditioning is difficult and transition (the process of changing gender) is a process that does not ever end. Some people believe that just because you have had a surgical operation, you have changed gender and your transition is complete, that is not true. Transition is a process, where you challenge that childhood conditioning every day.

Stereotypes about transgender persons

There are many stereotypes about trans-persons. For example, that they all do comedy shows or that they are acting, they are "putting on a show", they are not who they say they are. They are seen as exotic and extravagant, non caring persons. Or that they are sex workers. They are not seen as ordinary persons.

The word trans-gender is an umbrella term. There are many other related terms such as cross-dresser, gender variant, trans-sexual, poly-gender, drag queen or drag king, transvestite, etc. Some of these words have different definitions, their boundaries are fluid and keep on changing. These identities are dynamic, their precise meanings can keep on changing at different points in the lives of persons.

Gender identity and sexual orientation

Often people confuse between the transgender issues and issues related to sexual orientation. Helen Belcher explained it very clearly when she said, "Gender is about who you feel to be, a man or a woman. Sexual orientation is about with whom do you wish to have sex."

There are transgender women (persons who were given male gender identity at birth), who wish to have sex with men while there are others who prefer other women or transgender women. There are transgender men (persons who were given female identity at birth) who like sex with other men or with women or with transgender women. Equating transgender issues with being gay or lesbian is not correct, though all these groups often face similar social barriers in terms of prejudice, discrimination, violence, abuse, etc.  

In conclusion

These are just some of the idea presented by Helen in the workshop. Persons working the media, like everyone else in the public, also have the same misconcpetions and stereotypes about trans-gender persons and by writing about these issues in a particular way, amplify those ideas and make them more universal. Thus, it is important that media-persons can have a dialogue with and understand the different issues linked to trans-gender persons.

(Updated and corrected the article on 24 July 2013)

***

Friday 19 April 2013

Families on Noah's ark

When someone says "family", my first thought is of a man, a smiling woman and their two kids. They look like the family shown in a cereal ad on the TV, a testimonial to the power of advertising. However, real life families are different.

Depending upon people's backgrounds, the word "family" makes most persons think of "nuclear families" or small families, composed of parents with one of two children. In some countries, some people still think of "extended families" including grandparents, uncles and aunts, but their numbers are fast decreasing.

Whatever is the image of a "family" in your mind, a mother and a father seem to be a neccessary component of a "family". However, increasingly in urban spaces accross the globe, even this is not true. There are other variations of families, like a Noah's ark, that is much more richer and interesting, then the stereotypes of nuclear or extended families. For example, there are single parent families. And, there are families where both father and mother are married to different persons, so children can have two moms, two dads, and different multiples of grandparents.

However, families with same sex couples as parents are still uncommon. If they are there, they are usually hidden. This article explores some examples of these new kinds of families and the challenges they face.

A cover article in a recent issue of Outlook was about "coming out" of Lesbian couples in India. One of the stories in this article was about a family composed of a woman, her companion and her 18 year old son from a previous marriage. “It’s best to disregard taunts from classmates and neighbours,” the son had said, hinting at how stereotypes influence public perceptions.

A few days ago I saw an exhibition in Bologna on "new families" called "So many families, all are special". Some of the examples of "new families" in this exhibition included - two men with a child; a European couple, with two adopted children, one child from Africa and the other child from Asia; two women with a child.

Sexualities and new families - S. Deepak, 2012-13

In the west (and in urban areas in countries like India), the increasing number of divorced couples means that single parent families are not no longer rare. Thus, these children from single parent families or families with divorced and remarried parents face less discrimination today compared to the past.

The "New families" exhibition reminded me of some groups that had participated in the last Bologna GLBTIQ pride parade, that I had participated in 2012. Earlier, when we spoke of alternate sexualities, we talked mainly of gay or lesbian couples. However, with time, many other groups of persons have "come out", each specifying their own specific situation that is different from those of the other groups. Thus today when we talk of sexualities, we talk of hetrosexuals, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, intersexuals and queers.

I think that the growing numbers of groups under "alternate sexualities" is a recognition of infinite diversities of sexualities among human beings and thus, the GLBTIQ (gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, intersexuals and queers) lable needs to seen as symbolic rather than an accurate representation of the reality of sexualities. I think that sexualities can be dynamic, at least in some persons, so that that they may place themselves differently in the GLBTIQ spectrum at different points in their lives.

In the last Bologna GLBTIQ pride parade, there were some groups representing specific professional categories such as a GLBT police-military group and lawyers' group. This was a reminder that in spite of stereotypes, GLBTIQ persons can be in any profession and not just involved in fashion, cinema or arts.

Sexualities and new families - S. Deepak, 2012-13

In the parade, there was also a group that runs a telephone helpline on GLBTIQ issues. I think that such a service is important for young and adolescent persons, who are not sure of their sexuality and who need to talk to someone about their doubts. Such a service can also be useful for parents who need to talk to someone to understand what is happening to their children and how they can support their children. Such helpline is also useful for persons who face discrimination and harrassment at their workplace.

Sexualities and new families - S. Deepak, 2012-13

There were some other groups in the parade that were concerned with the relationships between sexuality and religion, especially about a dialogue with Catholic religion. These groups of persons explored the issues around non-acceptance of alternate sexualities in their religion, and thus, asked how they could continue to feel part of their religion.

Sexualities and new families - S. Deepak, 2012-13
Sexualities and new families - S. Deepak, 2012-13

Parvez Sharma's documentary film "A Jihad for love" had explored similar questions for same-sex Muslim couples, some of them with their children.

In most religions, there is little acceptance of alternate sexualities, and thus little recognition and support for these families. Sometimes, religions are used to justify violence and discriminations against GLBTIQ persons.

In the Bologna GLBTIQ pride parade in 2012, there were a few examples of families dealing with alternate sexualities."Famiglie arcobaleno"  or Rainbow families, are families where the parents are same-sex couples, composed of two men or two women. Their children may have been born with support of surrogate mothers or artificial insemination. Sometimes, a gay and a lesbian couple may also decide jointly to have a baby.

Sexualities and new families - S. Deepak, 2012-13

There was a another group, presenting a variation on the Rainbow families, those LGBT persons who had children from their previous heterosexual relationships.

Sexualities and new families - S. Deepak, 2012-13

These were also some organisations of parents of gay or lesbian persons. Sometimes as parents, we may have our own ideas about alternate sexualities and thus, we may not accept our children's sexuality. However, often it is the fear of the opinions of others (family, neighbours, communities)  that makes parents refuse their children because of their sexuality. Sometimes, parents are against same sex relationships because they think that if their son or daughter is gay/lesbian, they will not have grandchildren.

Sexualities and new families - S. Deepak, 2012-13

Thus, I think that associations of parents of GLBTIQ children can be an important peer group to support us to be more accepting and open to our children. Personally I feel that it is easier for mothers to accept their gay sons and lesbian daughters, and it is much more difficult for fathers to accept it. Friends, colleagues at work, society at large, insinuate that there must be something wrong with you as a person and as a parent, if your son or daughter is a homosexual, it is your "fault".

As parents we need to learn that if we want to support and love our children, we may need to fight for their dignity with our friends and families.

In the Bologna pride parade, I saw a group of parents walking with the poster of a young boy who was murdered because of his being a gay. As a parent, I can understand the fear we can have for our children because we know that our societies can be harsh and cruel to them when they do not fit in. Talking about it with other parents in similar situations and supporting each other is important.

Sexualities and new families - S. Deepak, 2012-13

In my opinion, the basic reality of human relationships is the same every where, the west and in the east, across christians, muslims, hindus, jews and everyone else. GLBTIQ persons are there in all cultures, religions and countries. However, in many places, they have to hide and be afraid because their societies do not wish to recognize them and accept them. They are seen as a danger to morality.

I believe that hiding or killing persons because they are different, in the name of religion or culture or morality, is wrong. A society where people can be who they wish to be, rather than who they must be, is a society where rights of everyone is respected, a world of diversity and richness.

***

Wednesday 2 January 2013

Religions For The New Millennium

Do we really need a religion? If yes, what kind of future religions are being shaped by our societies? If we can study the birth and development of religions in the past, can that help in understanding what kind of religions will come in future?

World religions - S. Deepak, 2010-12

These are the questions I often ask my self, while thinking of the situation of religions today. On one hand, today we have more inter-religous dialogue and harmony among persons of different religions than ever before in history of mankind, and on the other hand, radicalized and exclusionist religious groups seem to be getting stronger, who insist, often with violence, that their way is the only acceptable way.

Is it feasible to think of possible future developments of religions? Let us start by going back in time to see what do we know about the development of religions in the human history.

Religions of the prehistorical humans

Our earliest progenitor, Homo habilis, who used stone tools, came out more than 2 million years ago, but modern humans developed only around 50 thousand years ago. One of the earliest records of those first humans are the rock paintings, like the ones in El Castillo in Spain that are 40 thousand years old.

The El Castillo rock paintings mainly show animals on the cave walls. This was the Paleolithic (initial stone age) phase of human development. Thus at that time human beings were using simple stone tools, they did not have writing, yet they had good drawing abilities and had some spiritual understanding of their world.

Caves from Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain are between 15 to 10 thousand years old, from the early bronze period of human development. These also show mainly animal figures and tracings of human hands. Any human figures in these images are mostly schematic, that means stick like figures, different from the more natural looking animal figures.

World religions - S. Deepak, 2010-12

More recent cave paintings, around 3 to 8 thousand years old, showing animals and hunting scenes are found in many different parts of the world such as the San cave paintings in South Africa.

All these rock paintings point towards the religious or spiritual ideas of humans who lived as hunter-gatherers. They lived in small groups and travelled from one place to another. Usually men were hunters, while women specialized in gathering seeds and plants.

Animal rock paintings have been linked to influencing the spirits of animals, to facilitate their hunting. Thus, early humans thought of spirits in all the living things. It is also thought that lack of proper human figures in rock paintings is linked to taboos around drawing of human spirits.

Earliest evidence of agriculture, that means, domestication of plants and animals, comes from around 10 thousand years ago, from the neolithic period (new stone age), when better stone tools for agricultural and hunting use were made.

Another evidence of religious significance from the early humans are the Venus figurines showing female bodies. Some of these are more than 35 thousand years old. These statues are thought to be linked to spiritual view of nurturing role of mother nature and fertility rites.

Writing developed only 4 thousand years ago, around the time when the first cities were coming up. The earliest surviving tombs such as stone vaults (Hypogeums) and megalithic tombs are 4-5 thousand years old.

The prehistoric small human groups of hunter-gatherers were in competition with each other for survival. Not till the farming communities came up and then over the next thousands of years, first cities were established, there were incentives for human beings to collaborate and work together with other groups of human beings. Thus the initial 40-45 thousand years of human beings must have been marked by fights and wars between different groups.

Though the hunter-gatherers in different parts of the world had similar religious ideas about spirits of living beings, they probably identified with different animal totems as their protectors or symbols of their groups.

The different social roles of men and women were established during this long dawn of humanity lasting for 40-45 thousand years. Thus women mainly engaged in gathering plants and seeds, household work, and needed protection during pregnancy and growing years of their children. On the other hand, men engaged in hunting and wars. Violence, killing and rape of enemy groups' women as acceptable behaviour of the war, probably shaped the societies in this phase.

I think that though human socities have changed completely in the past few hundreds of years, our male and female social roles are still largely shaped by thousands of years of this early conditioning of human societies.

Religions at the beginning of historical era

The beginning of historical era, started around 4 to 5 thousand b.c. (6 to 7 thousand years ago), as the first cities and civilizations came up in different parts of the world including Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India and Greece.

At the beginning of historical era, majority of world population was engaged in agriculture and/or animal rearing. Some people continued to be hunter-gatherers but gradually they were becoming the minority. All the different world cultures at that time had started building specific praying places and all of them included a pantheon of gods.

World religions - S. Deepak, 2010-12

How did the change from animal figures of cave paintings of early humans to the pantheon of gods of early historical period come about?

James A. Michener in his book "The source" (1965) traces the development of different religions in middle east, from the beginning of the historical era till today. In a fictionalized form, he explains the transformation from hunter-gatherer human societies to farming human societies:
.. for the first fifteen years of their married life, Ur's wife went out of the cave in all seasons trying fruitlessly to tame the wild wheat, but each year it was killed either by drought or flood or too much winter or by wild boars rampaging through the field ... Ur's son discovered that the springtime planting of wheat need not be left to the chance scatter of autumn grains. By holding back some of the harvest and keeping it dry in a pouch of deerskin, the grains could be planted purposefully in the spring and the wheat could be made to grow exactly where and when it was needed, and with this discovery the family of Ur moved to a self-sufficient society. They did not know it but if a food supply can be insured, the speed of change would be unbelievable: within a few thousand years cities would be feasible, civilizations too. Men would be able to plan ahead and allocate specialized jobs to each other. They would find it profitable to construct roads to speed the movement of food and to devise a money system for convenient payments.
Thus, farming societies were completely different from the earlier hunter-gatherer societies. Farming communities living in the villages were much more vulnerable to nature's forces such as rains, lightening, thunder storms and fires. These farming humans developed religions with pantheon of gods - a different god for each of the nature's forces that affected their lives. Thus in the pantheon of gods, those who controlled rain, fire and the thunder storms were more important for the farmers.

These gods were seen as temperamental beings who, if happy could give food, prosperity and security, and if angry, they could destroy everything, putting human survival into danger. Therefore, all the different cultures developed systems of prayers and sacrifices for "keeping the gods happy".

For example, India's first sacred book Rigveda, written around 1500 BC, puts into writing the oral traditions of religious prayers that had developed in this early historical period. The most powerful gods of Rigveda, to whom maximum number of prayer-hymns are devoted, are Indra, the god of rain, and Agni, the god of fire.

As human beings developed greater understanding and control of agriculture and they developed new technologies such as boats for sea-travel, new gods became more important and older gods were forgotten.

The mythical Indian story of fight between rain-god Indra and pastor-god Krishna, where Indra brought incessant rains and Krishna protected the pastors by raising up the Govardhan mountain on his hand, is one such example of changing religious ideas as small cities came up and needs of protection from gods changed.

Another Indian example of changes in preferences of gods is about worship of Sheetla mata, the goddess who is supposed to protect children from diseases like small pox and chicken pox. You can still find temples of Sheetla mata in poor slum areas where diseases like chicken pox and measles continue to be a life-threatening problem for poor children, but such temples are rare in urban and more developed areas of India.

World religions - S. Deepak, 2010-12

The rise of monotheistic thought

The ideas of pantheon of gods who controlled different aspects of life on the earth and to whom prayers and sacrifices must be offered were in conflict with earlier ideas of common spirit underlying all the nature. Slow development of technology such as control of fire and shift from caves to man-made dwellings, also conflicted with ideas of powers of individuals gods.

Building of praying places and offering prayers, gifts and sacrifices also gave rise to development of priest classes, with possibilities of conflict between followers of different gods, and between priests and others. For example there is the story of Ikhnaton, the "heretic king" in ancient Egypt, who revolted against the domination of priests of Amon and decided to pray to the Aton (sun god), is one such example of religious conflicts.

In situations of conflict, religious reformers appeared in different parts of the world. Some of them proposed the vision of "one God", a supreme force that controlled life. The period around 500 BC to 500 AD was particularly fertile for these spiritual reformers, especially in two specific geographical areas of the world - the western part of middle-east and northern-part of Indian subcontinent. Those reformers were responsible for most of the religious ideas that dominate the world today.

The middle-east saw figures like Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, who expounded on ideas of the "one God". The stories of Moses are told in the Old Testament, and are linked to Judaism. The stories of Jesus are part of new testament, the sacred book of Christianity. The voice of Mohammed is in Koran, the sacred book of Islam.

In the Indian subcontinent, apart from figures of Mahavira and Buddha, that led to philosophies of Jainism and Buddhism, there were many other philosophers whose ideas formed the Upanishads of Hinduism. These also tend towards ideas of monotheism, though in a different way from the monotheistic ideas that developed in the middle east.

For example, the initial sholka (prayer) of Isavasya upanishad is an example of one common unifying cosmic consciousness that moves away from ideas of pantheon of gods:
ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पूर्णमुदच्यते!
(Om purnamadah puranamidam purnatpurnamudachyate)
पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते॥
(Purnasya purnmaday purnamevavashishyate)
(It means: The whole is all that. The whole is all this. The whole was born of the whole. Taking the whole from the whole, what remains is the whole.) 

In each of these religious traditions, a cycle of periodic rise of new religious reformers started that continues till today. Sometimes, the reformers resulted in groups breaking off from the parent religions and becoming separate religions in their own right. Thus all the world religions are actually divided into different sub-groups. Some of the sub-groups, have developed into spearate religions including Baha'i and Sikhs.

At the same time, all over the world there continue to be small or large groups of persons who believe in older religious ideas of early farmers and pastors, such as fire-worshipers (Zoroastrians), nature worshipers, believers of the spirit worlds.

World religions - S. Deepak, 2010-12

In terms of social roles of men and women, many of these religions have codified recommendations. Most of the time, these recommendations on different social roles of men and women, follow the earlier social roles of human groups from hunter-getherer period of humanity. This means, men are seen as superior, who make decisions and are the owners of the families. On the other hand, women are seen as home-makers and mothers, who need to protected, especially from other men.

The crisis of the religions

Humanity started changing around 4-5 hundred years ago at a greater pace, as cities became bigger and the technological innovations increased. Invention of printing press, colonization, slave trade, large scale immigration towards the "new world", scientific progress and industrial revolution gradually started challenging the existing religious ideas.

For example, in Europe, different developments such as discovery of fossils, Darwin's theory of evolution, Galileo's ideas of earth and planets circling the Sun, challenged some of the beliefs proposed by Christian theologians. These challenges resulted in ferocious religious backlash by Christian conservatives in Europe including centuries of brutal inquisition and religious crusades.

One of the most important change that is challenging traditional ideas of religions is the shift from rural to urban communities. This shift challenges the hold of religious, community and family leaders on individuals. Thus, in urbanized countries, earlier religious ideas and socially acceptable behaviours about everything including marriage, having children, sex (including same sex relationships), dresses and worship, have been overturned. The recommendations of the religious leaders are mostly ignored by large number of faithfuls, especially by younger generations.

Though this transition of old into new communities started in Europe more than 5 hundred years ago, it is still far from over. For example, Michael S. Kimmel discusses the challenges for men to understand the new roles of gender equity in his paper:
Indeed, the women’s movement is one of the great success stories of the twentieth century, perhaps of any century. It is the story of a monumental, revolutionary transformation of the lives of more than half the population. But what about the other half? Today, this movement for women’s equality remains stymied, stalled. Women continue to experience discrimination in the public sphere. They bump their heads on glass ceilings in the workplace, experience harassment and less-than fully welcoming environments in every institution in the public sphere, still must fight to control their own bodies, and to end their victimization through rape, domestic violence, and trafficking in women.

I believe the reason the movement for women’s equality remains only a partial victory has to do with men. In every arena—in politics, the military, the workplace, professions and education—the single greatest obstacle to women’s equality is the behaviors and attitudes of men. I believe that changes among men represent the next phase of the movement for women’s equality—that changes among men are vital if women are to achieve full equality. Men must come to see that gender equality is in their interest—as men.
If that is the situation in the developed world in Europe and America, what is happening in the rest of the world? The changes have become faster and even more radical over the past century, spreading over to all the different parts of the world. Improvements in health care and birth control, women going out of homes to work, access to education, international travel, globalization, information technology are some of these changes that lead to mixing of populations and ideas. These changes are challenging traditional ideas of different religions and the social roles of men and women.

Like the backlash of conservative christianity in Europe some centuries ago, these challenges to traditional ideas of other religions in different parts of the world have led to backlash of other conservative groups, sometimes equally ferocious and brutal in trying to repress these challenges. The rise of Wahabi Islam is one such example of religious backlash, but Islam is not alone in this - all religions are facing similar crisis.

In the remaining parts of the world, the transformation from rural to urban communities has started but would continue for the next fifty-hundred years. As the example of Europe shows, the change in mentalities may take centuries, and we can expect many more ferocious battles and backlashes from traditional religious and social leaders, who will fight to safeguard their powers and interests.

At the same time, there are already large groups of thinkers and activists in different parts of the world who agree with the need to challenge the status quo about the domination of socio-religious ideas and understand the need to define new rules to govern our social and public lives. Can we create national and trans-national communities that can make this trasition smoother and less conflictual? This is an issue that we need to address.

Religions for the future

Shall we really need religions in the future? I personally feel that as long as people will go through cycles of life and death, the questions such as what is life, what is death, is there an afterlife, are going to accompany us, and this will continue to create the space for religions.

There are many persons who do not believe in a spirit or a cosmic consciousness, who define themselves as atheists, but often even they have some doubts in explaining the godless accidental origin of life from a biochemical primordial soup.

Those of us who live in societies where technical progress safeguards us from the worst of nature's forces, people do not need to seek the protection of gods for their survival. Still illness, accidents, stresses of modern life, and relative poverty create fertile grous for prayers and religions.

Unless technological progress will lead to some kind of environmental disaster that may turn back the clock of human development, the change from rural farming and nomadic pastor communities to urban technological communities can not be reversed. This, in the medium and long term, will lead to new and different religious ideas.

Individuals living in resource and technology rich environments already often have religious ideas that have been called "New Age". An explanation of the "new age" philosophy is as follows:
To understand New Age philosophy it’s important to understand that the contemporary Cosmic Humanist movement has its roots in the Romantic poets of the 1800s, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Henry David Thoreau. These men rejected the God of the Bible, instead writing at length about a transcendent quality of spirituality experienced purely through personal introspection. These ideas did not attract a broad audience until the 1960s, when popular recording artists, movie stars, and Eastern gurus began trumpeting their New Age views across the nation. More recently, well-known recording artists such as Madonna and Alanis Morissette have identified themselves with Hinduism, while popular personalities such as Tiger Woods, Phil Jackson, and Richard Gere openly embrace Zen Buddhism. Other luminaries, such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, express a belief in scientology. 
We don't know if future religions will be shaped by these "New Age" ideas or other different ideas. However, to be acceptable to majority of people, religions will have to take into account the needs of persons living in urban spaces as singles or as nuclear families. Thus the ancient ideas of women's and men's roles will have to change.

For example, in my opinion, religions asking for covering of women's bodies or not letting them go out to work or with rigid ideas about what kind of sexual lives people should lead, will not be accepted in future as socities will change and get used to living in urban spaces.

Personally, I also believe that future religions that do not take into account the principles of universal declaration of human rights, will be refused by majority of world population. Such conservative religious groups and sects may continue to flourish in small minority communities, but they will not become mainstream.

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