Letter to the Editor:

Inflammatory Comments of a Vice-Chancellor

By Anuradha Sharma

*appeared in several publications

Women empowerment, though it is in its infancy, is worrying some males to extreme. They are so scared that they are not able to judge before opposing the rights of women to be considered as human.  Those males do not like to see the female autonomy.   To prove their point, they quote from the scriptures of India in which Indra goes unpunished after raping Ahilya. This lesson from holy scriptures indicate that woman should worship their husbands like a God, no matter how immoral he is.  Tulsi Das makes his hero Ram discard Sita to teach women to follow male dictates without a voice of revolt.

In modern times women are trying to come out of their shells, making a concrete space for themselves by articulating their own desires and dreams. These wishes and dreams were lying buried in the cave of women heart for ages.  Males of this conformist society do not like women to ignore their domestic duty to make their career. When women require cooperation of males in carrying out these household responsibilities they try to take another root to avoid it. Males can not sacrifice their careers for family and women do not have right to make career on the expense of family 

This difference in choice now does not work at the scale it worked before. But fanatics are living even today in the age of Manusmriti and Panchtantra. They still try to apply rules and lessons of scriptures for feminine gender. So does Vibhuti Narayana, the Vice-Chancellor of an International Hindi University. In his interview that shows his ethical death he makes degraded comments about women writers. His comments humiliate every female writer. He hurts every sensitive ear and revered names in the field of writing from Sarojini Naidu to Mannu Bhandari.

The V.C. can be accused for defaming every writer who has made unparallel journey on the road to equality. The words of his mouth are shocking. The Vice Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University, says that women writers of today are competing to prove themselves the leading prostitute. He again adds that if they want to write their autobiography then HOW MANY TIMES IN HOW MANY BEDS will be the appropriate title. It is the report in news.in.msn.com.   At another place in the interview, he dubs the character of a famous story as "nymphomaniac kutiya". When asked by The Sunday Express which women writers he was referring to, V.C. laughed and repeated what he had said: "It's not fair to take names, but you can see, this tendency to prove themselves the 'sabse badi chhinal' is growing among women writers. You can find the references of 'kitne bistaron men kitani baar' in their work."

As reported by Ashutosh Bhardwaj in Indian Express of 1^st Augus, t V. C. told Naya Gyanodaya that the entire feminist discourse has reduced to a grand celebration of infidelity.

Such irresponsible comments will not be able to break the morals of women writers. We do not need character certificates of the males like present V.C. of a University who does not have any respect for feminine gender.  In my opinion he is unfit to work as a VC. Government should take necessary steps to avoid any further incident like this. Such character must be excommunicated by the society.  

Anuradha Sharma is a lecturer at Navjivan Arts and Commerce College, Dahod in Gujarat and writes poetry in English and Hindi both. Her poems and research papers have appeared in many journals, anthologies and news papers in India and abroad. At present she is working on a Minor Research Project funded by UGC and has been  selected for Associateship by IIAS, Shimla. She is editing a book on Stephen Gill and also translating his epical poem The Flame into Hindi.

 E-mail: manuradhasharma@rediffmail.com, manurma38@gmail.com