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From India, with Love: contemplations on love (an anarchist’s view)

It is not a debatable topic at all when we say that love does not exist in India. It does not exist in the slums of Mumbai, it does not exist in the rural areas of Bihar, the jungles of Chattisgarh, the posh neighbourhoods of New Delhi, and so on and so forth. Love is absolutely absent from India.

You quite rightly might think that you do know certain examples of couples in love but left to those very couples, is it likely that their younger relatives will also have support from them in their love lives? In many cases, there is dowry in love marriages, if at all there isn’t honour killing. Marriages in India are a testament to the fact that even though most indian youngsters do have their moments of exchanging smiles and glances and possible risqué dates very much in the fashion of Romeo and Juliet, the very youngsters never marry outside their caste. 96% marriages are intra caste, which either means that a) there is something fundamentally wrong with the youngsters themselves or b) love does not exist in India. It is all a mere show, a hypocritical display. I will give a very personal account of my evolving views since childhood that lead me to the conclusion that Indian society is fundamentally unfree and therefore love, like language, when controlled becomes a tool of mass oppression. I can post studies and numbers, but that do not do service to understanding what actually goes on.

Chapter I: the Epiphany

What does (b) even mean? Well it means very simply that the society is very anti love. In India you can very easily take a leak in public, but you cannot hold hands. I remember when I was growing up, as boys we had no sort of training or exposure on how to view women. Till the age of 20 I had not made a single conversation with a real girl my age. They were mythical creatures to me. I barely only saw a few girls, as would my classmates when we passed by a girls’ school nearby and during that time there would be utter and complete silence in the van that carried us home.

It was not very unusual to exchange pen drives full of pornography amongst teenagers, who often described ghastly acts they would do to other girls and possibly their girlfriends during my school time. Soon enough porn took over all of their sexuality. From age 13 onwards all women were basically either a subject of our harrowing myth or related to us. There was no in between.

I remember being utterly taken aback on watching porn for the first time, I frankly was so surprised at the visual that I almost went into shock. I was 12 then. I remember an elder walked into the room and I came out of my delirium then. Yea I almost got caught. I was so stressed, the women seemed to be in mental and physical anguish. I had no idea, neither did any of my friends. However, my classmates enjoyed it. They enjoyed reading about rape in the newspaper, not because the condoned it but because they found immense pleasure in realising that sex after all is as terrible an impulse as they saw in the videos, and nobody knew anything about consent. I confided in my mother, she counselled me well. She did not tell me about consent still, but she told me that I will have to stay away from such profanity and channel my energy into something useful, although she did mention that sexuality in itself is not wrong. I did not know better, I took it very academically. Sex was a sacred chord that was tied to procreation.

“Women do not like it”, I thought, and “men are beastly creatures who survive to dominate women into performing the act. Women accept the least worst subjugation in the worst case to merely procreate”.

I feel from 12 onwards, I wanted to read about feminism, philosophy. I was utterly repulsed by the thought of intimacy and relationships. They were a chain of domination to me.

The Nirbhaya case had shaken me, the blaming of the victim by men around me, and so did the attitudes of my classmates and relatives towards women. However there were no grades for being sensitive towards it, all I got were scoldings and disgust for even inquiring what the words meant. The topics of sexual organs were to be neatly crossed out with a pencil. God forbid a woman was our Biology teacher. Boys and men around me spared no one from their rapist myth they called “sexuality”.

As I grew up, I had the chance to attend extra classes to prepare for JEE. The girls always sat segregated, they murmured and I faintly remember hearing them speak. I never dared to talk to one. Neither did any of my classmates. Two years passed in those classes.

I grew depressed and sad due to this lack of freedom and any real friendship. The absence of 50% of humanity from one’s life does affect it’s quality which is not completely due to sexual frustration. I had no male or female friends. I saw the world as this great royal rumble where men fought each other to brainwash women into consenting. I did come to know that women do consent voluntarily, but I could not believe it. Frankly, because I still saw sex equivalent to pain and suffering for women, and also because I knew no one who would ever say otherwise to me. I was an ugly, under confident child, and frankly familial patriarchy and sheer disgust towards any expression that was remotely mine made me completely confident of my beliefs. I wanted to fight the suffering of women. I wanted to eradicate porn and cyberbullying.

Two girls did approach me in my childhood to be friends, but conscious of the fact that I was a man, I relieved them of my friendship. I did not and could not face it that I too wanted to be friends, because I hated what it meant to me personally.

Unconsciously, I still did not see women as equals, I pedestalised them into a part of humanity that is always the victim. I became a part of the problem. You know the torture of the evil is more digestible than the torture of the righteous, for the simple reason that the torture of the righteous is two fold.

I began engineering. Segregated classrooms. Refusal to talk to women. I soon enough enrolled for military, I wanted to join the NSG. I wanted to rescue women and children. In the solitude of the selection process and the long runs I realised that perhaps I could do activism. I realised I should work on a cultural revolution. I opted out of the highly competitive NDA exam right before they would announce the results in the interview round. The scores came in, had I said yes, I would have been in the military. I could not turn away from my goals now.

I started going to slums, distributing sanitary pads. In doing so I made friends with girls. It felt different. I had no romantic interest, but in hanging out with them I realised something at the level of Mary’s apple. That women were human beings.

They liked to smoke, they wanted to date, they liked the same things I liked, they had goals and dreams. They were restricted, although arguably my upbringing was way more restrictive but they were not very different.

I did a lot. I am proud of my actions, it lead to lasting friendships. I would ironically also say I made my first lasting friendship with a girl. I eased a bit, I got into a relationship and did all I can for the girl. However, my putting women on a pedestal had not gone.

Chapter II: the Heartbreak

My ex girlfriend was how she was but for what it’s worth I am not here to whine about her. She ghosted me, and it was because of her new found freedom in a city far away from her house.

I realised something profound from this experience. Women have to sacrifice a lot of autonomy by merely existing. They are expected to suddenly be extremely free and corporate style confident, which is a huge jump. She went to that city and her peers expected her to be a certain way. Now she could either have me, or her freedom, as she thought. I represented to her the captivity of her past. I was to be abandoned. She did so, it caused me pain admittedly. She came to apologise two years later, her guilty conscious was not allowing her to live a fulfilling life.

However, I will say I allowed my own abandonment, in fact, I facilitated it. No I am not over philosophising. I wanted her to be free, without ever wanting freedom myself. I wished for a ritual, I became the sacrifice. I do not think that could qualify as love, because if love is a union my pain should matter too. Meaning thereby I should not have tolerated the sheer disrespect and voluntarily exited the relationship when she was becoming toxic to me. However my own inability to know that I am the union and not merely its support meant a relationship of only giving, and never receiving. I accepted that perhaps in reality, I was paying the debt on behalf of all the men. I was so drained, it still felt that I am in her way. I did not see my pain as an equal pain, and putting oneself below someone else is another kind of control.

Men see themselves as providers to women, without women ever desiring it. This takes the form of either extreme relinquish of control or extreme seizure of control. Love should not be in terms of a provision and reception. Love should be uniform. To accept any other form of a union is not love. Love should change how one feels about themselves, it should be like a prism that splits light. Love should be equal and unequal. To define its equality is a way to contain it, hence control it. A man must think ���I try to do equally as much but what she gives me is far more than what I give her”. Love therefore is a game of hide and seek. Both people in love try to catch up to the other and this becomes the best way for them to self actualise. Love is the most liberating of all feelings thus.

In India, workers have no certainty. Jobs often coincide with break ups, and divorces these days as offices form little “families”, all filled with men, who grew up with masculinity equalling domination in their minds and women, who have no idea what freedom means. These men expect women to be a certain way and this creates rifts massive enough to rip ties apart.

Wild lions and caged lionesses are left together to work in this sanctuary where they must survive. The lionesses begin following the lions. They become institutionalised. The very peer group that meant freedom now puts them in captivity. The corporate structure in fact is the jungle, uncertainty all over. (I am sort of proud I came up with that comparison)

Chapter III: The couple

My cousin sister loves a guy that organises metal concerts. He is sort of the perfect guy for my sister. I love him, he is very caring and sensitive. However her parents won’t agree. Caste, family, net worth et cetera et cetera.

In India, when I say there is no love, it does not mean people cannot love. It means a sinister society, that does not want love. They grow so institutionalised and repulsed by love, it is no longer a question of feelings for them. It is a matter of honour. Indian parents do not want the best for their child. They envy their child. The child represents to them freedom and sensitivity, they put it in captivity and throw it as cannon fodder to ideology. God forbid my sister decides to spend her own money. In no time will it become about honour. A fully functioning adult has to keep up with this code of respect.

Parents terrorise boys and girls to break up, then proceed to slut shame them. Parents never really grant their children freedom, so to speak. You constantly have to strive to “restore their honour” by everything you do. They do not leave your soul until they die. You have to kill your curiosity, your visions, your originality, your love life, everything, for the sake of their honour. An increasing number of families do not observe the hindu mourning period of 1 year now.

And so we see a nation where 67% respondents want to get rid of their parents, where streets of Mathura are filled with old widows awaiting death, where old age homes are filled up to the brim. Tired of honour, children routinely try to fight for freedom, and this becomes the struggle of Macbeth and his wife against the prophecies of the three witches. They come to haunt, and then the deed is done. The arranged couple avenges the death of their possibilities.

I had to speak up in my household. Males in my family can no longer bash women. I fought and fought. I won. But that too is because I am a grown man now. I will fight for my sister too.

Chapter IV: Mirror of reality

In India, live in, inter caste, inter religion and homosexual relationships, and most freedoms won for the cause of love are again under threat. The youth lie displaced and do not vote. The old people vote for the least useful and the most casteist parties possible. Democracy in India, especially since the hindutva BJP is in power has become a clown show. The institutions are rigged to the core. I do not think I need to expand this any further. I will conclude now. The reader now understands why I say there is no love, it is because our culture is insanely divided and subjugating. Where there is no freedom, there cannot be love. Love in essence is expression in freedom. Like language, the containment of love is a way to sieze power. The ruling elite have done all they can so that the corrupt system of marriages, dowry, caste division and honour killings do not stop. They are now coming up with elaborate laws that are supposed to “guard” their culture. What culture? The sub continent of India has a thousand different peoples and cultures, again what culture? They have made it easy for billionaires and the young people have no job security any longer.

What is to be done? Anarchism is the politics of direct action. Here is what you can do.

Talk about love marriages with your friends and younger people. Educate young boys about love and sex.

Open up dialogue with your parents and younger siblings about love and sexuality.

Open dialogue again if they recoil. And again. And again. Keep resisting. Get all the young people in your family under your banner. Then again.

If you are a professional, form co-ops and share your knowledge. Develop scalable co-ops, redistribute the surplus and secure an emergency fund for the families of your fellow workers. Stand for them. Fight capitalist oppression. Boycott companies, engage in mutual aid.

The praxis of anarchism is the praxis of love. And to be able to love means to be able to be free.

Until we do not resist this bs actively, expect no love to exist.

Resist!

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Why India needs Anarchism

Anarchism is a philosophy of direct action. India always had local self governance and direct democracy, in the form of panchayats. Mutual aid has always been a part of the Indian consciousness. But all that is basically a fossilised version of the indian, a digression. I will tell you why we REALLY need anarchism.

Firstly, UPSC, JEE, NEET and the Bureaucrats are colonial legacy

Competitive exams basically throw bodies at the problem of governance poverty and education. Even after JEE Advanced being the hardest exam, the IITs do not rank anywhere in research. Contrarily, TIFR, ICTS, IISc, ISI, RRI- institutes that do NOT take in through JEE or even if they do, they take in very less are actually pretty well known worldwide. Why? You may ask. If you really do want to know we can discuss it later on.

The IAS babu system compels and facilitates corruption as they basically are in place so that the mobs do not go berserk full french revolution mode. I mean, the Brits had ICS for this very reason. Civil servants were always against the independence movement, and the police and the babus have only ever worked to benefit the political upper class, who rarely ever change. In 525 people in the lower house, basically no one is there that is not a result of nepotism. Same is true for local assemblies. You are further removed from politics because if you work for the government you cannot have any political affiliation and if you are anyone else, your company can indiscriminately fire you for being “political”. Why? Because the IAS are the DE FACTO CHAIRMAN OF YOUR COMPANY. The IAS also come up with brain dead policies because they have no idea about the ground reality. So is the case with the Courts, where time and time again people of backward castes are harassed. Therefore your protest and movement will have no participants unless you are the political elite.

I say if you are an anarchist, instead of protesting, which will play into the hands of the ruling state, take it in your own hands. Educate children, do not take the NGO route, find mutual aid. If you are a doctor, or a nurse, educate people in first aid, help them set up their own clinics for primary care. Look up doctors who work in goodwill, improve their access and help them reach you. If you are an engineer, go to farmers, go to different people. Understand their problems, start co-ops to deal with the problem, contribute to open source! See how can you take your knowledge to the people. Gather artisans, cooks, experts, etc. Set up a little gym for youth in backward communities, train them martially to RESIST police and caste oppression! Thousand different ways to achieve this.

Learn from the example of Gandhian Khadi or Swadeshi movement, the Mondragon coop in spain, read about EZLN and Catalonia, read about Rojava. Read Bookchin, Malatesta. Follow the example of Dr Verghese Kurien!

Let not anarchism be a mere talking point. Let it mean action!

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Aliens and the Other

I am sort of noticing a phenomenon in sci fi movies other than the misogyny and the goober science (no problem with the goober science though)

It is that ever noticed that how alien species explain their “culture” to the white protagonist? As in star trek, vulcans have a particular “culture” that Vulcans follow, Orville’s crew having an alien taking them to watch him pee, in Guardians of the Galaxy different aliens (all different species altogether by the way) having a unitary single culture specific to the entire species. The cultures are often very out of the ordinary, meant to garner laughs, very ritualistic as if they come from the middle ages.

Think about it, how is it possible that an entire planet full of a species intelligent enough to build big spaceships and guns not have any diversity in language or culture? How would they not have any different phenotypes within the species? Why do they all dress the same? Why do they lack corporations, and only have imperial forces instead of any other form of government with one king over the ENTIRE species. Why can’t they conduct business? Why does the entire specie have the same food preference?

I find this so moronic, but this altogether is nothing but a symptom of the phenomenon of the other, that there is one human culture on Earth, the western American culture, American food et cetera. The other peoples of the Earth are not really people, they are like the Aliens stuck in a time capsule of american consciousness. The other peoples thus will never be complete people, and I mean all these movies prove is how heavily humans are indoctrinated into “American exceptionalism”, and America “represents” humanity.

This legitimises the imperial practises of America, the globalist fascism that they are carrying out all OVER the world including my country. A huge brunt of this is faced by the people where America bombs, the alien Palestinian or the Iraqi or the Somalian or the Laotian or.. well there are over 83 examples (good book reccs on this are Killing hope, Jakarta Method, Orientalism and Against Empire).

That said this article is mainly to deprogram the reader in a sense. If you are a writer, you can replace “in my planet” with “where I am from in my planet” and bingo you are no longer writing propaganda.

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Parasitics are important in electronics too!

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Some reflections on education

I have been a teacher, not as a source of employment but out of a genuine interest of sharing my knowledge. Resultantly, I have taught many children, ages 9-14 (sometimes even toddlers) the subjects of mathematics, english and important stuff they need to know as they were growing up.

Now much of these kids were not from well to do families, meaning thereby, that they lived beside railway tracks with less or no access to toilets, with generational poverty that caused many of them to grow up in an enviornment that lacked privacy and security. I can nonetheless proudly assert that I have been directly responsible for the education of over 40 children and the literacy program, carried out by me and some friends is responsible for the literacy of the slum. I believe my learnings in the field of being a teacher are something that can be useful if you are a teacher, or even a parent or a friend tasked with teaching, or someone who wants to teach themselves something.

Lesson 1. Homework holds back the quality of education

Homework is the first thing that causes inequality in a country. Many kids have good parents, who can afford them tuitions or help them solve simple mathematics problems or write for them an essay. My children, did not have that privilege. They had to work full time jobs in shops doing manual labor, after which they cannot be expected to do anything worthwhile. The challenge for me first hand was to teach these kids mathematics english and hindi such that they could be admitted into a government school in a grade they did not feel was below their age group. This had to be accomplished in 40 hours. Now 40 hours is a long enough time if you think about it, if you expect the students to work out the material.

I would make the class so exciting that they would think about it when they were gone to do their daily chores. I would ask them to spot 5 square numbers throughout their day. They would tell me addresses, would write them down and bring them to me. I would ask them to not study but to play. Children should play, it is important for development. I would buy them cereals and make them read the labels. One of my students, got so good at calculating squares that she overtook me. I would show these children why studying what they are studying is useful. I was studying electrical engineering, so the children would often inquire about trains, and shoot questions of all sorts at me. I would answer all of them. Result of this education as a way of life resulted in many of them not only going to school but doing well enough that their parents got educational confidence

Lesson 2: Children should be respected

I would often ask children for their opinions on matters. Often they would include my efforts to talk to the government officials. The children were intelligent, they would become my friends and learn to engage in dialogue, process emotions, even insults. I can say shouting “silence!” in the class is not the way to go. Children form a group in school, where they outnumber the adults and try to challenge authority. This trait needs to be channelised, not discouraged. The classroom is the first place where socialisation begins.

Lesson 3: Explain yourself

You are older. I get it. But explain yourself. Why do you think something is important. Why did you say a certain thing. Explain. Children are human beings, treat them as such.

Lesson 4: Curiosity should be the most important result of primary education.

If you are a teacher and the children end up not understanding the aesthetic value of your subject but hating it, then you are at fault. It is YOUR JOB as a teacher.

I think that these four lessons are abundantly obvious, however, I took my time to type it out insofar teachers parents and activists can reflect upon them.

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Gonna start my mathematical journey. Every good engineer has an affair with mathematics. I am not saying I am a good engineer, but I still have this infatuation. The joy of looking at greek symbols conveying some higher truth. Anyways a quick rant:

TUMBLR PLEASE ALLOW LATEX

Now that that is out of my system, let me discuss my plan. I would be using Tom Apostle in conjunction with Demidovich for calculus, Fomin and Kolmogorov for Real Analysis, Kostrikin and Manin for Geometry, Vinberg for Algebra.

By geometry I mean linear algebra in conjunction with geometry, by Algebra I mean Algebra and group theory.

I might do Yosida’s functional analysis too. I will cover topology and complex analysis if I can keep at this hobby.

Why Mathematics?

Mathematics has been ruined for most of us by empty curriculums lacking beauty. Same goes for physics, as well as engineering. All these are highly artistic endeavours in my humble opinion. I have been kept from mathematics by virtue of high stakes exams that require you to not study in depth, not take your time.

I just aim to study math as someone would study the piano. By no means does that mean my end goal is writing a paper- for I understandably lack that kind of an education. My end goal is to be able to at least understand what the real maestros are doing. In some sense, I want to develop a sense of hearing in order to appreciate Chopin.

I want to drown myself in aesthetic beauty. I read a bit of zoology, a bit of anthropology, a bit of everything as I am getting older and realising that it is not a waste of time to be immersed in the bliss of the human endeavour to seek for the purpose of seeking.

I have done my fair share of mathematics in engineering, in Signal processing and electrodynamics. I have taken a lot of mathematics courses. However those courses lacked depth and were very operational, as they had to cater to engineers.

I would be updating my progress each week. If I pull it off, I hope you can overcome your inner hurdles to do that one thing that you fantasised doing all your life. Maybe it was cooking, maybe it was doing a front lever on a pull up bar, maybe it was growing a flower or maybe it was looking at the night sky through a telescope. Let nobody tell you that your idle time has to be a profitable endeavour (though it can be!). The profit motive for many of us sucks us dry of motivation, it puts us in a direct conflict with history and the market. Why compete? Do your own thing. There is no hurry, everything will be alright.

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Here is a mistake I see many electronics beginners make. To highlight this, I have a problem.

Two black boxes in front of you (with two terminals each obviously), one with the thevenin equivalent and one with the norton equivalent. How do you tell which one is which?

Very simply by bringing a magnet close by, or by touching the boxes, the norton equivalent is a complete circuit (a current source parallel to a resistor) so it will be hotter and obviously deflect a magnet. You cannot conduct an electrical test since these two are electrical equivalents.

Tricky concept!

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Important books by Indian Feminists 2: “Law and Gender Inequality” by Flavia Agnes

Hello again, had some free time today so thought about posting another review. Again, to everyone reading this, I would be much obliged if you guys share your piece of mind on the works I am posting.

About the author: Flavia Agnes is an Indian lawyer who argues cases for women’s rights. She is from Mumbai.

Pdf of the said book

About the book Here is an important book for all the activists out there. If you are not one, what are you doing? Go out there work with women and children, file RTIs for various schemes for women and find out what happened to those funds out there or just help women you know get that divorce. I would be thankful if someone makes a post compiling women’s organisations that can be joined in India, region wise.

In view of these recommendations, here is a book that every indian must read. You need to know the basics of the law and its development in view of women’s rights in order to achieve meaningful goals with your actions. Yes, it is probably something non sensationalist to read about, but believe me the book is very well structured.

The book is even more important to read now, as among other things UCC is around the corner and therefore we need to be well informed about the development and the state of law regarding women’s rights in India. In her own words

> The study is an attempt to map the issue of gender and law reform upon a broad canvas of history and politics and explore strategies which could safeguard women's rights within a sphere of complex social and political boundaries. While the aim of this research is not to formulate a complex code reflective of this plurality, it is hoped that the thumbnail sketch of the origin and development of family laws in India, along with an exploration of the state interventions at various strategic points in history, will provide the necessary backdrop, against which the demand for gender equality can be reformulated.

The author goes over the history of pre colonial law, it’s development through the centuries of colonial rule in the first part (chapters 2-5). In the second part (6-8) the author goes over developments in post independent India. In part 3, she discusses the issues surrounding the non muslim minorities and finally in part 4 she addresses debates surrounding the UCC.

It is a very well written book, highly informative and the author basically wrote it like a research paper, because everything is cited. The arguments in part 4 are also very grounded in statistics that despite the government claiming that UCC is needed so that muslim women are freed from the drudgery of the muslim law, the Hindu law cannot be used as a precedent

> Although at one level, statistics for wife murder and suicide by young brides signalled a phenomenal increase in family violence among Hindus and the soaring number of the destitute reflected the inadequacy of the reformed Hindu law, the discourse on the Uniform Civil Code continued to project the codified Hindu law as a model for women's liberation and empowerment. The correlation between increasing rates of suicides, murder and destitution of Hindu women and the reformed Hindu laws was not examined by the protagonists of the UCC. This led to the demand for this code acquiring a distinct communal hue.

She has given great workable solutions aimed at taking into account the vast diversity of India.

I cited this specific part of the conclusion not because she has failed to not see the obvious unfairness in the muslim law or that I have anything against hindus, it is just that this is the main talking point and therefore the author has given a good analysis of this claim as well. If the UCC has to be a step ahead in terms of women’s rights while taking into account the diversity of India, this book is a must read for all activists.

In her own words,

> An examination of the strengths and weaknesses of the model drafts formulated in recent years is an important feature of this research. This will hopefully aid the process of arriving at the level of minimum consensus among the progressive and secular lobbies concerned with women's welfare which is a basic pre-condition for reform in the realm of family laws. Even if the first step of this process is facilitated by this work, the attempt would be well worth while.

Thanks for the read, let me know if you’ve read the book!

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Important books by Indian Feminists 1: “Philosophical Trends in the Feminist movement” by Anuradha Ghandy

I hope to upload my personal review of books particularly by Indian feminist authors. The goal is so that books by these brilliant women are shared and discussed and their voices are not pushed away, at least within India, by the heavyweight western writers.

About the author: born in 1954, Mrs Ghandy was a member of CPI-ML, was an instrumental part of the Dalit Panthers movement, resisting the emergency and additionally she founded many initiatives for tribal women. She contracted malaria while living clandestinely in the jungles, and died of complications in 2008.

Pdf of the said book

About the book

While surely some of us maybe critical of her politics, but in this book she covers almost all of the developments in the feminist movement and her discussions and critiques are top notch. The book is divided in chapters, with each chapter giving a broad idea about the major ideas and writings of various strands of feminist literature, and has critiqued them as well.

Her critiques are actually really spot on, for example in the section on Radical Feminism, she has covered two main books of the movement, Sexual Politics and Dialectics of Sex. I will discuss the book’s discussion of the latter so that you guys get a gist of how the book is structured.

In her work, Firestone had professed that the historical dialectic is not about production but about reproduction, suggesting that women refrain from reproduction in favour of artificial reproduction, even suggesting to refrain from heterosexual relationships in all, because any relationship between a man and a woman is always imbalanced. Ghandy has pointed out in a surgical fashion how the discussion centred around immutable traits/bio essentialism are also the talking points conservatives use to subjugate women, and therefore the entire discussion about an author making broad sweeping claims about “human nature” is quite counterproductive, and furthermore her solutions are very centred in the lifestyle of a metropolitan city, meaning thereby that even if the places that can undergo these changes do undergo these changes (no heterosexual relationships, androgyny, artificial reproduction, intentional families) there is no reason why it will seep to the parts of society where families are landless and capitalism drives patriarchy itself, and why will the bourgeoisie not appropriate this technology to further subjugate women. She also does not take into account women’s own preferences regarding the matter, and the movement is therefore inherently separatist. In view of the commodification of reproduction under the dialectic of reproduction, pornography becomes a trade like any other line of work. It also means, in Ghandy’s view, that women do not have the hormonal traits required to fight oppression, which alienates activists and movements in the parts of the world where women are directly fighting state’s violent oppression.

I want to point out that although Ghandy’s critiques are great throughout the book, the ideas need to be given an afterthought, and this I feel is a con of the book.

For example the key idea that Firestone highlights cannot be ignored in my opinion and it’s discussion in the Indian context of arranged marriages, marital rape and dowry surely compels us to reimagine the lives of Indian women where child bearing should be a choice, relationships and sexual preference should be a choice and similarly the value of womanhood should not be solely attached to child bearing, which is expected in a rather toxic sense from women in India resulting in ideological oppression. Therefore while the critiques are alright, and surely thought provoking, more needs to be thought about the ideas and context must be discussed.

To get a rough overview of the feminist thought and it’s evaluation in the eyes of an indian feminist, this book is one of the most important works on the subject and I hope that everyone gives it a read. Very engagingly written and precise (only 112 pages).

Would love to hear your thoughts on the book. I will upload more reviews in the future.

Here is a good essay discussing Dialectics of Sex in detail.