Untouchability now exists mostly to the extent of gender relations. What is the physical distance a man and woman has to observe in a public society?
People nowadays are more scared of moral policing than anything else. The moral policing is a creation of insanity and violence caused by the sexual frustration. It's the moral policing that led people to believe that they are forbidden of expressing their affection for one another in front of others. Hence, a cultural stereotype was developed, and now women are something men can't even touch or look at in public. Even though the 'new-generation' is trying to overcome this madness, they are still trapped inside the hellhole that moral policing is. This "untouchability" exists in every public space now, for instance, if a young woman is sitting alone on a double seat of a public transport, the male passengers always hesitate to sit next to her. Even if they do, they will be subjected to the intense looks of the other passengers. It is almost same, even if it is the other way around. But the woman will be criticized more.
It's true that even the visionary writer like Changambuzha used to romanticize such moral values. It is actually the communal, and especially the missionaries' political influence instead of the manifestation of art that brought these values upon malayalees.
It was the writers like Kakkanadan, O.V Vijayan, M. Mukundan, M.P Narayanan Pillai, Zachariah etc that brought the sexuality into a much broader canvas. Through expressing a person's internal struggles, they discussed the sexuality very truthfully.
Even though our movie clichés like the dewdrops on the petals of a rose or butterfly kissing the honey of a flower are no longer used to symbolize sex, it still pertains in the minds of certain people. The most common theme of our movies are still love, romance and marriage. A relationship ending with marriage is still the fantasy of a Malayali.
The influence of Victorian morality has caused several problems in our society. Monogamy is one such problem. As we can see in P.K Balakrishnan's 'Kerala History and Caste System', the situation in Kerala before 100 years was different from today. The irony is that, in the same society that fought for the right to cover their breast, young men are getting arrested for wearing low-waist pants.
Unlike ours, other socio-cultural systems are not built upon these physical moralities. Nudity, hugging or kissing doesn't necessarily lead to sex. The perversion of the Malayalis is based upon this existing untouchability. Recent news events only support this argument. The recent moral policing in Marine Drive and University College are perfect examples. At marine drive, it was a shiv sena's women's day celebration. But apparently, they marched in holding a banner saying "stop crime against women" and started chasing away all the couples that were sitting together. Meanwhile the moral policing at University College was done by the members of the so called left liberal organization itself, the very people who are supposedly against it! Both Incidents are pretty ironic when you think about it. Maybe they are not even aware of the fact that their moral policing is based upon this gender based untouchability. I have seen the same people who establishes restrictions between men and women talks about dalit issues.
This cultural injustice is groomed from the school education itself. There are separate schools for boys and girls. Even in Asia's largest school, there are separate buildings for girls and boys. When the school dismisses at the evening, boys and girls are only allowed to leave at different times to avoid even a visual contact. The situation in the schools where the girls and boys are taught together are no different either, a burden of restrictions are implemented on them. According to the so-called educators of our schools, sitting together, eating together or playing together are mishaps that have to be carefully avoided. And If despite of all the obstacles a girl and boy somehow ends up being friends, that would suddenly become the concern for the authorities. The school administration is not understanding how this affects the mental health of the students.
Kerala was a state in which the sexual relationship existed beyond caste boundaries to an extent. These false moralities that we see today were brought in by the foreign invaders. We must acknowledge the importance of Vivekananda who called Kerala a mental asylum, based on the caste boundaries existed here. Even though these moral values, which we borrowed from western culture is not being followed by them anymore, we are still not ready to give it up.
by
LLB
GLC Trivandrum
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