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00:00It is not in all violent relationships that murders actually happen.
00:06But even if there is no murder, no media, no outrage,
00:10the fact remains that most relationships are very loveless and therefore necessarily violent.
00:17I have seen very well-educated boys, they themselves are earning very well
00:22and they in their conversations are saying things like,
00:24you know, I've got an offer of a 50 lakh dowry or a 1 crore dowry and a Scorpio
00:29and, you know, things like that.
00:30You see how that relates to dowry?
00:32You know, now I carry this degree, kindly offer me placement.
00:36Now I carry this degree, I'll command a higher dowry.
00:39We are who we are.
00:41It will be very, very difficult to look at a daughter as a human being.
00:45You look at her through the lens of her gender.
00:48It will be extremely difficult.
00:50But think of the five-year-old, that little girl.
00:53Yeah.
00:53And she has already been told she is pariahdhan.
00:56Yeah.
00:56And two such unhealthy people get together as man and wife.
01:01Now what will they do and what kind of kids will they breed?
01:05Please imagine.
01:05Hello everyone and welcome to this special feature on NDTV.
01:14I am Preeti Dahiya and I am in conversation with Acharya Prashant,
01:18one of world's most followed spiritual teacher, a philosopher, a guide
01:22and someone who has established himself as a voice on contemporary social issues.
01:27He speaks with authority, clarity and also at the same time puts things in spiritual and
01:34wherever necessary psychosocial context as well.
01:38Thank you Acharya Ji for taking our time and talking to us.
01:40I am glad, I am glad.
01:41Acharya Ji, why I have started with the contemporary social issues is because I want to, first of
01:48all, talk to you about the recent incident that we have seen in the national capital region
01:54of a young girl dying of burn injuries.
01:59Now one side claims this was a dowry death, the other says that this was a suicide.
02:03Whatever the case may be, one life is lost in a very unfortunate circumstances.
02:07In today's India, 20-25, reports like this, how should one see it?
02:15What is the context of a dowry death when this practice itself was banned more than six decades ago
02:22and still society falls in the trap of it?
02:27The context very basically is of lovelessness.
02:37When relationships, due to some reason, are founded not on clarity and love and rather on greed
02:55or physical instincts or traditional inertia, then this is what will happen.
03:07You see, we are raising this issue here right now because of a very, very apparently violent
03:20act that has happened and keeps happening.
03:23We know the number of dowry deaths that happen in India, the crime records bureau stats are available
03:29to all of us.
03:30When those things happen, then we take note.
03:35But the fact is that there is always violence and that is buried beneath silence.
03:45So we don't come to see of it and that happens because people are coming together on very flimsy reasons
04:04and that will lead to violence.
04:05I mean, think of the days preceding the death, the murder.
04:19We don't have any dowry death.
04:20Imagine what the situation would have been with that person, in that relationship, in that household.
04:31Right?
04:32It was quite possible that the killing could have been somehow avoided.
04:43There must have been a build-up.
04:45Right, right, right.
04:47And it is not in all violent relationships that murders actually happen.
04:55So we don't get to know of them.
04:58But even if there is no murder, no media, no outrage, the fact remains that most relationships
05:06are very loveless and therefore necessarily violent.
05:14As a society, do we value clarity and freedom?
05:23When you have clarity, you know who you are and therefore, who must you relate to?
05:32And when you have freedom, then you can proceed as per your clarity.
05:38Do we value these things, freedom and clarity, or do we value accumulation, money, tradition,
05:49blind following?
05:50Adjustment.
05:51Yes.
05:52Adjustment.
05:53Yeah.
05:54Because there is a certain way most people are living.
06:00And we are expected to follow that.
06:02You are expected to follow that.
06:04You fit in somehow.
06:06Do we value all these things?
06:08As long as we do not value the right things, such incidents will keep coming to our notice
06:17episodically.
06:19But the fact will remain that there is a continuous undercurrent of very bloody violence flowing
06:29unnoticed.
06:30And as I said, there are lots of, but just buried, because we don't notice silence, even if it carries
06:48a lot of grief, pain, we notice things only when we are compelled to.
06:55Yeah.
06:56When the blood becomes unavoidable, we are forced to look at it, then we say, well, something
07:03bad has happened.
07:05Even if you see, in that we save our skin.
07:09We say, you know, something macabre, something entirely violent has happened only in this moment,
07:19in this relationship, in this house, at this place.
07:22Otherwise, things are generally fine.
07:29And we console ourselves.
07:30Things are generally fine.
07:32Only in this case did something very deviant happen.
07:37So we make that an exception.
07:39We think of that as a deviation or an exception.
07:43The fact is, that is not a deviation or an exception.
07:47If a society, if a people are not brought up rightly, not educated rightly, and do not
07:56carry the right value systems, then this violence is not an exception, but the norm.
08:05I don't know Acharya Ji, there is a problem here, because you know, these kind of cases
08:10are not being reported only in a certain income group, or in a certain society where education
08:16levels or literacy levels are not, you know, as per today's standards, or the exposure is
08:21not as per the standard of a 2025 country.
08:25I have seen very well educated boys, they themselves are earning very well, and they in
08:31their conversations are saying things like, you know, I've got an offer of a 50 lakh dowry
08:36or a one crore dowry and a Scorpio and you know, things like that.
08:39They are flaunting it as some sort of a status symbol, they are well educated, they are earning
08:43well for themselves, they can very well have a partner take care of her and their future families.
08:48But still, where does this psyche come from that I am a commodity whose market value is this,
08:52and I will take advantage of this.
08:54You see, you could be very well educated.
08:57In many external things, in India, if you are an educated person, a professional earning well,
09:11you most probably carry a professional degree, you are either an engineer or a doctor or an MBA or a CA
09:19or something or maybe a lawyer or somebody.
09:25You know, that in no way prepares you for life.
09:30That education tells you about certain things on the outside.
09:36Let's say you are an engineer, an IT engineer working at Bangalore.
09:41So you know coding. Or if you are a mechanical engineer, you have been taught about gears and automobiles
09:52and power plants and such things.
09:54You know your job.
09:56You know your job.
09:57But you know yourself.
10:00You know what it means to live.
10:03In fact, why do people get into institutions offering professional courses?
10:09They get into those institutions just to have a good career and have good money.
10:14That does not change who they are.
10:17Even at the moment of admission into a professional course,
10:23one is already greedy, one is already ignorant, one is already going to use the institution as a stepping stone.
10:35Something that would build up his CV.
10:38In marriage market also.
10:39And that CV carries weight in the marriage market also.
10:42Even when the fellow is standing at the admissions office,
10:45he's actually thinking of the placement office.
10:49You see how that relates to dowry?
10:51You know, now I carry this degree, kindly offer me placement.
10:55Now I carry this degree, I'll command a higher dowry.
10:59Much the same center.
11:01Much the same inner thing.
11:03So there is no way your professional education,
11:07your formal education is going to illuminate you from within or displace your inner traditional center that you have already built up in the first 10 or 15 or 20 years of your life.
11:26That will remain.
11:27Whatever you do next would just be an expansion from the pre-existing center.
11:37Not that you will start operating differently as a person.
11:43Yes, you will operate more efficiently, but as the same person.
11:48You will operate more effectively, you will operate more successfully, but as the same inner person.
11:57Inwardly, you are just the same.
11:58It doesn't matter whether you are unemployed or a highly paid professional.
12:05So essentially, it's like, you know, adding accessories to your costume.
12:09Very well put.
12:10But the body remains the same, the mind remains the same.
12:13Exactly the same.
12:14You know, you have also written a very interesting article in one of the leading dailies, the pioneer.
12:20And I was going through that article.
12:23You call this a trap for both genders.
12:26Can we expand that on that a bit further?
12:30Women, you say, of course, continue to endure the harshest consequences.
12:34How is the other gender for a male?
12:37Is it a trap?
12:38You see, in many ways.
12:45First of all, if you see, the labour participation rate of women has been surprisingly declining in India
12:54over the last few decades.
12:58And the demand for dowry becomes amplified when the woman is not working.
13:07Not that if the woman is qualified and working, dowry won't be in the picture.
13:14But dowry would almost certainly be in the picture if the woman is nahan, if the girl is not working and
13:21she's going to remain dependent on the husband financially.
13:25So the man would be carrying the financial burden.
13:31For the sake of possessing the woman, owning her completely, curtailing her freedom completely,
13:41he has taken a rather big burden on himself.
13:46What he's saying is, you will be here, you won't go out because that doesn't fit in with my traditional ways.
13:55You stay here and I'll provide for you and the kids.
14:02First of all, there is a financial burden on the man then.
14:05Secondly, the woman is a human being.
14:09You do not allow her to have experience, exposure.
14:16Her consciousness doesn't grow.
14:19She gets inwardly distorted.
14:20Yeah.
14:21Most women in our country
14:24are not really deft, or adept, or skillful, or even knowledgeable in worldly matters.
14:41It's almost a conspiracy.
14:43Because they have been confined to the four walls of the house.
14:45I was coming to that.
14:46They've never been exposed to that sort of...
14:48They've never been exposed.
14:49You confine somebody to what is actually a cage.
14:53What else do you expect?
14:56The woman will not grow as a conscious person.
15:00And the husband is to continuously live with her.
15:04Definitely, it's a punishment for the woman.
15:07But then, if you see, it's a trap for the man also.
15:11If you are subjecting yourself to the company of someone
15:15who has been prevented from learning,
15:23so the man might think
15:26that he has acted smart by confining the woman to the home.
15:33The fact remains that if you do not allow freedom to the other one,
15:39then you are inflicting the company of a caged person on yourself.
15:48Also, it is the nature of all human beings, man or woman, to be free.
15:56That's our essential nature.
15:58Our nature is to be free, to grow, to be conscious.
16:01And if you do not allow your partner, the woman, to live as per our essential nature,
16:16there would be retaliation, gross or subtle.
16:21Sometimes even unconscious.
16:24The woman, for example, will not know how to deal with the kids.
16:32She will in no way be a good and able partner.
16:39So, the man then is trapped financially, psychologically, in all ways possible.
16:49And then, there are these husband-wife jokes.
16:53We talk of the hand-pegged husband.
16:56Who's responsible?
16:57If you do not allow your partner to grow, to know, to experiment, to explore,
17:09to travel, to struggle,
17:13even to get defeated.
17:14If you do not allow her these things,
17:16then you are putting yourself in a spot.
17:21And that most men realize, but only after it's too late.
17:27Let me try to put this burden equally on the father as well.
17:33When he is raising a daughter and a son at the same time, even now in our country,
17:38the standard of expectations are very different.
17:40The boys get all the jobs outside the household.
17:43The girls have to learn everything in the household.
17:45Even the mothers encourage it.
17:47So, in today's context, when we see cases like the one we've seen in the NCR region,
17:53shouldn't parents also take equal responsibility of raising strong daughters
17:59who are better exposed to the world and the way it's moving?
18:02And also, there is a quote, very interesting one, you must have heard this one,
18:06that we have perhaps learned how to raise strong daughters,
18:10but we have not taught our sons how to deal with those empowered girls.
18:16What you are saying is absolutely right and great to hear.
18:21But it won't happen. How will it happen?
18:26It won't happen because, you see, I'm a father, let's say, I'm a father.
18:32On one hand, all my traditional images that I hold sacred and venerable,
18:43if they do not reflect an empowered woman, it will be very difficult for me to continue
18:56to belong to a tradition and yet raise an empowered daughter.
19:01It will be very difficult. I'll find myself trapped.
19:05Because you don't have an example in front of you?
19:08Because you do have an example in front of you,
19:11and that example is coming from tradition.
19:16And you find it almost heretical to ignore that example.
19:25So, you may have a certain affection for your daughter, even deep affection.
19:31But even then, maybe with tears and sobs, you'll send her away.
19:38And you'll say, you know, I love you so much.
19:41But certain things are inviolable in life.
19:44So, you have to go away. Please go away.
19:47Don't you see that in many father-daughter relationships?
19:49I love you so much.
19:50Yeah.
19:52But my old values, my traditional ecosystem overpowers my love.
19:58So, you have to go away. I cannot allow you certain things, even though I love you so much.
20:04And that becomes some kind of very soul-stirring tragedy.
20:10You look at it and you too start feeling emotional, you know, such a loving, doting father.
20:17But the girl, you know...
20:20It's a girl child. He has to live without her.
20:22He has to live without her.
20:23And he cannot give her freedom beyond a point.
20:27And he cannot go beyond the paradigm of the established father-daughter relationship.
20:34And so, you kind of sympathize with the father.
20:39But that's it. You cannot go beyond that.
20:42So, when we say that fathers or mothers must raise empowered daughters,
20:48that cannot happen in isolation, in a vacuum.
20:52First of all, the entire mental and social ecosystem has to change.
20:58As long as we are who we are, it will be very, very difficult to look at a daughter as a human being.
21:06You look at her through the lens of her gender.
21:09It will be extremely difficult.
21:11You may have affection.
21:13I'm not denying that.
21:15But that affection will be superseded by something else.
21:20Acharya Ji, this particular case is also very curious.
21:23Because, you know, it does not bring just matter in black and white.
21:26There are a lot of grey areas in it.
21:28And as the case is unfolding, we are hearing new theories every day.
21:32One of them also goes on to say that, you know, the girl had a beauty parlor that she was running.
21:37She had a salon that she was running after marriage.
21:39It was not a new marriage.
21:41They were in matrimony for nine years.
21:43And apparently the man in question here was upset over she making fun of him in social media reels and working in that salon, which he must have had some part to play with, you know, in terms of establishing it for his wife, that she doesn't have to go very far away from home.
22:03It will be a more controlled environment if she wants to work at all.
22:07These are grey areas, don't you think?
22:09On one hand, she's working.
22:10On the other, there's a man whose ego is getting hurt because she is making fun of him on social media.
22:15Then there is a child also involved in the equation.
22:18Too many complexities.
22:19Are we struggling to put our thoughts in like one direction?
22:23You see, we do not know the facts really, we do not know what is really happening.
22:32So it would be imprudent for me to get into the specifics of one particular incident somewhere.
22:38But greed in relationships, dowry and dowry deaths are a more general problem, more endemic.
22:52You see, the woman might be allowed to run a beauty parlor or even go outside.
22:59But still, there are very clearly defined, though invisible boundaries.
23:07I agree.
23:08Being a working woman yourself, you know of the glass ceiling, right?
23:11That is, there is definitely one.
23:14So, one has to investigate where does all that come from?
23:21If we do not get to the root of it, we'll be just left wondering or
23:27grieving or outraging again and again in every successive episode.
23:34So, the kid is born a boy or a girl
23:40and there is no way
23:44they know of themselves as superior or inferior or defined or limited.
23:50They do not know that.
23:51Where does all this come from?
23:53When we discover that 25 years later,
24:01that boy who was once born,
24:04actually sprayed kerosene on the girl and set her ablaze.
24:09How exactly did that happen?
24:11It has something to do with the 25 or 28 years
24:16that they spent in this society, in the institutions of this society, in their family,
24:25watching TV, reading books or novels,
24:30watching movies, listening to songs, speaking to friends,
24:35going to religious festivals, participating in family ceremonies.
24:40This is what they have been doing these 25, 28 years.
24:43Simple conversations at home.
24:44Simple conversations at home.
24:46Yeah.
24:47They have been doing this for the last 25 years.
24:51And this is what has resulted in a human being
24:54that can set another human being afire.
24:58And this is what has resulted in a human being that is ready
25:05to accept the lordship of another human being
25:09who is almost similar in age.
25:13Right?
25:13And sometimes even inferior in education.
25:17Yeah.
25:18Right?
25:19But the girl is supposed to offer fealty, my devotion, my submission.
25:28What transpired?
25:30What happened all these years?
25:33What was it that was happening?
25:34Unless we address that,
25:38we can grieve over these shocking incidents,
25:42but that would be of no avail.
25:45We will reach nowhere.
25:46What is it that we are teaching our kids?
25:50How do we look at our daughters?
25:51How do we look at our boys?
25:53How do we look at ourselves, first of all?
25:57When a woman says,
25:58this is who I am.
25:59This is what defines me.
26:01I'm a great mother and a great wife.
26:07What exactly is the greatness about?
26:11And is it not possible that the image of the ideal mother
26:15that we venerate so much is in some way
26:21complicit when it comes to the subjugation
26:26and even harassment of women?
26:28Very true.
26:29Right?
26:30Think of our traditional image of the ideal wife
26:33or the ideal mother and it is not an image that just men carry.
26:37A lot of women feel very, very puffed up and proud
26:45that they are the ideal mother or wife or whatever.
26:52Without realizing where this idealism is coming from,
26:57who gave them that image, that ideal, that idea,
27:00they do not know that.
27:01But they think of it as an absolute.
27:04They think of it as something that definitely is the truth.
27:09Yeah, unquestioned.
27:10Unquestioned.
27:11This,
27:13this admission of social and traditional values,
27:18without any inquiry, without any critique,
27:21without any exploration,
27:24as long as this continues,
27:26violence will continue in some form or the other,
27:29because violence is the inevitable output of ignorance.
27:36As long as there is ignorance in the heart of the man and the woman,
27:40there would be violence, gross or subtle, visible or invisible.
27:44Yeah, no, it's unfortunate, but it's also true.
27:49And these are, these are facts which are coming out in front of us almost on a daily basis,
27:53from some corner of the country to the other, numbers speak for themselves.
27:57Now, I want to close this topic by once again, referring to the article that I was talking about,
28:03that you have written, and where you talk about the way forward.
28:08Two points stand out here.
28:09One is the inner empowerment.
28:12Because we have spoken about the fact that no matter how hard parents try,
28:16and how hard the husband may be, you know,
28:18well-intentioned in trying to expose you to new things, but
28:21self-empowerment is something which will perhaps take you forward,
28:25and which will be your biggest empowerment, and a culture of consciousness.
28:29On these two points, I would like to expand on your thought process.
28:32First, let's begin with the inner empowerment.
28:34How can a woman inculcate that in her?
28:37Or even for a guy, I think, for a man, it's very important.
28:41It will be very important for her to start
28:50with nothing as the truth.
28:54She cannot start from a pre-existing position.
28:58I am a girl or I am a woman, and this is why I was created, you know, to accompany the man maybe,
29:08to be an able assistant.
29:10No, no, no.
29:11Keep all these things aside.
29:14You'll have to start from zero, from a very clean position.
29:17You cannot say, I'm a girl, and one day I have to leave my father's house.
29:27I am pariah dhan. I am somebody else's possession.
29:32I'll go somewhere else.
29:33By the way, do you see the violence implicit in this?
29:37We talk of what happens to her when she goes to that other house.
29:44But think of the five-year-old, that little girl.
29:47Yeah.
29:48And she has already been told she is pariah dhan.
29:50Yeah.
29:51Think of these continuous years of violence.
29:54She already knows who she is in relation to her brother.
29:58Correct.
29:59Her brother will be the owner of the household,
30:03the carrier of the family lineage, and also the family riches.
30:07Yeah.
30:08And she'll be reduced to being a guest.
30:09And she'll be reduced to being a guest, and she is to be sent off one day.
30:14So, look at the violence there.
30:16So, the girl cannot start from any of these positions.
30:19She has to be very bold in rejecting just everything.
30:23Rejecting not in the sense of just keeping everything aside forever.
30:30Rejecting in sense of not accepting things that have not been experimented with,
30:37critiqued, explored, inquired into.
30:41Or peddled as absolute truth.
30:43Or peddled as absolute truth.
30:44No, nothing is the absolute truth.
30:45I do not take anything on face value.
30:49Bring it to me.
30:50Once I have rejected everything from the position of the absolute truth.
30:56No, no, no, not this, not, nothing, nothing.
30:59Now you can bring your stuff to me.
31:01You can bring your ideals, your values, your traditions.
31:04Whatever you think of as your truth, bring it to me.
31:08And let me look at it with boldness, without fear,
31:15without submission, without bias.
31:17I'll look at everything.
31:18And then if I find some merit in it, maybe I'll say yes.
31:24But I cannot say something is divinely ordained, and I have to live by it.
31:30That is the first step.
31:32And what annoys me, or pains me, is that even so-called educated or empowered women,
31:44they are carriers of a lot of things that they have inherited from the past, the problem
31:56does not lie so much in carrying those things.
31:58It lies in carrying those things without questioning, without questioning.
32:04So you might be empowered in one sense.
32:10You might be a high society woman, earning well for yourself.
32:13In fact, even earning more than your husband.
32:16Or maybe you didn't ever marry, and you tout that as a symbol of your emancipation.
32:21And all that is great for you, fine, wonderful.
32:25But still, if you look into your mind as a woman, you find you are carrying many other things
32:33that you never went into.
32:34A lot of isms, maybe a lot of superstition.
32:39Maybe a lot of racial pride.
32:42Maybe a lot of religious bias.
32:44And do you see how all these things are linked to each other?
32:50It's a debate.
32:54Ignorance versus clarity.
32:56And everything that boosts your ignorance, will subject you to violence.
33:03Even if the element that contributes to your ignorance, does not look directly related to
33:12any kind of violence, but it's a law.
33:15Ignorance will definitely breed violence.
33:19A superstitious person, for example, is much more likely to be violent.
33:25We know of bigotry.
33:27Right?
33:27We know of all kinds of, you know, I'm white.
33:31I'm white.
33:32Now, will that not lead to violence?
33:35Or, I belong to a certain caste, or a certain religion?
33:39Certain sense of superiority.
33:41Superiority, or even inferiority.
33:43You see, I belong to a certain caste that is not looked at with respect.
33:50Even this will breed violence.
33:53Because you have accepted something without questioning it.
33:57You see that.
33:58And now you are filled with rage.
33:59Now you are filled with a lot of things that are very, very unhealthy.
34:05And two such unhealthy people get together as man and wife.
34:10Now, what will they do and what kind of kids will they breed?
34:14Please imagine.
34:16The man does not know a thing.
34:17In fact, he knows just too much without ever having questioned a thing.
34:24Ditto for the woman.
34:25And they both are role playing.
34:27The man as the superior one and the woman as the inferior one.
34:31Or whatever.
34:31Let's get out of the superior and inferior dichotomy.
34:34There is some role playing happening.
34:36With neither of them knowing why exactly must they play that role and who they are.
34:43Beneath the act.
34:45Who the real actor is, they have never inquired into that.
34:48And these two are getting together.
34:49And that's what we call as a family.
34:51And this family is now raising girls and boys.
34:54Then how is it surprising that we have such shocking incidents every other day?
35:00Very well put, Acharya Ji.
35:03But like you said, the unfortunate truth is that these cases will not stop unless there is a
35:09inner liberation of your own consciousness.
35:11And you know that you as an individual stand for this.
35:15And therefore, this what has been encouraged over decades is not something right.
35:20On that note, thank you so much for like always putting things in perspective.
35:24And we hope to have many more successions with you and dive into more deeper topics.
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