Culture
CPI(M) MP's Comments On Sengol Conveniently Hide How Hammer-And-Sickle Regimes Treated Women
Aravindan Neelakandan
Jul 12, 2024, 12:54 PM | Updated 01:05 PM IST
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On 2 July, 2024, in the speech on the motion of thanks to the President, Su. Venkatesan, a Member of Parliament (MP) from Madurai Constituency spoke disparagingly on the Sengol placed in the Parliament.
Though he later called the Sengol a symbol of Dharma and honesty, he initially described it as a symbol of monarchy, claiming every king who held it had many women in his harem. He then asked Parliament what message the Sengol sent to the women of India.
It is quite a question coming from an MP who belongs to Communist Party of India (Marxist) and who also considers himself an expert on cultural and historical domains of Tamil Nadu.
Hindu Sengol
Though for the sake of convenience Sengol is translated as sceptre, there is a civilizational difference between Sengol and sceptre.
Sengol etymologically means rule of goodness — semmai meaning 'goodness' and kol meaning 'the rod of governance.'
Taken together Sengol means 'good governance' and not 'power of authority.'
This worldview or Darshana can be traced to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad which states that the Dharma is above the ruler and declares that the weak and the voiceless get justice even against the powerful because of Dharma.
Thus, Dharma is here ethical, not theological.
It is not the symbol of a ruler's power but the symbol of Dharma constraining the power by reminding the ruler of his Dharmic duty.
Hindu saint Thiruvalluvar in his Dharmic treatise Thirukkural had allocated an entire chapter of ten couplets for good governance. Many of the couplets refer to the kol. The chapter is titled ‘As against this the next chapter speaks of the tyranny.'
Thiruvalluvar distinguishes between good governance and tyranny as ‘Sengol’-ness (Sengonmai) and ‘Kodungol’-ness (Kodungonmai) respectively.
The vision of the Dharmic Sengol was revived in Hindu social movements, such as the 19th-century 'Iyya Vazhi' movement in South Travancore. This movement opposed British colonialism, Christian evangelism, economic exploitation, and social stagnation.
Iyya Vaikundar defined Dharma as "protecting the meek and the weak as one's own self." He introduced the 'Thiru-Pirambu' (Auspicious Cane) and the saffron flag for the movement.
So, to associate Sengol with kings having more than one wife or even having concubines is mischievous and perverted. It is a display of historic and cultural illiteracy.
Given that the speaker of the concerned lines is a Sahitya Akademi award winner for a historical novel, it seems the statement stemmed more from a desire to malign Indian culture than from historical ignorance.
Women in Communist regimes
However, since we are discussing the topic, and since Venkatesan is an MP from the CPI(M), it would help to see how women were treated in Communist regimes throughout the world.
Applying Venkatesan's logic to Marxist states (and even to Marx), one could argue that the Soviet Union (1917-1991) or Red China should be considered among the worst institutions of the twentieth century for their treatment of women.
The sexual abuse by Karl Marx of the housemaid Helen Demuth (1820-1890) is well documented. Karl Marx refused to take responsibility for the child born to Demuth out of their relationship. It happened in 1851 when Jenny Marx was pregnant with his fifth child.
The abuse the maid underwent, was taken as part of her duty.
Marx actually made use of the feudal advantage he had in Europe, which was transforming fast into capitalism.
Helena came from a peasant family. She was given as part of the dowry by the mother of Jenny Marx. She was an unpaid residential maid in the household of Marx. When a boy was born outside of wedlock, he was quietly sent away to another family as his presence would hinder Demuth from taking care of the ‘legitimate’ children of the Marx family.
However, the boy named Frederick Demuth was allowed to visit the Marx residence but was barred from entering through the front door. He could use only the back door to visit his mother.
This was only the initial sign of the systemic exploitation of women under the 'revolutionary' governments that would emerge from the political philosophy of Marxism.
As soon as the Soviet Union (the USSR) came into existence, one of the first institutions that was created was the notorious Cheka or VeCheka which was the ‘Extraordinary Commission for Combatting Counterrevolution and Sabotage.’ This was formed on 20 December 1917.
By 1918 Cheka had created its own prison system for political enemies.
Under the Tsar, the prison system was lenient. Lenin, while imprisoned, could read books, go hunting, and have personal time with his wife after petitioning the authorities. However, under Lenin, the prison system for political enemies became a model for Nazi concentration camps. Here is an excerpt from a statement recorded by one of the prisoners:
The conditions of women prisoners were both better and worse. The administration had complete power over them. [The women were required to have sex with the administration] Only a few refused... One of them was... shot and killed [for such a refusal]. The women begged another to agree — they were afraid that all of them would be punished [by the angry administration].Michael Jakobson - Origins Of The Gulag_ The Soviet Prison Camp System, 1917-1934, University of Kentuckcky, 1993,p.42
One should remember that this was the situation under Lenin before Stalin started his purges and made Gulags even more inhuman.
Under Stalin, conditions for women prisoners worsened. Women, including family members of political rivals and party officials, had to provide sexual favours to Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin's secret police chief, to avoid arrests and stop the torture and executions of their loved ones. This exploitation became a joke in Marxist power circles.
Here is an excerpt about Beria from a book on Stalin published by Central European University Press:
Many of the chief executioner’s victims — like the period’s other great diva, Tatyana Okunevskaya, the film actress — have since written down the story of their forced relations with the disgusting Beria. Their testimonies unanimously reveal that Beria first collected detailed information on the women he had selected to be his concubines. If it became clear from these “background studies” that the woman had a relative in the Gulag or prison then the NKVD chief implied that for services rendered he would release the person in question. But he generally did not keep this promise.
There are other lurid accounts of the systemic sexual exploitation and abuses of women by the USSR and we shall leave all that because we respect the dignity of the readers.
Mao's China was no different.
Prof. Michael Lynch, a historian at the University of Leicester has written a biography of Mao, published by Routledge in its series of ‘Historical Biographies.’
What is being presented here is from that book by an academic published by a prestigious publisher and not from a pulp sensational magazine.
The readers should be forewarned that the material is disturbing. Prof. Lynch writes:
Zhang had first come to Mao’s notice in 1962 when she became one of a number of young girls who achieved the much sought after position of tea server in the dining car of his special train. She was eighteen, fifty years Mao’s junior, and already married when she joined the train. Finding her particularly vivacious, Mao invited her to be an attendant in his sleeping car. This was, in effect, to make her his chief concubine... According to his doctor, Mao’s taste in women was like his eating habits. When he liked a particular dish he would have it for days on end until he was sated. He would then push it away and try another. Yet for the young women who serviced Mao’s needs there was no greater coup than to have slept with Chairman Mao. It was something they could boast of among their peers. Nor were any of them deterred by his less than perfect bodily hygiene. Mao had a habit of publicly putting his hand down his trousers and hunting for lice in his pubic hair. When he had located the bugs he would withdraw his hand and proceed to crack or squeeze them between his finger and thumb. He never brushed his teeth or used toothpaste: his only form of dental care was to swill his mouth with green tea. It is unlikely that his girls all escaped contracting the sexually transmitted diseases that he carried. Gonorrhoea and genital herpes were among the hazards they risked. But there was no lack of takers to fill his bed.Michael Lynch, Mao, Routledge Historical Biographies, 2004, p.222
This elaborate, disgusting yet well-attested quote is needed because the Member of Parliament in question belongs to that faction of Communist Party of India which sides with China ideologically.
As late as 2017 ‘People’s Democracy’ (Vol. XLI No. 21 May 21, 2017) has criticised the ‘blinkered view of government’ for not participating in the Belt and Road Initiative of China.
So, when a CPI(M) MP speaks disparagingly of the Sengol in Parliament, considering the history of Marxist regimes, shouldn't the hammer and sickle be considered offensive to every woman worldwide?
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