The debate on the decriminalisation of homosexuality had not yet died down that the verdict resulting in decriminalisation of adultery has hit the headlines. So with the two “historical” verdicts in September 2018 on Homosexuality and Adultery, the corporatisation of Indian Legal System has almost reached its zenith. Market driven sex and sexuality will now prosper without any obstacles. Both husband and wife are free to have sex outside marriage and can remain husband and wife too till they choose to divorce. So while Triple Divorce is criminal, adultery is now only a civil matter. The stage is set for West-style “Sexual Revolution” in the country. It was long back I had, in my book The Killer Sex, described what “Sexual Revolution” implies in truth:
Revolution implies an extraordinary change. But the change is not always the antibiotic that kills the infection and treats the disease. Instead it may be the hypnotic that sedates, addicts and slowly poisons. For any colossal transformation to be valuable, it has to be for the better. If huge changes do not end into salubrious fruition, they have no credentials to be called a Revolution.
“Sexual Revolution” is in truth the nadir of human behaviour. It has proved to be not the antibiotic but the hypnotic. It has heralded nemesis of individual’s peaceful existence, family’s peaceful sustenance and society’s peaceful countenance. It has derailed everybody from the right course, nailed every institution and failed every development; it has only bailed the merchants. It has made humanity look ludicrous; it has thinned to almost non-existence the demarcating line between human and animal. It has sacrificed abiding happiness at the altars of instant fun; and has crucified health on the cross of wealth. It has made character moribund by slaughtering the inspector of conscience that sustained it. It has pierced childhood, hanged womanhood and polluted manhood. It has snatched the apron of shyness that used to adore and protect woman, and has transvested her in the lingerie of shamelessness. It has transfigured man from a lover and protector of woman to mere usurper. It has made love without sex to look abnormal and ridiculous but sex without love to appear natural and admirable. It has reduced love to lovemaking, and has made lovemaking a perpetual captive of unadulterated lust. It has trounced parenthood and transfixed childhood. It has buried fatherhood and sickened motherhood. It has bulldozed the world converting it into huge rubble of solace and brought mankind to the verge of total collapse. Sexual Revolution is the python that must be trapped at the earliest and killed without delay.
Sexual Revolution has taught us that sex is not for life but life is for sex. That sex must overrule every other consideration and overcome every obstacle in its way. If it is the custodian of Law, it must learn to behave; if it is the inspector of Religion, it has to be dismissed; and if it is the police of morality, it has to be confronted…. The old saying must be redefined thus: everything is fair in love, sex and war.
WORLD OF MAMMON, NOT HYGEIA
On the one hand, we claim to be living in the 21st Century and argue that it is a world of Science & Technology and on the other we are making our legal systems totally independent of the impact of the items and practices on life and healthiness of life. Hygeia has evidently been made to prostrate before Mammon. If scientific facts are applied, our claims of Civilization will prove to be totally absurd and the current civilization will emerge as nothing but barbarism at its worst. What else can be said about something that threatens the very survival of humankind as healthy and peaceful organisation?
Medical and social statistics shouts at us, informing that homosexuality, promiscuity and prostitution are not only the biggest killers of the human beings but do also threaten the very existence of man as a species. Each of them alone is dangerous enough to warrant serious measures against it but together their impact is nothing but devastating. But each one of them is being supported in the name of “freedom of choice”, “human rights”, “equality of men and women” and “dignity of women”. All these phrases have become the biggest weapons in the hands of the economic fundamentalism and they are using them with impunity for commercialising to the hilt the human susceptibilities. Human weaknesses have now become “choices” worthy of respect by the Constitution and Supreme Court judges. Those who save the lives of the cruel murderers in the name of human rights and right to life quashing death penalties are allowing deaths of innocents (foetuses and those who fall victim to the killers like AIDS through contacts with them) in millions. Those who oppose them are dismissed with contempt as the retrogressive and obscurantist.
EQUALITY
Interestingly, while all the years the legal institutions have been extremely concerned about the equality of women, in the case of adultery, the Supreme Court has shown concern for unequal treatment to men in the matters of adultery. While previously, men were punished and women got free, now instead of making both punishable, the Supreme Court has pronounced equality for men by decriminalising them as well. What a way to achieve equality! But again, in order to sound pro-women, the Court has taken refuge in the argument that the previous law considered women only as the property of husbands and therefore the law needs to be quashed in order to ensure the dignity of women.
FAMILY THE WALL OF SAFETY AGAINST THREATS
The Supreme Court judgment has sounded death-knell for family system in India. The truth however is that family is the strongest wall of safety against diseases and social order. Marriage is a system that protects men and women against burdens of various kinds. Biologically speaking, man has the potential of impregnating as many women as he can engage with in physical relationship. He can father children from innumerable women at almost the same time. Woman cannot have more than a child at one time for at least a period of one year; if she actively breastfeeds her child the gap tends to be much longer, as long as three years. But what man can do in biological terms, he cannot justify in social terms if he has any obligations towards the women he is having sex with.
Furthermore, the demographic composition does not allow such vagrancies as the number of men and women are almost equal in society. Women outnumber men only by an extremely thin margin, and this margin is slightly higher in terms of marriage seekers. A strong family system, which makes promiscuity unacceptable, is consistent with the demographic, social and medical realties. This kind of system successfully acts as an insurmountable barrier between sex-transmitted infections and human bodies.
Promiscuity is an all-enveloping monster. Only a few can practise polygamy because of the demographic unavailability of women if a sizeable percentage wants it; but promiscuity can go on entrapping almost everybody. This has in fact become the truth in a large number of societies that do not put any restrictions on free mixing of men and women. Wherever promiscuity is high, the incidence of sex transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS is significantly high. The safe sex measures have only a limited role in protection against these diseases.
With the decriminalisation of homosexuality and adultery, India will go the Western way with marriages not lasting more than few years and more and more children living in single parent families. The fatherhood of the child will need establishment through DNA Tests.
What is the real surprise is that these “historical” verdicts have come when Hindutva is in power. Do they reflect historical milestones towards the “neo-Rama Rajya” that Hindutva is so fond of dreaming and talking? I am sure, a truly religious majority of Indians are disturbed. Muslims have their own Islamic ways to face the challenges. How Hinduism, which has been so proud of its extended family system, will cope with it, time will tell. Will they act together taking other religions along against this onslaught of immorality and threat to their health and peace?
[DR JAVED JAMIL is India based thinker and writer and Head of Chair in Islamic Studies & research, Yenepoya University, Mangalore, with over a dozen books including his latest, “Muslim Vision of Secular India: Destination & Road-map” and “Qur’anic Paradigms of Sciences & Society” (First Vol: Health), “Muslims Most Civilised, Yet Not Enough” and Other works include “The Devil of Economic Fundamentalism”, “The Essence of the Divine Verses”, “The Killer Sex”, “Islam means Peace” and “Rediscovering the Universe”. [email protected]]