Karwa Chauth and feminism.

There is no sight of light in the firmament and the vista of a dark night is suspended in the seeming stillness of nighttime. But I hear movement outside and for a tick, fear threatens to grapple with me before I realize that it is just my mother, readying herself for the famous “sargi” before she commences the strict fast, celebrating Karwa Chauth. Sargi is basically consuming comestible which ideally is the last food item to be had by the woman before she starts a day without food and water.

There are plenty of stories behind Karwa Chauth and if seen from a feminist lens, this festival is a small distance from being completely ridiculous. On this day, all Indian married women are expected to go without food and water for a day so their husbands can live a longer life. Firstly, the obvious problem here is lack of relationship between women not eating and men living longer. But since this is a religious practice, it wouldn’t be right to raise any (sensible) questions here.

Say I accept that women fasting will add more years to her husband’s lifespan, but then what are men doing to increase women’s lifespans? How come they just have to stand while their wives look at their face through a sieve? Or is it just the wife who is expected to have that kind of love and devotion for her husband?  Why are women expected to be so completely obsequious?

And come to think of it, most festivals only require women to fast. There are women out there who work for money, too and there are men, too, who don’t work. So why does it always have to be the woman who fasts?

Let’s visit some of the stories which seem to have led to the coming together of this rather sexist festival. One of my favorites is Queen Veeravati’s story who is the only daughter among seven sons and she, being a devoted wife decides to fast for her husband. As the day nears the moonrise, her weakness due of lack of nutrition increases and her brothers grow worried. Out of concern, they do some shifting around to trick Veeravati into thinking that the moon has risen. But this is a violation of Hinduism since the moon hadn’t actually risen yet. As a result, her husband dies because God gets mad but then he is brought back to life when Veeravati fasts all over again.

There are lots of problems with this story. The brothers tricked her only because they cared for her and didn’t want to see her undergo so much pain but God is apparently blind to compassion.  But let’s somehow accept this cruelty and look at how for her brothers’ mistake, Veeravati’s husband is punished. This is completely defeating the point of punishment, because it harms a perfectly innocent human being. Why punish her husband for something he never did? And in a way, killing her husband was hurting Veeravati because she obviously loved him. This brings us back to my point: Karwa Chauth is plain sexist.

Men are considered so strong and powerful but if that’s the case, then how come they need their wives to fast in order to live longer lives? And in any case, fasting for a longer life is ridiculous because I fail to understand how depriving a human being of basic nutritional needs (imagine a day without water!) to increase another human being’s life is logical. When a couple gets married by Hindu religion, one of the seven vows is that of “nourishment” which is clearly being ignored by the propagation of this festival. But if women are willing to do it, then men should be doing so as well. After all, both of them took the seven vows when getting married, right?