Terminating Embryo, Extinguishing Sanātana Hindutva?

Posted on 5th September, 2024 (GMT 17: 30 hrs)

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18016.08967

LicenseCC BY 4.0

ABSTRACT

The paper-letter critically examines the Hindutva ideology’s stance on abortion, using satire and sarcasm to highlight the contradictions in its rigid, “pro-life” views. The authors argue that Hindutva selectively interprets Hindu scriptures to enforce anti-abortion and anti-women policies, undermining women’s autonomy and agency. Through references to ancient texts, the paper critiques the ideological imposition of Hindutva, showing how it manipulates religious doctrines to control women’s reproductive rights while exposing its broader patriarchal and theocratic agenda.

DISCLAIMER: Our incessant struggle for being “Hindutvavadins”⤡ according to the projected Sangh Parivār’s ideology has cut a sorry figure due to the inescapably heterogeneous variations within the “Hindu” umbrella designatum. We have faced different uncontradictory contradictions or aporia within the “Hindu” religion when we were compiling our book of paper-letters: Devil’s Advocacy: Sabotaging Hindutva⤡. Moreover, it is a fight between glocal (global+local) organic intellectuals and the super-richest party, i.e., Bhratiya Janata Party that may be compared with “The Tussles of David and Goliath: Crony Oligarch vs Financially Abused”⤡ In the present violent and failed state of Hindutvaized India, the authors have tried their best to show the undecidable decidables of Hindutva ideology. In such claustrophobic state of affairs, the authors are trying to unveil the lacunae of the hegemonic and dominant framework of the Hindutvavādīns. In the following paper-letter, the authors are trying to show, in a sarcastic as well as satirical manner, the problematic “sanātana” stand on the crucial issue of medical termination of pregnancy, i.e., abortion, by citing various so-called “Hindu” scriptures. In dealing with the said matter, the authors unmask the theocratic Hindutva agenda of mercilessly relegating the woman corporeal and stealing any form of agency from the “second sex”. This is to clarify beforehand that the authors are simply deploying Brechtian theatrical method and Derridean non-violent militant deconstruction by masking themselves deliberately as “Hindutvavadins” while staying committed to their actual underlying stand on abortion, which is characterized by the pro-choice perspective.