how I found feminism in Hindu tradition

feminism, like water, finds and fills the cracks in a foundation

Jeelakarra-bellam or cumin-jaggery. A Telugu wedding tradition. (photo by me!)

Parampara, the Sanskrit word for tradition, connotes the passing of knowledge from the guru, or teacher, to the shishya, or disciple. My wedding, which took place in India, included layers upon layers of Hindu tradition.

It would require a lifetime to examine each ancient element, but regardless, myself and other South Asian feminists have found a way to critique aspects of the religion over and over again. In 2022 I wrote a Medium essay called Why do we pray?, a feminist critique of poojas, or Hindu rituals. In the warmth of India I write about how fiercely I want to protect aspects of Indian culture, but I do not feel that same visceral protectiveness over poojas, which are a core facet of my Indian experience. So, why then did I agree to ten hours of my own wedding rituals? How did this feminist find meaning in a traditional Hindu wedding?

reform from within

On a human-scale there is a part of me that finds poojas necessary in evoking a feeling; the smell of incense, the sound of Sanskrit chanting, and the familiar sight of a shirtless priest in front of a homa, or holy fire, create a feeling of splendor and Indianness. If I attend a wedding where two Hindus are getting married and there is no pooja, I feel disappointed. The exchange of vows is sweet, but too short. I want a prolonged ceremony. I want to sink into my seat, waiting for hours.

This feminist craves pomp and circumstance. If every moment of life is casual, every milestone meekly recognized, is this not a waste of our capacity for emotional exuberance? Is the sweetness of life not but a series of shared experiences with others? A pooja is an opportunity to gather family and friends around a collective ritual. Can feminism make space for tradition, even if it is steeped in patriarchy? If I, as a feminist, participate in tradition does it change the tradition or does it change feminism? Possibly both?

Alas, pomp and circumstance alone do not comprise of tradition nor do they hold a family, a marriage, or a society together. We are not let off so easily. Poojas are nodes that connect phases of life, so it is what happens in-between that matters most.

less feminist statements, more feminist lives

Men watched men pray to a supreme woman while the remaining women hovered on the periphery of the holy area, ever ready to serve. None ventured into the prayer circle, lest they pollute the purity of the space with their feminine bodies. (Why do we pray?)

This scathing sentence was written by yours truly only a few years back. I was angry and judgemental, therefore I could only see the pooja through one lens. Much of what I observed and concluded was correct — Hinduism remains a patriarchal and misogynistic religion. The very women without whom Hindu society would cease to function are without unique identity within it, identifiable only by relation to a male figure, be it a father or a husband. What has changed, however, is my notion of the context in which a pooja can exist.

During our wedding pooja there was a kanya dhaana whose literal translation is “bride donation” (similar to the Christian custom of the father giving away the bride). Recently in India there has been much contention about this aspect of the wedding, and I understand why. The eerie name of the term aside, India is a country not only where dowry and child marriage still exist, but domestic abuse is commonplace. I do not need to cite a source here as I can extemporaneously list female relatives who face abuse to this day. They are surviving, not yet survivors.

I participated in the kanya dhaana, mostly because it was a battle I did not care to fight, but also because I am no less my mother or father’s daughter having partaken in it. For my circumstance it was a symbolic gesture, but this is not the case for all Indian women. I have aunts who were forced to leave their family behind and commit to the ways and values of a new family, and such a requirement was not asked of their husbands. The kanya dhaana moment actually was quite moving as I contemplated the bounty of my parents’ care for me and as they requested the same of my groom.

My groom applied vermillion (i.e. a red powder) to my forehead. Indian feminists have argued that this is another patriarchal tradition, as it symbolizes the marking of a wife as the husband’s property. Am I now his property? To my Western reader this might sound absurd, but I know of situations in India where the wife is viewed as property, so to the Indian imagination it is not so alien. However, my husband and I live in San Francisco, we are both high-earners, and our relationship of four years is one of mutual respect. He may have led me around the fire during the Saptapadhi, but our marriage will be one in which we take turns guiding the other.

My willingness to include the kanya dhaana and the vermillion was beneficial to my aim of building a cohesive family, and it came at the cost of making a feminist statement. When I think decades forward, it is this cohesion that will allow me and the women in my family to thrive. I have seen what dysfunction does to Indian families — it is the women who suffer the most.

I had no qualms with our pooja because it existed in the broader context of myself and my husband, and in our context I have agency. The plight of the woman is not so much the symbolism of the pooja but the patriarchy of the entire world. It is not the pooja I needed to be weary of, but the realities of life. Being a pregnant woman, a working mother, a menopausal woman, or a female, public-facing intellectual will present intractable challenges to my sense of self — the misogyny in a pooja cannot compare to the real world.

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I do not mean to be grim. In fact, I am amused by the situation. One might have a feminist wedding pooja yet breed an unequal marriage. One might also have a pooja so patriarchal it puts Mesopotamia to shame yet the marriage is strong. I am simply trying to illuminate how I have made meaning of my own wedding rituals.

I am a supporter of women who refuse to participate in these ceremonies or design new ones. If you are one of them, I applaud you! For those of us who want to continue certain traditions, it is on us to define what power looks like within the confines of tradition. It is a tricky path, one could argue trickier than leaving tradition behind, but for me, participating in tradition is a way to participate in and architect the messiness of family, and the idea of not leaving anyone behind, well, what could be more radical than that?