Miniya Chatterji on Sex- Indian style

Miniya Chatterji, despite being young and smart, is trying to challenge our literary genotocracy by writing more stupidly than they have managed so far.

Has she pulled it off? Let us see. This is her chapter on Sex published by an online Magazine.

Sex is a dirty word in India, but our population numbers are still booming. 

Is Chatterji correct? The short answer is 'no'. Some states- notably in the South- have experienced demographic transition. In some milieus, sex is no more a dirty word than it is in America or Europe.

In the land of the Kamasutra, most Indians deem it inappropriate to teach children about sex at home or at school.

Most Indians in States which have not experienced demographic transition don't have access to schools where any subject is well taught.


Why bring up the Kamasutra? Does Chatterji believe most Indians read Sanskrit? How is it relevant?

In a country where family, the government and various institutions have stifled the subject, we continue to make babies and are all set to overtake China by 2030 to become the most populous country in the world.

China 'stifled the subject' much more than India. That is why they could implement a 'one child' policy. However, they could have gone the other way and opted for pro-natalist policies.

All available empirical evidence shows that countries with the highest population growth rates have weaker, not stronger, governments and institutions.
There is no arrow of causality between 'stifling the subject' and demographic growth. Weak family ties- in particular, the absence of a father or other male in the household- is correlated with higher, not lower, fertility.

The list of ironies around our attitude to sex is long and extremely baffling.

Chatterji is mistaking stupidity for irony. What she has listed is instances of stupidity- e.g thinking illiterate people read the Kamasutra and then make babies- and the only irony here is that she has had a very prolonged and expensive education. Yet she is incapable of writing a single sensible sentence.

Here are some more. We are shy about discussing sex with our spouses, but we worship with gusto the lingam, which is God’s phallus.

No we don't. Lots of us are Vaishnavs or Muslims etc. Nobody is 'worshipping the lingam (which means sign, not phallus) with gusto'. What one earth did Chatterji's mom get up to that her daughter has such absurd ideas?

Either Miniya herself believes, or knows someone else who believes, that God has a phallus which 'can be worshipped with gusto' or she is lying. If some actual person has such a belief why on earth would they worship it? If I want to ingratiate myself with someone I don't immediately kneel down and start worshiping his dick with gusto. He would think I was mad and have me arrested.

Nobody would keep a Shiva Lingam in their Puja Room. What if it fell down and broke? God would be really pissed off if his dick were damaged. The safer course would be to avoid having any contact with the thing.

We expect our women to produce babies but often do not offer them pleasurable sex — only 32 per cent of Indian women achieve orgasm, which is half as many as the men who said they do.

Chatterji may expect her women to produce babies. She may not offer them pleasurable sex. But, it is unlikely that her women would be able to produce babies even if she was willing and able to make them climax.

The figures quoted for Indian women reaching orgasm are not out of line with what is found elsewhere. Even masturbation is unreliable for women as a means of attaining orgasm. Men all over the world are deceived in this matter with hilarious results.

In fact, we have been hypocrites on this topic for a while, because a part of India’s sexual history is not very different from the present.

Biology has not changed. It is the same the world over. Chatterji is pretending that India is peculiar in this respect. There is no evidence for this view at all.

The Rig Veda says that the vaginal blood from the bride’s deflowering is highly dangerous. If clothes are stained with this blood, they must be given away to a priest, or anybody who touches them will be destroyed.

The Rg Veda says no such thing. What it does say is that during the honey-moon night, the bride and groom, become so indissolubly linked that they forget their own gender. Thus if the wedding guests decide to play a prank on the new couple and raise up a hue and cry, what will happen is that the bride may accidentally put on the groom's clothes and, thinking herself a man, will run out of the house with a spear in one hand while her other hand gives a flourish to her non-existent moustachioes. Meanwhile the groom, having put on the bride's clothes, will be crying out piteously and fainting away.

This is an excellent joke and shows the sense of humour of our rustic ancestors. Anyone who has listened to the bawdy wedding night songs customary to our lineage or ancestral place will soon be disabused of any notion that we are a puritanical people. But this is true of all traditional agricultural societies.

Menstrual and other blood can carry infection. Every society has hygienic rules which, however, the progress of Science has enabled us to relax.

The Arthashastra provides guidelines on what must be done if a girl loses her virginity, and it also declares that a marriage is invalid if the girl is not a virgin.

So what? Virginity is important in establishing 'oikos'- true descent within a household- where contested inheritance could be socially costly.
Buckingham Palace insisted that the Prince of Wales marry a virgin because this was important in legitimising the order of succession. It is actually against the law for a man to have sex with the Princess of Wales.

The girl is not a virgin, according to the Arthashastra, if blood is not seen on the sheets after the wedding night.

India is scarcely unique in this respect. Anyway, the workaround is quite obvious and we have all seen umpteen films where  it occurs.

The Manusmriti, an ancient legal text, imposes large fines on men who destroy the virginity of a girl outside marriage.

Which Scripture or other Religious law book approves of adultery or taking advantage of a maiden's innocence?
Chatterji said she would be showing India's hypocrisy in matters relating to sex. Where is the hypocrisy here? Little girls who sleep around with all and sundry get preggers. This ruins their life chances. No hypocrisy is involved in requiring them to set themselves a higher standard.

An entire book written in India around 2000 years ago, as part of the seven-volume Kamasutra — otherwise a fascinating source of progressive erotic commentary — is devoted to the kanya or the virgin.

So what? Does Chatterji think a book about the amorous arts should not deal with maidens? Why not?

This book also mentions, or rather assumes, that a girl is a virgin on her wedding night and so the man must make her content, or he will ensure the girl’s marital life is unhappy.

Girls can get pregnant. Boys can't. Pregnancy in humans is costly more particularly because of neoteny. Thus, girls will be less promiscuous and have an incentive 'to save themselves' for marriage. Boys may also do so because STDs can impose a cost in terms of health and fertility. Moreover, there are reputational advantages in remaining continent- more particularly if one is a student or otherwise in a dependent position.

No religion forbids sexual pleasure within marriage. Some explicitly require the husband to perform his conjugal duty a minimum number of times every month, while having regard to his profession and state of health.

Due to this age-old emphasis on chastity, a woman is not allowed to experience sexual pleasure until she marries, and when she does, she is only allowed to have sex with one man and bear his children.

Nonsense! Girls masturbate as do boys. There is no way to prevent people from 'experiencing sexual pleasure'. It is foolish to think otherwise.

A woman may become the mistress of a powerful man. She may move elsewhere and gain economic independence- in which case she may also enjoy sexual freedom. There is considerable variation within India, in these matters. But India is like other countries in this respect.

Unfortunately, these extreme views on sex in Indian history are the only ones that have survived, and the more liberal ones — which I will elaborate upon in this essay — have been erased.

This is wholly untrue. No 'extreme views' survived nor did any 'liberal ones' get erased. Sanskrit has preserved all sorts of texts- including ones which celebrate various transgressive types of 'Maithuna'. There has always been an active 'Tantric' tradition in every part of India. Chatterji is talking nonsense.

This has led to lies and deceit in millions of relationships and marriages in India, which could otherwise have been healthy and transparent.

Lies and deceit occur all over the world. Of course they damage relationships. But there is nothing unique to India in this respect.

Young girls, unable to seek guidance from their parents, get abortions done under dangerous conditions on the sly, even though abortions before twelve weeks of pregnancy have been legal in India since 1972.

Where does this not happen? The answer is that it does not happen in countries with a fully funded National Health Service where Doctors are not legally obliged to inform parents about under-age sex and where abortion is legal and and 'on-demand'.
A poor country like India will naturally lag behind in this respect. But, it is poverty, not some legacy of 'extreme views' which is responsible.

And devastatingly, we implant guilt, contradictions, timidity, and shame in the minds of millions of our women for their sexuality.

Chatterji may be doing so. I'm not. Why is she being so horrible? Is it because she has 'extreme views'? I suppose so. Otherwise, what is her motivation?

The earliest lesson at my home was when I turned thirteen and was told that being in a temple while menstruating was sacrilegious.

Earliest lesson? Surely, Chatterji was taught something other than-' don't go bleed all over the Temple, dear?'

The fact is no religion permits a person to enter a sacred place while bleeding or urinating or defecating.

It was an invasion of my newly acquired sense of sexual privacy to have it whispered within the family that I was menstruating and therefore prohibited to enter the temple we had at home — not that I wished to enter it anyway.

Wow! These guys had a Temple in their home! How did they manage it on an Air Force salary? Even wealthy Seths have to make do with just a Puja room.

As I grappled with irregular menstrual cycles and discomfort every month, I would also feel I was doing something wrong.

Naturally! This poor girl was never taught anything at all till she was 13. Even then, her 'earliest lesson' was stay out of the Temple when you are on the rag. It will upset the Elephants we have there.'

It sowed the seeds of the notion that my sexuality was unholy and “bad”.

Quite true. I recall a girl in my primary school- we used to call her Alice the Goon- who sat in the back of the class loudly masturbating. We did think her sexuality was 'unholy and bad'. Chatterji, no doubt, would disagree. We must encourage our young girls to put things into their vaginas during Chemistry class. If we fail to do this, we are hypocrites promoting an 'extreme view' of sexuality.

I had understood correctly, just as every little girl does in India, that everything related to sex is profane.

That's probably because the elephants in the Temple in your home did not like the smell of menstrual blood. Furthermore, if you started 'worshipping the lingam with gusto,' your uncouth cries would disturb the Temple priests and other attendants. Poor dear! How you have suffered!

Marriage, in Hinduism, is a sacrament. Marital sex is not profane at all.

I later discovered that millions of those who mistrust anything sexual worship the Goddess’s vagina at the temple of Kamakhya in Guwahati, Assam, which is considered one of the most sacred sites in India.

Really? How did you make this discovery? Were you rummaging in the cupboard one day when Granny said 'what are you looking for, darling?' and you replied, tersely, 'Goddess's vagina. It is for my homework project'.  Granny then said 'sweetie, you have to go to Guwahati. Vagina is kept there only. Come, have a cookie.'

I found it even more incongruous that the holiest time at the Kamakhya temple is the four-day annual festival when Kamakhya Devi, the Goddess, is believed to be menstruating.

I'm sure you found it very incongruous indeed. Poor you! having to grow up in such a beastly country where Goddess's Vagina's are menstruating annually whereas the Temple elephants in your own home take umbrage if you want to bleed all over the various idols while 'worshipping the lingam with gusto'.

Manusmriti, the discourse of Svayambhuva, the spiritual son of Brahma, was written around the third century AD, and it is merely one among the many Hindu dharmashastras.

Svayambhuva means self-generated. Manusmriti is not 'merely one among many' but rather is primus inter pares. If it was written in the third century A.D, it can't be responsible for the caste system or the inferior position of women or taboos concerning menstruation and the proper expression of female sexuality which involves the pursuit of sexual pleasure outside the bounds of matrimony and in defiance of risks associated with pregnancy and sexual transmitted diseases.

Today, however, it is considered an important text governing Hindu culture, including marriage, relationships and sex.

Nonsense! The Hindu Code Bills completely superseded it long before you were born.

This text receives as much reverence as criticism.

It is wholly irrelevant. Hindu Acharyas say its only importance lies in its lexical preferencing of spirituality over economic considerations.

Many consider it to have sounded the death knell for the liberal world of the Vedic age, while others respect it as the ultimate guide to one’s rights and duties.

Nobody thinks this. It is itself an apad dharma- i.e. concerns itself with conduct under adverse circumstances in a fallen age.

Dr BR Ambedkar held the Manusmriti responsible for the caste system in India.

No. Ambedkar said it was part of a Brahminical counter-coup against Buddhism. But he was writing polemically. Clearly, caste pre-existed Buddhism.

Mahatma Gandhi, however, opposed Ambedkar’s view. Gandhi recommended that one must read the entire text of the Manusmriti, accept those parts that are consistent with truth and non-violence, and reject the other parts.

Gandhi changed his position in this respect. By the end of his life he was willing to throw in his hand even with Atheists provided they could help him with his foolish khadi obsession.

There is no obligation on Hindus to read anything- let alone Manusmriti. It has no legal or other normative force. It never has. Hindu Law has always given priority to customary law. There is some hand-waving about 'following the best practice among the best people' but this has always been supererogatory.
Manu wanted girls to given the sacred thread- albeit at a lower tariff of scholarly attainment. Few bothered with any such thing then or now.

However, before the primacy of the Manusmriti, it was the Kamasutra, written by Vatsyayana in Sanskrit, which dictated human sexual behaviour in India.

Ridiculous! The Smriti literature greatly predates Vatsyayana who, in any case, confined himself to describing the life of urbane connoisseurs who had already accumulated wealth in one of the emporia cities of the Gangetic belt.

Kama, meaning desire, is one of the four goals of Hindu life, the other three being dharma (duty), artha (purpose) and moksha (freedom). Sutra means a thread that holds things together. The Kamasutra presents itself as a guide to living gracefully, and discusses the nature of love, family life and other aspects pertaining to the faculty of pleasure.

Rubbish! It was aimed only at men from a wealthy urban class and the courtesans and ladies of easy virtue who took them as clients.

It discusses the philosophy and theory of love, what triggers desire and what to do to sustain it. The Kamasutra was passed on in the oral tradition for over 2,000 years, subject to many interpretations, until around the second century ad when Vatsyayana, a lesser-known philosopher of the Vedic tradition, wrote it out, largely in prose, with a few verses of poetry inserted.

Sheer nonsense! Three thousand years ago there was no wealthy urbane class in the Gangetic belt. Human beings have no need, any more than animals have any need, for sex manuals. No doubt there was an oral tradition as well as an anal tradition but it required no philosopher, lesser-known or otherwise- to write it out in prose or verse or his own semen.

Vatsyayana’s and Manu’s attitudes to sex were in some ways polar opposites.

And the Pope and a pimp's attitude to sex are polar opposites. What does Chatterji expect? Religious authorities want people to spend more money on Religion. Pimps want them to spend more money on getting laid.

Manu saw sex as a strictly procreative, monogamous activity, as opposed to the pleasure-giving experience Vatsyayana wrote about.

Manu does not forbid polygny. Indeed, it was normative for kings. Manu was concerned with eusebia (piety). Vatsyayana was concerned with pleasure.

The Kamasutra emphasises that a woman who is not pleasured might hate her man and leave him for another, while Manu’s laws say that “a virtuous wife should constantly serve her husband like a god, even if he behaves badly, freely indulges his lust, and is devoid of any good qualities”.

A wealthy playboy spending his days dallying with expert courtesans may also follow Manu when it comes to fulfilling spiritual and religious obligations.

The position of a wife is different from a courtesan. The former may have good reason to stick with a bad husband whereas the latter is better off transferring her attentions to a wealthier patron.

The Kamasutra has an entire chapter on “Other Men’s Wives”, whereas the Manusmriti warns that “if men persist in seeking intimate contact with other men’s wives, the king should brand them with punishments that inspire terror, and banish them”.

What point is Chatterji making here? Does she not understand that a wealthy guy can buy the favours of a married woman but that he may be prosecuted for adultery and suffer ostracism or exile- if not a simple knife in the gut?

Vatsyayana saw adultery as a means of providing pleasure, while Manu worried about the violation of the caste system should a woman bear a child with an unknown man of the wrong caste.

So one guy was writing for rich playboys and the other was describing the sort of society most ordinary people inhabit. A rich guy can get away with a lot. Still, he may come a cropper if he goes too far. For the rest of us, it is better to play it straight.

In which Society is a girl congratulated for bearing a child to some homeless dude she fancied or some ex-con with gang tats?

There were also other texts that opposed the erotic perspective of the Kamasutra. The Bhagavad Gita, which is believed to have been composed before the Kamasutra, also denounced our indulgence in the senses. It admonished that doing so is evil.

How terrible! Are you saying the Gita denounces getting drunk of your head and copulating in the streets? This is truly unacceptable! What beasts those Hindus are!

Incidentally, the Bhagavad Gita was a discourse given by the grown-up Krishna, who once romanced the cowgirls of Vrindavan for pleasure.

Really? Is that what Hinduism says? I thought the gopis were reincarnated Rishis. Silly me. Obviously, the real point about Vaishnavism is that it teaches you to have simultaneous sex with thousands of cow-girls by using supernatural powers to create thousands of replicas of yourself.

Even though Islam has had its ups and downs as far as its attitude towards sex and sexuality is concerned, during most periods of the Mughal rule from 1526 to 1857 in India, sex was not frowned upon.

Sex has never been frowned upon.

The Mughal period showed a playful sensuality in its explicit art and a more balanced view on sex and sexuality than the era that had preceded it.

There is no evidence for this statement whatsoever. Courtly cultures had a literary culture with an erotic component. Sanskrit literature, often composed by monks who would have run away screaming if confronted with a vagina, wrote wholly artificial poems featuring women with ginormous tits and asses but tiny waists. They also had, by a literary convention, a strip of hair (romavali) stretching up to their navels. I  don't know why anybody would find this attractive.

India’s rich sexual history has, therefore, been chequered.

Nope. Sex does not have a history. Economics does.

From the time of the Rig Veda to the age of the Kamasutra, and then at the courts of the Mughal emperors much later, sex — most of the time — was not a bad thing.

So Khajuraho was built during the period when sex was a bad thing. What sort of logic is this? Chatterji is wholly ignorant and can't make a reasoned argument to save her life.

It was discussed openly in literature, conversation and art. Many Hindu gods and goddesses, as well as apsaras or heavenly nymphs, were depicted romantically in ancient Indian temples such as in Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh, and in the cave drawings of Ajanta and Ellora in Maharashtra.

Khajuraho was built between 950 and 1050. So it comes several centuries after the Kamasutra and before the Mughals. According to Chatterji this was when 'sex was a bad thing'. Why is she contradicting herself so blatantly? How stupid is she?

However, of all the diverse phases and texts in India’s sexual history, it was the Manusmriti that stuck with the British.

Nonsense! Nothing stuck with the British, except profits which they quickly repatriated. Emerson, for some reason, raved about Manu and Nietzche liked Manu's strictures against Chandalas but nobody in India or elsewhere greatly cared about this text.

One reason was perhaps that Manu’s prudish values resonated with the Victorian culture of that time.

Very true. The Victorians wouldn't have got any work done if they had spent all their time copulating in the streets while off their heads on drink.

Secondly, the Manusmriti was one of the first Sanskrit texts studied and translated into English by the British, and so they hastily borrowed from it to create the legal and administrative systems for India.

Sheer nonsense. The British administered customary law as they found it. Codification enabled the displacement of Court Pundits from the second half of the nineteenth century. Barristers would still sometimes quote Manu or Yajnavalkya or other such texts, but the growing body of case law provided the ratio in the case.

The rest of the texts — the more liberal parts of the Rig Veda and the Kamasutra — were largely ignored.

Very true! The British did not pass a law making cunnilingus a compulsory subject for the Civil Service exams. That was very naughty of them.

Manu, for the British, became the ultimate authority on India’s societal structure.

Nonsense! Profit was their motive and so a highly pragmatic Economic rationality was the 'ultimate authority' on societal structure. But this has always been the case.

Manu’s laws, however, have several confusing contradictions related to women’s rights.

Women had no rights unless they did in which case Manu could go hang.

Verses 9.72–9.81 allow the man as well as the woman to get out of a fraudulent or abusive marriage and remarry.

So what? This is descriptive. Men and women do get out of abusive relationships or ones they don't like. Who can stop them? Who would want to?

They even provide legal sanction for a woman to remarry when her husband has been missing or has abandoned her.

The thing will happen anyway. Custom makes everything legal. Mores come before the Law.

But it is also restrictive for women in verses 3.13–3.14, opposing her marriage to someone outside her own social class.

Unless the guy is rich or powerful or there is some other motive. As a matter of fact, Chatterji's native Bengal saw a lot of poorer families giving brides to richer families of lower caste. Thus has it always been.

It preaches chastity to widows, such as in verses 5.158–5.160.

But widows lacking other support might end up as prostitutes nevertheless.

In verses 5.147–5.148, the Manusmriti declares that “a woman must never seek to live independently”.

Unless she is able to do so without being molested in which case is already living independently- not seeking to do so.

In other verses, such as 2.67–2.69 and 5.148–5.155, the Manusmriti preaches that a girl should obey and seek the protection of her father, a young woman must do the same of her husband, and a widow must do so of her son.

Unless she does not need to.

While it states that a woman should always worship her husband as a god, in verses 3.55–3.56, the Manusmriti also insists that “women must be honoured and adorned”, and that “where women are revered, there the gods rejoice, but where they are not, no sacred rite bears fruit”.

The context of these various verses permitted a harmonious construction for Pundits. But this was always wholly defeasible. That's why the only thing that matters about Manu is the lexical preferencing of spirituality.
No doubt, lawyers could spin out a case by talking various stripes of shite so as to mulct their clients but a good ruler or administrator could always chase such scoundrels away.

The Manusmriti is a complex commentary from a women’s rights perspective, but the British merely picked and emphasised certain aspects that seemed appropriate to them for codifying women’s rights for Hindus in India, while ignoring the other sections.

Manusmriti was not concerned with 'Women's rights'. Nor were the British. Customary law and such Rights and Entitlements as were incentive compatible and self supporting determined actual outcomes. The Law was an expensive trinket only fools bothered with.

The British were not in the business of promoting Indian culture of Religion. It is ridiculous to suggest that they were influenced by Manu.  They claimed to dispense Justice on the basis of codification or case law arising out or immemorial custom. If they overplayed their hand, there would be forum shopping or hostility and rebellion. Justice had to take a pragmatic course.

 Certain communities claimed to be bound by Manu or Dayabhaga or whatever. It was only in that context that any Smriti text gained salience. The British themselves knew that Sir Edward Coke's claim that English Common Law had been handed down from Greek speaking Druids was wholly mythical. They did not believe that Manu had some higher or Divine authority.

And so the parts of the Manusmriti that sharply restricted women’s freedom, regulated their behaviour, and reduced their access to social and political power, besides establishing a highly conservative stand on sex in a society that was once fairly liberal, became the values that the British propagated in the subcontinent during their rule.

Utter nonsense. There was no purdah in Manu or any Hindu lawbook. Yet Hindu kayasthas and some comprador Brahmins in Bengal adopted the Muslim version of this practice. Rajendra Prasad has written about this. The British did not encourage or initiate this type of 'Tardean mimetics'. But they did not abolish it either. Their job was to make money, not trouble.

Chatterj thinks if a guy writes a book which is illiberal then Society becomes illiberal. What transmission mechanism does she have in mind?

Actually, it was not the British alone. They were joined by the enthusiastic anglicised Indian elite, who were somewhere between the British and the Indians in their ways, and at times preached the same prudish values to the middle class in the subcontinent.

'Enthusiastic anglicised Indians' were not an elite. They were money grubbing lawyers or compradors and such like small fry. Ceylon had an anglicised elite. India did not. It had Maharajas and Nawabs and Purohits and so forth. 'Big gun' royal families considered English declasse. Some 'small gun' - or no gun- States did send their sons to British public schools. Cricketing heroes, like Ranji & Pataudi were from small states. But they certainly weren't 'enthusiastic' about preaching prudish values to any class in India. They would have looked entirely ridiculous had they done so. Perhaps Chatterji's family- which had a Temple inside their own house- had a different experience. In the morning the Maharaja of Cooch Behar would come round to preach to them about the necessity of restraining their daughter from masturbating in the street. Come afternoon, the Nizam of Hyderabad would start tapping on the windowpane, saying in a Peter Seller's accents, 'Madam, for please, not to be pleasuring yourself so loudly while buying brinjals. Chee, chee- it is not a nice habit.'

Prudish values are prudent values. Promiscuity involves risks. If your daughter is a terrible slut, your sleep will be disturbed by the loud banging on the door of horny men and hairy lesbians in the middle of the night. In between sating themselves upon your daughter's body, they may well steal items of sentimental value from your home. They may also defecate or vomit upon your premises. This poses a Health & Safety risk. It is in your own interest to preach prudish values to your slut of a daughter or catamite of a son.

Here is an example. The Brahmo Samaj was an institution that propagated a new kind of Hinduism, inspired by the Hindu Vedanta, Islamic Sufism and Christian Unitarianism.

Indeed. It sought to lift up Society by proclaiming the doctrine of Unitittyarianism- nipples are many, breast is one. Bengal was so proud.

Its founder, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, had two houses in Kolkata — one was his “Bengali house” and the other his “European house”. In the Bengali house, he lived with his wife and children in the traditional Indian way. The European house, on the other hand, was tastefully done up, with English furniture, and was used to entertain his European friends. Someone teased him by saying that everything in the Bengali house was Bengali except for Ram Mohan Roy, and everything in the European house was European except for Ram Mohan Roy! While celebrated for being an eminent reformer and uplifting women with his anti-sati and anti-child marriage movements, Roy also had a puritan, British-influenced condemnation of non-Brahminical sexual and gender relations.

What point is Chatterji making here? Is she saying that the first generation compradors made their money by partying with Europeans and providing them liquor and loose women? I can point to business families right here in London which got their initial break by procuring women for influential officials in corrupt countries. However, once they had got their start, they adopted a strict moral code and lived with their families. From time to time, if it is necessary to 'entertain' some degenerate from a corrupt country, they will find some arms length manner of doing so.

Roy, like the Pirali Brahmin, Tagores, was concerned with protecting the reputation and prestige of his own descendants. No doubt, he frowned upon any daughter of his masturbating publicly. But he would also have disapproved of a son anally pleasuring himself on every traffic bollard on the high street.

Mahatma Gandhi also had a conflicted attitude to sex, which is apparent in his memoirs. On the one hand, he declares that he was tormented by sexual passions, which he described as uncontrollable, while on the other hand, he took a vow of chastity at the age of thirty-six and passionately preached chastity to everyone. He said women were the embodiment of sacrifice and non-violence, as also the keepers of purity. During his time in South Africa, when Mahatma Gandhi saw a young man harassing his female followers, instead of confronting the man, he personally cut off the girl’s hair.

Okay. Gandhi was a freak. Fair point. However look at the facts. His biggest supporter had sent his daughter to him while her husband was off in Fiji. Gandhi thought the girl was ill and told his son to look after her. The girl wasn't ill at all. Nature took its own course. Gandhi was afraid that people would think his Ashram was- as many Ashrams are- a place for happy hook-ups and wife swapping. He tried to show this was not the case. So what? All Ashrams seek to do the same- unless they don't, like Rajneesh's set-up- in which case the come a cropper.

The great saint, Swami Vivekananda, had a paradoxical view of sex as well. He revered their maternal instinct, but disliked the erotic.

Yes. A guy who dresses up as a monk has to keep up appearances. Anyway, the fellow was Bengali so talking shite came naturally to him.

He preached that the highest love is the love that is sexless — that is perfect unity, while sex differentiates bodies. He confided to his disciple Sarat Chandra Chakravarty that “the American sluts and buggers used to be sexually aroused” after hearing his lectures.

Okay, he was a shitty little man. So what? He was Bengali. What's more he was not a Brahman, like Chatterji, but rather a dusht kula Kayastha gibbering on about 'sluts' and 'buggers' getting horny for his sweet Bengali bod.

At a lecture in Chennai in 1897, he asserted, “The women of India must grow and develop in the footprints of Sita, and that is the only way.” In the Indian epic Ramayana, Sita, the wife of Ram, is chastity incarnate.

As opposed to a vigorously masturbating slut drunk off her head lying in the gutter. How come epics have virtuous and hygienic heroines? It's soooo unfair that they don't feature hairy harridans grunting vigorously as they fist themselves.

Adding to the confusion created by the hypocritical attitude to sex in India is the matter of role models.

Why is it that men who compete to bed a slut in the pub don't want their sisters or daughters behaving in the same way? One answer is that they don't want to be woken up in the middle of the night by long lines of horny men coming and going through their own residence. No doubt, while waiting their turn, these men will vomit from having drunk too much, or get into fights, or steal everything not nailed down.

Radha is Krishna’s love, Sita is Ram’s wife. Radha and Sita, both mythological figures, are worshipped in India. Radha is sensual, older than Krishna by many years, and some texts say she is married to another man while romancing Krishna. In almost all interpretations of the Radha–Krishna story, their relationship is clandestine. While Sita is an example of a woman in a monogamous, legitimate relationship, Radha is remembered and revered for loving Krishna despite his other flirtations. Sita is a queen, Radha an ordinary village girl focused on her relationship with her lover.

You just said Radha was a lot older than Krishna. So she wasn't a girl at all. Moreover she had the good sense to keep her affair secret and to confine her attentions to one lad. Her husband was not discommoded by a long line of schoolboys snaking its way to her bedroom.

Chatterji does not seem to understand that Radha can't be a role model because the local Primary School does not harbour a Krishna willing and able to form a relationship of the sort she describes. Even if it is not against the law to sexually assault a child you fancy, still, the fellow may demand that you do his Chemistry homework for him. The game really isn't worth the candle.

In line with Swami Vivekananda’s counsel, Indians have indeed accepted Sita as the role model for a woman.

Very true. Indian women are constantly entering the fire or being swallowed up by the earth. Perhaps, Chatterji means Indian women prefer to get married rather than stand outside the Primary School trying to have sex with little boys. But there is a good reason for this. Little boys have Mums who will slap you silly if you go all reverse cow-girl on their little darling thus interfering with his proper performance of his Chemistry homework which will affect his grades and prevent him from getting into Medical School.

Sita sets the standard high: A woman must be chaste and monogamous,

Is that really so very high a standard? Chatterji may be under the impression that most women want to go to the playground and fuck every little boy they see. However, such is not the case. There are very good biological reasons why the evolutionary stable strategy for our species features a high rate of fidelity and monogamy.

a romantic relationship must be validated by marriage, husbands must be expected to fight and overcome challenges to be worthy, and the couple must make sacrifices for the sake of society, even if that means forsaking a personal relationship.

Very true! Brave men and virtuous women are considered better role models than cowards and erotomaniacs. Why? Courage is valuable to society. So is virtue. Fisting yourself constantly, however, is not Socially beneficial.

But Radha is a role model too-at the opposite end of the moral spectrum from Sita.

Radha is a role model for devotees of the Lord with respect to pure spirituality- not anything to do with physical sex.
There is no 'moral spectrum' here at all. It is not the case that God has incarnated himself in our village nor that we were Rishis in our previous lives who were granted the boon of physical union with the Godhead.

While Sita is the loyal and chaste wife, Radha is the passionate and adulterous lover.

So what? Vaishnavs aren't saying you can have sex with Krishna if you cheat on your spouse. They are saying that the individual soul longs for union with the Divine in a manner that surpasses and transcends all human or material contingency.

Sita is a public figure due to her political stature as queen, while Radha is the subject of thousands of paintings and statues, and has been established as a goddess in many temples across India.

So both are 'public figures'. But, is Chatterji right in saying Sita is one only because of her 'political stature as queen?' Surely, this is the least important thing about her.

She has also influenced movements in poetry, art and literature, many of which are well known. Who can ignore the fervour of the Bhakti movement and the devotional poems and songs, inspired by Radha and Krishna, written by Mirabai, the legendary princess from Rajasthan?

Everybody can ignore the fervour of the Bhakti movement. Indeed, we all do. I am not running around the streets singing of my love for Krishna. Nobody is- unless they are trying to raise money for some cult. Why? Because the thing is a public nuisance and, like, sooo Seventies retro.

Chatterji thinks Radha was a historical personage who 'influenced movements in poetry etc'. There is no evidence at all for this view. No doubt, Chatterji believes Radha ran a salon and published a journal featuring her thoughts on 'Indian instincts'. She attended Seminars and Symposiums in which she read out papers denigrating Sita as having a false view of Butlerian perfomativity and Spivakian strategic essentialism and effective sabotage. The Jindals hired her to pretend they were a socially responsible bunch of robber barons. Later she started an incubator in Paris focusing on fulfilling the vision of Davos man so as to establish a truly meritocratic platform which emphasises social inclusivity, environmental awareness and U.N mandated Milliennium goals.

She also masturbated vigorously on various public fora when not going reverse cow-girl on little boys. Thus she helped empower Women and catalysed a Marcusian model of Gender and Development free of 'repressive desublimation'.