Beat Your Wife, But Don't Break Her Bones

Questioner: Namaste Acharya Ji. So I was going through your article that got published today in The Pioneer. It's titled “New Regimes, Ancient Hunger: Women as First Casualty.”

Acharya Prashant: Women as first casualty. Yes.

Questioner: So apart from talking in depth about women in conservative societies in general, the main issue that has come to note in the news is the recent law in Afghanistan, where now men can even beat up their wives. As long as the bones are not broken or the wounds are not visible, they cannot do anything; they’re legally allowed to do that now. I just want to ask you: what do you make of this? But what should we make of this?

Acharya Prashant: See, the women have to make sense of this. The women have to decide what it means for them. They are the ones who have to take control of their lives. What can it mean to me or to you? We are men sitting far away from their places, their borders, their cultures, their contexts. Whatever we say will fall short of resonating with their lived experience. So even our deepest empathies will be a bit like lip service. It’s the women who will have to come forward.

And the whole thing is so absurd, besides being cruel, inhuman, and the rest of that. The defining characteristic of this new legislation is in its absurdity. You are treating one half of the human population almost as inanimate property. You’re saying you can beat them up provided you don’t break any bones; beat them up provided the wounds are not openly visible, and they are anyway veiled from top to bottom, so nothing is going to be visible. Even fractures may not be visible. So practically, it’s an open invitation to all kinds of domestic assault. Words fall short if one wants to comment on it.

Questioner: You mentioned another absurd thing here is that, firstly, women have to appear fully clothed in court and have to be accompanied with the male guardian, with the guardian, who probably has a high probability of being the perpetrator in the first place.

Acharya Prashant: Or an accomplice of the perpetrator, or having stakes in the perpetration of, if not that event, then that system. So practically, this shuts the doors on any legal remedies. Yes.

Questioner: From all aspects. My core concern here was, knowing the history of Afghanistan, there was the Taliban, then regime change, and then the Taliban came back again.

So in the new government, the new Taliban government, there was some hope that maybe the women’s rights record would be better. But as soon as they came, the first thing they did, nothing about youth employment, nothing about food insecurity, the first thing the Taliban do is, ban women from school, ban women from working.

Acharya Prashant: But that was expected, wasn’t it? That’s what they also did in the first Taliban regime, 1996 to 2001. And that’s the reason the world didn’t quite like it when the Western forces, the U.S. forces, just handed over Afghanistan to the Taliban in 2021.

We knew this was going to happen. There was ample evidence beforehand. It’s just that between 2001 and 21 there was actual, visible, substantial improvement in the lot of women, and all that has come to naught. And in fact, it’s not just back to square one. It’s actually back to the primitive cave.

Questioner: That is what is very absurd, because one would think that in the interim, when there was some…

Acharya Prashant: Sobering effect.

Questioner: The sobering effect would have been there, times have changed, you have the internet today.

Acharya Prashant: And there would be a certain progressive tint maybe now visible in the attitude of the Taliban. No, that’s not going to happen. That’s not going to happen because we are demanding change on the side of the aggressor, the exploiter, the perpetrator.

The change has to come somewhere else. The victim will have to stand up at whatever cost. You see, I understand the cost. I’m not being impractical here. I understand the cost of standing up, but then I also understand the cost of not standing up. And comparing the two costs, I find standing up is more advisable, in fact, existentially necessary. You don’t stand up, you bear a higher cost, pay a higher price.

Questioner: That’s the more surprising part here, because taking a parallel of this to Iran, something similar happened there. There was a revolution, and women actually participated in large numbers in that revolution to overthrow the Shah. And again, a conservative government came in. The first thing that they did was take away the rights of the same women who participated in it. But still, in Iran there was some resistance from the women, probably because of education or more prosperity. So there was something there. But here in Afghanistan...

Acharya Prashant: And that’s why you see, in Iran probably change is more likely to come, and probably it’s already coming. In Iran we see three swings. There was the Shah period, when he banned the veil and such things, and women were found in abundance in universities, in public places, in government offices, in all walks of life. Then there was this 79 to 2025 period. And now there is this turbulent phase Iran is passing through, both internally and geopolitically. And women there are more likely to succeed because they are participating, they are leading. In fact, they participated even in 1979. They were present in large numbers, demonstrating against the monarchy. They’re participating even today “The Woman life freedom” movement. In fact, it all started with a particular woman protesting and then…

Questioner: Mahsa Amini.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah Mahsa Amini and then paying the biggest price. So Afghanistan has actually seen more swings than Iran. So there was a more progressive and liberal period.

Questioner: Iconic photos where women in universities are wearing skirts.

Acharya Prashant: Women universities wearing skirts, and then came the first Taliban period, which was a shorter one. And then came the recovery, and now you again have this. It feels women are being tossed around.

In Iran, women seem to be asserting their agency, their being, their humanness to a greater degree, with a greater self-respect, with a greater feeling of internal sovereignty, with a greater felt need of living with dignity. And that’s probably the only way it can happen for women anywhere on the planet. If they are to realize their potential as free human beings, they’ll have to come forward.

You see, please understand the psychological basis: when you make a law about someone, treating that someone as property, as insentient, as not having any agency of its own, “I can legislate about this, I can impose my will on this.” Now, how to demonstrate that the very assumption behind the legislation is flawed? How to demonstrate?

You see, I decide I have to keep it (pointing towards the specs) here, and I can keep it here. It has no self. It cannot protest. I may decide to put it this way, and it would settle the way I want it to. I can decide to put it on my face, my eyes, and it would be okay. Or I can decide to simply break the lenses, and it’s not going to protest, and that would be just fair. I can’t be held accountable because this indeed is property.

Now how can it demonstrate that my will cannot be justifiably imposed upon him or this or her? How does this demonstrate that? That can be done only by demonstrating that it actually has a being, an internal sovereignty. That is the only way, which means it will have to rebel. It will have to say, “I am my own person. I am my own being. I have consciousness.” Right?

So that’s the only way you treat somebody as sentient. When do you say somebody is conscious or sentient or living? When do you say that? You say that when they have what at least appears like free will. It might be conditioned. That’s fine. That’s a deeper philosophical thing, that what appears like free will is mostly conditioned. That’s fine. But at least some…

Questioner: Even superficially.

Acharya Prashant: Even the superficial appearance of free will must be there. And how do you know free will exists? Somebody has to assert it. Somebody has to live by it. Somebody has to defend it. Right? Otherwise, if there is no demonstration or assertion of free will, then I might as well say I’m justified in imposing my will and my laws upon this thing. This now gets reduced to a thing. And that’s the fundamental characteristic of a thing: it won’t resist or rebel. Right? If you cannot resist, cannot rebel, you are a thing.

Questioner: You’ll be played with.

Acharya Prashant: And you’ll be played with, and that would be justified. Right? You cannot even find fault with the player, who happens to be the exploiter or the dominator or whatever, the bully.

The moment this starts displaying an internal freedom, an internal independence, that’s the moment the aggressor is put in the dock. And that’s the moment the aggressor too will have to reconsider his stance. But what if this is so pliant, so submissive, so obedient, that it continues to chug along and play on?

Women in Iran are protesting. So they will get what they want. At least to some extent. And maybe the emancipation will be broader and deeper in the future. But this (specs) thing, nobody can grant it freedom from above or outside. In fact, if freedom is given to you from above, that works in exactly the opposite way. If I am granting this thing freedom from above, then what I’m actually supporting is the fact that this has no internal freedom.

Questioner: And I can also take it away anytime.

Acharya Prashant: I am giving it from above or from outside or from somewhere in the system, in our environment. If I’m supplying freedom to this one, I can also withdraw freedom at any moment.

Questioner: Dependence in the name of freedom.

Acharya Prashant: Yes, that would be dependence in the name of freedom. So real freedom has to originate from within, right? Otherwise, the Americans can be there, the liberal world can be there, or legal protection can be there. But it would all be like crutches.

I fully agree that legal protection is needed. Yes, we need a safe environment. We need equality. We need women to feel dignified, protected. But in spite of saying all this, I know very well that none of that, though important, though necessary, can substitute a burning heart. So slavery is imposed on this, first of all, because this one can have no agency. And a lot of people choose to have no agency for reasons of fear or security or tradition or whatever. Do you get this?

You see, please understand. I have no reason to accord respect or dignity befitting a sentient being to anything if that thing does not visibly demonstrate its freeness. Why should I feel guilty of picking this (pointing towards the water glass) up from here and keeping it here? Please tell me. I picked this (pointing towards the water glass) up from here and kept it here as per my wish. Right? Or I can smash it, just throw it. Or I can empty it of its content. Or I can put something else into it. Or I can paint it with any color. Or I can veil it. I can melt it. Whatever I want to do. Right? Or I can trade it. I can do anything.

And should I feel guilty, or should I be held legally, morally accountable for that? No. Nothing. Why? Does the fault lie with me? If I am putting it from here to here, does the principal fault lie with me? You cannot find fault with me. In fact, no court can convict me for doing this. Right? Why? Because this anyway has no freedom, no responsibility, no self, no consciousness, no agency. And this can be forgiven for having none of that because it cannot have any of that.

But when a human being refuses to love freedom, refuses to be consciously responsible for his life, and refuses to pay the price, then it’s difficult to just ignore. I know I’m demanding too much. I know it would be easy to say that the women are already suffering, already oppressed, and now you are saying that the responsibility lies with women. Yes, I’m saying the responsibility lies with them. I’m not finding fault. I’m trying to remind a human being of her responsibility towards herself.

See, what else can we do? Please tell me. Beg? Petition? Kneel? Crawl? What to do? You want to go to the indoctrinated zealot? You want to go to the menfolk and beg for some teeny-weeny rights? You know how deeply culturally conditioned they are. Right? You know their partisan position.

If you do not become responsible and accountable for your life, who else would? For sure, the men would not. The men are not going to step forward and say, “We will do it for you.” And why should they do it for you? They are not responsible even for their own lives. Look at how they are living. Look at their fanaticism. Look at the kind of distorted interpretations of religion that they carry. Such people you want to have expectations from? You want to go to men with the expectation that they’ll be benign and kind and noble and benevolent and loving, and they will grant you an equal status? They will not do that. They will not do that. They are just too deeply conditioned, and they have stakes in the existing oppressive patriarchy.

So what option are you left with then? Please tell me, what is the option? The option is to take matters into your own hands. And I know that’s going to be a costly affair. I know there would be blood. I know heads would roll. But please tell me how else to get out of this hole. How else to challenge these bondages and break out of this jail? Somebody will have to scale the walls, and somebody will have to smuggle in a few dynamite rods. Blasts are needed. Right? And there would be casualties. There is going to be all kinds of collateral damage, but that has to be taken as creative destruction. No, this is not an incitement to violence. No, no, no.

I would love, if the whole thing can happen very, very peacefully, and that’s the ideal way it should happen. Maybe that’s the first way to try out. But even lawful, legal, noble entities do find that a point comes when they have to go to war.

Questioner: There’s absolutely no option left.

Acharya Prashant: So many wars have been waged through proper UNSC legal resolutions. All the important and responsible members of the world community came to the table, and decided in consensus that we need a war. And that has happened. And sometimes that has been useful as well, not always, though. But the United Nations is not going to say that war is the first recourse. They’ll try out many other means. They’ll negotiate. They’ll want to have a deal of some kind, give and take, this and that. But when nothing works, what else to do then? It has to be a demonstration of resolve. It has to be a showdown.

But what to do? What to do? I mean, India is such a peaceful state. Yes, we are. But don’t we have the police? The paramilitary, the army, don’t we all have that? Because a point comes when all that is needed. Are you getting it?

You are expecting mercy and sympathy from your traditional oppressor. That’s utopian. That’s wishful thinking. That’s thinking against yourself.

Questioner: I will never do it because it’s not just ignorance. They willfully stop children from going to school.

Acharya Prashant: The list is horrible. What has been done? The number of women who are dying unattended because there are no doctors. No doctors, and male doctors aren’t allowed or supposed to attend to female patients, especially when it comes to gynae cases. No school, no hospitals, no public places, nothing at all.

I don’t think this can be called life. Better than this life is a revolution. And women in Afghanistan can learn from their neighbors in Iran. Good show. Good show in Iran.

Questioner: There have been examples. There was a case of a lady called Malala, she was shot by the Taliban in the head.

Acharya Prashant: Oh, you mean Malala Yousafzai?

Questioner: Yes.

Acharya Prashant: Okay. The Nobel laureate.

Questioner: Just got reminded of it. I mean, not going into other things, politics, whatever, but at least on the face of it…

Acharya Prashant: Wasn't she a Pakistani?

Questioner: She was from the tribal area, but very nearby. Something that can be an example, that’s what happened, the Taliban was trying to stop her from going to school, and at that cost…

Acharya Prashant: See, what I’m saying is not diplomatically nice. Definitely not. But I beg to be educated, is there an option? Is there an option? There is this country, and one half of the human population of that country is bringing the worst kind of oppression on the other half.

What’s the remedy? And all this is being done in the name of religion, culture, and tradition, and this and that. So the oppressing half is not going to relent. Right? So I don’t see any other way. In fact, when women take things in their own hands, they come out on the streets, that’s when probably for the first time they are reminding the menfolk that they have agency. Otherwise, the men will say, “We are justified in putting this from here to here, or veiling it, or doing anything with it. Anything can be done with it.” It’s resistance that serves as a visible proof of your existence. Otherwise, you’re a thing.

Questioner: It hasn’t happened till now, though.

Acharya Prashant: It will need to happen, and it better happen quickly because human beings have an unfortunate capacity to be conditioned. What we see all around us perpetually starts feeling like the Truth. So if a girl is born in this environment, in such circumstances, she may actually start feeling that all this is the Truth, that it need not be challenged. So resistance better come early.

Questioner: It’s quite interesting, that’s what I centrally found interesting even after reading the article, that women are not peripheral; they are central in political legitimacy in these systems. They have to come into the daily discourse as if there’s some unique entity there that has to be managed, rather than just human beings. If we look at the West, we don’t hear too much about women’s rights or anything, at least in this day and age, it doesn’t have to be something special there.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah, the challenges there have moved on. In the West, the frontiers have advanced. In more rigid and oppressive and illiberal societies, still the old medieval battles are being fought. And whenever you will do something that goes against the very system of nature, it will remain as a thing, as a load, as a burden in your mind. And that’s why men in regressive societies will find that they will remain obsessed with women. In spite of putting them in houses, in small rooms with blackened windows, and putting them out of all public visibility, the veil and this and that, they’ll still find that they cannot put the woman out of their mind.

You have put her out of all places possible, but the more you unnaturally put her out of all places, the more you will find she is occupying this *(pointing towards the mind)*place.

Questioner: In your article, you mention “The woman’s body is the ego’s oldest possession.”

Acharya Prashant: Oldest possession. “Own her, own her.” There are physiological reasons. There are social reasons. But then what is intelligence about? Why do we call ourselves a sapient species? Why can’t we see how the inner architecture stands and how the primitive system operates? We should have liberated ourselves of these gender stereotypes long back, and many societies have already done that.

It’s not just about a liberal philosophy. It’s about basic wisdom. You can even access it more cleanly, more directly, through the spiritual route. Are you the body, or are you the conscious entity? Are you the body conditioned by evolution like that of a dog, cat, buffalo, lion, donkey, pig, whatever? Are you that, an animal who cannot look at the female as anything beyond her body? Or are you a human being whose first identity is not the body but consciousness?

And if consciousness is the first identity, why are you treating the woman as so very different from you? Yes, physiologically there are differences. Prakriti, nature created those differences for the sake of reproduction. That’s fine. But otherwise, there is the same consciousness. There is the same angst, that same crying need for inner liberation. Men and women are centrally very alike, peripherally yes different. Yes, the differences are limited. The similarities are profound. That has to be acknowledged. But men don't want to do that, and ironically that goes against even the men. Places where women are banished are places where even men cannot be blissful. Countries where women do not participate in the workforce are countries that do not progress or advance. Even families where women are caged are not families where you have a healthy environment. That's not going to happen. So it's not about doing a favor to the woman. The man would do himself a favor by acknowledging the woman for what she really is, consciousness.

Questioner: Consciousness, because like you mentioned about women rights directly being proportional to the overall well-being of a place.

Acharya Prashant: Yes. There is a very strong correlation. The status of women in a society or country is very directly proportional to all indices of overall welfare in that country.

Questioner: I had some data here; you mentioned it in the article as well. There's an example of Kerala, which has a low fertility rate is low. Women are among the most educated, and as a result its overall indices are also much better than, let's say, a state like Bihar, which has a higher fertility rate.

Acharya Prashant: The best way of advancing a society, educate women, leave them free to take their own decisions and realize that this is not a favor you are granting. This is their existential right, and if you deprive them of this right, then it's not just the women who suffer. The men suffer in equal measure. In fact, men, women, kids, culture, society, nation, world, environment, everybody and everything suffers.

Questioner: Very beautiful and also insightful thing to know for both sides. Because I think if the men understand that it is eventually for their own benefit.

Acharya Prashant: Yes. But I would still say, if you are oppressed, the primary responsibility of challenging your condition is yours.

Yes, if the men realize and offer genuine support, they are welcome. Thank them, accept the help, coordinate with them. Wonderful. But don't wait for the men to initiate the process. In fact, the victim should be the initiator of the process of freedom, liberation, emancipation.

And once that initiation happens, then men, especially the well-meaning ones, will come on. They get sufficient reason to come in, chip in, contribute, help if needed, even share the leadership. Then they can do that.

When you are victimized, the unfortunate inner tragedy is you internalize the identity of a victim. And once that identity is internalized, you settle in it. You settle in it. Men look at you as a body, and you settle in that identity. You start saying, "I am the body," right? And once you start identifying with the body, you even start trading in it. And that's the worst contempt you can inflict on yourself as a woman. Not just the trade, but the fact that you accepted an identity imposed on you by somebody else. That's where self-knowledge comes in. You must know who you are. You cannot look at yourself through the eyes of others. That's disrespect to your own eyes.

And once you start internalizing the bodily identity that the society has trained you to do, that becomes the norm. And then you give the society, the men especially, more reasons to argue that women are anyway not too conscious and their primary affair is the body. You look at how vicious the cycle is and how self-perpetuating.

So men look at women as the body. The woman internalizes that identity and starts acting from that identity, starts weaponizing her body. What else can she do? That's the deal she has been served.

Though I want to retract this and say there is more that she can do. You are never so helpless that you can't walk out of even the most lucrative deal. Pay the highest price. Learn to walk out. But that requires a deep commitment towards your own dignity.

Most human beings won't have that. So you take on that identity and you start behaving accordingly, and then the world gets reasoned to say, “Oh, but that's how women are.” No, that's not how they are. That's how they have been conditioned. That's what you have turned them into. That's not how they were born. That's what you did to them. And now you present their deteriorated state as an alibi to keep them chained, or confined, or as secondary citizens. So all this is quite dishonest.

Questioner: This is the real tragic part of it, and no one seems to be talking about this. Everyone's saying Taliban, this, that.

Acharya Prashant: Yes, one of the biggest supporters of patriarchy are the women themselves. That's why the onus of breaking out lies on them. Outsiders must help, but the real action will have to come from the insider.

Questioner: That's why I'd like to ask you also, on a slightly more personal note. You are someone who has been at the forefront of women empowerment, and there are so many testimonials, and we know that millions of women have come out from a lot of oppressive situations listening to you, but there is still some resistance from some side. So that makes me very curious many times. What exactly, why would a woman not want to do what is required to get free, even when…?

Acharya Prashant: Because she has been given certain privileges in the patriarchal system. She has been rendered helpless beyond those privileges, as her internal muscles have been systematically weakened. Right?

The tactic is twofold. Give her something she can live with and live by, happily, almost happily. Give her something. So there are certain rights and privileges and places and status she receives as being part of the patriarchal system. The deal does offer her something. She receives all that, and she cannot walk out of the deal because the muscles that are needed to walk out have been weakened. So she feels that the deal is the best thing possible. Now if someone comes and tells her to quit, she takes that someone as an enemy.

Consider her situation. This is the deal she has been living with since long, right? Her capacity to rise on her own and do something else has been rendered ineffective in all ways possible, through organized religion, I call it lok dharm, through traditional propaganda, through economic and even legal structures, a lot of things. So she says, when I am getting all this relatively easily in a secured way, just as my mother did, just as my grandmother did, why should I rather take the risky route of rejecting this, getting up, walking out, rebelling, inviting trouble? Why should I get into that? And that's the reason people like me get a lot of hate.

Questioner: Hate also…

Acharya Prashant: From women themselves.

Questioner: Yes, that's overwhelmingly what we hear from women who have actually been taken out of operative systems. That's one side.

Acharya Prashant: See, somebody who has nothing to lose is in an advantageous, I would even say privileged position. Because this person now has no option but to break away. Break away. Rebel. Leave the table. The deal anyway has nothing for you. But the shrewd thing about the traditional system is that it does give something to the woman. What the woman does not realize is that what it takes away is of a far greater magnitude.

It does give you something. Yes, there is something being offered, mostly psychologically, safety, security, respectability, such things. A veneer of care and concern as well. All that is there. But what she's losing out on in the process is of much greater value. She does not realize the nature of the deal. That's where the problem is. Therefore, she buys in and signs up.

And that's what is happening with women in Kabul as well. That's why the rebellion is unlikely to come. Women, to some extent at least, have bought into the system. We cannot lay the blame entirely on male bigotry. There are dimensions beyond that, and that's why the woman will have to herself rise.

Questioner: The article ends with: "Others will free you only to the edge of their own understanding. Beyond that edge, you must see for yourself."

Acharya Prashant: I think I've written it well. No?

Others will contribute only to the extent possible from their own center. But your life is your life, so you will have to be in charge. Don't wait for others.

In fact, it is those others who have taught you to wait for others. That too is a ploy.

All right. I would rather have the audience go through the entire article. Thank you.

Questioner: Thank you, Acharya Ji.

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