Violent Family Murders
Questioner: Namaste Acharya Ji. First I would like to introduce myself. My name is Ara. I've been here in the US for almost 30 years and I'm a high school science teacher. First of all, I would like to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know how many times I have to say that to express my gratitude. Words are not sufficient.
I've been in this pursuit my entire life, but I think I reached where I'm supposed to be.
But today's question is regarding the incident that happened in Gurugram, where a father killed his daughter. And if we look at the daughter's accomplishments, it seems like she did really well, and reaching that level is not that easy without all the support from the family and the parents.
But now, what the father has done is one of the most demonic acts anybody could do. So the question is: where do we go wrong? What happens that we reach to this extent, to commit this kind of crime?
It doesn't seem like the father is a criminal, or any sort of that mentality. So what do you think?
Acharya Prashant: We do not know the facts of the case, so I cannot really respond to this one particular case. Obviously, at a macro level, we know that a young woman has been murdered. That is certain. We also know that the murderer is her own father. That too is certain.
But beyond that, we do not know the mechanisms, the objectives, and what all was happening behind for several months and years. So we do not know that. But yes, we can talk of all such cases in a general sense, not this particular case, but this is not a case; it is a category. We can talk about the category.
Yes, there is an important point you raised. You said, 'The woman, the deceased girl, had reached a particular level in her sport, and that cannot happen without the support of family and the surroundings. And the support is not merely in the form of a nod; it also requires active financial assistance and a few other things.' So all that must have been forthcoming.
And then we find this event, which appears abrupt. It appears to go against the flow. It appears to breach the narrative. You see, narratives are never breached. What appears like a breach is just a revelation. Nothing happens suddenly in this case or any other case. Wherever it happens, whenever it happens, if you find an incidence of grotesque violence or a sudden explosion, it is for sure never sudden. It was present there all the time just that it became visible at one particular moment.
And it is quite possible that it might not become visible for the next 50 years. That too could have happened, and happens in most of the cases. It is very much possible that a father, or a brother, or a lover decides to kill a woman, and in the final moment, in the nick of time, he changes his mind. Or somebody shows up, the doorbell rings, and the moment passes. And then, just randomly, circumstantially, you find that kind of moment never again arrives or arrives only after 15 years.
And then we entitle ourselves to say that all has been fine for the next 15 years or for the next 50 years, till both the persons die a natural death. No, it's not really like that. Most relationships, especially involving young women, they are always on the edge, always at the brink of a catastrophe.
Just that most of such happenings are held back either because of fear or random situations. So we don't hear that loud explosion happening very frequently. Only sometimes does it actually materialize. Only sometimes can we visibly see the blood flowing and hear the bullets fired.
Other times, we think the situation is normal. We say it's a peaceful relationship. The thing is, it is never really peaceful. Just because we do not actively hear gunshots being fired, does not mean that things are peaceful between partners or between parents and kids — especially daughters. Not at all.
You said there must have been active support; otherwise, the girl couldn't have gone so far in her professional pursuit. Yes. But there is an invisible boundary and a glass ceiling. You can do, but only so much. You will be allowed to do so much because we don't want to be called bad people. We don't want to be labeled regressive. We want to be on the right side of morality.
So when the daughter asks for something, it has to be provided to the extent that culture and conditioning, and self-interest allow. Let that not deceive us. There are clear boundaries and those boundaries have been mined. You step there, and there is an explosion.
Questioner: You're saying that I understand what parents are doing for their kids is within certain limits of their mental setup. If things go beyond that, it becomes unacceptable, and this kind of thing happens.
Acharya Prashant: Yes. You see, the bird has to be trained to fly, that makes it look cute. And then it can perch itself on the door or on the almirah and fly from room to room. Right? The problem is soon the bird wants to explore the open skies. That’s when the weapons come out and the shots are fired.
So it's all right as long as you want to enjoy limited freedom — qualified freedom, conditioned freedom, curtailed freedom; because giving you that much freedom helps me feel good about myself. "I’m a good parent. I’m a benevolent father. I’m a loving and caring mother. You see, how much I do for you. I’m a good husband, a responsible one." And all of that appears not just alright, but actually quite pleasant. The moment you test the boundaries, you find you’re not even left intact to hear the explosion.
We said, the boundaries have all been mined.
You can think of it as a flower garden, a beautiful garden with very colorful and tender flowers, all of them singing romance, butterflies, and rainbows. That kind of a garden. And the fence is mined. Try to step out, and you'll be blown to pieces. As long as you remain within, you will entertain the illusion that you are a free bird — not just free, but actually loved and cared for. And that which you experience will indeed look so much like love.
The father comes to drop you at the stadium. The husband comes to pick you up from the office. So much love, so much care, so much security. That’s the thing: what passes for love is mostly something very ugly and potentially violent.
Yesterday there was this discussion, Shiva was there. So we said, just two days after her murder, Iga Świątek, of the same age, lifted the Wimbledon trophy. And this girl died because she wanted to play and teach tennis. Another girl, she is from Poland. That's the difference. The West is a little ahead of India when it comes to challenging the script.
When you look at the murders of women across the world including India and the US as well — I suppose 70–80%, a very large proportion of those murders happen at the hands of close relatives or lovers (according to the CEPAL). That’s for women, not for men.
When you look at homicide cases where men have been murdered, the murderer is not very frequently from within an intimate circle. But when it comes to the murder of women, there is an overwhelming chance that the murderer is a loved one — typically a male with whom she has a family relation with,or a blood relation with, or an emotional relationship with. It’s typically the father, or the brother, or the husband, or the lover, or father-in-law or somebody. These are exactly the people she thinks she is getting love from. That’s the reason often I feel not just irritated but actually furious, when it comes to women. So easily taken in, deliberately gullible.
Anything that tastes sweet is named love. Just go and open the car door for her, pull a chair for her at the coffee table, or say a few sweet nothings, “Hey, you seem to have lost some weight.” It’s a guaranteed winner, always, since eternity and then boom, there is that explosion. And then you say, "How could it happen to me?" It was always happening. You were just blinded by your emotions, your need for security, your conditioning. You don't see the violence cooking.
How many acid attack victims are men, please? In the case of a breakup, if there is emotional trauma, it would be on both sides, right? Or sometimes on one side and other times on the other side, right? Why are women never found spraying acid on the faces of men? We don't question that, and we make no inferences. We don't come to the obvious conclusions. What you take as love was never love in the first place. Never. It's not a case of a great thing having gone wrong or sour. No, the thing was always rotten, and you have been lucky to have survived till the point of explosion.
Why are there so many laws to protect women all over the world and in India? The reason is simple. Because they're very vulnerable to exploitation. Otherwise, why would laws be needed? And a lot of this vulnerability is avoidable. It is self-inflicted.
Questioner: So how to bring this change? How to make the girls and the women think differently? Especially even the new generation that I see around me, and they feel like they are very much "liberated" and they know what to do, but I still feel the pressure, the societal pressure on them. But they're not ready to admit it.
Acharya Prashant: No, it's not the pressure. It's a deal. It's a deal, and they'll have to walk out of the deal.
It's a deal that promises sweetness and security. It's a deal. It's not pressure. They'll have to stop living in fairy tales, those ancient clichés and caricatures and stereotypes: the doting father, the loving mother, the mischievous brother, the protective and possessive husband.
Questioner: Are you making them see this?
Acharya Prashant: No, it's a deal. The deal is that you accept these images, these tales and if you accept them, then you will get all the things as per the role you have accepted in the story.
The deal is: here is a story. Kindly adopt yourself to the character, and if you play this character, then papa will play that character. That's the deal. You play the sweet, obedient, dainty girl, and papa will play the superman provider. You need to reject this deal. It's a bad deal, and that needs to be seen. It's a very, very bad deal.
I could have understood, historically, yes, there was pressure because women are physically at a disadvantage, and mankind has discovered artificial sources of energy only a little recently in history. Before that, we needed to depend on our own muscle power — human muscular energy, and women didn't have too much of that compared to men. So they were disadvantaged. But now they are not. We don't use our own muscular energy, our biceps, to drive a car or even to fly a bomber jet. Energy comes from elsewhere. So it is a deal that has been historically honored, and the momentum of history now needs to be challenged and broken.
Why must women still accept the same roles and the same clichéd part in the script? Somebody comes and patronizes. And for a lot of girls, that is security. Somebody speaks to her in a condescending way, and the girl won't come up with a befitting response. Why? Because it flows in her that she has to play it safe. No, you don't need to play it safe because anyway, you remain unsafe even while playing it safe. You don't need to take it lying down anymore because even if you take it lying down anymore, he's never going to be satisfied. He'll walk all over you. And one day, as a reaction to your little protest, you'll just be shot. How is it a good deal if that's what you get even after years of being subservient?
I say it so often, so repetitively, it has again become some kind of a cliché. You are a human being, why are you carrying all the marks and symptoms of the medieval woman?
You look at the way brides are dressed up, please understand. So much metal on the body, so much textile, and so much silica. This (displaying his hands) is your principal physical organ of defiance. Keeping aside this (mind), right? Even symbolically, this (displaying his hands) is what stands for strength, fortitude, rebellion, individuality. Right? And then you are wearing so much glass here. Why shouldn't we more honestly call that as handcuffs because that performs exactly the same function.
Now you can't run away. Now you can't fight. Now you can't protest. Otherwise, the glass will pierce your own arm. And this (wrist) is the place the arm is weakest at, and it will be pierced. You try to fight with that much silicon oxide on your wrist and see how your wrists are slashed. But women say they love it. Am I not pretty (displaying his wrist)?
Please understand. History has nothing for you. Just nothing. You only have this (present). The past holds no offerings for you.
I'm speaking to women. Those who were beneficiaries of the systems of the past, exploitative or otherwise, let them stick to the past if they would. And it sounds reasonable if they do that, right? They were the beneficiaries of all kinds of social and economic and religious systems of the past. So they want the past to carry forward. That is understandable.
But what benefit do women get from caring for the past? What have you obtained? He decides infanticide, very little representation in any level of decision-making; at the level of the family, society, community, country. Not even having a say over your own body. Being incessantly pregnant, rather impregnated. What stakes do you have in history?
You have the present, and if you can be liberated, you will probably have a good future. But why do you want to stick to the stereotypes of the past? There is nothing for you. But she's rewarded. And that's what does her in. That's where she is fooled or chooses to be fooled. You submit your freedom and we'll offer you goodies. That's that pact I am asking her to walk out of. The deal needs to be broken. We need human beings, not gender caricatures. And that's what all right-thinking men are also aspiring for, please understand.
It's not a thing of women against men, one gender against the other. It is about sane human beings versus insane human beings. Sane men, we said, right-thinking men, those who care for themselves; I'm not saying care for women. Even men who really understand life, are eagerly waiting for women to walk out of the past and step in into the present.
However, what we see is that even in the name of modernity, the past just continues. I don't know what attraction the past and the traditions hold for women. Give her all kinds of empowerment, and even this is a patronizing statement, is it not? Give her empowerment. And then in the name of choice, she will surrender her freedom. She will say, “I don’t want to be a working woman. That is my free choice.”
Ivy League or the IITs and IIMs in India — just figure out how many women continue to work 10 years after passing out. Ten years after graduation, a scary number of them are out of the workforce. And you cannot say, they have been bulldozed into this decision. They'll say, “It’s our sovereign choice.” No, it’s not your sovereign choice. It’s the past still continuing surreptitiously.
In the absence of self-knowledge you do not know where your choices are coming from. Your choices are coming from that ancient cave. Your choices are coming from that medieval mansion.
Questioner: Yesterday I was talking to a psychologist. She's very young, American, and even she was questioning. She said, “I have listened to Acharya Ji, and Acharya Ji — this exactly what you are addressing right now, that why he always talks about women’s emotions.” Being a psychologist, she was like, “This is a trait women carry, and it can be sometimes beneficial.” And I asked her, “Okay, tell me.” She said, “They can express themselves, and if that’s the way they express themselves, so be it.”
And she was like, “Acharya Ji doesn't think from their perspective and he tries to impose things on women.” And I said, “Oh! Okay.” She’s a psychologist, and she works with all different kinds of girls and women. And I said, okay, there are some who have this opportunity to go through this counseling and all that. But tell me, what percentage have the option? And what Acharya Ji is doing — he's asking them to stay stronger and stand up for themselves. Tell me what other way he can access these females and reach them other than what he's doing?” And she said, “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.”
But my question to you, what other way or a better way I can address it if that kind of question comes next time?
Acharya Prashant: No, it's a very open, very clear thing. The charge is: why can't women be allowed to be with their emotions and express their emotional self and be as they are?
The reason is very simple. You don't choose your emotions. Your emotions are not yours. I'm looking at that person not as someone with breasts and hips and a uterus. I'm looking at that person as consciousness. And you very well know where emotions come from. The emotions that we are talking of, a lot of them arise right from the uterus. And if there can be a biological procedure or a chemical thing, most of those emotions won’t even be experienced. And equally, those emotions can be heightened. Just one injection or a little pill, and you'll have a blast of emotions.
Are your emotions really yours?
And then you share those emotions with all other mammals. What emotions are you talking of? All emotions are extremely primitive in nature and very physical. I have nothing against emotions. But when emotions start hindering your freedom, your liberation, your capacity to see clearly — then shouldn't we want to inquire into what emotions really are? Or should we take emotions as something sacred, something never to be looked into, let alone questioned?
Lust is an emotion, or is it not? Possessiveness, anger. A simple question: who among us chooses our emotions or our thoughts? Why should we be held hostage to them?
It's about doing the right thing irrespective of the inner feeling. Your feelings are not who you really are. Your emotions are not who you really are. Emotions are transient, they come and go. Do you come and go?
And emotions can be very, very strategically and mischievously aroused by an external stimulus. The aroma of delicious food and you'll have a corresponding emotion in reaction. Or if you are young and a very attractive person, that too scantily clad, deliberately walks past you or brushes against you, you know the emotion that you will experience. So you can be arrested, not by the police, but from within. And your own emotions will be used to manipulate you, to arrest you. It's as simple as that.
I don't know how somebody who has studied psychology doesn't know the basics. I'll tell you — it’s not that difficult to see. It is just that it is dangerous to see. Not difficult but dangerous. Because if you acknowledge this, then you'll have to give up on a lot of your shallow comforts and may I say cheap interests, which we sustain in the name of our emotions.
You see, that's how I feel like — that's the final answer to many things, is it not? You say something, you express a desire, and the other one wants to inquire into it. And your final answer could be: no questions asked, this is what I feel like, and this is what I'll do. And it stops there. That's the self-interest. That's the petty gain we are after. And for that petty thing, we compromise on something very fundamental, very life-giving — our freedom, which is the very essence of life.
