KALI & GAURI

 

 

In India, there are a number of religions that are living under the same sovereign means the “Constitutions of India”. Constitution provides fundamental rights and legal rights to the citizens and every person who is living in India.  The majority religion in India is Hindu dharma and in Hindu dharma, there are many gods or goddesses. Different sects of Hindu dharma preach different gods or goddesses and every sect has there one KULDEVI or KULDEVTA. When we talk about West Bengal’s people, they preach KALI MATA and in North India, most Hindus preach GAURI MATA.

Ramakrishna Paramhansa who was known as GURU of Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna Paramhansa was an Indian Hindu mystic and religious leader who lived in the 19th century Bengal. He was the devotee of KALI MATA and once he said that "I do not worship Kali made of clay and straw. My Mother is the conscious principle. My Mother is pure Satchidananda — Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. That which is infinite and deep is always dark-colored. The extensive sky is dark-colored and so is the deep sea. My Kali is infinite, all-pervading, and consciousness itself."

Gauri Mata a goddess who is the Goddess of Beauty and Women also referred to as Mahagauri, Mahagauri is the eighth form among the Navadurga aspects of the Hindu mother goddess Mahadevi.

Mahagauri has four arms. Her right arm is in the pose of allaying fear and her right lower hand holds a trident in it. She holds a tambourine in her left upper arm and the lower one is in the form of a blessing. In Hindu dharma, she is a beautiful golden woman wearing white garments and apparel. Can we say that Mahagauri is a woman who follows all customs of society and a pleasant one who makes everyone happy because she has a fair skin tone, she looks charming because of her fair skin tone. She is the one who is the example that every woman in India should be like her. She is tolerated and she takes care of every person in the family.

Kali Mata is also a goddess who is referred to as Mahakali, Bhadrakali, and Kalika and she is the goddess of War, Anger, Time, Change, Creation, Destruction, and Power. She is considered as a ferocious form of goddess Mahadevi, the supreme of all powers, or the ultimate reality. Kali's appearance is dark blue, gaunt with sunken eyes, and wearing a tiger skin sari and a garland of human heads, her hair unrestrained. In Dakshinakali form, Kali is shown with her right foot on Shiva's chest, while depictions showing Kali with her left foot on Shiva's chest depict the even more fearsome Vamakali. Vamakali is usually worshipped by non-householders. Can we say that the Kali form of Goddess is free from society’s rules and because she has a dark skin tone so she is the woman who is independent and does not obey societal norms? She has one foot on her husband, she is fearless and she can tackle everything which comes in her way of freedom. She does not tie up her hair and we can say that every woman who works for herself and who is confident looks like her. In this modern society when we see working women who are ignorant of societal norms looks dito like her. We can say that Kali is a modern independent woman.

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was an Indian educator and social reformer of the nineteenth century, he was also a devote of Kali. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was the most prominent campaigner for Hindu widow remarriage and petitioned the Legislative council despite severe opposition, Hindu widow remarriage was opposed by many Hindu sabhas including Radhakanta Deb and the Dharma Sabha. Even though widow remarriage was considered a flagrant breach of Hindu customs and was staunchly opposed but at last the act was enacted in 1856.

We always make judge people by their skin tone even if they are gods or goddesses, we portray Vishnu who is the caretaker of nature, and we show him as the most beautiful man, he has a fair skin tone and has a lotus flower in his hands, and on the other side, we portray Shiva the god of destruction Shiva is usually depicted as dark, from the ashes of corpses that are smeared on his body, with a blue neck, from holding poison in his throat. He wears a crescent moon and the Ganges River as decorations in his hair and a garland of skulls and a serpent around his neck. When we think about the Shiva god, we made the image of a person who looks scary and we think that when he opens his third eye the whole universe shall be destroyed.

Our society is so obsessed with the color of a person’s skin that they show that in TV ads a woman who is dark is not confident and not get a job or not be able to marry, no one likes her but when she uses

their cream, she becomes fair and beautiful, everyone now starts embracing her and she is now confident enough to face society or she has many boys behind him for marriage. These ads and the portrayal of Gods or Goddesses show that Indian society is not now ready to accept that every human being is equal in society. According to Karl Marx, religion is like other social institutions in that it is dependent upon the material and economic realities in a given society. It has no independent history; instead, it is the creature of productive forces. As Marx wrote, “The religious world is but the reflex of the real world.” So, in the real world also Indian society or any other society in this world judges the persons by their skin tones.

Why our society is so obsessed with the skin tone of people? If a person has a fair skin tone, everyone thinks that he or she is calm and one who is obedient to societal norms but if a person has a dark skin tone, then every person on made an opinion that he or she is regressive and ignorant of the societal rules and regulations. We are living in a country that has the biggest written constitution and by which nobody discriminates against another person by his race or color. We need to understand that every person is equal whether he or she has fair skin tone or dark skin tone.

Advocate Sonu Vashist

Founder

Advicebiz (A business division of SSquare)

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