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TRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER'S DIARY
can it hold on to traditional ideas and maintain old institutions which deprive women of elementary human rights? In order to answer the qucstion correctly, facts inust b: faced. The situation cust be regarded realistically. Instead of doing that, they talk of mystic ideals of Indian womanhood. Since the position of women in Hindu Society cannot be justifica in the face of indisput. ab!. facts, fictions are fabricated. But fucis aru the decisive Costor. They shall carry Cavillict:')i.
In the above quotation, we have a realistic picture of the social status of Hindu women. The facts cunot be denied. How do the admirers of the ideal of Indian womanhood answer the challenge which is all the more formidable because it comes from a conservative quarter ? In the face of these stark realities about the position of women in patriarchal families, they glorify this antiquated social institution.
In his speech quoted above, Dr. Bhagwan Das, for example, (cfends the “Indian ideal of farsilyisin " iis against the i:dividualism of the West ; and he dogmatically asserts that “cur ideal is the best ”. It is surprising that the Indian critics of Western ideas, iclcals and institutions should not care to learn something about their pet abomination. The family is the unit of society also in the West. The Western society is not composed of a multitude of individuals cutting each other's
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