The obsession of Purity : How we twisted cleanliness into chains?
I was just sitting on my bed, scrolling like any other useless evening, when a reel grated my nerves so hard I actually paused.
The reel was basically of a mother-in-law looking straight in camera and spitting venom on her daughter-in-law calling her names. You ask why? Because she committed a grave sin of wearing knee length shorts and crop top in summers of Delhi instead getting boiled in the saree.
This woman isn’t just being toxic. She’s a victim who finally got her turn to become the oppressor.
She probably lived that exact hell where she had to listen to her mother-in-law's taunt. Probably her own husband beat her night after night in the name of marriage and she swallowed it, buried it, and now she’s passing the same poison forward. Instead of breaking the cycle, she’s making sure the next girl suffers too.
Classic Indian family PTSD loop
Victim becomes victimiser. Rinse. Repeat.
And the weapon she uses? “Purity.”
In modern times the meaning of this word is completely tied with how the girl dresses whom she talks to how she speaks and other stuff.
But was it always like that? Did our ancestors who started all this meant this?
What is the meaning of purity?
Think about it. In temples we don’t wear footwear, we don’t touch prasad with dirty hands, everything has to be “pure.”
But pure in what sense? If there’s a God, why would he mind a shudra walking into his temple without bath? He created that dirt. He created the temple. He created that shudra and he created the ground.
The architecturer analogy
It’s like saying an architect hates a specific room of his building he designed. Bro why would he hate if he created that building. Similarly how can a God be affected by the dirt he created in first place?
Purity isn’t for God. It’s a rule we made for our own health. You don't wear footwears in temples because a footwear contains germs that are injurious to humans same for prasad where you don't touch them with dirty hands because the germs may infect prasad which is injurious for humans. People used to sit on temple's ground in older times and have Prasad together and that's the reason cleanliness was a must.
Broader thoughts on weaponisation of purity.
Society is obsessed with controlling women in every way possible. Don’t talk to guys before marriage let alone have a relationship. But the moment the mangalsutra is tied? Suddenly the husband can force himself on her whenever he wants and it’s not considered rape, it’s the “right” of husband or "Marital duty" of the wife, as if the wife is an object for husband to use whenever he wants regardless of her wish.
Never once do we teach boys what consent actually means. But we teach girls the more they cover the more they are "Sanskari and pure."
If character is decided by how one dresses then every human God ever created are characterless because we all were born naked.
If some outsider rapes a girl, the whole mohalla screams “Izzat lut li bichari ki.” This line alone is how our society shames the victim not the perpetrators. Think about it closely why are we tying a woman's dignity with her sexuality? Why is the shame on the victim not the perpetrator?
Purity isn't defined by how one clothes. Purity isn't defined by how distant we are from our opposite gender.
Purity at it's roots is a way to prevent health risks.
Hiding your skin doesn't make you pure or moral. Your hygiene and principles do.
Next time you see a reel like this. Ask yourself what do they mean by purity? And more importantly are you ready to stop this weaponisation of purity or you are still infected with disease?
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