Table Of ContentRITA BANERJI
Sex and Power
Defining History, Shaping Societies
PENGUIN BOOKS
CONTENTS
About the Author
Dedication
INTRODUCTION
The Maligned Serpent
In Defence of Sex
Sex: The Ultimate Power Weapon
Origins of New Sins and Shame
Sacred Master, Sex Slave: Cycles of Morality
The Chronicle of Sex: An Indian Tale
PART I
THE VEDIC PERIOD: SEX AS A SACRED DUTY
Hinduism’s Family Tree
Sex and the Creation Theory
The Altar to Virility
Divine Semen
Women in the Vedic Sex Equation
Harnessing the Slave
Jung and the Penile Archetype
PART II
THE BUDDHIST PERIOD: SEX AS A PRISON
The Precipitants of a New Sacredness
Breakdown of the Vedic Patriarchy
The Search for Change
Buddha, the Revolutionary
New, Rebellious Ideas
Buddhism: The Slaves’ Civil Disobedience
The Expulsion of Sex
Evolution of the Collective Consciousness
Why Buddhism Failed in India
The Mind at Odds with the Body
PART III
THE GOLDEN PERIOD: SEX AS SALVATION
When the Slave Became Master
Love: The People’s Movement
The Resurrection of the Love God
Repositioning Sex in Society
Sex as Art and Science
Sex and the Creative Drive
The Psychological Dimension of Sex
Women on the Warpath
Tantra: Undoing the Duality
Emergence of the Lingam–Yoni
Embracing the Human Expression of Nirvana
PART IV
THE COLONIAL PERIOD: SEX AS SHAME
The Arrival of Islam
The Birth of Hinduism and a New Moral Incentive
Hypocrisy of the New Master Class
The British Prelude
Safeguarding the Chaste
The Indispensable Sin
Sex in the Power Equation
Redefining Women
The Indian Woman Awakens
Gandhi: The Moral Architect of Modern India
PART V
THE DEMOCRATIC PERIOD: A SEXUAL PARADOX
Two Worlds, One Nation
Who Will Be Master of the Democratic World?
Women as Sex Objects for the Patriarchy
Killing the ‘Other’
The Puzzle of the Lingam–Yoni
India at a Crossroads: Which Way Will It Go?
Notes
References
Acknowledgements
Copyright Page
PENGUIN BOOKS
SEX AND POWER
Rita Banerji was raised all over India (in about thirteen
towns and cities) and then moved to the United States,
where she lived for eleven years, studying and working in
the fields of ecology and the environment. She is currently
based in Calcutta, where she works as a freelance writer
and photographer. Her works have been published in The
London Magazine, New Orleans Review, The Word Worth
Magazine and The Review-Asia Magazine.
Rita Banerji is the founder and chief administrator of the
online campaign The 50 Million Missing, at
www.50millionmissing.in, which is soon to be set up as an
NGO in India.
With much shame
to the millions of daughters
that India discarded
most unlovingly
Introduction
Languorously sensual and of exquisite form, men and
women in stone on ancient Indian temple walls engage in
explicit and imaginative love-making, in an array of
intriguing poses. The atmosphere they evoke is of such
immediacy that even now, more than a thousand years
since they were first conceived, they retain the power to
speak unabashedly and eloquently of the carnal passions of
the human race.
A man caresses his delighted lover’s naked breasts with a
lotus bud.1 Another exchanges a coquettish glance with his
lover as he attempts to seduce her with a glass of wine.2
And yet another kneels before his lover and performs
cunnilingus while she languidly gazes down at him and snips
off his hair.3 One couple prefers intercourse in the standing
position—the woman with her leg draped around the man’s
hips, her arms entwined around his neck.4 Another couple in
coitus understandably requires assistance. Both are in a
cross-legged sitting position, the man below, upside down
and balanced on his head, the woman upright, held in
position on top by two supporting female attendants.5 A
temptress attempts to tantalize, brazenly calling attention
to her vulva by framing it with her hands.6
Every year, thousands of visitors from India and abroad
contemplate these temples and respond in ways that are
just as varied—from awe and disbelief to voyeurism and
bewilderment, sometimes, even disgust. But while the world
regards these monuments like oddities on the Indian
landscape, quite a few Indians wish it would divert its
attention towards other equally splendid but more asexual
aspects of Indian history. Aiming their indignation at
foreigners and intellectuals, they remonstrate: ‘Why should
people be so obsessed with these sculptures when India has
so much more to offer?’
The answer could not be more self-evident. For how many
civilizations of the world have been so inspired as to portray
human sexuality with such artistry, elegance and candour,
not just as a primal passion, but also a refined science and a
cultivated art form? But even more significantly, what
makes these temple sculptures particularly fascinating is
how their very existence poses a challenge to the moral
climate of contemporary Hinduism.
Even though these temples are a product of Hindu culture,
no architect in India today would dare construct a temple or
for that matter any public building along similar erotic lines.
It would be considered sacrilegious—a disregard for public
sentiment—and in all likelihood, given India’s recent socio-
political climate, could catapult the masses into a state of
violent agitation.
So it is little wonder that a section of Indians find these
relics more than just a bit disconcerting. These temples are
an embarrassment, incongruous with nurtured concepts of
Hindu religious sanctimony. And they are much too palpable
to wish away. Hence many modern Indians would rather
have them understated than re-examined and reworked into
the fundamentals of their social fabric. In fact, Mahatma
Gandhi, the messiah of celibacy, had wanted organized
bands of his devotees to storm these historic temples and
obliterate the offensive sculptures.7
On the other hand, these temples have enthralled
scholars and intellectuals, many of whom have attempted to
