Tradition is a tricky word. Many years ago, when my husband and I were making the rounds of various schools in Delhi for our daughter’s admission, one institution required parents to sit for a written test. The idea, we were told, was to gauge a couple’s compatibility with each other and with the school’s philosophy.

We sat separately, in the open air, on a winter morning, grappling with the question paper. I still remember one  question: “Is tradition good or bad?” For a few seconds, I thought about what the school authorities may want to hear. But then I decided it is best to write what I felt (and still feel). “Tradition is a guide and not a jailer,” I  wrote, quoting the famous English dramatist and author W. Somerset Maugham. At home, if there are different notions of tradition, we have a vigorous but healthy debate, and the final decision is based on rationality and science, I wrote. I don’t know what the school authorities made of my views. I was not called back for an interview.
The memory of that winter morning, as I wrestled with my words, comes rushing back as “tradition”, or rather “traditional practices”, are once again emerging as the tricky pivot that decides who and what should prevail, as an India in transition navigates its way through a million mutinies.
When is it time to call a spade a spade, and a traditional practice that harms health and morale as abject abuse?
In recent days, there have been several test cases. “Traditional practice” is the overarching argument being brandished to justify acts as diverse as traumatising a young girl into licking a urine-stained bedsheet, banning women below 40 from going to a market unescorted, as well as using a cellphone.
This morning’s papers brought more horror: tucked in the inside pages, there was the story of a couple in their sixties in Jharkhand who have been accused of witchcraft by a village panchayat and forced to eat their excreta and drink their urine. The panchayat members blame the couple for the sudden death of cows, buffaloes and goats in village Puro, the news report said. The panchayat decided on vigilante justice when the elderly couple pleaded innocence. A First Information Report has been lodged against 11 people but the incident once again brings to the fore the awesome challenges ahead in the ongoing battle between superstition and science.
Contrary to what many think, the war is not necessarily between the educated and the uneducated, or between the rural and the urban.
In this context, it is interesting to follow the shifting positions and arguments trotted out by the authorities of Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan. The university, founded by Rabindranath Tagore, hit the headlines recently when the hostel warden of a school under its purview forced a 10-year-old girl to lick a soiled bedsheet as punishment for bed-wetting. The warden, who was booked under Sections 341, 269 and 270 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for wrongful detention and negligent and malignant acts likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life, and is on bail, has argued that such “urine therapy” is the traditional cure for bed-wetting. The story has outraged many Indians and given new lease to the ancient debate about “urine therapy”. Former Prime Minister, the late Morarji Desai, was probably the most famous urine-drinker. Now, Swami Agnivesh has popped into the picture, with his widely publicised views on the benefits of drinking one’s own urine.
The point, however, is  something else. It is not about whether some chemical components of urine has or does not have beneficial properties. Nor is it about an adult’s right to drink urine (or any other liquid) if s/he so chooses. The Santiniketan case was about a vulnerable 10-year-old girl who was in no position to talk back to authority. Whether she was “forced” to drink urine or merely “asked” to lick a urine-stained bedsheet, because urine therapy is the “traditional” antidote to this problem, as the university authorities have been arguing, is beside the point. The fact of the matter is that it was not her choice and she felt humiliated. She also did not have anyone around in her immediate vicinity to whom she could turn to for support at that point. The university’s subsequent arguments are even more bizarre. The latest one is to pin the blame on the mother who the authorities claim had consented to the so-called urine therapy. The mother staunchly contests this. My question: What is the role of a liberal, educational institution when dealing with traditional practises that humiliate a child?
The semantic quibbling — “force” versus “advice” —  also goes to the heart of the controversy surrounding the recent diktat by elders in village Asara in Baghpat district, Uttar Pradesh. The elders have asked women below 40 not to go to the market without an escort and to stop using cellphones. Those supporting the diktat argue that it is “advice” in the time-honoured “tradition” to safeguard the community. Once again, the question is: Whose interests are being safeguarded and what are the views of those who are sought to be caged?
It is this authoritarian face of tradition which is also a key factor behind many of India’s health problems. A telling example is the widespread practice of denying colostrum, the first, nutrient-rich breast milk, to a newborn. Many families, including educated ones, in many parts of the country, still have implicit faith in ancient breastfeeding traditions that unwittingly threaten children’s lives. Elderly women in the family make new mothers discard their colostrum, believing it to be dirty and useless. In reality, colostrum is rich in antibodies and protects the baby against many infections and diseases and its denial to a newborn directly impacts its long-term immunity and health. The National Neonatology Forum of India has flagged other harmful traditional practices such as applying kajal/surma in eyes, putting oil in ears, putting boric acids in nostrils or applying cow dung on a newborn.
Health advocates have been crying hoarse on these issues for long. Now, those who wield real power need to unequivocally say that traditions which are harmful to health and happiness have no place in today’s India. Would Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and Union civil aviation minister Ajit Singh (who represents Baghpat) please clarify their position on the intimidatory tactics by the panchayats? Bland public statements will only show that we are imprisoned by tradition, not guided by it in a rational spirit.