The feminine force unleashed!

Encountering Kali 
(In the margins, at the centre, in the west)
Edited by Rachel F McDermott, & Jeffrey J. Kirpal

To the uninitiated, like the Europeans who arrived on the Indian shores to encounter its natives paying homage to a gory angry looking dark imaged Goddess with weapons of destruction hanging from her multiple arms, wearing a necklace of human scalps, skirt of human limbs and protruding tongue, it must be the image of Devil itself. For the non-believers, it must have appeared like devil worship and a warped sense of divinity of the tribal people. To the natives, however, it is their expression of the embodiment of how the world is to them.

The world is a cruel place. Man's survival is paved with the daily struggle against the elements of Nature and is a constant combat against various atrocities. It is not easy, but life has to go on. Civilised people in India had apparently realised these long ago, even before the spread of Brahmanic and Vedic teachings. The forces of Nature are believed to be feminine in origin. The same mother with the maternal instincts to cuddle is the same one that shows wrath when she is not pleased. The same mother, despite her anger, would not bear to see a hungry child cry. Hence, her bosomy posture with an angry looking stance. The rage within Devi is also to combat negative forces in the world.

The Devi, Sakthi, the generic name for this female divinity, assumes many roles. In the form of a loving wife and kind mother, she is Parvathi, the consort of Lord Shiva. When the situation warrants, she would assume the role of Durga, the fearsome tiger-riding Goddess. Certain quarters insist that it is from the female energies indeed that the Trimurti, the union of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (the creator, protector and destroyer respectively) arise. In fact, She is Brahman, the ultimate force that spins the Universe.

Kali is said to be the concept that resides in the female psyche. It is the dominant force which climaxes when a situation warrants for her to be to protect her loved ones. When a wounded animal is cornered for the last kill, it will garner all its last remaining strength to fight back, most voraciously and in an unstoppable manner. That is Kali. It is said in a Purana that this force was invoked when a demon (asura) obtained a boon from Brahma which promised indestructibility by any living man. Kali, with the help of Shiva, was so intoxicated with the victory over this demon and the gore of his blood that She went on a rampage. The carnage went on. She was on a killing spree that no one could stop. Shiva was called in to stop his 'wife'. Shiva laid amongst the corpse. Only when Kali realised that She was stepping on Shiva, she relented whilst biting her tongue. That is the persona of an embarrassed lady, extruding her tongue and gently biting it!

While some would look at Kali as the current state of the world, hostile and unforgiving, there is still some humanity in the form of comfort and security from this towering figure. Others would associate Her with the left-handed Tantric practices. These are habits considered deviant from the mainstream, the use of sexual energies of the unsanctioned kind, intoxicants and abnormal behaviours. In the realistic world, these negative forces still make up the equilibrium of the world that we live in.

Dakshineswar stance

The belief in the feminine forces of Nature predates Brahmanic and Vedantic teachings. It was a way then to appease the forces with blood sacrifice. Some quarters assert that it is a perverted practice. When the seemingly humane practices of avoiding animal sacrifices came forth, Kali worship became marginalised. It was taken to areas considered to be at the fringe of civilisation, Bengal, South India and the mountainous areas of India. When sea transportation became a trendy thing, Kali worship was re-introduced to the world, at least to the Western world through Calcutta and sea-ports of the South.

To the marginalised societies, Kali gives them hope and redemption. To the Tamils who were persecuted during the Sri Lanka's systemic genocide, She shone a light on them despite all the adversities. Like Her, behind the epitome of destruction, there was a glimmer of love and maternal cuddle to the hungry and the tortured ones. Oracles who invoked the spirit of Kali gave them closure to their missing or lost loved ones. Kali was not expected to change or be blamed for the situation they were caught in but rather remained a beacon of hope to the downtrodden.

These tuft of faith was also given to the indentured labourers who crossed oceans for survival. Kali worship is still widespread in South East Asia, the Caribbean Islands and the spread of islands over the Indian Ocean.

As the world became 'civilised' and inhumane blood offerings became a taboo in the eyes of non-tribal people, there was an attempt to classify Kali worship as 'low-caste' or subversive. The practitioners of younger religions like Jain, Buddhism and Brahmanic brand of faith, viewed it as the devotion of the low-caste, natives and the dark-skinned South Indian coolies, especially so in places they were brought in as labourers.

It is interesting to note how the word 'thug' made it into the English Language. It was just about the time when Indian raised arms against their colonial masters just after the 1857 Sepoy Revolution. The wanted terrorists (freedom fighters) ran into the Vindhya mountains to escape persecution and found solace in Devi Thuggee (a manifestation of Kali) temples. Soon these troublemakers were labelled as thugs. Of course, for the hunted they just yearned for an abode of hope in their patron Goddess to focus on their next move.

From Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Psychoanalysts do not want to be left out in the interpretation of what Kali means to the world. The female gender has always been said to passive and irrational, at least in the eyes of the West. The community expected the male counterpart to take charge of the situation to maintain order. Feminity has a wild, aggressive side which is kept under a calm demeanour that they seem to exhibit. When the situation demands or the time is ripe, the explosive magma of physical energies, sexual prowess and rage just spew out. Another critic suggested that perhaps the West is a male-dominated society with their phallic projections penetrating the weaker natives. To see a powerful feminine force with pent-up energies was unacceptable. Hence, the denigration of Goddess Kali in the mainstream media and by the celluloid industry. Take for example the depiction of Kali in 'Help!' (1966) and 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' (1984). For believers of Kali as their guardian, the whole persona of this Goddess is just Mimesis, imitation of real life in art form - a dialectical, double-edged, complex play of mimesis and imagery! Kali is Mother India against foreign oppressors (Ferringhi). I suppose, for the colonists, it is reverse mimesis. Many Indian Independence fighters like Bose and Aurobindo used this dark avenging ferocious icon to rise to the occasion, whereas Gandhi must have used the subtler subdued form of Kali when he opted for passive resistance.

This towering matriarchal role of Goddess Kali in our daily lives cannot be overstated. As the unifying force Nature is feminine, it has to assume different roles in combating different situations. The message here is that an angry mother, no matter how angry she is, would still feed her crying child. We have to understand that the narrations are that of people from vast areas with their own perception of the Divine. Therefore, the knowledge may have been lost in transit or in translation. The idea is that all our attributes are divine and our ability to converse, mobilise, protect and think is a blessing to cherish. These are remembered on certain days, like Navarathri.

In the modern era, after being oppressed for millenniums, the female gender is out with a bang. Their dormant powers have suddenly been unleashed. The fairer sex is out with a vengeance. They are now slowly but surely making their presence felt in all fields including some that were considered too physically or intellectually demanding for what used to be called the 'fairer' sex.