Dear Shri pviyer,
Today, we see women in all kinds of roles and occupations, from auto-drivers to CEO of MNCs, and excelling in all of them.
I agree sir,in this respect that women have succeeded and continue to succeed in different vocations. If Lord Krishna and Lord Rama had wanted they could have become rishis and vedic experts instead of being kings. King Janaka was renowned for his fame in understanding vedanta, but he was king and he fulfilled that as his primary responsibility.
Bhagwat Gita has a statement which is controversial but well explained by exponents of Dharma. It reads something like this- " It is much better to do one's own duty sincerely rather than take up the dharma of another and excel in it". I can get you the exact verse and its translation if you are not aware of this verse. I understand that different people have different interpretations to this. I am also keen to know the alternate explanations to this verse.
Just as an additional note, some people may be interested to know that Sri Bhaktivedanta srila prabhupada(whose views I don't agree completely with) was clear on the role of women too. He claimed to have read the Gita without any speculative readings. Dharma is subtle and its purpose is to ensure that the individual conquers his weakness and progresses towards God. Because people are different with regard to their Guna and Karma, the work they take up must help them conquer their weakness.
There was a disciple of Swami Sivananda (of rishikesh) . I think it was krishnananda but I can check up and confirm if it was indeed him, if someone needs me to verify the same. He has mentioned that when he arrived in Sivananda's ashram, inspite of being from a family where veda was learnt, the only thing he was asked to do was clean the ashram premises. This seemed to have been the case for many years. He further adds , that this period was his greatest learning phase.
If someone says that being a servant and carrying a corpse cannot give you a moksha , he has not understood karma or dharma. If he says that one can do any karma as per one's inclination and fancy, he does not understand dharma either. How do you progress to God, even while interacting with material world- "This is the goal of Sanathana Dharma". This was the purpose of the shastra laws and this is not the purpose of modern vocations and modern governmental laws. This is my opinion and I have come to this opinion, not based on blind speculation, but based on contemplation of what our sages have said, what I have read of dharma. It is not because of an attempt to logically find differences and contradictions in what our sages say, but my understanding is because of an attempt to see the consistency in understanding matters at hand.
As I have already said, my opinion is not sealed in a tomb for good, I am very much open to modification and admit that the thinking of the sages is very much likely to be much deeper than what I have thought of in this regard. I have put my views here, only because at this stage in my life, this is what seems consistent to me and I hope to see an opinion exposing my weakness in understanding the very verses which I have relied upon to come to such an understanding.
This is also quite unacceptable. IMO, each member of the society has an inalienable right to persuade other members of the society, appealing to their intellect and sense of fair-play, in a non-violent way, like Socrates did, to reshape or even redefine those objectives. Telling them to go away and start their own society elsewhere gives undue advantage to the establishment power to perpetuate their own vision of the objectives even if they have lost popular support.
I agree with your right to disagree as long as you are able to take the majority of your society into confidence and make them feel comfortable about your views. If your ideas are dramatically different, more patience is called for. You need to have better skills of communication. Today the people who think traditionally are in this situation rather than the people who think from a modern perspective. It is but natural that when two sections of society think differently and have departed too far away from their aims, they naturally get assimilated into different theological streams. It is never good, but what else can be the course of destiny.
A devotee of Sringeri Mutt reflected with sadness that - " When a previous governor of Karnataka came to meet the Sringeri Acharya, acharya spoke about Varna Ashrama dharma, and the governor asked the Acharya to stop talking about such things to him. The devotees felt sad about this insult to their acharya, that in modern India, an Acharya cannot even speak his mind freely!"
If someone needs to have a citation for this incident, I need to look up, its been ages since I read this account, but I hope that the message from the incident is clear.
Cheer up friend, we all live with compromises, my own opinion is rather different from most members in my family. But it is a family and we all tolerate each other, inspite of differences in opinion. I am not sure that it happens in the same way in a larger society. Any differences in Indian society is certainly likely to be allowed as long as it happens in a non aggressive style.