Eiffel Tower Incident: Disgrace to Women or Dignity to Indian Sadhus?- Page 2

Why even "refuse" the visit?

In my opinion, tolerance is something that should not depend on laws, but rather on one's ethical conscience. Since - in my view - monks bound by a strict vow of celibacy should have the right to avoid contact with women (provided they do not deny women their rights, which BAPS does not do within the women's section of its organization), it is acceptable to tolerate this and accommodate the guests.

What I do criticize, however, is the lack of transparency in the communication with the women - t h a t was clearly a display of power and should not get accepted.

I also consider a blanket rejection of such requests - like those made by the monks - to be unfair and 'not okay'... I am convinced that informative communication among the involved parties should be the base of decisions to make.

Sadhus visit- disgrace or dignity to religion?

Why religion is dragged here? Just because of their cloths?

Disgrace is an exaggerated term here. No female staff is disgraced here. If the authorities would have explained them properly, such an exaggerated reaction could have been avoided. May be the authority thought it's just a normal protocol. But the event was given a different twist.

Celibacy does not involve avoiding women in public places. All you have to do is keep it in your pants to be celibate. No real monk would feel threatened by the presence of women because at that stage of renunciation you are supposed to rise above the duality of God vs ungodly , man vs woman and what not. Monks are supposed to live in monasteries with sex based segregation. Even that , not every monastic order follows. What happened in Paris is not just gross disrespect to women but also to the French ,and to Hindus in general. Swami Vivekananda went to North America in the 1890s. He didn't issue orders for the streets of Chicago ,Vancouver and wherever else to be cleared of women even through the Ramakrishna order was and is big on segregation. He began his Chicago speech with " Brothers and sisters of America " , not " Brothers , and despicable beings of America ". Yogananda had close female associates too including a fellow sanyasin Anandamoyi Ma.

Now if this person's particular belief system demands that women be entirely out of sight , he should shut himself in a den instead of dragging his misogynistic ass to another country and bringing a bad rep to Indian Hindus with this nonsense. There's enough prejudice against us as it is. These are the same people who want Churches to be demolished. All the French had to do was say " Putain de merde , va t'en "!! That they even entertained this disgusting request says a lot about them as well.

Marine Le Pen and Co are gonna have a ball with this one.

In my view this was made into something bigger than it should have been and religion is being dragged in unnecessary.

The original and real point was that 100 monks were visiting the Eiffel Tower and even in their own organization there are certain barriers on the interaction between women and men. Women are not barred and neither do these monks look down on women. But they keep certain barriers or protections in place to limit interactions. The organization didn't ask women to be removed from the Eiffel Tower. They just asked that there be limited interaction.

This could have easily be done by simply moving women around a bit and if the staff had been informed properly and in advance then this would not have become the huge issue it became. This has nothing to do with Hindu religions or being Indian. It has to do with the organization and how they manage the interactions between men and women. Simple as that.

https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/world/europe/unacceptable-baps-temple-apologises-after-eiffel-tower-closes-over-removal-of-women-staff-for-hindu-groups-visit-4139522

BAPS has apologised for any inconvenience caused.

Originally posted by: Minionite

But they keep certain barriers or protThe organization didn't ask women to be removed from the Eiffel Tower. They just asked that there be limited interaction.

This could have easily be done by simply moving women around

How do we move women around to make sure these men dont see them, and why would those women agree to be moved around ?

From a spiritual point of view the extra barriers this particlar sect has are absurd to begin , the Swami's refuse to give darshan to female devotees etc claiming that would break their vow of celibacy. While monks have strict rules , these rules don't usually extend beyond personal stuff like living arrangements and close interactions with people outside their order. The Shankaracharya himself doesn't follow this absurd rule. These people have the right to follow just about any rule as they wish as long as those rules don't breach other people's rights. If they refuse to look at women in their ashram that's absolutely fine . The problem is when they insist on going to public places with these ' rules' that too in foreign countries. They have no right whatsoever to tell the company to make sure theres limited interaction between them and women. The onus. was on them to avoid those interactions ( not sure how they'd have achieved that unless they decided to tour male prisons instead. These days even those places have female inmates that call themselves men )

Any effort to make female staff invisible to these one hundred males is SEXIST and discriminatory. Just the audacity is shocking. If Muslim clerics from another country came to India and asked us to put burkhas on because their beliefs prohibit them from looking at non Muslim women we wouldnt tolerate it would we . Women having to make themselves invisible to accomodate men's needs isn't any better than women having to make themselves available for men's needs .

India and Hinduism have already been dragged in way before this row , when the Indian PM got involved in the inauguration of the temple and said it would improve diplomatic ties between the French and us . He had also said Europeans could benefit from the socio cultural teachings of these Swamis( that didn't age well ) . This organisation calls itself a Hindu organisation ,has temples across the world ( the one in the U.S faced allegations of caste based stuff too ) and is sort a big name in the space where Hare Krishna used to be. Unless the PM and the Hindu diaspora openly condemn it , unless the PM apologises to the Franks on behalf of the Swami Narayan this is gonna get ugly. The whole thing feeds the stereotype that Indians/Hindus treat women poorly.

We have a beautiful BAPS temple in our city, but I've never been to that temple so far. The temple here stipulates separate seating based on gender, with men typically sitting in the front and the women towards the back, which I found pretty off-putting. I chose not to go to a place which has segregation policies which are so outdated.

As for the Eiffel Tower incident, I think it's ok if the delegation requested for male guides while on tour. As visitors, some of us have personal preferences on who we want as guides.

But then the article states

The Eiffel Tower staff, in a statement issued by the CGT trade union, condemned "workplace instructions that led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and rendered invisible on the basis of their gender".

Some were asked to leave their posts and withdraw to other areas. In some posts they were replaced by men," according to the statement quoted by France24.

"And all female employees were instructed not to go through or cross certain areas while the delegation was present."

The above ask is just so ridiculous!

I just don't think this is ok at all, especially when you are in a public space. How can you request for females not to cross paths because you are there? Again, if it is within their temple/monastery premises, they are free to have their own rules. But this is a public place and is totally not acceptable.

The fault also lies with the authorities at Eiffel Tower who agreed to this request. They should've flatly refused.