VALENTINE

he felt at the laying on of hands to celebrate mass: “It was touching the body of Christ, the closeness of the priest to Jesus, which most enthralled me. I would gaze on the Host after the words of consecration, soft-eyed like a lover looking into the eyes of his beloved.” But it’s not just that divine revelation can produce powerful sexual feelings. Conversely, sexual passion itself can be so intense that it can be mistaken for metaphysical rather than earthly bliss. InTranscendent Sex, Jenny Wade interviews 92 people who claim some other-worldly experience of sexual intimacy. Many describe the sensation as religious, making them feel at one with God or with the cosmos. This reverse effect, whereby sexual rapture is transmuted into the divine, informs Christian interpretations of The Song of Songs. You wouldn’t think there could be much doubt about the opening line: “Let me kiss him with the kisses of his mouth.” But the willing bride welcoming her lover to bed, by divine sleight of hand, becomes in the Christian canon the Church opening its arms to its spiritual groom, or God. It’s a development of the rabbinical interpretation of the union as that between Yahweh and the community of Israel. For Christians, the woman becomes a vessel, a symbol of the temple of the Lord who must open her doors to Him. And this appropriation of the kiss justifies one of the worst effects of organised religion: the subordination of women. For if the conjugal union of man and wife symbolises the spiritual union between Christ and the Church, then it also dictates a more earthly power balance. As St Paul so famously dictated: “The man is the head to which the woman’s body is united, just as Christ is the head of the Church... and women must owe obedience at all points to their husbands, as the

Church does to Christ.” And so the Church is able to evidence sexual pleasure as proof of a natural order whereby men are closer to God than women and thereby have license to dominate and rule them. Kissing transmutes from human delight to human reverence; worship of sexual joy to worship of the divine. Even when romantic love began to be recognised as a secular activity the kiss never completely shed its mystical associations. In the early mediaeval romances such as Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Iseult and Pyramus and Thisbe, forbidden and sanctified love are intertwined. The kiss of lovers is

“He flung himself down before Lotte in deep despair and seized her hands,pressing them to his eyes and forehead,and a premonition of his terrible intention flickered in her soul. Her senses were bewildered; she squeezed his hands and pressed them to her breast,bent towards him with feelings of deeply moved melancholy,and their warm cheeks touched. They were oblivious to the world about them. He clasped her in his arms,held her to his breast and covered her trembling,murmuring lips with fiery kisses.”

Johann Wolfgang Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

harnessed as a symbol of fate, of moral turpitude or virtue, as a heralder of both life and death. And the kiss as a mark equally of earthly sin and Christian divinity reaches its apotheosis in Dante’s Divine Comedy. The ideal of virtue and godly love is the unreachable Beatrice, who is the object of the quest and the incarnation of purity. She is never sullied by human contact, unlike the fallen lovers Francesca and Paolo, who linger in Purgatory, united in eternal hell as a result of their impure transgression. And the moment that sealed their fate was when they surrendered to licentious desire with a kiss. Four centuries later, the mystical properties of the kiss still linger. That most famous kiss in western art, Rodin’s magnificent sculpture,

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was inspired by Francesca and Paolo and carries all the mystical associations of their fateful embrace, mingling anguish, passion, sin and beatitude. Even the most enlightened of authors have been in thrall to these transcendental claims. In his Confessions, Rousseau describes his kisses with Mme d’Houdetot as having the character of a sacred rite. In his short story The KissChekhov describes how a mistaken embrace nonetheless has a transforming effect on an awkward and hitherto unnoticed young man. And in The Sorrows of Young Werther Goethe produces a paean to doomed romantic love, where adoration of the untouchable Lotte is laced with the desire for immortality. Werther’s desperate finale is presaged by the one kiss his beloved grants him before death. Popular romantic fiction has always relied on the magic of the kiss as a principal signifier, routinely following the trusted formula that a happy ending will be marked with a kiss, and a sad tale will begin with one. Invariably the kiss dictates the action and the destiny, just as it does in fairy tales and in devotional literature. Meanwhile, popular song is full of references to the secret in his kiss, the kiss as honey and sugar, kisses sweeter than wine, in unconscious tribute to the Song of Songs and all that it unleashed. And what is most significant about all the classic film clinches, from Rhett Butler’s ravishing of Scarlett O’Hara to the crashing waves in From Here to Eternity, is the consistency of the pose. Just as in Rodin’s iconic couple, the man is always masterful, the woman surrendering. He is the lord and she the receiving vessel. That casual misogyny, even now, is the legacy of the hijacking of the kiss by religion. If we are to reignite its flames, recognise the transformational power of the kiss but also reclaim the equality of the union it implies, humanists must wrest its meanings back from the god brigade. So light those candles, serve up the oysters and slip into something silky. And as you melt into a sensual, rapturous, honeyed atheist embrace, you’ll be affirming the eternal verity: that the sacred is human and sexual ecstasy is earthly paradise. ■ INDIA

Sand for the thirsty

Last October, India's dalits – the so-called “untouchables” from lower caste Hindu families – celebrated the golden jubilee of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar's conversion to Buddhism. There seemed a great deal to celebrate. After all, Ambedkar, the icon of dalit dignity and the chief architect of the Indian Constitution, had inserted anti-discrimination provisions and quota systems in the country’s law to promote dalit upliftment. Moreover on October 2, 1956, he formally broke the shackles of the Hindu caste system and embraced Buddhism, together with some 380,000 of his followers. Since then, legions of dalits have followed suit – two and a half million in 2006 alone. Ambedkar was a declared atheist and rationalist. His decision to take "diksha” and be reborn a Buddhist was made just two months before his death. It was an unfortunate, even disastrous end to a signficant career. By suggesting that the dalits need to adopt an alternative religious identity to fight for justice and equality, he weakened the movement and its prospects of achieving genuine equality. Fifty years later dalit mass “dikshas” are gimmicks, head counts of poor people herded together. The untouchables are used as colourful extras, exploited by a whole range of political and religious special interests. The mass conversions help political leaders to bargain for maximum seats to contest in India’s multi-party, multi-level election system. They are not only celebrated by the Buddhist world (cited as evidence of inexorable growth), but also, suspiciously, by the Indian Bishops Conference. Why? Anticonversion laws in several Indian states – welcomed by rationalists – prohibit conversion “by use of force or allurement or by fraudulent means”. So far no mass “diksha” has been stopped by them, but they tie the hands of Christian missionaries. Since neither the Catholic church nor Evangelicals, Baptists, Anglicans or Pentecostals can hope for much support to loosen them, they promote the “dikshas” to make conversions appear acceptable. India’s 175 million dalits (16 per

cent of its 1.1 billion population) are twice as likely to be unemployed or living under the poverty line as the national average. Nevertheless, Ambedkar’s constitutional provisions did improve their lot. Over forty years they doubled the number of dalit girls in urban schools, allowed dalits to study and teach in universities, serve in the civil service, police and army, and sit in legislatures up to the national parliament, which reserves 8 per cent of the seats for them. Even the highest political positions are not closed. Famously, former Indian President KR Narayanan was born a dalit, as was the newly appointed Chief Justice. According to Article 17 of the Constitution, untouchability is long abolished. But while it has withdrawn from the light of the cities, it has not lost its fury in the darkness

they took their revenge. That the Bhotmanges were Buddhist converts did not protect them. Despite a public outcry at the time, the murderers could well escape conviction. This is not an isolated case. Between 1999 and 2004, 4,435 cases of atrocities against dalits have been reported in Maharashtra alone – the tip of the iceberg. Only 220 of them have led to convictions. Ambedkar’s heritage has helped to integrate many dalits into modern Indian society. There are now quotas which guarantee dalits jobs in educational institutions and the civil service. But this may also have contributed to sustaining the very caste system that it tries to overcome. Though many dalits are able to use these quotas to get education and jobs that would otherwise be unreachable, they are viewed with derision by many upper caste students. And since access to higher education and jobs is limited to the legislated quota, many dalits feel their opportunity is still artificially limited. The Indian Supreme Court recently pointed out that while a lucky few benefit from the quota system, the really deprived are left out. Today, quotas are a “holy cow”, an alibi for lack of political will. Meanwhile a recent survey throws new light on the state of India’s Muslims. Statistics describing their educational, economic and social situation look much like dalit statistics. Should Indian Muslims be entitled to quotas too, many are now asking. Indian Rationalists have already proposed a solution. It lies in a secular quota system, based on new criteria beyond religion and caste. It has to benefit the needy, the deprived and the left-out in Indian society without trapping them forever in their caste or religious past. ■

“Mass conversions are gimmicks. The untouchables are used as colourful extras, exploited by a whole range of political and religious special interests”

of politically neglected rural India. In September 2006, in the village of Khairlanji in Maharashtra, a dalit family was brutally murdered. Sureka Bhotmange and her 17-year-old daughter Priyanka, a brilliant student who wished to join the army, were dragged out of their house, paraded naked around the village and gang raped by a dozen high caste Hindus before their genitals were mutilated with sticks and knives. Sureka’s sons Sudhir and Roshan were tortured and their genitials were cut off, when they refused to rape their sister. After more than an hour of torture, all four were hacked to death. Only the father escaped. Some days before, Bhotmange and his family had witnessed in court against fifteen high caste villagers, who had brutally beaten a dalit policeman. The guilty were arrested but were out on bail when

Sanal Edamaruku is a journalist and broadcaster and President of the Indian Rationalist Association

Conversion to Buddhism is no solution to the evils of the caste system,says SANAL EDAMARUKU

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