<p>Popular culture purveys us ‘happiness’ and ‘satisfaction’. If that were a barometer, you’d be given to think that most Indians think of themselves as leading fulfilling lives. But some months ago, the World Happiness Index ranked India 136 out of 146 nations. There have been other such reports and surveys that don’t paint India in rosy colours.</p>.<p>The WHI report stated that the main factors behind Indian unhappiness were gender disparity, unemployment, poverty, and the like. Other major reports like the Global Hunger Index have pointed to the ways in which so many Indians go hungry. The periodic National Family Health Survey has regularly captured trends that give us a nuanced picture of the condition of the family unit in Indian society. Sure, there were pushbacks on some of these from some quarters, underlining their inbuilt problems. But give or take a little, the big picture takeaway over Indian life quality has often looked overwhelmingly bleak, especially when compared with more prosperous countries.</p>.<p>It boggles the mind as to why there hasn’t been focused public scrutiny on the second major social system that influences so much of life in India after organised faith: the family. So often, across so many of our social strata, faith and family combined in the worst ways in our past to produce horrific practices, such as dowry. Much of our popular culture may show families that are unhappy, families that openly or subtly discriminate on the basis of gender, families that intergenerationally ransack individual rights, and families that normalise the inhumanity of casteism, community, class, and gender differentiation, but overall will say that the institution of the family is the best thing to happen to the individual.</p>.<p>Popular culture and public conversation shy away from openly talking about the myriad complexes that combine to create the many suffocations of family life. Of course, with the flux in contemporary Indian society, and increasing divorce rates in urban and semi-urban India – all indicative of changing gender dynamics – the institution of the nuclear family is increasingly under strain. It was this sort of pressure, and the many socioeconomic and sociocultural changes that modernisation brought about, that led to the gradual weakening of the joint family system.</p>.<p>And yet, it’s a marvel notwithstanding all the naked flaws of the family system – especially with respect to individual rights – that the system has so much legitimacy, currency, and popularity. Both our traditions and organised faiths find their most powerful distillation in the commonly understood family system, and the broad roles it assigns to people in it.</p>.<p>This writer is not so naïve as to believe that there are no happy marriages – and when those do occur, they’re nothing short of a miracle as they happen against so many odds. But why are they more exceptions than the norm in a society obsessed with marriage and regeneration? For a society so possessed by notions of family, one would expect it to churn out happy individuals and families. Almost every survey or study over a period of time has found the opposite. Isn’t there something wrong with it? How come even the question isn’t being posed?</p>.<p>Some weeks ago, a Bollywood star did something that dismayed Indian conservatives. It was nothing compared to the graphic depictions of the human body found in the arts and crafts of ancient and medieval India. His act was considered to be offensive to the so-called ‘family values’ and brought about litigation, too. More than what he revealed of his body, the reaction to it seemed indicative of our discourse and temperament. The family as an institution is thus not unlike a vigilante. We need more freedom in the family, and if not, then freedom from it.</p>
<p>Popular culture purveys us ‘happiness’ and ‘satisfaction’. If that were a barometer, you’d be given to think that most Indians think of themselves as leading fulfilling lives. But some months ago, the World Happiness Index ranked India 136 out of 146 nations. There have been other such reports and surveys that don’t paint India in rosy colours.</p>.<p>The WHI report stated that the main factors behind Indian unhappiness were gender disparity, unemployment, poverty, and the like. Other major reports like the Global Hunger Index have pointed to the ways in which so many Indians go hungry. The periodic National Family Health Survey has regularly captured trends that give us a nuanced picture of the condition of the family unit in Indian society. Sure, there were pushbacks on some of these from some quarters, underlining their inbuilt problems. But give or take a little, the big picture takeaway over Indian life quality has often looked overwhelmingly bleak, especially when compared with more prosperous countries.</p>.<p>It boggles the mind as to why there hasn’t been focused public scrutiny on the second major social system that influences so much of life in India after organised faith: the family. So often, across so many of our social strata, faith and family combined in the worst ways in our past to produce horrific practices, such as dowry. Much of our popular culture may show families that are unhappy, families that openly or subtly discriminate on the basis of gender, families that intergenerationally ransack individual rights, and families that normalise the inhumanity of casteism, community, class, and gender differentiation, but overall will say that the institution of the family is the best thing to happen to the individual.</p>.<p>Popular culture and public conversation shy away from openly talking about the myriad complexes that combine to create the many suffocations of family life. Of course, with the flux in contemporary Indian society, and increasing divorce rates in urban and semi-urban India – all indicative of changing gender dynamics – the institution of the nuclear family is increasingly under strain. It was this sort of pressure, and the many socioeconomic and sociocultural changes that modernisation brought about, that led to the gradual weakening of the joint family system.</p>.<p>And yet, it’s a marvel notwithstanding all the naked flaws of the family system – especially with respect to individual rights – that the system has so much legitimacy, currency, and popularity. Both our traditions and organised faiths find their most powerful distillation in the commonly understood family system, and the broad roles it assigns to people in it.</p>.<p>This writer is not so naïve as to believe that there are no happy marriages – and when those do occur, they’re nothing short of a miracle as they happen against so many odds. But why are they more exceptions than the norm in a society obsessed with marriage and regeneration? For a society so possessed by notions of family, one would expect it to churn out happy individuals and families. Almost every survey or study over a period of time has found the opposite. Isn’t there something wrong with it? How come even the question isn’t being posed?</p>.<p>Some weeks ago, a Bollywood star did something that dismayed Indian conservatives. It was nothing compared to the graphic depictions of the human body found in the arts and crafts of ancient and medieval India. His act was considered to be offensive to the so-called ‘family values’ and brought about litigation, too. More than what he revealed of his body, the reaction to it seemed indicative of our discourse and temperament. The family as an institution is thus not unlike a vigilante. We need more freedom in the family, and if not, then freedom from it.</p>