We, Indians (note, please, I did NOT use 'the'), are indeed 'argumentative indians'. We do need some focal point to/at/on/with which to argue. Currently, it is the 'low neck' couture which culturally is cumbersome, right?
Yet the 'the' tune that Rahul Gandhi made famous in the women's meet in this city of love (Oh, yes, I knew Pune is the "Oxford of the East"! Yet this city which I have called mine for about four decades, brought up n bred as I am here, I have never known as 'Pune means love'!) was "smash the patriarchy"!
The "chatraaon ki gunj" (in attendance were only girls, it seems. From certain colleges, some maintained, an issue I would not know much about) resonated with this war cry which since has been a huge n hot (because trending it is!) debate for quite some time.
Well, as a lecturer in English literature and language and as a teacher of three European languages, namely, Spanish, German and French, I can most confidently assert that in the definite article "the" makes a huge difference semantically.
Why did Rahulji use the "the", especially because, if reports are any proof, next he started bashing up the " Manusmriti", by now battered more than Berlin during the World War II (363 bombings and 67,000 ton of bombs!)!!!
The definite article, which always refers to specifics, makes Rahulji's critique debatable. Since Mary Wollstonecraft's radical critique in 1792, patriarchy and its pathology have been opened up ad infinitum. Such threadbare examination has shown up most all injustices hidden in the crevices of the mountainous patriarchy.
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