In the movie Adipurush, Ravana was portrayed as a villain. This apparently upset a few people who believe that Ravana was the original feminist. They claim he didn’t force himself upon Ma Sita, he waited for her consent. And he only kidnapped her to avenge his sister Shurpanakha’s humiliation at the hands of Rama and Lakshmana.
There is plenty of evidence in the Ramayana to prove otherwise.
This aim of this post is not to debunk myths about Ravana. (The book Ramayana Unravelled does it beautifully.) It’s to highlight a cognitive bias in humans: confirmation bias, or the tendency to twist facts or theories to fit our beliefs.
Why do some people see Ravana as a feminist? Maybe they consider a particular religion evil, so they assume everything it teaches is wrong. Maybe they want to change the narrative. Or maybe they’re seeing things through glasses: rose-tinted ones for the things they like, cactus-tinted ones for the things they don’t.
There are plenty of cognitive biases like this one. And here’s the catch: we can spot them easily in others, but we are blind to them in ourselves. As a result, we think we’re immune, which, in turn, leads to delusion.
We think we know better than others. We call for others to learn important lessons on life because we are already practicing them. When others do something bad, we blame it on their character; but when we do the same thing, we blame our circumstances.
What happens then? We miss red flags, lose the distinction between right and wrong, and start valuing the wrong things. Then we wonder what we have done to deserve the price that karma makes us pay.
You and I are not as smart as we think. We are as prone to cognitive biases as anyone else. Remember, Rama is in you, but so is Ravana. Build checks and balances to rein in the villain and you’ll make wiser decisions.