What's Behind Feet-Touching? - A Layman's View

Right from my childhood, I have seen people touching feet of older people innumerable times and sometimes of the people 5 to 10 years older just because they are expected to do that.When I was a kid, I once queried this concept of feet touching and I was told by an old man that aashirvad or blessings originates from the thumb of right leg of old people and that is why we touch their feet to gain their blessings. Guess what, I believed it and practiced that custom enthusiastically and kept this thing going till my college time. After that, I came in contact with some skeptic people and started questioning old customs and belief and feet -touching is one of them.

To understand feet-touching, we need to understand the social construct that any civilization lives in. The most common thing seen everywhere is the concept of hierarchy in which there is a group of people at the top who rule and are very few in number and then comes other classes that has the number of people in increasing order. Now, at the bottom level, there is least concerned or the weakest stock of people and they are very large in number. In order to keep the hierarchy stable and if the most powerful want to retain the power forever, then they must keep the lower ones occupied in their own class physically as well as psychologically because if they have some time to think, then some of them might challenge the authority and reach the highest level which is against the interests of the supreme. So, gradually, the supreme level discovered that if you engage them in numerous social activities that eventually keep their minds occupied as well as burdened like worshiping or daughter’s marriage or mourning for a year after relative’s death, then the chances of retaining power increases manifold because that person is mentally as well economically exhausted. Along with this, they also discovered that little gestures taught in the childhood have great psychological impact in adult life so they connected feet-touching to a better life and it became a compulsion for coming generations.

Now why only feet? Why not crotch or bosom or head? It’s because feet are considered very dirty parts of the human body and touching anything with feet is considered derogatory and offensive. Even if a normal rough copy page is touched with feet by mistake then we touch it with our head to ask for penance from goddess ‘Saraswati’ that we didn't do it intentionally and we respect you so please forgive us. Hence, if a person touches somebody’s feet, then he is actually touching one of the dirtiest parts of the body and bringing himself/herself down at that level which indicates the unconditional surrender to the authority. This becomes clearer when it is made compulsory for a wife to touch husband’s feet but a husband do not have to touch wife’s feet because husband is the authoritative figure and how can the supreme can bring himself down?

Adding to this, the feet-touching supporters argue that it’s a custom mentioned in Vedas but I fail to find it as I do not know which chapter says so and even if it is there then what is the logic behind making kids or wives bring themselves down to somebody’s feet except the one mentioned in previous paragraphs? Then they argue that feet touching is just a ritual to show that you respect elder people to which I want to ask why is it not enough to say ‘Namaste’ which actually means that you are bowing down to acknowledge and welcome the person in front of you but then the real target of feet touching will be over which is to bring you down to the feet of the authority. One more argument from the supporters is that the whole world has different kind of gestures for gratitude or blessing like kissing hands or showing tongue or rubbing noses etc. to which my reply is that they too have primitive cultures and they actually need an overhaul just like we do.

Summing it up, feet-touching is totally a power balancer for authorities and not a real blessing-giving activity. Respect can be shown by a smiling face and a 'Namaste' or hello or hi or shaking hands or helping the person in need which is enough for a normal social human being.

[Note: Above writing is totally based on what I think about what I have seen. I am open to reader's views.]