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Home , Moral police, Pramod Muthalik

THE MORALITY DEBATE

InfoChange Quick Reads For private circulation

THE MOByR AnosAh MaLlekarITY DEBATE InfoChange Quick Reads 2009 These articles are available on www.infochangeindia.org, ’s leading online resource base on social justice and development issues

Published by: Centre for Communication and Development Studies 301, Kanchanjunga Building, Kanchan Lane Off Law College Road, 411 004 Tel: 91-20-26852845/25457371 Email: [email protected] Websites: www.infochangeindia.org/www.ccds.in/www.openspace.org

The content in this publication may be cited and reproduced for educational and non-commercial purposes. Credit, however, must be given to the authors and the publishers Contents 05 Why we're getting our pink knickers in a twist by Sherna Gandhy

10 FUQs (Frequently Unasked Questions) about moral policing by Anjali Monteiro and K P Jayasankar

15 Morality through the ages: Old strategies, new threats by Manjima Bhattacharjya

21 Struggles against the discourse of morality by Manjima Bhattacharjya

27 Whatever happened to women's hard-won freedom? by Sumi Krishna

31 The 21st century politics of college clothing by Shilpa Phadke and Sameera Khan

Why we're getting our pink knickers in a twist

by Sherna Gandhy

Usually, attempts by the '' to the pub attack. Couples seen walking force their version of 'culture' (which usually together on that day or indulging in any involves control of women in one form or kind of romantic behaviour would be another) down everyone's throats are met forcibly married off, the Sene declared. with quiet contempt on the part of those who disagree. But by beating up women at Valentine's Day (February 14) has become a a pub in on January 24, 2009, favourite target of a variety of Hindu the Ram Sene — until then a virtually fundamentalist groups — most notably the unknown group of Hindu fundamentalists in and the Bharatiya — may have gone too far. Moreover, Janata Party-affiliated — that encouraged by the lenient view taken of its spend the day vandalising shops that sell red outrageous act by the state government, roses, or Valentine's Day cards and gifts, and the Sene and its defiant head Pramod harassing young couples on college Muthalik publicly declared that they would campuses. Their sense of morality is attack another practice that went against apparently offended by women having a Indian 'culture' — Valentine's Day, which romantic relationship. In fact, most of the occurred a little more than two weeks after 'anti-Indian culture' diatribe centres around 5 women, whether it's drinking in public, or was just defending her religion — a mirror wearing clothes deemed 'inappropriate', or image of the argument. overstepping boundaries in more fundamental ways. Amrita Nandy Joshi, Apart from angry remarks in the press there coordinator of the South Asian Women's is usually little reaction to this aggressive Network, gives a reason: “From education religio-cultural chauvinism. But coming on to marriage and careers, women are top of the attack on the women in the pub, increasingly defying oppressive patriarchal and maybe because of the growing structures and controls and tasting assertiveness of women, the reaction in independence. Conservative elements early-2009 was more robust. cannot tolerate such transgression of codes On web communities, in print, and on and thus the backlash.” television, people expressed their anger and The onslaught against women from the disgust at the openly anti-women and anti- Hindu right makes common cause with the democratic style of functioning. On the onslaught from the Muslim right. Asiya social networking site, , a Andrabi, head of Dukhtaran-e-Millat, or community sprang up calling itself The Daughters of the Nation, an extreme Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Muslim group in Jammu and Kashmir, said Forward Women. It spearheaded an she supported the Ram Sene's campaign. imaginative campaign that urged women “This will act as a deterrent and people will and men to send “a little love” to Ram Sene be scared,” she said. “Sometimes there is no chief on Valentine's Day in option but to use the stick out of sheer the form of pink chaddies (underwear). love.” On a television programme she “Look in your closet or buy them cheap. declared that couples moving around Dirt-cheap. Make sure they are PINK. together were offensive to Islam, and she Send them off to the Sene,” the site 6 exhorted the public. Indian women on February 14. The campaign had the support of Tejaswini The cheeky idea caught on and the Pink Chowdhury, daughter of Union Minister for Chaddi Campaign got a good response. A Women and Child Development Renuka week after it was launched, it had 24,035 Chowdhury. members, many of whom were neither pub- goers nor celebrated Valentine's Day but all Facebook also spawned a 'send Pramod of whom were angry at the tactics used by Muthalik a Valentine's Day card' community, the Sene against women, and concerned and a 'Mr Muthalik deserves a Valentine that such draconian actions, already fairly Day's card' community. frequent among lawless self-styled With the Bajrang Dal vowing to disrupt V- 'defenders of Indian culture' belonging to a host of obscure organisations, would Day in , an organisation become the norm. called the Women's Brigade took out a demonstration in support of the “I'm sure these people do not care for celebrations and shouted slogans like “Let culture, nor do they understand it. I just us love” and “Long live Valentine's Day” and know that they have no right to decide for said they would protect anyone being anyone else. They cannot beat up people to harassed. prove their point,” an engineering student was quoted as saying in a national At Connaught Place in the heart of the newspaper. capital New , a campaign called A Valentine for India, started by a student A Pub Bharo campaign was also initiated through a blog, attracted a number of which invited all, pub-goers or not, to step protesters on February 14. “I came to know into the nearest pub and raise a toast to about this campaign…and decided that I 7 wanted to join in as well. What they are or something else, the Ram Sene toned saying is that protesting on Valentine's Day down its rhetoric in the days immediately is just symbolic of the country's angst preceding V-Day and announced that it against all the self-appointed moral police would just talk to couples who offended its who have no better business than to poke sense of morality, not force any action upon their noses into others' affairs,” Namita them. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, a Jaiswal, a political science student told the group that has got away with using tactics Indo Asian News Service (IANS). “My friends similar to the Sene's, said it had no interest in and I are here, therefore, to help the group the issue. And the National Congress Party raise their voice against all such (NCP) declared that it would itself sell V-Day unconstitutional and violent behaviour by cards. The government, too, sat goons, in the name of Indian culture.” up and took notice. On February 13, several members of the Ram Sene as well as its head If the above efforts are a form of Gandhigiri, Muthalik were taken into preventive custody in Delhi an organisation called Save the by the police. Earth Foundation declared that its response would be a little more muscular. It would The action by the state government is send out groups of volunteers trained in heartening because it makes a crucial martial arts to patrol public spaces and distinction between the ideas one may protect anyone being attacked by the Sene espouse, and the tactics one may employ to and like-minded groups. The team would get the ideas across. While everyone has a also blacken the faces of miscreants with right to express a view, however regressive, shoe polish before handing them over to the no one has the right to use coercion or police. violence to terrorise people into complying. The preventive arrests and a strong police Whether due to the spirited public response presence on the streets ensured that there 8 was no harassment of people in Karnataka on Valentine's Day. In other states there were sporadic incidents and protests, notably by the Shiv Sena and the Bajrang Dal.

It is too soon to say whether the opposition to the moral policing will be sustained and even gather momentum, or whether the fundamentalist groups will be cowed down or further emboldened. Clearly, without muscle power such groups are powerless to further their agenda, and much depends on the attitude of state governments which can easily order a crackdown against any violence, as some of them have just done, or look the other way as many have chosen to do in the past.

(Sherna Gandhy is an independent journalist based in Pune)

InfoChange News & Features, February 2009

9 FUQs (Frequently Unasked Questions) about moral policing

by Anjali Monteiro and K P Jayasankar

The moral police are everywhere. many 'honourable' others, ranging from Crawling out of the woodwork into our chief ministers and health ministers to public spaces. In our legislative members of the National Commission for assemblies, in our boardrooms, in Women. courtrooms, on the streets, in colleges, in cinemas and cybercafés, gardens and So many people in our country are in a state pubs, even in police stations. Alas, and of moral panic over 'western' culture, pub perhaps in our heads too. The rabid culture, cyber culture and the many other Sri Ram Sene or the Shiv Sena or the 'degenerate' cultures that are 'polluting' the Bajrang Dal foot-soldiers who demonstrate sacred body of our Mother India and her their love for 'Indian culture' by pristine, fragile 'Indian culture', all of which molesting girls wearing jeans and call for more and more policing. Here are vandalising Valentine's Day celebrations some Frequently Unasked Questions (FUQs, are unfortunately only the tip of the iceberg. no pun intended) about moral policing They are supported openly and tacitly by in India. 10 Question 1: Who needs policing? who are morally weak and can easily be perversely affected by stimuli of every kind: The list is long, maybe endless. At the top films, websites, beer, jeans, western music, are impressionable young women and girls birds and bees, in fact the list of provocative who need to be protected from the objects is infinite and ever-growing. corrupting effects of the aforementioned 'evil' cultures. Women are progenitors and This invention of a less powerful 'other' is homemakers — their sexuality needs to be rampant and not confined to the moral strictly monitored, controlled and police, but informs the way in which 'media harnessed. If they have lost moral values, impact' is commonly framed. Our chattering how can they become part of the eugenic classes are constantly exercised about the project for a healthy and a morally sound impact of the media on children, women, Generation Next? What would happen to illiterates, poor people, villagers, slum- the sacred institution of the family if women dwellers — all subsumed under the category got out of hand? Remember the Shiv Sena of the gullible and easily swayed 'masses' violence against Deepa Mehta's film Fire? who have to be protected. This calls for a Love between two women leaves out the morally superior, intellectually more boys as arbitrators of women's sexuality. discerning 'filter' (in other words, people like Boys after all will be boys, they will settle 'us') who will decide what is fit for their down after marriage; but girls must be impressionable eyes and ears. The neither seen nor heard. Their ability to censorship of the State is regarded as withstand the effects of 'debauchery' is far essential to uphold moral and aesthetic inferior to the male of the species. They standards which popular cinema and cannot even handle cigarettes and alcohol. television are prone to constantly violate. In other words, the moral police have to zealously shield all 'less powerful others' This censorious mentality is widespread in 11 our society and is perhaps uncomfortably of television as a 'movie in a box'. When we close to the fine art of street censorship took our daughter to her first movie, she practised by the Thackerays and Muthaliks. asked us incredulously, when the first image appeared — “Is that a huge TV on the wall?” Question 2: What needs policing? As someone who was born into a TV era, the Everything, but particularly all sites and relationship she has with the medium is signs of 'modern' 'western' culture, from qualitatively different from ours. Our greeting cards to cellphones, from pubs to collective inability to understand new cybercafés: moral panic always hovers over technologies and our suspicion of what frontier technologies. Our parents thought young people might be up to behind our that films, or even radio, corrupted us. We backs makes us struggle to assert control — worry about our children on the Internet; an essentially futile endeavour. Moral panic television has already become passé. breeds behind the doors of the unknown.

When printing was invented, our Question 3: Why do we need policing? forefathers would have worried about its corrupting effects on young impressionable The answer is simple: Because 'Indian minds. In fact, in medieval scriptoriums in culture' is fragile, because many Indians European monasteries, access to certain have delicate sentiments that are very easily texts was denied to younger writers. Today, hurt. And when these sentiments are hurt, sadly, no one grieves over the corrupting maybe a few hundred people get massacred influence of books. or raped, or maybe a shrine is pulled down, or several thousand bar girls lose their jobs. We forget that each generation has its own relationship with the cultural products of its The State is assiduous in protecting the hurt times. Personally, we have always thought sentiments of these sentinels of virtue. It 12 usually turns a blind eye and sometimes threat to our pristine traditions. Many of our even defends these actions — after all, how 330 million Hindu gods have spent the long can one hold back hurt sentiments? prime of their lives unclothed; the time has Our moral police know that they can strike come to design moral robes for them. with impunity; the chances are that the Khajuraho and Konarak now badly need victims will get blamed for 'provoking' them. saffron fashion designers.

Question 4: What is 'Indian culture'? Question 5: Why do the moral police indulge in policing? The moral police are blissfully unaware of the contested nature of both the terms. Unfortunate tautology. How else would they Many years ago, a second-generation grab the eyeballs of the nation? With very 'Indian' child in London hesitantly admitted little work and no long-term investments, to us that she did not speak any 'Indian'. they can become famous overnight and Indian culture is as elusive as Indian food. In reap rich political dividends. There are few fact, one strong marker of it is the chilly. risks involved, given the State's sensitivity to How many among the moral police, who their hurt sentiments. lament the fragility of 'Indian culture', know that the chilly first came to India with Valentine's Day provides rich opportunities. the Portuguese from South America not Dubbed as a threat to Indian culture, it so long ago? throws up immense possibilities for great photo ops. The media has coined an There are grids of exclusion at work, endearing acronym to discuss certain relations of power that begin to define the goings-on between young adults — PDA. boundaries of Indian culture. A painting by Roughly translated, it reads 'public display of M F Hussain done in the 1960s is suddenly a affection'. These acts are firmly handled by 13 the moral police, who reiterate their faith in While the militant ones are easy to spot, the our great traditions by molesting the 'soft' ones are insidious. women publicly in front of television crews, who promptly arrive at the scene of the They begin to define the realm of the spectacle, forewarned and forearmed. 'normal'. They censor our films, define dress codes, and make laws to control the Question 6: Who gives the moral police Internet, all in the name of decency and the right to police? order, of protecting the vulnerable and preventing social chaos. Too many of us, through our sins of omission and commission. When the While we must protest, firmly and loudly, captains of industry cosy up to a champion against gross violations like Mangalore and of ethnic cleansing, when a leading , can we begin to speak fearlessly television news channel gives an award to a against the little everyday violations, the staunch defender of the politics of hate, one covert ways in which our spaces for love and begins to understand how deep and freedom are encroached upon? And above pervasive the rot is. all, we must never forget: Ayodhya and Mangalore are both manifestations of the The normalisation of hate politics, the same politics of hate and intolerance that selective amnesia of the middle class — all we must resist till our last Valentine's Day. these add up to strengthening the power of the moral police. (Anjali Monteiro and K P Jayasankar are professors at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, ) Question 7: What of love in the time of moral policing? (This article first appeared in , February 8, 2009) The moral police hate love and love hate. 14 Morality through the ages: Old strategies, new threats by Manjima Bhattacharjya

The phenomenon of creating moral cultural practices like sati and the boundaries for women has taken on both marginalisation of widows, sometimes in new and familiar ways. The familiar ways the name of protecting our traditions continue — surveillance over where women against 'Westernisation' or in the name of go, what they wear, how they speak, who 'culture', 'Indian tradition' or 'sabhyata'. they speak to, and so on. Newer forms have also emerged: legislative force (such as the As these new assertions of 'morality' rise and closure of dance bars in Mumbai) or find new forms, so do the ways in which coercive violence (like the Shiv Sena on a women's rights are being violated. rampage separating men and women Those who pose as the guardians of sitting together on Valentine's Day), or morality, Indian culture and tradition institutional alarm (dress codes for girls in continue to maintain a deafening silence colleges and universities in Delhi), or a when such incidents come to light. Where nebulous and unwritten moral social force are they when dowry murders are reported? which condones harmful traditional and Where are they when female foeticide 15 is revealed to be a shocking reality in most pubs, smoking, interacting with the states in the country? Where are they opposite sex, wearing western clothes — or when rising cases of domestic violence even violence, rape, assault. The discourse are being reported? on morality has been largely focused on and targeted at women, particularly The moral police emerge year after year, related to their sexuality, and most every Valentine's Day, every few months to often used against minorities or the 'other', threaten women in jeans or, as we saw as the dominant group may be. The basis recently, to beat up and terrorise women of these declarations of 'morality' is who went pubbing in Mangalore. The often prejudice, used as an argument to upsurge over questions of morality has justify the inferiority of one group or taken a new form today that threatens to person vis-à-vis another. roll back much of the gains made by people's movements all over the world and Historically, moral declarations have served create an environment of threat and terror. to mark and maintain the boundaries and This makes it all the more necessary for us to limits within which women and understand the roots of this anxiety and the communities can operate, and have been way morality has historically become a fundamental to preserving the sanctity and powerful tool of social and political control. legitimacy of patriarchal institutions of What is this many-headed monster, and religion, family, nation, race, caste and why does it have a sustained presence and community. Any challenges to these relevance in our lives? institutions have been met with outraged moral affront. A historical look Morality is not a static concept, and, with Men have rarely been targeted for visiting changing economies, polity and society, 16 morality too shifts or is manipulated to outcry, even by those who were suit the times, by the powers-that-be. propagators of women's right to education Morality is also constantly contested, and widow remarriage, at the entry of resisted and re-framed. How strange it is women onto the stage in Bengali theatre. that something which may have been 'Public women' (most of them were from a considered deeply immoral at one point in background of prostitution) like Nati history — whether it is dancing, acting, Binodini and other stage actresses were women wearing trousers, or riding treated as immoral. Women in the bicycles — is today considered a normal 'performance tradition' (dancing, singing) thing! Or that the same thing can be have also been seen as 'public women' and considered immoral in one nation or by one have a history of stigma — courtesans, community, and moral in another! devadasis and so on. Bharatanatyam, This shows how fickle the boundaries of which is today seen as a respectable morality are, that they are socially classical dance form, once faced a possible constructed and subjective. ban as it was considered to be of ill repute, being performed by women of the For example, in 1890s New York, there was devadasi tradition. an uproar when women from respectable homes started riding bicycles. The fear Portrayals of women in historical religious (documented in many editorials and and ancient texts also carry a sub-text of cartoons and columns in daily papers at the morality — whether it is the Virgin Mary, or time) was that, with women from good the monogamy of Sita, the polygamy of homes showing off their ankles as they rode Draupadi, the devotion of Sati, and so on — around Central Park, there would be little which have resonance in continuing notions difference between them and the of ideal womanhood. Whenever these prostitutes. Similarly, there was a moral notions have been challenged, there has 17 been controversy. Even in literature, women in a communal massacre. whenever women and men have written of oppression, female sexuality, or The discourse on morality touches our exposed certain aspects of religion, lives in every sphere — whether it is in the patriarchy or culture, there has been a home or in the choice or area of work, violent backlash. Writers like Ismat Chugtai, or through the law, the State, the police, Sadat Hasan Manto, Taslima Nasreen, the judiciary. Through politics, religion, the Salman Rushdie, Amrita Pritam have faced pronouncements of influential religious severe ostracism and even court cases, groups. It determines what we watch on arrest and religious indictments for television, in cinema and theatre, in art and challenging the status quo through culture, in newspapers or in literature. their writing. The moral police: Why the resurgence? Moral pronouncements and fears have, over time, been institutionalised also in law, Today we can see that a lot of things are in popular discourse, in the real world changing around us: women across classes around us. Often these create situations of are much less afraid to occupy public tragic injustice. A judge who pronounces spaces, more confident of their bodies, that the rapist may marry his victim is fearless about wearing clothes they want to exercising his perceptions of morality, wear, and exhibiting behaviour that an rather than the call for justice. The State earlier dominant morality would classify as also practises double standards of morality that of a 'bad woman'. The divide between — it is willing to overlook the use of the 'good' and 'bad' woman seems to be women's bodies in the marketing of almost blurring. New expressions of moral anything, and yet will 'censor' a film that anxieties are a response to these demonstrates the sexual violence against developments and arise out of a fear 18 that women are 'going out of control' and victories of progressive movements. What must be contained. (This leads us to believe remains shocking is the hypocrisy of it all. that when a woman exercises agency, The very men who cry themselves hoarse demands her rights and challenges when women wear jeans in college or oppression and injustice, or even speaks sportspersons wear regular sports attire in out, it is labelled as 'immoral'.) their field, are silent when female foeticide or dowry murders take place. The ministers The resurgence is also a response to a who vociferously call for the ban on women perceived threat to 'Indian culture' and the dancing in bars themselves organise a fear that the nation is undergoing a phase of fundraising event in which they invite an 'Westernisation' due to the combined effects 'item girl' to dance on stage for the of an open economy, globalisation and enjoyment of the police force and their satellite media, communication and cadres. The women who are up in arms technology. As always, women are seen as against a comment by an actress that the bearers of culture and tradition, and it is is all right as long as safe sex is their conduct and control which is sought to practised, look the other way when sexual be reined in and tightened, the boundaries assault occurs around them, or remain quiet redrawn, reminders of the punishment of when acid is thrown by a spurned 'lover' on transgression announced… in reaction to the face of an unsuspecting young woman. this threat. This is evidence enough of the fickle nature of their notion of morality. The result: loss of secular spaces, end of dialogue, a threat to rights, democracy, What is the feminist vision of a moral freedom. And the slow, dangerous rise of a society? One in which men do not use sexual new kind of fascism and fundamentalism terror as a tool to control women; one in that threatens to erode the many small which women are not suspect for just being; 19 one in which morality is linked to an intrinsic sense of justice, equality and democracy — and not as a tool for surveillance, subjugation and oppression.

(Manjima Bhattacharjya has a PhD in sociology and has been active in the Indian women's movement for over 10 years. She has worked with Jagori, a feminist resource centre, and the International Secretariat of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in Geneva)

InfoChange News & Features, February 2009

20 Struggles against the discourse of morality by Manjima Bhattacharjya

Various movements have waged their own sexual and emotional relationship between struggle against the moral police, in the last two women protagonists). They claimed the few years, fighting for the right to freedom film was: “…An explosion of obscenity, a of expression, the right to work in safe denigration of womanhood and an attack conditions, the right to livelihood and many on Bharatiya Sanskriti.” other fundamental constitutional rights that are being threatened. Here's a brief look Various fundamentalist groups barged into at some of these struggles. cinema halls and smashed glass panes, burnt posters and shouted slogans. Similar Campaigns for the right to freedom of attacks took place in other cities and towns. expression: Fire and Water The film had been running peacefully for two weeks with acceptance by the masses, In December 1998, right-wing Hindu before this sudden disruption. fundamentalist groups staged violent protests against the screening of Deepa The shocking violence forced civil rights Mehta's film Fire (critiquing groups, women's groups, sexual minorities undivided family and revolving around the rights groups, artists, filmmakers, and 21 concerned citizens out onto the streets in Victorian morality that criminalises all sexual protest across the country, drawing national acts “against the order of nature”. In 1994, and international attention. The incident led AIDS Bhedbav Virodh Andolan (ABVA), a to the emergence of various new debates human rights group, filed a public interest and issues in public fora, such as that on litigation in the stating that lesbian identities in India, the right to Section 377 should be repealed because it freedom of expression, the role of right-wing violated the right to privacy and because it groups and violent cultural nationalism. discriminated against people with a particular sexual orientation. Though this In 2000, similar violence erupted during the petition was not followed up, in 2001 Naz shooting of Deepa Mehta's film Water, on Foundation, an NGO involved in HIV/AIDS the condition of widows in Benaras. The prevention, filed a more comprehensive writ director and the lead actors were besieged petition asking that Section 377 be repealed by obscene calls and threats, and the film set in the Delhi High Court. It additionally stated burnt and destroyed by right-wing groups. that the law is a threat to the right to life and The government did not right to health of homosexuals in India prevent, condemn or punish the because it perpetuates social stigma and perpetrators of the violence. Despite police abuse. It also hinders HIV/AIDS counter-protests by civil society groups, the prevention work among the homosexual agitations and threats compelled the community, making them more vulnerable director to cease filming. to contracting the disease.

Voices Against 377 In September 2004, the high court dismissed the petition (and a subsequent Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code is an review petition). Naz Foundation then filed a ancient law set in the framework of special leave petition (SLP) before the 22 Supreme Court. The court called for the private sexual activity of two consenting central government to be represented adults, regardless of its interpretation of what before it, in the next hearing, recognising was 'natural' or 'unnatural' sexual behaviour. It that this was a public interest issue that was pointed out that if one were to accept the being debated all over the world. government's standpoint, then many existing pieces of legislation concerning women's The government's position was that Section rights and dalit rights would not have been 377 should remain because it was a tool enacted since there are many sections of that could be used by the government to society that consider wife-beating or dowry- interfere in the private sphere in “the taking to be consistent with “tradition and interest of public safety and the protection culture”, just as they consider untouchability of health and morals”. The government to be the “natural order” of society. claimed that Section 377 was used in cases Addressing the government's argument that of assault, and that deleting the section Section 377 needs to be retained because it is could “open the floodgates of delinquent also used to deal with cases of child sexual behaviour”. And that it was needed to deal abuse, it said that there was nothing to with cases of child sexual abuse. prevent the government from enacting a comprehensive law against child sexual abuse, The government's response drew angry which should include a clause that criminalises protests from a number of organisations. non-consensual same-sex relations. Their views were well represented in a letter sent by the All-India Democratic Women’s Activists are continuing with their lobbying Association (AIDWA) to the minister for law efforts and raising awareness through a and justice, objecting to the arguments forum called Voices Against 377, which is a advanced by the government. It maintained coalition of human rights, child rights, that the government could not interfere in the women's rights and sexual rights groups. 23 Immoral trafficking soliciting, reduction of powers given to the police, and increase of punishment for Efforts have been on, for over a decade, to traffickers, pimps and clients. amend the Immoral Traffic in Persons Prevention Act (ITPA) 1986. The Act is aimed Not only ITPA, various other such Acts like at curbing trafficking in women and the Public Offences Act or Public Health Act children, but in practice it criminalises or statutes that are generally vague and women in prostitution, and further address 'public moral order', 'law and order', victimises the victim. It also gives and so on have been consistently misused by unprecedented and abusive powers to the the police. Women across the country have police, without effectively criminalising reported being harassed by police or even pimps, traffickers and clients. Prostitution arbitrarily arrested on suspicion of 'soliciting' is not illegal as per this Act, although and thereby being a threat to 'public order'. prostitution or soliciting in public places is The reasons cited by the police could be illegal. The department of women and child anything — ranging from a woman being development, along with the National alone in a public place at night, to wearing Commission for Women, was given the certain kinds of clothes, to exhibiting a responsibility of looking into the certain kind of behaviour which the police recommendations made by women's associate with 'bad women'. These alarming groups and preparing a draft for incidents highlight how moral prejudices amending ITPA. operate in the hands of people who have Since then, the HRD ministry has reportedly power. These Acts are also used to legitimise approved the ITPA Amendment Bill 2005. and justify violence, especially sexual The amendment includes removal of a violence, by the police against women in section that criminalises prostitutes for general, more so against women in custody. 24 Other legal initiatives include the campaign situation — while Bollywood 'numbers' and to institute a new sexual assault Bill, a actresses were admired and feted, they were revision of the existing problematic rape being punished for merely copying what law, such that it is framed and used within was on the screen. They had a series of the framework of rights that sees a range of meetings to negotiate with the government sexual assault as crimes against women, on this proposed ban, and approached rather than in a framework of morality that women's groups to support their initiative to focuses on the character of the victim and prevent the ban. places the burden of proof on the victim. However, in July 2005, the Bill was passed Livelihood vs public morality: The ban unanimously in the Maharashtra state on bar girls in Maharashtra assembly. The few women's groups that were protesting outside were shocked at the The issue came into the public eye when a way in which the dialogue on the Bill was ban was proposed by the Maharashtra conducted in the assembly by those who government on women dancing in dance claimed to be the moral guardians of bars across the state, in March 2005, stating society. Comments such as, “It is more that this was “corrupting the young” and dignified to commit suicide than dance in tainting the moral fabric of society. bars” were met with applause; “These women who dance naked don't deserve any Consequently, the Bar Girls Union and the sympathy” was cheered; and there was a Bar Owners Association organised a massive great deal of laughter when they sniggered, protest rally, coming out into the public to “Isha Koppikar… she is an atom bomb, demand that their right to a livelihood not atom bomb”. To the women's groups they be snatched away. They raised placards and said: “These women who are opposing the slogans highlighting the hypocrisy of the ban, we will make their mothers dance…” 25 The 'morality issue' had won, the 'livelihood issue' had lost.

In response, the Bar Girls Union petitioned the chief minister, the National and State Women's Commission and Human Rights Commission and even met Congress President Sonia Gandhi and sought her intervention. Many women's groups came together and issued a statement opposing the ban. The Research Centre for Women's Studies at SNDT University, and Forum Against Oppression of Women, Mumbai, conducted a study to reveal the real picture of the lives of bar dancers. The study threw up some shocking statistics about the low socio-economic status of the women and helped break many myths regarding bar dancers. Following the ban, several cases of suicide by bar dancers have been reported across Maharashtra.

InfoChange News & Features, February 2009

(Another version of this piece appeared in Hindi translation in the Jagori Notebook 2006 'Nazarband Auratein: Neytikta ki Chaukhatein', published by Jagori, New Delhi, 2006) 26 Whatever happened to women's hard-won freedom? by Sumi Krishna

How should we in the women's movement making power for which women have understand and respond to the cluster of fought for years. Arvind Narrain of the assaults by the Ram Sene, Bajrang Dal and Alternative Law Forum, , writing other fundamentalists; the targeting of in , sees the abuse of minorities and their places of worship; the religious and sexual minorities as the harassment and molestation of women of “saffron” challenge to “the legacy of the all classes in the name of nation, culture and women's movement in India”, and “the thin religion; the fear and anger spreading end of the wedge” in re-establishing male through villages and towns in southern dominance. coastal Karnataka? Indeed, enhancing the freedom and As Sandhya Gokhale of the Forum Against autonomy of individual women has been Oppression of Women, Mumbai, says in The one of the cornerstones of the women's Hindu, on one level the horrific abuse of movement. In a gender-equitable young women in a pub is “a morality issue”, democratic polity, matters of dress, but it is also about the space and decision- behaviour, mobility and personal life choices 27 are not less important than people's rights a counter-protest in Mangalore by college to livelihood, dignity and an empowered girls shouting, 'Pub culture: Down! Down!', citizenship. Not surprisingly, in protests all TV journalist Vasanthi Hariprakash says she over the country, whether by students and asked their leader what 'pub culture' meant. teachers in Mangalore or at the Tata “Adhu American samskri” (that's American Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, by culture), the girl said. When she persisted Vimochana, Hengasara Hakkina Sangha with the query, the girl replied: “I don't know and other women's groups in Karnataka, by what it is… but I have been told it is bad.” activists like Nirantar, Saheli, Jagori and Vasanthi writes: “I realised that anguished INSAF in Delhi, by organisations of dalits Indians, some of whom happen to be proud and slum-dwellers, or of young designers, IT Hindus like me, have a long battle to fight — professionals and academics in Bangalore, against mindsets, not just a fringe group of there is a common refrain: 'What happened maniac men.” to our freedom?', 'Where is democracy?'. Is this then all about deeply embedded For the Ram Sene the issue of 'morality' is sexual politics, about using women's bodies subsumed into an attack on 'Westernisation' as the repositories of an imagined and so-called 'pub culture'. This has been homogeneous Indian culture? Journalist helped along in no small measure by Ammu Joseph urges a debate on what National Commission for Women member Indian culture is, and who has the right to Nirmala Venkatesh (formerly a Congress enforce it. Our cultures are, after all, MLA in Karnataka, elected unopposed in a dynamic, not set in stone and, as some by-election) who deviously attempted to litterateurs at the Kannada Sahitya shift the debate from the criminality of the Sammelan at Chitradurga asked: “Why assault to the legality and functioning of the should women alone be targeted as pub. Commenting in the Deccan Herald on guardians of culture?” In a Joint Statement 28 on the Brutal Assault in Mangalore, a cross- Mangalore were attacked and ransacked section of over 600 citizens from India and with impunity, ostensibly on the issue of beyond, have pointed out that there “can religious 'conversion', while the Bharatiya and should be dialogues on what Janata Party (BJP) government in Karnataka constitutes 'Indian-ness', but regardless of took its own time to restore law and order. the interpretations of Indian culture and But the Mangalore Catholics, an organised traditions, beating and molesting women and educated community, did draw support cannot be condoned”. from the rest of India.

In many places on the west coast of India, The 'pub attack' has aroused widespread emigration and large cash remittances from anger and debate, across class, age and the Middle East have transformed the social social groups. Karnataka has earlier seen fabric, creating pockets of great wealth, unspeakable atrocities against dalit women, growing consumerism, new aspirations, horrendous 'acid attacks' and other kinds of and social fissures. In Mangalore, this has violence against women of all communities. been exploited by the Bajrang Dal and the But never before have the media and the Hindu Jagran Vedike to incite violence middle class empathised with such against Muslims, as in Suratkal in 1998-99. spontaneity and vehemence. Most Hindus and Christians remained silent observers at that time. A decade later, the The women's movement needs to take Hindutva elements had grown powerful advantage of the unprecedented coalition enough to control a subterranean economy of civic groups to counter the attitudes and of extortion from newly-rich hoteliers and mindsets that tacitly or directly accept pub-owners, even as different groups on gender-based violence in the family, the the saffron fringe began to fight for the community and society. This is not just same terrain. In 2008, churches across about 'pub drinking' by urban, elite upper- 29 caste women, but about communalism and gendered violence at all levels. We need to foster rational dialogue between cultures and affirm our commitment to the human rights and civil liberties of all classes of w o m e n t h r e a t e n e d b y r e l i g i o u s fundamentalists, be they Hindu, Muslim or Christian, in Karnataka, , Maharashtra or elsewhere. For these are rights that have been hard won by so many women across religion, caste and class through decades of struggle for gender justice.

(Sumi Krishna, an independent researcher and widely published author on environment, development and gender, was president of the Indian Association for Women's Studies)

InfoChange News & Features, February 2009

30 The 21st century politics of college clothing by Shilpa Phadke and Sameera Khan

The French government insists that Muslim of different political and religious persuasions, women do not wear headscarves, Sikh men arguing often-opposing viewpoints, to do not wear turbans, and nobody wears legislate so stringently on clothing? Are the their religion on their sleeve to school. The questions being debated so fiercely about Iranian government insists that women clothing and accessories, or are they a wear not just the headscarf but the chador. smokescreen for something else? If so, what is The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) is this 'something else'? convinced that jeans are a provocative and un-Indian form of dress. Some maulanas We would like to argue that this 'something' take offence with wearing skirts constitutes not one thing but a variety of on the tennis court, claiming it is un-Islamic different anxieties: for the French it is the attire. Universities all over India appear to be pluralism of a mixed society in the context of in a race to institute what they think is the opening European borders; for the Iranians, appropriate form of attire for their students. the VHP and the maulanas worried about Sania Mirza's clothing it is the purity of What exactly is it that prompts varied groups narrowly defined religion marked on the 31 bodies of women; and for an apparently of national-sexual politics. In April 2005, in increasing number of Indian universities it is the wake of the rape of a college girl by a the contradictions wrought by tradition and police constable on Mumbai's Marine Drive, in modernity, the Indian and the global, the broad daylight, the newspaper Saamna saw private and the public, the respectable and fit to blame women's clothing for sexual the sexual (if one were to use crass and harassment, admonishing women that these ultimately often fallacious binaries). were bad times and that they needed to guard their virtue. By the end of 2005, the On the face of it, it seems rather backlash had become relentless: there incredulous and contradictory that at a time appeared to be no light at the end of this when Indian fashion designers are tunnel, as university after university, in successfully entering world fashion markets, apparent agreement with these views, set we should simultaneously be discussing about instituting a dress code. dress codes for college students. But if one digs even a little deeper, it's not Tamil Nadu's Anna University imposed a dress at all surprising — in fact, it is perhaps code on 231 engineering colleges that fall the one that creates the other. The under its purview, banning jeans, sleeveless increasing visibility of global fashion (on tops, T-shirts and tight-fitting clothes. The Indian catwalks, advertising, restaurants move was supported by players across the and streets) and the perceived 'lack of political spectrum — from the Bharatiya morality' that goes with it creates no little Janata Party (BJP) to the Periyarist Dravidar anxiety in the minds of various Kazhagam, the Paattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) self-appointed protectors of 'Indian culture'. and the Dalit Panthers of India (DPI). Interestingly, at the same time, in the name of Women's clothing: its length, width, cut and 'preserving Tamil culture', there are also even colour are all debated in the blame game moves to prevent women from consuming 32 alcohol and dancing in discos in . education”. The unfashionable students, the ones in the oversized jeans and baggy Orissa became the first state in the country to T-shirts or salwar-kameez, and who by the introduce a 'uniform dress code' for college most conservative standards were students. Not only were students banned 'appropriately dressed', were the ones from wearing sleeveless tops and tight jeans, fuming about “patriarchal control of female they will now wear uniforms — which have sexuality”. been specified as salwar-kameez for girls and trousers and full-sleeved shirts for boys. What's so surprising about this? Nothing, those who have for years been pointing Even Mumbai, an ostensibly liberal city for out women's liberation votaries' lack of women, is not too far behind in the dress code politics. The vice-chancellor of fashion sense or femininity would argue. Mumbai University called a meeting of But, more seriously, feminism is not without college principals, in July 2005, and a dress its own prejudices and often demands a code for college students is in the offing. certain commitment to dressing austerely. Yet, it is also true that spaghetti straps As part of our research on the Gender & and short skirts are often accompanied by Space project, we asked students in Mumbai the demand for a certain body shape. It is their opinion on a dress code. At first, our therefore not surprising that the ones conversations left us bewildered. Students in espousing more conservative ideas are figure-hugging T-shirts and sleeveless vests the ones also conforming to the new with messages that read: 'Eye-candy' or codes of feminine sexual desirability. 'Single & Unavailable', were the most ardent votaries of a dress code, arguing the need for As liberals, it would be easy for us to react limits, boundaries and clothing appropriate immediately by arguing for people's right to to the space that is “the temple of wear what they wish, to picket outside the 33 vice-chancellor's office to demand an knows that they can wear those trendy, 'in' instant abolition of the dress code, arguing clothes in their wardrobe somewhere where that dress codes curtail our right to freedom they can see and be seen. They are also saying, to dress as we please. But this might confine in different ways, that collegewear is not our argument to the act of dressing, and important enough to stick their necks out for. ignore the more complex issues within “If we were told to wear only salwar-kameez which they are embedded. to college, well, we wouldn't like it and we'd protest, but ultimately we'd have to comply,” So, before we do that, it is important to was the general collective sentiment. examine both the sub-text in what the students are saying and what they are While men's clothing is also included in the wearing, and the context within which they 'code', it's clear that the high levels of anxiety do so. are directed at women's clothing. Like other markers of national, regional or community “Spaghetti and noodle straps are fine in a cultural identity, the strictures surrounding disco but not in a college,” said one student. clothing place women under greater “There is an appropriate time and place for scrutiny than men. all kinds of clothes,” said another. “You wouldn't go to a disco in a nine-yard sari, Some of the concern with regard to women's would you? It would be stupid,” argued a dress arises out of fear. That by revealing a third. “Every place has a dress code; one little bit more of her arms or her legs, lounge in refused two journalists a woman will invite unwarranted entry because they were clad in salwar- male attention and thus be more open to kameez,” pointed out a fourth. sexual harassment and violence, What these voices have in common is that including rape. Even the judges in our they all belong to a specific class — a class that courts feel that way. In a study conducted 34 by the Delhi-based NGO Sakshi, among actions and behaviour are reflective of the 109 judges, 68% said they believed that honour of the entire community. A “provocative” clothes were an invitation violation of their bodies is considered a to sexual assault. But in our conversations violation of the honour of the community with young women across Mumbai, it was as a whole. Community honour may clear that girls in salwar-kameez, even those in also be besmirched by women's consensual burkhas, are just as harassed as those actions, and steps are taken to ensure that in skirts. The difference is that a girl in a women do not have the opportunity salwar-kameez will be able to garner to meet the wrong kind of men. For instance, in Indore, the Bajrang Dal has more public support to thrash the perpetrator demanded that no Muslim men be than the girl in the short skirt! permitted to enter commercial garba celebrations as they believe Muslim There's another opinion we encountered men will mingle with Hindu girls and elope that contends that women in tight jeans with them at the end of Navratri. are harassed less because they come across as more confident, and molesters In Sri Lanka, some time ago, a school ruled prefer to focus on those they consider that mothers coming to collect their sons meek and less likely to retaliate. must wear saris. The newspapers that took up this debate focused on the sari The other reason why society concerns itself being a sign of “pure” Sinhala culture. with women's clothing has to do with Underlying the insistence on the sari was a wanting to control a woman's body deep chauvinism that attempted to project and her sexuality — an idea as old as one community as superior and better than Adam and Eve and the apple in the the others. Garden of Eden (remember, Eve got them kicked out of paradise). Women's clothing, The dress code debate then is about much 35 more than clothing — it encompasses ideas But it is equally important to fight it as only of family and community honour, one manifestation of a larger malaise — community and national identity, where not just the way people dress is appropriate femininity and masculinity, sought to be controlled but also the way rules of endogamy, and the drawing of a they walk, behave, and exchange thoughts, number of other boundaries. When we take ideas and affection. The largely unopposed on the dress code, these form the implicit move to impose a dress code — with the sub-text of our arguments. As feminists, this media expressing faint disapproval at the places us at the locus of multiple pre-modernity of it — is not pre-modern at contradictions. How do we assert that all. It is a very modern response to the very women have the right to wear what they modern anxieties that, today, women will desire without endorsing the mini-skirts- wear spaghetti straps to college, tomorrow and-lipstick brand of market-modernity-led- they will have careers, the day after refuse to liberation? How do we problematise the be chaste Indian women, the next week pressure on women to achieve gravity (and make love to the wrong kind of men, the other natural law)-defying body shapes next month declare they prefer women to without suggesting that certain kinds of men, and from there who knows what clothing are unilaterally bad? How do we else… articulate the need to promote the widest variety of choices, while articulating that all (Shilpa Phadke, a sociologist, and Sameera Khan, a of these choices are located in contexts of journalist, research issues of gender, space, citizenship and respectability in Mumbai, as part of class, caste, gender, race, community and the PUKAR Gender & Space project. They are sexual preference that influence our currently working on a book based on the project, capacity to exercise them? along with Shilpa Ranade)

Yes, it is important to fight the dress code. InfoChange News & Features, February 2006 36 www.infochangeindia.org

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