Bare breasts and bare-faced
politics By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - India's morality stormtroopers
were steamed up last week in response to two
incidents of "wardrobe malfunction" at the Lakme
India Fashion Week in Mumbai. But while these
self-appointed custodians of "Indian cultural and
moral values" seem to have no problem wasting
public resources on non-issues like the wardrobe
malfunction, they ignore the real issues
confronting the country - farmers' suicides,
drought and the spiraling electrical power crisis.
This year's Lakme India Fashion Week may
well have generated business worth millions of
dollars for the designers, but it was wardrobe
flaps on the ramp that attracted media attention.
In one
instance, model Carol
Gracias' halter top slipped, leaving her breasts
exposed; in another, model Gauhar Khan's skirt zip
split, exposing her bottom.
Barely had the
models covered up than the moral brigade stepped
in to protest. First off the block was the Shiv
Sena, a Hindu right-wing party with a powerful
political base in Mumbai. Speaking in the
Maharashtra Legislative Council, Neelam Gorhe, a
leader of the Shiv Sena's women's wing demanded
that the government take "serious note" of the
"obscene act".
Nitin Gadkari, a leader of
the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
went a step further. He asked the government to
serve a criminal notice to news channels that
telecast the "indecent acts".
Responding
to the opposition's demands, Maharashtra's Deputy
Chief Minister R R Patil ordered the Mumbai Police
to investigate whether the wardrobe malfunction
was "a deliberate indecent act". The probe has
since revealed that the exposure was accidental.
But some members of the moral brigade are not
satisfied with the investigation's findings.
Pramod Navalkar, a senior leader of the
Shiv Sena and a legislator, said he was upset not
just with the "indecent acts" but with the whole
tone of the fashion week. "In these fashion shows
the majority of the body is exposed and very
little is covered," Navalkar complained to the
British Broadcasting Corporation, adding that "the
sanctity of Indian culture should be maintained".
About a year ago, Patil and other
politicians swung into action against dance bars,
saying, "The bars are corrupting the moral fiber
of our youth." Several were closed. More recently
in the southern city of Chennai, film actress
Khushboo's comments to a newsmagazine on
pre-marital sex sparked off violent protests
across the state of Tamil Nadu. The actress had
merely said that "pre-marital sex is fine,
provided it is safe" and that "educated men should
not expect virgin wives".
Political
parties like the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) -
which is part of India's Congress Party-led
national coalition government - and the Dalit
Panthers of India accused her of encouraging
pre-marital sex and organized demonstrations
against her. Effigies of Khushboo were burnt, and
a large number of complaints were filed. When she
appeared in court, demonstrators threw their
footwear, eggs and tomatoes at her car and shouted
obscene slogans. "We have done this to protect
Tamil culture and the reputation of our women,"
said Balu, an advocate and member of the PMK's
lawyers wing.
Moral policing in the name
of protecting culture is nothing new among India's
conservative parties. The Sangh Parivar - a family
of Hindu hardline organizations, including the
Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena - has a
long history of mobilizing mobs around such
agendas. Hardliners of every faith have issued
diktats, fatwas and orders to "protect" their
culture. The Shiv Sena even attacks Valentine's
Day on the grounds that it represents a violation
of "Indian values".
What is new and
interesting about these incidents of moral
policing is how supposedly liberal parties are now
mobilizing on such agendas, not the usual
suspects. It was a Congress-Nationalist Party
coalition government in Maharashtra that went
hammer and tongs against dance bars in Mumbai and
also ordered the probe into the fashion week faux
pas.
It did it to outflank the Shiv Sena
and to score points with the constituency to which
the Sena appeals. And in Tamil Nadu, the campaign
against Khushboo was spearheaded by parties with
roots in a rationalist movement that opposed,
among other things, the double standards of public
morality.
Sexual
hypocrisy Politicians are the most
vociferous in articulating outrage over "indecent
acts" during fashion shows, but several of them
were present at these shows. They express concern
in the legislative assembly at the depravity in
dance bars, but it is politicians, policemen and
businessmen that patronize these dance bars most
regularly. Some bars even have a separate VIP
dance floor for "elite" clients who do not want to
be recognized. In fact, many dance bars are owned
by politicians and policemen.
But even as
the likes of Navalkar and Patil and scores of
other politicians are preoccupied with the
wardrobe malfunctions, less than a few hundred
miles away from the glamorous fashion runways,
more than 350 farmers unable to pay off their
debts committed suicide by drinking pesticide over
the past few months. In Maharashtra's Vidarbha
region some 77 farmers took their lives in March
alone.
Where are the irate politicians
demanding that the government take serious note of
these deaths? The government has done little to
investigate what led to the suicides. And the
media, which endlessly covered every detail of the
fashion week flap, look the other way.
Sudha Ramachandran is an
independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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