When Indian TV channels repeatedly aired the footage of girls outside a Mangalore pub being physically assaulted, dragged by the hair and pushed to the ground by men, we were both shocked and disturbed. These were typical urban Indian women – the kind of people we know at the kind of place we’d hang out. When feature writer Nisha Susan used the social networking website Facebook to launch the ‘Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women’ campaign as a reply to Ram Sena chief Pramod Muthalik’s tirade against ‘pub culture’ and Valentine’s Day, the response was enormous. The campaign was a tongue-in-cheek yet angry commentary against a form of oppression that targeted the most intimate aspects of a woman’s self – her body and her freedom to choose.
The group’s subsequent ‘Pink Chaddi Campaign’, in which Muthalik’s headquarters in Hubli was showered on Valentine’s Day with a torrent of pink chaddis, a presumably fitting symbol of feminine empowerment, got an even stronger response. In fact, Muthalik is now vowing to sue the activists behind this campaign, a minor victory perhaps for the thousands of impassioned chaddi donators across the country.
Nobody would defend the reprehensible behaviour of a bunch of right-wing fanatics on a testosterone rush. In retrospect, though, many have begun to wonder whether any change has been effected, except for the few perpetrators being put behind bars briefly, then released with a slap on the wrist and ample media attention. The Pink Chaddi Campaign, still a completely online initiative, will in all likelihood metamorphose into a more generic forum. It will continue to develop kitschy posters, document subsequent atrocities against women and solicit other symbolic acts (they are currently asking members to make personal ‘reclaim your culture’ videos which can be sent to the Ram Sena). The group will continue to voice its dissension, before inevitably fading into oblivion.
As the campaign’s blog revealed, only a few days later, in four separate incidents in Bangalore, urban women were once again attacked for wearing ‘western clothes’ and for walking alone on the street at night. And unlike the ‘modern’ urban woman (who is more likely to make front page news), assaults on other groups continues, largely unabated. Statistical data on female infanticide, domestic abuse, dowry deaths, rape and other forms of sexual assault in India paints a sordid picture of the condition of a large number of women in this country.
The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women are a self-defined minority population – urban women who’ve taken their freedom and equality for granted, and must now wake up to a painful and contradictory reality. This isn’t meant to imply that they should be grateful simply because they weren’t murdered at birth or have lived lives that have been free of abuse. Just because they enjoy a relative position of privilege, and are placed in a better social and economic position does not make their struggle any less significant. However, the markedly apolitical character of these groups is troubling to those who believe only a large-scale and cohesive feminist movement can effectively challenge sexism and create a more equal society. Filling up pubs for a night or speed-posting lingerie is an empty act of revolt, if it’s not backed by a clear political agenda that seeks to dislodge the status quo instead of making a temporary dent.
At the same time, the Pub Bharo and Pink Chaddi campaigns have been seen by others as an apt response to the equally absurd claims of Muthalik and his clan concerning the ill effects of Western influence on traditional Indian culture. To take the Ram Sena seriously would be to legitimize the group’s ideology. In a world driven by media hype, subversive yet sensational acts such as those initiated by these campaigns certainly did put things in a lighter perspective, undermining the rabble-rousing intent of certain right-wing groups.
Finally, no clear winner can emerge out of this debacle. But the events of the past month have reminded urban women of the difficult challenges they face in fighting for rights they had begun to (and should be able to) take for granted. However, the battle is not just that of women alone. Anyone who shares a commitment to the idea of a just and egalitarian society should see these incidents as a sign that a lot more remains to be achieved before we can don the mantle of a truly ‘liberal India’.
(published for
You & I Magazine, Hyderabad, March, 2009)
