Slutwalk from an Indian Perspective

I read the following article on a facebook page and am in complete agreement with everything Protiti says so I had to post it. I relate to it as an Indian, a feminist and a humanist.  

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Background info:

What is SlutWalk about?SlutWalk is a movement that seeks to fight against Victim Blaming in cases of Sexual Abuse. The movement wants to discourage the practise of believing that the victim of a sex crime was “asking for it” with his/her clothing, lifestyle, interactions or history.

Why was the word “Slut” used?The word “slut” came in as a sarcastic response to a comment made by a Toronto police officer. On Jan 24th, 2011, Constable Michael Sanguinetti was speaking on crime prevention at a York University safety forum. He said “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized”. The statement sparked considerable outrage because of its judgemental nature, and co-founders Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis decided to use the word “slut” in their response.

Author: Protiti Roy 

Yesterday evening, while standing at the newspaper stand of my college, going through reports about the detention, I struck up conversation with a professor about Indian clothing. This professor, who had been a District and Sessions Judge before he joined Law School, had the following to say:

“What is Indian clothing? If you go to Kerala, people wear comparatively less clothing. It is not that sparse now, but in earlier days both men and women wore very few items of clothing. On the other hand, in Rajasthan, people wear a lot more clothes to beat the heat. In earlier days we did not have the practice of wearing too many clothes in India. Clothing varies from place to place, depending on various conditions such as climate and convenience. You may change your dress many times in one day for the sake of convenience, depending on what you are doing. Now that you have come to college, you are wearing jeans. When you go to play a sport, you will wear something else. If you go to the temple you will wear something else. It is all about what is comfortable and convenient.

Now in different parts of the country, depending on what people do, different styles of clothing are convenient. If by looking at a person’s dress, someone’s mind can get so agitated, or someone can get so frustrated, that he or she feels compelled to commit a crime, that person requires reformation.”

I want to further elaborate on both his points. For everyone who has told us that SlutWalk is against Indian culture, what precisely do you mean? Is advocating victim’s rights against Indian culture? No. All our epics talk about upholding the rights of those who have suffered. That is what Ram did when Ravan abducted Sita, that is what Krishna did when Kamsa was on a killing spree in Mathura, that is what Narasimha did when Prahlad was being tortured in numerous innovative ways. (I refer to these incidents not in their capacity as religious texts but in their capacity as literature written many thousand years ago in the Indian subcontinent.)

For those of you who are stuck at the name and cannot force yourselves to move beyond and see the larger picture, I ask you, what is wrong with the name? There have been comments on this page that say “wearing small clothes is not Indian culture”. I clarify once again that we are NOT asking people to wear small clothes. We are telling them to wear whatever they want – jeans and sweatshirt, sari, salwar kameez, lehenga, langa davni, shorts and tshirt, summer dresses, long gowns, skirts whether long or mini, whatever they want. And if you think that those who opt for smaller clothes are going against “Indian culture”, please tell me which civilization was Mohini from? Her clothes were so small and so transparent, that it caused Lord Shiva to ejaculate just by looking at her (I am not making this up. Please go read the Bhagavata Purana.) But did he try to touch her? Did he force himself on his object of desire? No. He asks her to come to him, and when she says no, he accepts it.

Going back to the point of clothes, there are more than enough instances of in our epics and mythological texts of women walking around with very little clothing. Read Kalidasa’s Kumarasambhavam. Read Jayadeva’s Geetagovindam. They all speak of barely clothed human bodies in public spaces, and these are people who are respected (Gauri, Shiva, Radha, Krishna). Ambapali, Magadh’s royal courtesan, was one of the most educated and wise and respected women in all of India in 500 BC. The temple sculptures of Khajuraho and Konark are not the imagination of artists but a portrayal of how society was at that time.

You speak of skimpy clothing being a “Western” concept? It was Queen Victoria’s dictate that nobody’s legs should ever be seen – not even a table’s! This squeamishness about wearing clothes that reveal some pats of the body is Victorian morality and that, my deluded friend, is a Western notion. The blouse that is worn with the sari entered the scene only with the British. The women of the Tagore family were the first to wear it and they were mocked at for mimicking western ideals. No Indian woman ever wore a blouse under her sari till then. My own great-grandmother never did. Trust me, she was completely Indian. In the Andamans, people wear no clothes at all. Are they not Indian? In the North East, a lot of women wear a long length of cloth wrapped around their bust and falling to their knees with various decorative belts (no blouse) or they wear shorts and sleeveless top. (No, that is not what all women there wear, but a significantly large number of them do.) Are they not Indian?

Coming to the second issue, it is also a part of Indian culture to never touch a woman however much her looks and her mannerisms may tempt you, unless she has expressly said yes (remember the Arjun and Urvashi incident?). But today people say that if a woman is dressed “provocatively” she is “asking to be raped”. Really? Do men have no control over their bodies? Please do not insult mankind with such notions. Men are rational human beings and can exercise restraint over their thoughts, feelings and actions.

Secondly, there is no logical connect between seeing a desirable woman and actually walking over, pulling her down, getting both your clothes off and forcing yourself into her. A mere thought or sensation cannot lead to such drastic consequences. That is a very long chain of causality and holds no ground at all. Every time you see a plate of mouth watering chicken (or avial) do you just run over, grab it and eat it? You do not wait to think whom does the food belong to, do you have a right to eat it, does it have to be acquired in a different manner? No? You just walk over, pick up the plate and polish it off? If you do, you need therapy. If you don’t, then you are bound to agree with our point of view that there is NO connection between a man seeing a woman provocatively dressed and actually assaulting her. (My note: While it is quite a stretch to compare a woman to a place of food, I think the author's is simply trying to make a strong point and please don't get held up in the metaphor.)

And then again, when has a “conservatively” dressed woman not been harassed? I myself have been stalked and whistled at while wearing a full sleeved kurta and a churidar. Is a kurta and churidar provocative? So please let us drop the farcical notion that only women who dress “provocatively” get assaulted. Not true. You will be fooling yourself if you believe in that.

The point, then, remains this – clothes have NOTHING to do with it. Whatever you wear, however you wear it, wherever you wear it. People may not like what you are wearing, but that does not translate into hurting you physically. Hence, please trash the clothing debate for once and for all. Clothes do not rape. Rapists do.


Source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/slutwalk-bangalore-the-official-portal/the-indian-sense-of-dress/304903996206765

If you are a man who feels they can't relate to this:

The classic stereotyping is that women invite sexual assault with their provocative clothing and loose behaviour. The men upon seeing them are instantly aroused, cannot control their sexual urges and hence pounce on these women. This mentality paints men as irrational beings who cannot exercise restraint over their thoughts, feelings or actions. Would you like it if every woman on the road looked at you as a potential sexual offender?  Or would you like it if your sister, wife, girlfriend or mother was accused of “asking for it” if they’d been sexually assaulted? If the answer to both questions was “NO”, then you know exactly why this movement is relevant to you.