I have written an opinion column for In.com on the Slut Walk Delhi, titled ‘Slut Walk? We need a Tawaif Walk‘

I also recently joined The Global Voices as a writer. And the post on Slut Walk is my first post for GV.

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I was quoted on today’s Mid-Day Mumbai Edition talking about the relevance of the word slut in the latest campaign ‘Slut Walk Delhi.’ You can read the online version of the article written by Sowmya Rajaram here.

I had already made my discomfort with the word slut clear in my previous post. While giving my opinion to Mid-day I reiterated the fact that this word alone makes a huge difference. That it will create class conflict within the feminist movement, if at all we consider this campaign as a part of the Indian feminist movement. I also predicted that if you replace the word slut with a Hindi word, there will be very few takers for the campaign.  These very girls who are now so happy to walk down the lane wearing the label slut wouldn’t want to come out if asked to wear a desi label like Randi. Slut is a slang alright but a western slang and we love everything about the white people.

To quote myself from the article,

“This campaign will create a class divide within the feminist movement, because it is not inclusive. It is meant for a niche group of urban, English speaking upper class girls. Call this same campaign a Randi Morcha and very few girls would join it. If it’s about reclaiming a word, let’s reclaim the more common words”

“You take a message to the streets so that the common people get it. If you carry posters about something they don’t understand, they simply will not get any message.”

And this prediction just came true when I got a glimpse of the ongoing conversations on the Slut Walk Delhi’s Facebook Page. They asked their fans:

Is Besharmi Morcha the right word to use on behalf of Slut Walk Delhi?

And here are some of the answers:

• “Besharmi Morcha is for ‘illiterate’ people who don’t know the meaning of slut. Slut walk is appropriate and sophisticated”
• “Not at all. It is absolutely inappropriate…Don’t degrade the level of the parade”
• “This punch line is not appropriate this will actually lower down the standards…”
• “Slut walk is so ‘cool,’ besharmi whatever sounds gay!”

The responses clearly tell that this is a campaign initiated and embraced by a bunch of naive misguided youth. They don’t have a proper understanding of either feminism or violence against woman or activism. They don’t know the ground realities, they don’t care about making a real change. They just jumped the wagon because Slut Walk sounded like the next cool import from the west after MTV. 

You see my point?

This is not how you bring serious change. Change makers do not bring in class divide, literacy level, high or low standards of the people they are supposed to fight for. They do no care if the campaign is cool or not. They do not care if its sophisticated or not. They know that bringing change is not always going to be about having fun.

This campaign is simply about coolness and awesomeness. Had it been for a real cause these immature kids would have welcomed the contextualizing of the name for better suiting the average Delhiwalas vocabulary, because it is him who has to get the message. He who has to know that even if we are ‘besharam’ we are NOT asking for rape.

In my previous post I wrote how in no time these flash campaigns become larger than the cause itself. What becomes more important is how quickly can we spread the word, gather crowd, gain popularity, how many people Liked the campaign’s Facebook page, how many followers on Twitter, the poster, the logo, the t-shirt and the ‘awesomeness.’ Here’s to prove this point, the other day they announced they will be making a promotional video soon, and requested people of all sexes to send in their videos to be included in the final edit. What did I say? It becomes a field day for photographers, film makers, fun day out for participants and a street tamasha for the onlookers. In the end the campaign fades out leaving the public often unmoved and sometimes confused.

I am following the campaign closely and will keep updating this space with more information. Meanwhile, please give your opinion on what do you think of the new name?

The walk had postponed, and was scheduled to happen today. I have so far not recieved any confirmation whether it did happen or not, also didn’t see any photos or any reports online. I will keep updating this space with more info.

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Twitter is my central portal for information related to the city, country and world and Facebook is the place for updates on real life friends. Couple of days back I noticed a certain hashtag #slutwalk was trending on Twitter. In no time my Facebook friends started sending me invitations to a certain event Slut Walk Delhi. And then IBN Live reported that on 25th June 2011 Delhi will see its ‘first ever’ slut walk.

When you hear the words ‘first ever’ you perhaps assume that it is something that has been there for a long time and only now Delhi will see its ‘first ever’. But that’s not the case. Slut Walk is a brand new movement that started in Toronto, Canada in April 2011 and have since then spread to various other western cities like, London, Melbourne, Brisbane, Montreal, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Hamilton, San Diego and Vancouver to name a few. Delhi is the first Asian city to follow suit.

Now what does a slut walk in Delhi mean?

‘Slut’ – the word entered Indian people’s vocabulary through international movies and TV series as part of the cultural change that took place post the cable TV. The exact dictionary meaning of the word is unknown and irrelevant to most Indians but the most common meaning is ‘a woman who is ‘easy.’ While there is no doubt that the word is an abuse the ‘abuse quotient’ is not clear. For one, it was rather surprising for me to see the characters of the popular TV series FRIENDS using the word quite frequently in their conversations, although the series had a clean language policy and had never used the F word or middle finger.

Every word has a different meaning in different culture. So I am curious what does the word slut mean in the Indian context? Consequently what does a slut walk mean?To begin with the word is not in common use. Surely we have a parallel Hindi abuse word, Randi  and the other commonly used abuses are C word, MC/BC words, DK Bose word but through my growing days till now I have rarely heard the word slut in any context. I believe ‘slut’ as an abuse is a recent entry and is mostly in use amongst the upper class English speaking urban youth.

The original Slut Walk aims at reclaiming the word ‘slut.’ A reclaimed word is a word which has been historically used as an abuse but is brought back into acceptable usage by the same group who were abused by that word. For example, historically homosexuals were abusively referred to as ‘queer’ which literally means ‘strange’ but the gay rights activist started using the word to describe themselves in their political conversations and have since then taken pride in that word. They reclaimed the word as their own stripping it off the abusive connotations.

The original posting (now removed) on the info section of the Delhi slut walk mentioned “SlutWalk Delhi 2011 is an attempt to reclaim the word Slut, to remove the shame, to replace it with pride!“

This reclamation of the word ‘slut’ is important in the context where women are constantly shamed, judged and attacked by this word. But it is irrelevant in a city where woman get raped and killed with or without the label of slut or even randi for that matter. To quote a few lines from the slut walk Toronto website which speaks of how and why the slut walk started

On January 24th, 2011, a representative of the Toronto Police gave shocking insight into the Force’s view of sexual assault by stating: “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized”.

Historically, the term ‘slut’ has carried a predominantly negative connotation. Aimed at those who are sexually promiscuous, be it for work or pleasure, it has primarily been women who have suffered under the burden of this label. And whether dished out as a serious indictment of one’s character or merely as a flippant insult, the intent behind the word is always to wound, so we’re taking it back. “Slut” is being re-appropriated.

Clearly, the word slut does not have the same historical presence as above in the Indian vocabulary. We never used the word ‘slut’ in the same way, so what are we reclaiming? Who are we reclaiming it from? Why do we have to reclaim it when most people in Delhi do not even know what it means? And if the point of the event is only to say that we never asked for it, then you don’t have to call it Slut Walk just because that phrase sparked interests in other countries.

The idea of a ‘slut walk’ has good intentions behind it but sadly it is a flash campaign without a context.

When these flash campaigns are floated or adopted nobody thinks through the entire process of executing the campaign. Questions like, who are we addressing through the campaign, what is it that we are trying to change, who are the change partners, what language do they speak are seldom considered. What becomes more important is how quickly can we spread the word, gather crowd, gain popularity, how many people Liked the campaign’s Facebook page, how many followers on Twitter, the poster, the logo, the t-shirt and the ‘awesomeness.’ The campaign becomes bigger than the cause itself.  It becomes a fun day out for the participants who would come in their loudest dresses, makeups and fancy props; becomes a field day for the photographers and film makers and a street spectacle for the public. In the end the campaign fades out leaving the public often unmoved and sometimes confused.

I am afraid that is the exact fate of the ‘slut walk’ in Delhi. With the noise around it on social media and with mainstream media picking it up as the next cool youth led campaign since ‘Pink Chaddi,’ an average Delhi man, who is the habitual ogler and groper on the DTC buses and have never heard of ‘slut walk’ before, would in his curiosity, look it up on Google. This is what he is likely to find:

And If he, in his even more curiosity, looks it up in Google Image Search he would find jaw dropping images such as these:

The man would then be excited with the idea and would look forward to the event. On the specified date if he happens to be at the spot where the slut walk is being held he would ogle some more at the participants and once the show would be over he would go back home in a DTC bus rubbing his erected dick onto the shoulders of some girl sitting on the ladies seat in front of him and pushing it against the butt of another girl standing in front of him at the exit door.

These girls would not be participants of the slut walk and they would not be able to save themselves from the harassment. These girls by all means would also not want to ‘reclaim’ the word ‘slut.’ Women of my mother’s age are routinely harassed, ogled at and groped by men in public spaces. These women neither know the word nor do they want to reclaim it.

I have all my empathy for the young people who presumed that just because a new movement is gaining popularity in the US, UK and Australia, the same is required to be adopted in India in exactly the same fashion, but I have to say that it is a misplaced campaign with a good intention.

Sometimes we become victims of euro-centrism, we assume that whatever the west does is good for us and we must adopt it. The wikipedia entry for Slut Walk says its an ‘international movement.’ So far it has been held in just a handful of cities and is already claimed to be an international movement. And we must adopt it in order to be part of something ‘international.’ It is not wrong to adopt a movement that started in a different country but sometimes there is a need to contextualize it.

The Slut Walk happened in Canada because  a cop there made a speech in which he justified sexual violence against women by calling them slut. In India, few months back a movie was released which had a line,

“tawaaif ki loot ti izzat bachana aur tees maar khan to kaid karna dono bekaar hai”

Attempts to save the modesty of a prostitute being raped and to try to arrest tees maar khan, both are useless. [see video]

Perhaps we needed a ‘tawaaif walk’ back then. We still need one. But a ‘slut walk’ we just don’t need.

Comparison with other campaigns

Since its announcement some people have compared ‘slut walk’ with another campaign also addressing the issues of street harassment and sexual violence against women, the Blank Noise Project. In my opinion the two are not the same and in fact cannot even be compared. Blank Noise Project is a more meaningful campaign that started out by some girls and women sharing their real life stories of how they have faced street harassment at one time or the other. It inspired women to lose their inhibitions and speak up against street harassment or eve-teasing and many women who shared their stories felt empowered. The project then organized a walk where they asked girls and women to show up in a dress in which they had faced eve teasing. Several turned up in ‘decent’ clothing such as salwar suit or saree. The idea was that no matter what the dress was every woman had faced eve-teasing at one point or the other.

Blank Noise Project started with a blog and gradually became a national movement

Another comparison is being drawn between the slut walk and the annual gay pride parade that takes place in Delhi and other cities. Again, the two are not same.

Gay parades are about celebrating identities. The LGBT community come together in bright colors and march to the beats of peppy music carrying amusing banners and posters to celebrate their sexuality in which they take pride. Indian women on the other hand have never identified with the word ‘slut’ and they certainly don’t want to celebrate being one. Because the word is always used, albeit in a niche group, as a form of abuse even by women themselves.

On the question of usage of the word ‘slut’ Dr. Jyotsna Chatterji founder of Joint Women’s Programme, a National Women’s Rights_Organization based in Delhi  said, “the words that have the most significance in the Indian context are Randi, Dayen (witch)  The English word ‘slut’ might have less significance as use of abuses such as Randi and Dayen are rampant and are a part of the language conditioning.” On being asked to share her opinion on the Slut Walk Delhi she seemed to agree with the basic cause of the event. “A woman’s dress can in no way decide a man’s behaviour. It is his  mind and attitude towards women.  If a woman’s dress is criticized for being the cause of a man’s behaviour, and a  dress code is prescribed for women, that is wrong. It is a different matter if a certain dress code is decided for a particular occasion, in which case women should adhere, provided no such dress code is  imposed on women alone. Every woman has the right to dress according to her choice without being subjected to violence and criticism,” she explained. She further opined that even though such an event is less likely to make much of difference there is no harm in organizing the event. “At least public will know girls and women are protesting against inequality,” she said.

When Bangalore based flim maker, Madan Ramvenkatesh was asked if has heard the word slut he said, “it’s a rare word and one only comes across it in Movies.” Regarding the slut walk in Delhi he said, he wasn’t aware of any such thing. But so far as the word slut is concerned he mentioned, “it’s an unhealthy word not much in use in India and so a movement to reclaim it doesn’t make much sense.”

Delhi based photographer Udit Kulshrestha is of the opinion that the word ‘slut’ is often used in India by both men and women and that a movement like Slut Walk Delhi is important to make people aware of the gender equality and dignity. “That we are all equal human beings and not toys for somebody’s sexual appetite,” he exclaimed when asked about his support for the Slut Walk.

Documentary film maker Tarini Manchanda believes the movement has a lot of significance in spirit in so far as the practice of blaming the victim of sexual harassment goes and is curious to see how the movement is contextualized  in Delhi. She said, “The issue of branding women as slut and further victimizing them is the same all across the globe but I wonder how will a slut walk go down with the Indians, will it give the right message or a distorted one?” On the question of whether the word slut is in use in India she said, “only in a small section of young people who are used to watching American Television”

To conclude, Slut Walk is an important event for some cities, in some other cities it has to be introduced after putting it in the right context. The cause behind it is very genuine, but a genuine cause with a misplaced campaign is even worse. I only wish this amount of zeal and enthusiasm were used to strengthen and sustain an already existing campaign rather than floating a new one.

You have got to hit the right nail at the right time and you’ve got to keep hitting it.

Equally bizarre is the scene in Mahabharata where Draupadi was being stripped off her clothes in the and the entire kingdom was watching. I wonder what was the intention behind writing such mythologies, what did they try to convey? All I gather from these is violence against women and they make me very angry. At least I wouldn’t let any of my children to read these mythologies.

More on this later, as of now, here’s an article I wrote for Bell Bajao blog. Read below:

A police officer in UP beat up a woman accused brought into the police station for interrogation puposes. He slapped her repeatedly on the face and snatched her veil, when she fell off he pulled her up by her hair. A lady police officer standing next to them, stood by, without moving a finger, without uttering a word. If you have the guts to see the disturbing images, here is the video. The news report is here

When will we stop passing the buck?

People often ask me, “can your organization take this up?” In the context of some incidence of violence against woman they’ll approach an organization and ask them if the organization can take some action.

Few days back I got a call at work, a certain gentleman said there is a family in his neighborhood where a lot of domestic violence goes on, the husband apparently is a drunkard and he beats his wife frequently. So the gentleman asked me how can we help him.

The immediate thought that came to my mind was to report the matter to the police. But he said that will be too extreme a step. So I  said, “sir, to begin with do an immediate intervention, next time you hear violence take some more people with you and simply knock at their door, ring the bell literally and stop it. Tell him it is not acceptable in the society. Once you have intervened rest will follow, report the matter to Protection Officer, file an FIR at the nearest police station if need be and so on.”

But those were not the solutions the gentleman was looking for. He asked, “But what can your organization do? No body will do that kind of intervention here, Koi nahi karta hai ji, can’t the organization do something?”

I said, “if the neighbors who are the closest to the family can’t intervene, how do you expect an organization to intervene, sir?”

When he insisted I gave him the contact of Lawyer’s collective, HRLN and Jaagori because Breakthrough doesn’t do direct interventions.*

For how long are we going to pass the buck? When will we stop and do something with our own faculties — our eyes, ears, hands and heart. Our eyes see violence, we stand by and watch — what are we doing? Why do we behave like we don’t exist, what are we waiting for? A divine intervention?

In Mahabharata when Draupadi was being molested a room full of men watched. Every body watched and enjoyed some waited for a divine intervention. Are we all following that example?

The truth really is that violence doesn’t exist because husbands are drunkards or mentally ill. Violence also doesn’t exist because the family is poor or uneducated. Violence exist because we don’t stop it.

Today, ask yourself, what are you doing as an individual? Even bigger question is WHY are you NOT doing?

*Breakthrough doesn’t deal with individual cases – they do mass media campaign, mobilize, inspire, educate, revolutionize — so that individuals don’t pass the buck anymore.

Disclaimer: I work for Breakthrough but my organization doesn’t necessarily endorse my thoughts and ideas, they are mine and mine alone.

Are you getting married soon or are arranging a marriage for your siblings or children and want to say no to dowry in an elegant and noticeable way? India Together has a simple and no-cost solution for you. Our D-Free wedding card catalogue. Wedding invitations that inform people far and near can be a powerful tool to give prominence to one’s concerns against dowry. A D-Free wedding card can be used in weddings that do not involve any dowry.

 

Launch the entire catalogue here.  

There are a couple of cool designs there which is a mix of tradition and modernity however if you don’t want to pick the cards in the catalogue you can chose one of the logos from the range of multiple colors Dowery Free Logo which can be put on any card of your choice.

I wonder how many people know about it and even if they know will they ever have the good sense to actually say NO to dowry. I have noticed the affluent educated class in India have been inventing new ways to give and take dowry. True they don’t call it a ‘dowry’. For eg. the other day I heard, the groom’s family did all the arrangements of the wedding and asked the bride’s parents to simply pay up their share in cash. Not a dowry, since you are not spending anything in the wedding its just your share of the usual wedding expenses, fair play eh? 

I don’t think so, any cash transaction looks like dowry to me. Personally the extravganza around wedding and other ceremonies annoys me. I a follower of a socialist mindset in this regard. It’s a crime to spend anymore than the minimum required in a country where people commit suicide because they don’t have enough to eat.

Am reminded of a song by Kabir Suman, title of the track is Dha dhin dhin na and the lines I am particularly reminded of talks about the socialist ideology, don’t accumulate any more wealth  than what you need for the basic survival, and least of all, don’t flaunt your wealth infront of the millions which sleep hungry. .

Aami khaai tumi kaaho,
sakkale khak na.

Keu jodi beshi khaao,
khabar hisheb naao,
jaano na anekeyi bhalo kore khaaye na.

khaoa na khaoar khela,
jodi chale sara bela,
kakhon ki ghate jaaye kicchu bala jaaye na.  

Translated:

I eat you eat, may everybody eat.
If you eat more, keep a score, coz
don’t you know, many
don’t eat any.

If you play this game,
of having to eat, and not eat
for all day long
you would never know
when would what go wrong.

No bisexuals in humans

That, is more or less the crux of a post written by Sukumar which again is inspired by another post by Dumaketu. I appreciate the blogger’s guts to write about such topic (although I didn’t understand his post one bit), but OH MY GOD what a faulty presumption. I can’t even begin to write about it.

I come across young men like Sukumar every now and then and wonder how could one ever bridge this gap between these two worlds…the hetero-normative world being oblivious to the other world which knows no labelling.

There is no such thing as hetero, homo, bi, transgender, transsexual. What we need to learn is we cannot classify human sexuality in any square boxed categories and we cannot and should not label them. The minute you label a behaviour it implies all other behaviour not fitting that label are non existent and therefore unacceptable. Labelling is the first step towards demanding conformity and it gives out a massage that, “thou shall be ostracized if thou don’t conform.”

At different time and place over the history of the world societies have labelled and accorded acceptance to various sexual behaviours. But we have also ostracized those who didn’t ‘fit in’ even at that time and place to that particular behaviour.

Thus, many of us who know about them, have given some kind of acceptance to the traditional prostitutes belonging to the bedia tribes In Madhya Pradesh. But we surely consider it a taboo when we see some one from a different community in prostitution. What is acceptable for bedias for reasons of it being in the tradition is not ok for other caste and community members.

There are many things that makes my life worth-full, one of them is my proud association with Sexuality and Rights Institute which bridged this sad gap for me. That explains why it disturbs me so much to see the hetero-normative youth not having a clue about sex and gender.

I am more troubled than others. Because my friends in SRI were comrades from the civil society working towards the attainment of various human rights including the right to chose one’s own sexuality. They are surrounded by such other comrades all sensitive towards each other’s causes. But I was from a different world altogether. I am some from the capitalist world having mostly worked with multinationals.

I have seen traditional girls and boys who pretend they don’t even know how babies are made. Some of them are  slightly better, with an intellectual bent of mind, they read write and talk about Modi, Cricket, Bush and Oil and show ‘respect’ to ‘homosexuality’ but none of them, NONE have a damn clue about the ‘others’ those who are just like us in all other aspects but don’t conform to what we think is normal and natural.

Just to give a quick rough idea, you see just because I was born with a vagina doesn’t mean I have to be a woman. Again what is a man and woman is disputed. Point is sex is a natural phenomenon while gender is a social construct. They are not the same thing. The reproductive organs do not determine our behaviour, how we talk, walk, think, dream, dress etc. they are determined by what society expects from us and what role and responsibilities it imposes upon.

I will continue to write more on sex and gender, meanwhile interested people, for a start might want to read about Alfred Kinsey’s life and work. He was the first American to do a scientific research on human sexuality and was the founder of The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. The extremely controversial and tabooed research works were initially funded by The Rockefellar University but later the funds were pulled due to protests from conservative groups.

Good to have friends today but you better not count too much on them. Coz no one stays. No one. From parents, to siblings, to friends, to partners, to children, they all are bound to have other priorities at one point or the other. Today you might be on some one’s priority list tomorrow you may not. You might be some one’s ‘need’ today, but needs change.

So, make yourself independent financially, physically and emotionally. Stop fearing.

Make, edit and revise your own list of priorities,
keep finding new roads to tread,
new games to play,
new lessons to learn.

When you proceed with a new venture, carry nothing but sweet memories from the previous, make sure you are forgetful bout the bitter ones.

Don’t ask me to promise, I’ll stay.

Recently one of my colleague resigned. She has been born and brought up in Delhi. She resigned cause she is leaving Delhi forever getting married to a well settled educated guy back there in Kerala.“Good part is that they have told me I can study as long as I want.”She has told me when she broke the news.“But what about your awaiting judiciary results. Have you taken that into consideration when you said yes to the proposal.” I asked. “What about the results. Doesn’t matter whether I crack or not. There’s aint any question of thinking twice. I can’t let go off my marriage for my career.” Couple of days later the results for the Main UP Judiciary Examinations were out. She cracked it. The qualifiers are appointed as a Munsif Magistrate in any of the districts in UP. Eventually the person with seniority and capability can go up the ladder till becoming a High Court Judge. She left it all just cause she had to marry. The day the results were out everyone in the office were busy congratulating her. Phone calls and sms(s) were pouring down on her with loads and loads of wishes and congrats. I probably was the only one who didn’t. I failed to understand why people were congratulating her? Her success was so futile and her hard work so gonna go in vain. Good part is she can study as long as she wants. She would have been administering justice for Christ sake. But she can’t let the man go. She can’t miss the catch.

Woman stop being the one who catches. Be the catch no man would want to miss. You don’t need them. They need you