Pink Panties in a twist.

When the Huffington Post joins in  reporting this with a headline on their front page, you know it is an idea that has arrived. And what a good idea it is.

Spread some Valentine love and make a protest at the extreme moral policing carried out. Send pink panties to the idiotic Ram Sene to make a point. From the consortium of pub-going, loose and forward women. 

Like the proest by the Burmese women against the junta. Panties are a piece of underwear. Pink ones decidedly feminine. And sending underwear to anyone is a protest.

 I find myself a little surprised at the tone of the  "these are directed to a Western audience",pieces of dissent. I read about us needing  a dialog to talk about this on Roop's blog. For the latter, I don't think one can have a dialog on something like moral policing. Moral police are bullies. Humiliation- as public as possible is what they need. Because talk they will not.

For the former pieces, I wonder, about the whole Western/modern- real India divide. Is the underlying idea that real Indian women neither go to pubs, nor wear panties, nor protest the same way? Or do they have other issues. Because in this "panties protest" I only  see a taking on the patriarchy- something which impacts every section of society. 

I agree that through Facebook and other networking sites, this campaign has become exponentially viral, and has got a lot of media coverage. But indeed, is the idea behind it elite? Or have the elite stopped being Indian citizens? Or are the elite and their eliteness only Indian as long as it is an "India shining" idea (where the development of Indian industry and the growth of IT are touted as India with great potential- you know the whole hue and cry about "poor India" being a Western stereotype- "look up any critque of Slumdog Millionaire)? It was the same kind of attitude I saw when people protested the Mumbai 26/11 atttacks. South Mumbai, their detractors screamed, no one is paying atttention to VT. And as the furore died away, no one- not  even the non-elite Indians- thought it important to talk about Assam and the bomb blasts there. 

To an extent we do come across a bias in the media(hey they are only human). They do report what their average reader, viewer wants to hear (but that is how the market works- you sell what you make profits on). And yes the media could probably do better being more fair and balanced and reporting everything they can. Which, also they do- as best as they can. But, I do not always find reader interest in the sections of "general" news. A case in point, the Times of India's online edition. I  find a report on crimes against women in the paper every single day- usually on the front page. Rarely have I found a comment on it. But an inane remark made by the moral policeman is a headliner. Is it really the media?Only?

But this was not my point. In my opinion, those who distinguish between "real" India and " elite" non-India( oh yes, I have heard Nisha Susan called a Non Indian Resident - on rediff- but such sagacity is to be expected there!) are themselves guilty of trying to obfuscate the very idea the protest is about.

 No one is for being "loose" or "pubgoing" or (help us here) "forward" ( though really, it is better than being a goon trying to get the ancient Indian morals back). The very name of the consortium is a cheeky look at the negative branding these terms receive. No one, not the consortium at least, want underage minors to drink. I suppose like all loose, pubgoing women- of which I am a proud member, they too started their inebriation experiments at very responsible ages. And like me, I bet they too are very responsible serious members of society. No, the idea is to ridicule the policing. Yes, it is a rather "Western" way to do so. But then the humble "aloo" is also  a very Western import- as are coffee and tea. There are no entirely indigenous, true to the native soil ways to speak out against things. Human beings, you know, are pretty similar- despite holding different passports. And moral policing is wrong whether it be in deepest Kandahar, Sirsa, or in Mangalore. And there is no room for debate. A group of free people where bashed up, by  a group of thugs. That is room for judgment not of debate(imagine if it were a bank that were robbed, would the Honorable Minister be talking about "taking the law in their hands"? Maybe under the very pro-India BJP, the law of the land has changed to make all alcohol illegal- and women drinking it even more so?). 

I remember a statement someone made about how the 9/11 attacks were good because they opened the eyes of America to terrorism. In my opinion, that was insensitive- saying a lot more about the speaker than about the politics. The "elite blame" of this incident has similar connotations. Because the women who protest the pub attacks are the English speaking,  pub going minority, it does not make them any less Indian nor the attack any more "acceptable". 

The pink chaddis protest serves as a means to open the dialog about how badly women are treated in India- that even the elite- with their money, and connections, can be bullied just because of their sex. I hope the Pink panties are kept as a handy tool to speak out against all kinds of injustice against women in India- be it a dress code , foeticide or an abrogation of choice. I sincerely hope this is the first step in a journey to a more feminist discourse.