Sexual Harassment
A story of surviving India as a woman, and how things are changing, slowly but surely.
Yesterday
· 08:30 am Updated Yesterday · 03:16 pm
Thank you Mahesh Sharma for
reminding me that it is up to us foreign girls to dress modestly rather than
for desi boys to behave appropriately or for the police to be actively part of
ensuring everyone’s safety in India.
There is nothing new, however, in
the tourism minister suggesting handing out welcome kits telling women not to
wear skirts or go out at night. It eerily reminded me of the guidelines given
to me over 25 years ago before I first came to India.
My first taste of India
Rewind to 1990 in Montreal. I sat
through a pre-orientation for a Summer Study Abroad in India programme. We were
provided tips on appropriate behaviour, dress, health and safety. Some of these
suggestions were remarkably similar to the tourism minister’s controversial
comments.
Traveling all over India, we were
struck by the contrast in what was acceptable in different contexts and parts
of the country. We witnessed clear gender segregation and strict hierarchies,
norms of behavior in rural Gujarat that contrasted completely with young
couples merrily sauntering hand-in-hand on the streets of downtown Bangalore.
And those guidelines? Dressing
modestly was no magic shield from being harassed. Instead, traveling in a
group, sprinkled with our limited male members, did the trick.
It was a remarkable experience and
an early lesson on how multiple realities and rules coexist – particularly in
matters of gender relations.
Introduction to eveteasing
Fast forward to 1995, I returned,
as a student in Delhi. This time, I was on my own. No orientation, no guides,
no group. I lived as a paying guest with a family for a year.
From the first week, I navigated
Delhi Transport Corporation buses and was immediately acquainted with the real
meaning of the innocuous sounding phrase eveteasing. On the buses, it meant
various body parts rubbed and hands grabbed private places they had no right
to.
Did what I wore make a difference?
Only slightly. A simple salwar kurta did not prevent unwanted attention. I was
young, blue-eyed, fair and, therefore, fair prey.
And then the family I was living
with shared a story.
A story of how the matriarch mashi
was driving past a bus stop near IIT Gate and saw a young woman being taunted
by a young man on a bicycle. The girl kept her eyes downcast, shrinking into
herself. The boy grew more emboldened. Until, mashi intervened.
She leapt out of her car, yanked
the boy off his bike, grabbed her chappal and started hitting him on the head.
“How dare you abuse this girl? Have you no shame? No mother? No sister?” Scared
witless, the boy ran off.
But the story did not end here.
Mashi then turned to the girl. “Why
did you let him get away with misbehaving? If he does this to you today, what
more will he try in future?”
The girl in question was not a
foreigner. It had nothing to do with her eye, skin or hair colour. Only her
gender.
The story empowered me to shed my
polite Canadian demeanour and fight back. Practising my rudimentary Hindi, I
embarrassed the perpetrators by shaming them loudly, shoving away their groping
fingers.
Simplistic notions of not wearing a
skirt or going out alone at night were not enough to survive Delhi. What I had
to learn was to behave boldly if required. To expect harassment and be prepared
for battle.
It worked. And as I accepted this
new reality, I began to see a social revolution around me.
Urban India was changing. Night
clubs pulsed till the wee hours. Ad campaigns pushed the boundaries of
censorship. Couples lived together before marriage.
And the hypocrisy that sometimes
lay beneath conservative veneers was revealed.
That elderly tauji who demands you
behave modestly, giving due respect to his stature? He had a long-term mistress
with two daughters.
The India I knew on the inside was
not the India people perceived on the outside.
Adopting India
For more than a decade, I’ve been
fortunate to call India my adopted home.
And I found it ironic when I was
asked to give advice for a Study Abroad in India programme.
How do I translate my years here to
guide young women coming to India for the first time?
How do I encourage them to find a
delicate balance between being true to themselves and open to new experiences
and, yet, being sensitive to the different environments they will encounter?
Knowing that any step they take to
reduce unwanted attention simply may not make a difference.
How do I alert them to the shifting
sands of acceptability based on context, time of day, location, company and
more?
How do I make them acknowledge that
India is not alone in its male chauvinistic notions and its inability to keep
the vulnerable safe, that sexual harassment is unfortunately universal?
Today, I have age on my side. I
have grown from being a young didi to a mature aunty, my hair spiked with
silver. In Mumbai, I can wear a dress, go out at night and, chances are, I will
be fine.
Yet, I look back on those
guidelines I was given in 1990 and wonder how much has really changed.
And isn’t there another story in
that?
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