[In the wake of social media talking about the Burka Avenger I am republishing an article I wrote long back for the Bell Bajao Blog. The article was originally written in the context of France banning the burqa in public places. But it still holds good in the present context. With regard to the show Burka Avenger which is an animated TV show about a young Muslim super woman dressed in burka armed with pens and books, all of which sounds very cool, my only objection being anything that reinforces the Burqa or Hijab is NOT cool. Burqa is a sign of oppression and it would always remind us of that. It's a different matter that many women across the globe have owned it, or taken control of their identities with or without a burqa but if we go into the origin it reminds of oppression. That said, I haven't seen the show so can't really make an opinion on the same.]

I speak about the tradition of wearing a Hijab or Burqa in the context of this Spanish short film by Xavi Sala about Hijab in Europe and the discrimination young Muslim women face in a so-called “free” Europe.

The film shows a young school girl being confronted by her teacher where she in various ways tries to convince the girl to take off her head scarf, which is seen as a symbol of religion. Through the 5 min conversation, we hear the various arguments in favour of the decision to ban Hijab in public schools. The teacher says “we want people to be equal, no one else is wearing a hijab why do you want to wear it? Do your parents hit you if you don’t wear it? This is a place for freedom and liberty, here we cannot allow a sign of oppression.”

The young girl reveals there is no pressure on her from any side, even her parents want her to take it off, but she simply doesn’t want to. She says, “I cannot see myself without it”

Finally she gives in, takes off the head scarf and goes inside the classroom. She takes one look at the students sitting there, none of the students appear equal so far as their physical appearance, clothes, fashion, hairdo were concerened, if one was wearing a bandana, another was wearing a cap, somebody had a weird hairstyle, another had a tattoo, others had piercings…the room was full of all kinds appearance sported by the students. Only she was not allowed to wear a Hijab because that, as per the law makers, was a symbol of religion.

Her freedom to chose whether she wants to wear the Hijab or not was given to her. It will not be too difficult to view this as Islam phobia on the law maker’s part.

In the context of Islam phobia, I read an article which talks about how the progressive Muslim community at large is urging their women to take off the Hijab. I quote,

Opinions about the hijab are often discordant and sometimes contradictory: Is the hijab a duty or a right? Is the hijab an indication of religious freedom or of submission to Islamic extremism?

On March 8th 2008 a group of Arabic websites and blogs launched the international campaign “Take off the veil,” arguing that it is a response to what they see as “intellectual terrorism” practiced by strict Islamic groups and individuals. One of the campaign’s leaders was Elham Manea, a professor at the University of Zurich, who bravely said: “My hair is not a sex symbol that I should be ashamed of, and my body is not a stage for men’s fantasies. I am a noble human being with my hair and body.”

So far so good, I think I understand both views fairly. I however have some unanswered questions. Some time back I got into this debate on twitter. It started when I made a statement on Twitter saying, “the hijab looks like a sign of oppression to me, I don’t understand how some Muslim women happily wear it.” Masarat Daud a progressive, liberal, secular Muslim woman who proudly wears the hijab immediately responded to me asking how could I make that judgment when I have never actually worn it. We debated for almost half an hour exchanging tweets back and forth.

I have never worn a hijab / burqa, but I still feel it’s oppression on the basis of how I would feel if I was asked to wear one. A big black shapeless colorless garment which covers me from head to toe I will die inside it. In Bangalore everyday while on my way to work I used to see hundreds of young girls wearing it on their way to college near ‘Commercial Street’.

I remembered my college days, they were best days, of the many fun things we did, shopping was the most favourite. But how much fun is it for a burqa wearing woman to go shopping? Do they feel excited to buy that brand new jeans in store? Or that new Remanika skirt? In summers, do they go shopping for those nice pastel summer shades, how about that long over coat for the winters? Or do they not go shopping at all?

What happens to those small aspirations and desires of young girls to look nice, special, to feel good about what they are wearing, to wear something that compliments their bodies, to look at the mirror and feel nice about what she sees? These desires are all sinful?

When a girl happily makes a choice to wear a Burqa she still is not making a positive choice, it is a negative choice. She wears it because she is conditioned to think think it is the right thing for her to cover her modesty. She wasn’t born with that wisdom somebody told her that it is the right thing to do. Who said it, we don’t know, religion perhaps?

One is also not sure which part of our body exactly is the ‘modesty’. Is it our breasts or the waist or the neck line or the cleavage or the vagina? It is also not clear whether those who cover their modesty are of the impression that others who don’t are not modest. So Sania Mirza or Katrina Kaif are immodest?

When a girl is born in any family she doesn’t automatically know what she will wear when she grows up. Somebody in the family or society tells her what to wear what not to wear. We don’t come with the advance knowledge on types of garments like what is a sari, salwar kameez, trouser, skirt, long dress, short dress et all. We learn from what we see around us.

Some of us have that choice to pick and wear whatever we feel like, some don’t. That’s the difference.

I will have no problem if a girl wears a burqa because she thought it was fashionable to wear one or because she thinks she really looks nice and comfortable in it but if she is wearing it because it is a dress code given to her by her religion it becomes oppression.

That’s why in the short film I fail to agree with the message. A tattoo, a weird hairdo, a bandana or a funky caps are things available in the market as fashion items and we pick up out of our own free will. Religion or culture has got nothing to do with it. But a burqa is given to us by the religion. Whether it is forcible or not, it still remains a religious dictate.

And this oppression is not against women, the dictate that Muslim men should have beard, or Sardar men should have long hair are equally oppressive.

What have I got myself into? An online war where Facebook is taking sides with my enemy and punishing me arbitrarily. The fight is rather insignificant and juvenile, mere rivalry between the fans of a Bengali TV show Ishti Kutum. But what has been revealed through this is that Facebook is UNFAIR and BIASED. They are taking arbitrary decisions of removing posts at the behest of somebody they consider powerful or so. Worse is Facebook doesn’t give me the right to challenge their decision of removing my content. They say the content are in violation of ‘community guidelines’ but they are wrong and I can prove it, if only I knew where and how to challenge.

To give you a background of what’s happening, I started writing about the Bengali TV show Ishti Kutum, about a year back on both my blog and on Facebook fan page. The show has a massive fan following and they are divided into two major camps, the Archi Baha Camp and the Kamalika camp. Archi Baha are the leading protagonist of the story, the husband wife and Kamalika is the other woman. All pro Archi Baha discussions and comments are posted on Ishti Kutum fan page or Star Jalsha’s official page. And the Kamalika camp have started their own page known as MIK. On this page the members have been violently maligning the characters of Archi and Baha, for almost a year now.

I belong to the Archi Baha camp and absolutely hate the Kamalika character and cannot think of writing anything good about her. I write passionately against that character and so her fans hate me. In their frustration, anger and inability to win over me in a fair game of logic reason and arguments  they have now started ‘reporting’ my posts and comments to Facebook as ‘violation of Community Guidelines’

So far so good, they have the right to fight in whatever way they can. But just because somebody reported my content doesn’t mean it would automatically get removed. Facebook has a policy of reviewing the content and take a decision on whether to remove it or not. This is where logic and Facebook is failing me. If they honestly review my content which are mostly written in Bengali using Roman letters they would see that my content is NOT in violation of any Community Guidelines.

But it seems they are NOT honestly reviewing my content and are rather taking actions against me at the behest of somebody. Who is this invisible enemy who is constantly reporting my content and whose reports Facebook takes so damn seriously that my absolutely harmless content is immediately removed is beyond me.

I am sharing screenshots to prove my point. My content is written in English so it should not be difficult to understand that the said content were not in violation of any guidelines.

A Post written in Bengali using Roman letters. Did they honestly get this reviewed by a Bengali?

A comment expressing a simple opinion on a poll created by Star Jalsha Facebook Page removed by Facebook on flimsy grounds.

A comment posted on another person’s post, a rather harmless expression of opinion about a TV show character, Facebook claims it violates Community Guidelines?

Some questions arise from this bizarre experience:

• What is Facebook’s policy of review? Do they actually engage human for this purpose?
• If humans are reviewing are they well conversant in the language in which the post was made?
• Are they taking decisions at the behest of people they think are important, for example the admins of a Facebook page with more than two lakhs LIKES (I suspect person reporting my content has close links with Star Jalsha page admin, and this same person is behind Kamalika camp)?
• Facebook doesn’t have any policy of giving the right to challenge these arbitrary decisions. There is no number you can call, no email ID you can write to. A thread here discusses how difficult it is to reach them in the physical world. Assuming they are taking decisions at the behest of strong and powerful, what are the chances that a lone rebel would ever raise their voice?

I feel angry that this is happening to me. But at the same time I know this is only a silly fight over a TV show. What I am afraid of is the role Facebook is playing in a fight between two factions. What if it was something big and of larger social importance? As we can see, Facebook is clearly taking sides, presumably of the rich and powerful. And that’s a scary situation.

Finally, there is just one solace, a sense of joy, a feeling of victory that my writings have become such a nightmare for an entire group, so much so that they have to resort to unfair means of silencing me. But they forget that I still have this blog which doesn’t have stupid unfair policy’s like Facebook, which has a larger reach by way of Google search, which is more permanent as it doesn’t disappear from public memory as soon as it goes down the newsfeed.

The first content reported by the enemy and consequently removed by Facebook was my ‘Open letter to Ankita Chakrabarty, the actor playing the role of Mun in Ishti Kutum. After being removed from Ishti Kutum, that letter was posted on this blog and have since then reached enormous amount of viewers. Removing it from Facebook actually did more harm than good. Today if you search anything related to Ishti Kutum this letter comes up on the Google search result. There is no escape.

My blog stats, showing the reach of the open letter to Ankita Chakrabarty.

So coming up next, all the content that got removed from Facebook.

7th Aug 2013

Ishti Kutum niye nana loker nana chencha mechi… Ishti Kutum naki sab bhul bhal barta dicche, annaye ke prosroy dicche. Dur dur, jatto sab baje katha. Kichu bhul barta dicche na Ishti Kutum barong bastab dekhache, natun er pathe choleche, chalo paltai theme successful hoyeche.

Kichu manush nyae annaye ektu beshi bujhe feleche, kaekta chena sona buli aorache, divorce ke juju baniye sabai ke bhoy dekhache… bhab ta emon jeno prithibite jekhanei divorce, sekhanei annaye, sekhanei naari pratarito ar purush doshi, duto biye manei kharap, Sotti ki tai? Ajker samaj e anek sustho swabhabik manushra ki ekta biye bhenge areka biye korche na? Tara sabai ninda r patro? Samaje ja ghotche, setai jakhon galpe dekhano hocche, eto keno apotti? Kadin age ‘Ei Somoy’ kagoje ek lekhika ei dharaner ekti article likhlen.  Lekhata khub i apottikar, lekhhika nijer home work na kore, proper research na kore sudhu matro Ishti Kutum er galpo ke akraman karar uddeshe ja hoy ekta kichu likhe gechen. Tar gota lekhar ektai baktabbo, je serial e duto biye dekhano hocche manei samaj nashto hoye jaache… Tar uttore abar ek pathak utsaho peye likheche, “serial er barta sasthkar noy, serial e nayak nayikara duto biye korche eta bastab e sambhab noy amader samaj e ajo sasur barite atycharito meyerao biye bhangar badole galaye dori deoa sreyatara mone kare”

E ki adbhut jukti? Biye na bhenge galaye dori deoatai ki uchit? Ei rakam khetra biye na bhanga tai to regressive. Ei khetre duto biye progressive, ar setai amra Ishti Kutum e dekhchi.

Mante habe lekhika Leenga Gangopadhay er buker pata ache. Tini bastab likhte bhoy pan na, tini janen je tanr lekha hoyto sabai nite parbe na, anekei gaali debe, bolbe egulo anti feminism, tabu pechopa han na. Ajker episode proloy srishti kari episode, lekhika r du:sahos er prosongsha na kore thakte parchhi na.. Jodio apato drishti te dekhte gele khub kharap lagbe, sabai chi chi korbe, anekei jathariti asfalan korche…… “Ki ekta bigamist nijer duto biye r katha buk fuliye bolche, dibyo Anu r sathe annaye korlo ar tao sabai or favour e katha bolche”

Kintu egulo to common dialogue……samaj er chokhe dhulo deoa to sahoj, ektu uhu aha korlei to hoye gelo……kintu ekta kathin sotti ke to eriye gele cholbe na……..ar seta holo ei je sudhu naari nirjatan noy, purush rao nirjatito hoy ——- kichu meye ati sahojei samaj er chokhe dhulo diye, ain adalat er bhoy dekhiye purush der nirjatan korche. IK story te amra dekhchi Anusree Majumdar holo emon ek meye.

samaj meyeder jonno sahojei chokher jal felte pare, ain adalat police sab i meye der favour e…….. tai Anusree Majumdar er moto naari o anayase sabar sympathy chokher jal kurate pare ar dibyojyoti majumdar ke galagali khete hoy, karon sab dosh purush der ghare chapiye deoa tai sahoj. Kintu IK galpe lekhika dekhalen je sab somoy dosh eka purush der noy. Ebang sab samaparke bhangan er pechone eka purush ke dosh deoa jaye na.

IK is a story of bitter realities, extreme emotions and complex relationships. E katha amra ageo jenechi Archi Baha o Mun er trikon er madhome. Aj abar janlam Dibyo, Kanka o Anu r trikon diye. Anu bastab e ekjon nikrishto manush jake bhalobasha jaye na. Dibyo ke se chale bale joy koreche, kintu prakrita rupe tar stree hoye uthte pareni. Tar sasurbari r manush der samman korte pareni. Dibyo kono karone take biye korte badhyo holeo mon theke take stree bole sweekar korte pareni. Bastab rupe tader biye ta hoyeo na haoa r saman.

Marriage, relationship, egulo khub thunko, ekta choto chaara gaacher moto…. jake banchiye rakhar jonno jatno korte hoy. Sei jatner daye eka purush der noy, naari purush ubhoyer. Anu konodin nijer biye/samparka er jatno neyeni. Cheyechu sudhu dibyo r taka poysa naam dak club r kitty party. Ebang tar ei nikrishto manasikata r jonnoi aj se sabar kache ghrinno. Dibyo hote pare adultery/bigamy koreche tabu Dibyo r maa, bon ebang baki sabai Anu r pashe na dariye Kanka r pashe dariyeche. Etai swabhabik. Karon Anusree Majumdar bhalobashar joggo noy.

Naari utthan er mane ei noy je prithibi r sab naari nirdosh, ar karor hajar dosh thakleo naari utthan er name tar dosh dhakte habe. Amar mone hoy na prithibi r kono feminist Anu r swabhab charitra jana r par take kono bhabe support korbe.

Ishti Kutum ‘Chalo Paltai’ theme niye suru hoyechilo, ebong ekjon feminist hisabe, ami bolchi, ei theme successful. Ishti Kutum e amra dekhlam je divorce manei annaye na, majhe majhe naari r samman er khatirei divorce er darkar pare, jemon Archi Mun er khetre. Amra dekhlam purush dwitiyo samparke joriye para manei annaye na, ekta samparka, biye ke banchiye rakhte swami stree dujonei dayebaddho, se daye eka swami r noy. Biye te jadi bhangon dhore, tar daye kakhono kakhono stree ke nite hoy, jemon Anu ke nite habe. Ete naari utthan boi patan hoy na. Ar etai lekhika sahos kore amader ke dekhiyechen.

On their wedding night, in the most tender romantic way, Archi removes Baha’s gold jewellery one by one and decorates her with tribal jewellery.

I am just speechless with the full sojja episode of Ishti Kutum. Just no words to express how beautiful it was. Never seen a more beautiful full sojja in my entire life…. It was just WOW WOW WOW….

Magic Moments Motion Pictures Pvt.Ltd have beat the Yash Raj Productions or any other Bollywood production house in creating the ultimate romance with style and elegance. Adding to that was Archisman’s path breaking gesture.

Archisman, take a bow…you created another revolution by one small gesture, you gave us new eyes to see things in new way.

GOLD – The symbol of rich upper caste extravaganza, the weapon in hands of patriarchy, the main instrument of dowry, the reason for so many dowry deaths, the reason behind many tears of many girls and their poor parents – today Archisman the youth icon discarded that GOLD and instead decorated Baha with what is truly her gold, her tribal jewellery, her identity. Archi showed us that what you buy with money is not the only gold. Gold is the love, to hold on to your original identity is gold.

Gold – the reason of all cacophony and bitterness in Archi Baha’s wedding, all the drama of Dibyo’s buying gold jewellery, Anu’s changing them with fake ones, Mun’s rushing with gold to save the day – All of these failed to utter insignificance by just one gesture of Archi discarding the gold and glitter. He would rather have Baha in her poor village attire, the way he loved her always.

Archisman you continue to show the right path to the future generation.

IK team, a huge thanks for such a beautiful FULL SOJJA episode.

I have heard of many fashion faux pas, but Bengali TV actress Ankita Chakraborty’s awkward dress worn at the Complan Tele Samman Awards beats them all. It was truly hilarious. Even the host Mir couldn’t stop making a comment about it. It looked like a maternity sack to say the least. Perhaps she needed to wear it to cover her excessively bloated bottom.

Ankita Chakraborty at the Complan Tele Samman Awards, wearing the most ridiculous dress I’ve ever seen.

I don’t understand, why couldn’t she stick to the traditional Bengali attire, the Saree. A Saree brings elegance, style and sensuality. But I guess to wear elegance, you have to be elegant which I doubt Ankita Chakraborty is. What was she thinking of herself? Some Hollywood glamour queen? Is she trying to imitate Aishwariya Rai at the Cannes red carpet? Last year, at the Tele Samman Awards Ronita Das who plays Baha in Ishti Kutum got the Best Actress award, she wore a beautiful white saree which spoke of her inner beauty and simplicity unlike Ankita.

The entire award show was also quite substandard and was a mark of the Bengali culture and tradition going to the dogs. The dance and other acts were cheap and vulgur and unoriginal having borrowed inspiration from Bollywood.

If we compare the Tele Samman Awards with the Star Jalsha Parivaar Awards the later fares to be a far better representation of Bengali talents and culture. The SJPA has a unique concept where they come together as a family, they reflect tradition, culture, class and elegance. The participants mostly wear traditional dress.

I am not a regular viewer of Bengali awards or shows, but Star Jalsha Parivaar Awards would any day be the best platform for Bengali general entertainment.

Two new headlines, when you read them together the results are dangerous for our environment.

‘NDA govt to dilute environment rules for projects.’

While Indian social media was outraging over the Airtel commercial where the wife/boss goes home and cooks for husband/subordinate, another kind of social media outrage was going on in America. Bunch of women posted their selfies holding placards that gave ground braking justification to why they don’t need feminism. Obviously feminists are outraged. Nobody is surprised though, throughout the history of feminism, there have been women who didn’t know a shit about gender, patriarchy and feminism and were idiots enough to claim they don’t need feminism.

Privileged women who have not faced inequality and oppression have made feminism into a bad word. They talk in first person, “I don’t need feminism” without ever giving a shit about those who aren’t so privileged – do they need feminism? Feminism is the radical notion that women are people with equal rights as men. If you believe in this, you are a feminist. If you don’t get this and you say I am against feminism but I am pro-equality then you are a fucking confused cat against feminism.

I know plenty of such confused cats against feminism. These are intelligent well read well informed women but they have never opened up their mind and tried to see what feminism really is. They live in their own bubble where they don’t need feminism. Somebody told them feminism is about hating men and they actually believed in it. I wonder if they don’t even have the most basic information that feminism began with asking for voting rights for women, equal pay for equal work etc. When did the feminists ever demand the rights to hate men or oppress them? Which definition of feminism and which history have these women against feminist read? Ask them and they won’t have a bloody answer.

The tumblr ‘Confused Cats Against Feminism’ (Pic courtesy) is one of the best reaction to these idiotic anti feminism pro equality women and its started by a man. Another strong reaction ‘Why don’t these ‘Women Against Feminism’ get their sweet asses back in the kitchen?’ also came from a man. These are feminist men. Oops I think I just confused the cats even more by the mention of something called ‘feminist men’ like how is that possible, isn’t it about women hating men?

There is a new Airtel commercial on TV titled ‘Boss’. The ad shows that a woman and her husband both work at the same place where she is the boss. She gives some task to the husband and insists that it be finished within a tight deadline. He argues that it’s not possible but she asserts the he doesn’t have a choice, the task must be completed and shows him the door. Next thing we see is that she goes home cooks a nice dinner and video calls her husband, entices him with food and pleads him to come home soon. It turns out this is the same guy she was bossing around at work.

Outrage over outrage

There is a social media outrage by feminists over the ad. And there is another social media outrage over the feminist outrage.[Link]

The feminists are obviously upset about the fact that the ad perpetuates the stereotype that no matter what you do and how successful you are, you still cook for your husband. Cooking is the wife’s job. The other set of people are upset over the feminists being upset. Their argument is – why the feminists do nitpicking, why can’t they appreciate the ad for breaking gender stereotypes and showing the wife as the boss at work, there are so many other sexist ads on TV, why are feminists not outraging over them and instead targeting an ad that at least attempts to break some stereotype?

Yes, there are many sexist ads on TV and feminist theory criticizes them all. Not just ads, we look at the entire popular culture (films, television, theater, literature, music videos, computer games et all) with our feminist glasses and criticize gender stereotypes and sexism whenever we see them.

This ad might be getting a bit more criticism because it is built on the premise of breaking gender notions but it actually doesn’t. The opening sets a high level of expectation which is then not fulfilled rather frustrated by the way it ends and so the outrage.

Half way to gender equality

The commercial reflects the half-baked gender equality of our time derived from the half-baked understanding of gender norms. A section of young Indian women today are no longer bound by gender norms, they are bravely and confidently stepping out of the confines of four walls and entering the man’s world, taking up traditional men’s role and sometimes proving themselves to be even more successful than men.

But the men are not taking up traditional women roles.

As a society we have made progress to the point that we accept women in traditional men’s role, but not the vice versa. So we now have modern parents who’d say “I would raise my daughter as a son” but you’d never hear someone saying, “I’d raise my son as a daughter.” The aspiration is still to be the ‘son’ of the family. As if masculinity and being a man is a superior trait. So equality to the extent that women can do everything men do is great. But men doing what women traditionally do are not something we aspire for. So we may have more and more working women, but we still think stay at home husbands are a shameful lot living off their wife’s money.

(If a couple cannot afford to hire a full time nanny for their child, if they don’t have any help from family, and it becomes absolutely necessary that one of them must quit the job to stay at home and look after the kid, who do you think would quit? What if both earn equal, then who would quit?)

Modern Indian women’s aspiration is not to shed traditional gender roles but to acquire new un-gendered roles. So while women are working and perhaps taking higher position than their husbands, they are still cooking because that remains their domain and that is their expression of love and care.

To add to their confusion is the modern patriarchal narrative that puts pressure on working women to perform both gender roles and the new roles of their choice by inculcating in them a false glorified sense of being able to do multi-tasking and balancing professional and personal life. Images of woman with multiple hands à la Goddess Durga with mobile phone, laptop in one hand and cooking utensils, baby, baby products, books in other hands are often circulated through social networks to enforce this new gender construct – women are simply better at multi-tasking.

Modern Indian women aspire for this image and work hard to live up to this expectation. They try to perform both their professional duties and household chores with a sense of pride and achievement because they have been made to believe that only very special women can achieve this.

(Why in the history of humankind, men were never asked to aspire for this? Why they were never told that no matter how tired you are from work, you must come home and help with your wife in the kitchen or do the laundry or the dishes. If you don’t do that you are a bad husband. It doesn’t matter what you achieve in your work sphere, if you can’t cook well for your wife and handle your baby you are a bad father? Men don’t have the pressure to prove that they are good husband or father by cooking and cleaning, their worth is proven by their ability to provide. This mindset hasn’t changed much even though today women can also be the provider.)

This ability to balance it all is also how modern women are being judged as good mother, good wife. As Indra K. Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo worried,

“…if you ask our daughters, I’m not sure they will say that I’ve been a good mom. I’m not sure”

If you ask me, not every women need to worry about being a good mother. May be she can just give birth and leave the nurture, care and upbringing part to the man while she focusses on her work, particularly when she is the CEO of one of world’s biggest company.

But no, that is too much of radical men hating family breaking feminism we are talking about. Women must still do the care and nurture part because that’s how nature designed them. Nature made men women different to play different roles and any woman who neglects this natural duty is a bad mother. You might be the CEO but you are a bad mother.

(Ever met a woman, who hates doing household chores, is a terrible cook, and totally sucks at the care and nurture part and her husband, out of his own choice and love for wife does all the household chores and also handles the babies? What would such a woman be called?)

Alternative ending to the Airtel commercial

Could a woman’s love and care toward her husband be expressed by helping him at work? What if they showed that she goes home, works on her laptop and shares data/files/reports/presentation all via Airtel 3G and together meet the deadline? But we are not yet ready for that extreme level of gender de-construction are we? Back home women cook. Period.

Could Airtel alternatively sell their 3G video calling by showing that the women is wearing a sexy black dress and trying to entice her husband by sex instead of food? Would that be more regressive? Would that be objectification of women? Or would it be a welcome change that a women is being depicted as an active sexual being with her own demands that her husband must fulfil?

Self styled censorship and moral policing on TV just boils my blood.

The other day they censored the word ‘sex’ and blurred out a woman’s cleavage in the film Queen.

On VH1 they routinely censor the most harmless everyday language and scenes. In a song by Maroon 5 (Maps) they blurred out the face of an accident victim.

In another song by Meghan Trainor (All about that Bass) they censored the word ‘Booty.’ But on Bollywood music channels they have no qualms in playing the song ‘Punjabiyan di Tooh’ (from Gori Tere Pyaar Mein). Tooh and Booty means the same thing – HIPS.

Worst thing is both in the film Queen and the song by Meghan Trainor the words ‘sex’ and ‘booty’ were used in very important context that gives out a positive message to women. Censoring these words ruins the context. While the Tooh song is nothing but cheap vulgarity, with words like ‘gore gore (fair fair) naughty naughty tooh, shake that tooh’

We are a nation that celebrates a man like Honey Singh, who sings about the pleasures of raping and beating a woman. But we censor the word sex in a strong women oriented film.

Where is our sensibilities? With this level of misplaced censorship what kind of conscience building are we doing for our children? What is this bias against English language entertainment when clearly entertainment is more crass and cheap as it gets local.

When we were young we were told English films are adult films, they got lip to lip kiss. You couldn’t say it in public that you watched and enjoyed a Hollywood film because they’ll call you dirty minded.

The silly phobia of the west.

I honestly want to find out what laws and regulations govern the private entertainment channels, because clearly they go far beyond the Censor Board in their enthusiasm to censor creativity. While the Board is going easy on films these days, censorship on TV is just mindless.

Mardaani is just the kind of film I always wanted to see – a film with complete gender role reversals.

The hundreds of movies I’ve watched in my lifetime, I’ve always wondered how would it be if we changed the gender of the leading characters? In Mardaani, that’s exactly what I have. As a film its nothing unusual, its not something we haven’t seen before. It’s a regular cop movie, a larger than life hero whom the common man can worship because he can single-handedly save the day by kicking asses and knocking solid punches. There are the usual Bollywood elements such as the hero trying to fight the system that is not very supportive, predictable turn of events such as the case being pulled out of the hero’s hands and so the hero decides to carry on investigation alone without any support from the police department and eventually emerge as the winner. 

But, the hero is not a he, its a she.

I don’t know about the common man, but as a common woman, my joy and excitement were beyond words when I saw Shivani Shivaji Roy finally taking the villain to task, the same way I saw the countless larger than life heroes of Bollywood doing it for so many years. I wanted to cheer and clap for Shivani for being able to do what we common people are not able to do.

For hundreds of years we worshiped and cheered the male hero, we clapped when he said, “Hum jahan khare hote hai, line wohin se shuru hoti hai (Kaalia, 1981); Rishtey mein to hum tumhare baap lagte hai (Shahenshah, 1988); We loved him even when he did illegal things and said, “jao jaake pehele uska sign leke aao jisne mere haat pe yeh likh diya tha” (Deewar, 1975) Generations after generations, films after films we the common people lived our dreams through the male hero, on screen he took the actions that never happened in real life, he took up challenges and emerged as a winner, he saved the poor and downtrodden, he saved the honour of the mothers, sisters and daughters.

Then one day, some one sat up and wondered, would it make much of a difference if I changed the gender of the hero? And the answer as we have in Mardaani is a resounding NO.

Because the gender doesn’t matter, the gender doesn’t make the hero. The hero who saves the day need not always have a penis, the vagina can be a hero too.

I applaud Yash Raj Films for the courage they showed in not casting a single bankable male actor in the film, and must I say, we didn’t miss them. Rani Mukherjee’s powerhouse performance was all encompassing, her character was so large that there was no space for anybody else. I think the Bengali actor Jisshu Dasgupta (barely known in Bollywood) was deliberately chosen to play Shivani’s husband, instead of a popular Bollywood actor, so that the focus remains on Rani and is not shifted even for a moment.

We have a tradition of male dominated action films where women are either non existent, or are inconsequential miserable victims. Mardaani maintains the tradition, but changes the gender again. Shivani’s husband, a doctor by profession is inconsequential and a victim.

“But is that what we mean by feminism? The role reversal while maintaining the imbalance? Don’t we want equality between male and female?” (Criticism #1)

Sure, we want equality and no feminism certainly don’t mean a simple role reversal maintaining inequality. But if that happens in a certain piece of fiction, why does it make the public so uncomfortable? If we have a certain film where the roles are reversed and men are objectified, victimized and patronized, why does it become so disturbing and offensive. I always wonder, why do we always expect righteousness, morality and perfection from women, while we allow all sorts of violence led by men. In a country that is corrupt to its core, where access to justice is almost impossible to achieve by women facing sexual violence, we get more agitated and disturbed by a few stray incidences of women misusing the Anti Dowry Law (Section 498A of IPC) to put a few men in trouble. Every law is misused, I mean we got AFSPA for Christ’s sake, so what is the big halla about 498A?

“Isn’t the title Mardaani self defeating? The fact that you call a strong woman ‘Mardaani’ is reinforcing the gender stereotypes meaning, a woman would have to be like a man to be strong and independent.” (Criticism #2)

Certainly, you don’t HAVE to be like a man to be a strong woman. But you COULD be or you MIGHT be. And that’s ok. Because women can be anything they want. There are many ways a woman can be strong, she can be a young widow trying to take revenge of her husband’s death posing as a pregnant woman, using her brains rather than muscle to fight the villain (Kahaani, 2012). She can be a young virgin, recently dumped by her fiancee at the alter, who decides to go for the scheduled honeymoon anyway because that is her only way to travel and explore the world and learn to live life in her own terms (Queen, 2014). Or she could be a foul mouthed expletive uttering muscle flexing sexist joke making tough cop who can slap the shit out of the goons (Mardaani, 2014).

And we must respect all these women without judgment and prejudices.

Strong Woman, Motherhood and Kitchen

I felt confused with this particular set of criticism from the feminist circle no less, because few days back when there was a half way role reversal, as in the woman was shown as her husband’s boss at work but still cooking for him at home, the feminists were outraged, including me. But now there’s a role reversal all the way, feminists are still upset. So what do we want?

Shivani Shivaji Roy working out, ignoring her husband’s request to give him eye drops.

In Mardaani, Shivani also does cook. In one scene she is shown as wearing her police uniform and doing something in the kitchen and then prepares her niece for school. But I was so glad that they didn’t over do it. Unlike the Airtel Commercial, Mardaani didn’t try to show the cliche that women can do it all, she can be a tough cop/boss and yet cook for her husband. Shivani sometimes cooks, but also often brings food from outside on her way back from work at late nights. Sometimes she’s so busy working out that she doesn’t even care to give eye drops to her husband.

Shivani is not a biological mother. She doesn’t have children of her own. She has a niece whose parents are dead, Shivani and her husband are her foster parents. Shivani also takes care of Pyaari, a young orphan girl who lives in the orphanage and meets Shivani often. Now, did she deliberately not have children because she already had the responsibilities of a niece? Or did she not want children? Doesn’t the great calling of motherhood move her? Or did she fail to conceive? These are questions which were very intelligently kept unanswered, because the way we answer them would speak of our judment and prejudice. A married woman who is not a mother is always a point of curiousity. As if it’s the greatest puzzle on earth, married and not a mother, how how how? Mardaani shows, you have to stop wondering about why a woman is not a mother.

In spite of being foster mother to two daughters, there isn’t much of motherhood at display in Shivani’s character. In fact when Pyaari was kidnapped, she remained calm and focused on the investigation, so much so that her niece asked in frustration, “Mausi, how can you be so calm?” So no, Shivani is not your ideal loving caring wife, nurturing mother and tough cop all at the same time. She is mainly a tough cop. Incidentally, a wife and foster mother. That’s more important here and that’s how it should be. Women cannot and need not be everything. (Indira Nooyi, Aspen Ideas Festival, 2014)

Her nails are manicured and painted, hair is long and well kept, she even has fringes. What kind of tough cop is that? Do tough cop have the time to be pretty? (Criticism #3)

The only scene in the film where Shivani wears a saree, only because she is in disguise.

I always wonder who makes the rule on how to break rules. We are talking of a character that breaks the gender stereotypes but we want the character to follow our rules of how to break gender stereotypes. Rule no.1 she cannot have manicured nails. Rule no.2 she cannot look pretty, cannot have long hair. Really? I am as fierce and feminist as I could be but I love my lip gloss, eye liner and mascara. I won’t go out without them, even if I have to go kill someone. Does that make me less of a woman? Does that give the fellow feminists the right to judge me?

We don’t know if tough female cops look pretty or not, whether they have manicured nails or not. But question is, how many tough women cop did we see in Bollywood before this? Even when they were female cops in the narrative, they still served the purpose of glamour and victim hood in the film. From Ganga in Khalnayak, 1993 to Nandita in Gunday, 2014 women are always the under cover cop, the perfect excuse to make them glamour dolls and the male protagonist’s love interest, and then somehow they get into trouble and the male hero saves them.

Mardaani is one film that even beats Hollywood in breaking gender stereotypes. How many Hollywood films come to your mind if you search for sensible cop films with a female cop in the lead? Miss Congeniality, 2000, Silence of the Lambs, 1991 and Fargo, 1996 are the three films I remember. While I loved all the films and each of these characters were unique, I still feel Shivani Shivaji Roy is the best gender deconstruction so far.

The solutions shown in the film are problematic, it promotes vigilantism, encourages taking up law in one’s own hand. (Criticism #4)

So what? Its a Bollywood film, did we forget that? We are okay with a Sunny Deol uprooting a water pump in rage, we are okay with cars flying like saucers in the air in a Rohit Shetty film, we are okay with a Himmat Wala, Singham and Rowdy Rathore but we want logic and reason in a film that has a female action hero. Why? The point is to make an entertainer while breaking gender stereotypes and celebrating a female hero. Is that not enough?

To Conclude

Do I think Mardaani is a feminist film? Yes. But do I define feminism by it? No. Mardaani may not be a great film, but its an important film. Important not because it reveals never heard/seen before information about child trafficking. It doesn’t. Neither because it provides ground breaking solutions to prevent trafficking, again it doesn’t. The film is important because it completely changes the way we see women in a mainstream Bollywood entertainer. This is a remarkable achievement. 

I can see Rani Mukherjee taking home several Best Actor – Female awards for 2014. For the first time, here’s a film that doesn’t even have one strong male character for the Best Actor – Male Nomination. The villain would perhaps be nominated for Best Supporting Actor or Best Actor in a Negative Role. And new comer Tahir Raj Bhasin might just take it home, because he was really good.

Hopefully, Bollywood would now have a female dialogue in its list of greatest Bollywood lines, “Yeh India hai, yahan 50 log kisiko maare to use encounter nahi, public outrage kahete hai“ 

A journalist called asking if Dr. T is in office. I said, “no he is traveling, would be available only by 16^th.”

“Oh, but I wanted to ask him if he has Kailash Satyarthi’s number.”

I didn’t get the name at first go. “Kailash who?” I asked.

“Kailash Satyarthi,” he replied.

“Is he someone known to Dr. T? I mean what’s the connection?”

“No, he is this child right activist who got the Nobel Peace Prize. I thought Dr. T might have his number.”

“Oh, ok. I am not sure, but I’d check with his PA and let you know.” I said and hung up.

I immediately Googled to find out who was this Indin Nobel winner whose name I didn’t know. As far as my GK goes, I thought I knew the names of all the Indian Nobel laureates – The Tagore, Sen, Raman and Teresa. Then I realized this just happened. The latest related news on WSJ was 26 mins ago. So I didn’t know the name of another Nobel winner. But as an activist I should have known his name. I have worked in the NGO sector for 10 years.

So two things happened today, divided by hatred India and Pakistan were united by peace and the media (and the rest of us who ironically depend upon to provide us with knowledge) suddenly woke up and started asking who is Kailash Satyarthi and why we didn’t know him.

Image courtesy Bachpan Bachao Andolan

Civil societies’ desperation to gain media space

In my career in the NGO sector, I have seen many organizations trying so hard to gain media attention. I’ve seen them putting so much energy and money in promoting their work. Organization heads would routinely appear on TV debates and would be frequently quoted on newspaper articles as subject matter experts. They would give sound bytes at every raging debate in the media. The press clippings would then be proudly circulated through emails and newsletters.

It’s a constant fight to gain some space in the mainstream media. Sometimes campaigns are designed by corporate ad agencies keeping in mind the branding and marketing requirements rather than actual impact at grassroots. Professional PR agencies are then hired to make sure the campaign gets maximum coverage on mainstream media, and these days social media. There are partnership between popular blogs and NGOs to share and promote content and all this is done with the clear agenda of branding and promotion.

I have also seen organizations running on the brand value of its founder’s name. The founder is often bigger than the organization. Not Kailash Satyarthi though, his Bachpan Bachao Andolan was known to us, but not his name.

How civil society news are made these days

In such an age of tough competition and aggressive PR activities, you can’t really blame the media for not knowing Kailash Satyarthi. I think we have to give it to him that he really has been a silent crusader. I think he is someone who likes to do his work without making noise about it and never tried to hit the headlines at every small or big achievement. And now his work has spoken loud and clear for him, and made the greatest headlines ever. As a friend whose mother lives in that area just mentioned since morning media people are queuing up near Kailash Satyarthi’s house and causing a traffic jam. I am not sure if Mr. Satyarthi is liking all the media attention, but he sure deserves them. Just that its a bit shame that the media which never bothered to find out about him all these years is suddenly desperate to bask in his glory.

Journalists these days no longer ‘find and report’ news. They are invited by PR companies to attend events, a media kit is given to them containing a pre written press release which includes the coverage of the event, before it had taken place, including quotes from the key note speakers who are yet to give the speech. Then they eat and drink and give that PR to their editors. Mass PR release software is used to push the PR to zillions of web spaces no one ever heard of.

That is how news are made these days.

In this crazy scenario, if you don’t blow your own trumpet, no one else would do that for you. So the media would never know about the Satyarthis of the world if they don’t blow their own trumpets. But they have no time to blow their trumpets. They are busy doing real work on the ground making a real difference in the world and frankly, it doesn’t matter to them that people on the social media or people whose only source of information is TV News channels do not know about them.

So blow your own trumpet or not, but more importantly do the real work. That’s the lesson Mr. Satyarthi has given to the world of civil society.

Heartiest congratulations to Mr. Kailash Satyarthi and lots of respect to his modesty.

Some media mentions:

Who is Kailash Satyarthi? – India Today

Kailash Satyarthi: A fearless crusader for child rights – Hindustan Times