By Angela Rangad
The United Nations General Assembly has designated November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. For us women and men in Meghalaya, this day should be an occasion to reflect. Violence against women is not just physical violence but also a public discourse that violently targets women for their choices and behaviour. In Meghalaya, if you are a woman who stands up for herself and exercises her freedoms or speaks up for justice and equality, the lynch mobs make a beeline for you like what has been happening for the last few days. And it is all to do with twerking.
TWERKING – what boys and girls, men and women challenge themselves to these days. Based on African folk dance moves, twerking is an art that I am yet to perfect for it’s not easy… When people are comfortable with and own their bodies, they enjoy it not to provoke others but as self expression. Just as beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, what constitutes “shameful acts” oftentimes also lies in the eyes of the beholder.
The moral police of youtubers and social media lynch bros who always ardently gawk at women are out yet again but this time joined by an elected representative who is calling for arrest of the young person under a contested section 294 of IPC for twerking and enjoying a music festival. This section has been misused for a long time by the state and community leaders to keep cultural expression in check.
I say shame on this man for lack of knowledge and for his gaze that strips a person of her dignity. He represents the male chauvinistic bro brigade that attempts to control women at all levels, appropriate their bodies and expression. Many men twerk too. There were bare chested men gyrating and enjoying the music too but he chose to single out this woman. He will justify it by saying that she was on stage! And then go on to say she is representing the tribe.
I want to tell him, NO she does not represent the Khasis. She is an individual with her own agency. Why burden her with the weight of “protecting the image of the tribe”? And festival goers did not see this as offensive, but were actually cheering her courage to share the stage with an international star!
The kind of mindset displayed by this elected representative (and some youtubers) is the one that wants to keep woman shackled in their homes, the mindset that fears women fully participating in the Dorbars and the same mindset that months ago slut shamed an acclaimed local artist for her choice of clothing, some time ago another young woman local artist of repute for daring to write and perform the kind of songs she does and styling herself the way she does. The same narrowminded bro culture trolled a woman led dance group. We expect our elected representatives to lead by example by defending constitutional values of equality, freedom and individual autonomies and not indulge in rightwing populism to stoke fundamentalist community fires.
While a girl is being ‘lynched’ for her choices at a music festival, let me remind these Bros that Meghalaya has one of the worse socio, economic, health indicators in India for women and children. Whether it is maternal mortality, infant mortality or teenage pregnancy. Some of these are closely tied to the increasing patriarchal silencing of women’s voices by these Bros. Elected representatives should focus on real issues of disempowerment of women in our society rather than saying and doing things that further disenfranchise half of our population.
Just take a look at the following data showing increase in Reported Violence against women.
But for the Bro mob of Meghalaya, this shocking data has no meaning. For them only thing that matters is how hate can be consolidated and transformed into vote banks. We women (and citizens) should call out this man for his irresponsible threats of arrests and we should invoke the criminal law amendment provision of Voyeurism that this man is indulging in and that is encouraging the trolls to the hilt! Maybe by inciting the dark passion, this bro brigade wants violence against women graph to hit the heavens. And tell me what happens if the young person faced with this violent targetting starts thinking of self harm? Would the politician take responsibility and give a public statement about using section 306 of the IPC against himself? I am sure nothing like that is going to happen, the politician would have moved on to another vote grabbing issue.
These populist leaders and influencers rather than creating an atmosphere of democratic reasonable conversation, are creating a Lynch mob / troll army culture in Meghalaya. We have seen what this has done to public discourse in India for women and minorities. We don’t want Meghalaya to go the rightwing India way.
So we need to say NO THIS MAN IS NOT THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE because in a democracy voice of the people is not a monolithic singular category but is a beautiful choir of different voices, for we want a world where someone twerks, someone ballets, one does a shad mastieh, one beautifully kneels down in prayer while another raps and yet another head bangs…