Knickers in a twist

This emergent movement has a touch of the Fun-Fearless-Female Cosmogirl sass that will doubtless alienate some old-style activists with their more ascetic methods. But could it point to a lively new strand of feminist action in India?

In the US,for instance,as young women examine their ambivalence towards their mothers’ manifestoes,some are lulled into post-feminist fantasies,now that the big battles of equal pay,abortion,and structural discrimination seem more or less under control. Others discard the macro-narratives and try to define issues that matter,and their individual angles to them.

That kind of straight generational storytelling is impossible in India,which,in Arundhati Roy’s words,“lives in several centuries at the same time”. For a movement that has to address landless labourers,women torn between community and state,battered wives,“objectified” beauty queens and more,Indian feminism is shot through with diversity. And whatever the tidal waves of Anglophone feminism,the women’s movement in India has been its own entity — it has its own theoretical traditions,its own historic signposts,its own contentious reform agendas.

This small,emerging strain of feminist activism only adds to the spectrum. Certainly,these campaigns constitute a micro-movement,addressed to relatively well-off women for whom getting felt up on a bus is the worst oppression they have come across. But they are interesting for the approach they employ — playful,confident and inventive. Rather than casting women as victims,they focus the lens on perpetrators of violence. They unselfconsciously include men,who are as offended by sexual harassment or moral policing.

On Blank Noise,there is serious discussion of the class dynamics to an offensive encounter,and there is a therapeutic element in the sharing of difficult incidents. For instance,they asked for pictures of clothes that women were wearing when they were felt up,showing up the standard “she was asking for it” logic with the motley pile of clothes ranging from frumpy kurtas to loose checked shirts. There’s humour,like the “eve-teasing food chart” — women who report being called “hari mirch”,“tamatar”,“lollipop”,even “makkhan ki tikiya”. It’s easy to dismiss these methods as empty gestures,or what Katha Pollitt once disdainfully termed “girls-just-wanna-have-fun feminism” or carp about the class/location privileges of these campaigners. But for those involved with these campaigns,it is a way into larger questions about gender,from tangible experience to solidarity.

They might not be aimed at institutional redress,but these projects mount a symbolic warfare,fighting publicity with publicity. If Pramod Muthalik and his ilk cleverly play the media to enlarge their repellent images,their opponents certainly managed to get their cheeky response on newspapers and TV,on local and international blogs. And perhaps this is a crucial difference — these movements are made possible by social and participatory new media platforms. They share experiences and ideas on blogs and mailing lists,post pictures and videos,evangelise and organise on Facebook. They are inevitably personal,in a manner that pulls in all kinds of people,who might otherwise never identity as “-ists” of any kind.

It’s too early to tell whether these dispersed initiatives are more about acting up or real action,or even whether they add up to a coherent wave. If they do,it would definitely be a new and valuable point on the continuum of the women’s movement.

amulya.gopalakrishnan@expressindia.com