On October 3, when Raghvendra Bhatnagar, president of the Rashtriya Hindu Shakti Sangathan, barged into the venue where rehearsals for the Miss Rishikesh pageant were taking place, demanding that the event be cancelled because it went against Uttarakhand’s “sanskriti”, the scene could have unfolded in a dispiritingly familiar way. It has, after all, happened many times before: Self-appointed guardians of morality muscle into spaces that they believe are the sites of violation of an imagined code. Those attacked, believing they have little choice, give in. What sets the Rishikesh incident apart is the heartening response of the pageant contestants.
Faced with a bully, they stood tall, refusing to fold away their aspirations and insisting on their right to choose their way. The would-be disruptor was forced to abandon his campaign, the event proceeded as planned the next day and a new Miss Rishikesh was crowned. The victory is small, but all the sweeter for coming at a time when there has been an intensification of the push to impose a monolithic view of Indian history and culture, targeting individuals who stray beyond arbitrarily drawn lines, and seeking to clamp down on films, books and art. The refusal to be daunted in Rishikesh signals that the voices of those who are pushed to the corners will, slowly but surely, rise over the clamour of the bullies in the room. They will speak forcefully — as the young women in Rishikesh did — of and for their right to be free, and to choose.
