It was not long ago in England, when about ten PG students were having dinner at an Indian restaurant, a group of Indian youngsters entered out of nowhere. Raging with unnerving hormones, the Indian group started their misdeeds from the very minute they sat down. An Indian girl clad in salwar kameez had to endure the group’s comments and follies for hours. This is just to give an insight into the issue we are going to deal with here. When the half naked Brit girls in the group were spared, why did this group chose to victimise their own kind, who was fully-clad? So is cloth the reason for men’s misdemeanours? When it is the fathers who are sexually assaulting their own daughters in Kerala, can we put the blame on the girls who wear leggings in this state? Or is it because the children are the helpless kind hence, they are easy preys?
A woman in Kerala today can speak her mind and can live a life the way she wants to. She is educated, independent and proud of who she is. Consequently, it is not easy for men to find access to this smart girl’s world. When controversies are brewing with regard to women’s clothing in Kerala, City Express gets a few Malayalis to react on the issue.
Kerala women had to bear the tortures decreed by the moral police in all ages. Until 1819, after the Rani of Travancore’s announcement giving women the permission to cover their upper body, Kerala women were only allowed to be seen in a knee-length loin cloth. The so called ‘propah’ or propriety was not in vogue yet. And the same women have progressed from Ravukka to tops and loin cloths to leggings and made their comfort dress, jeans. Today, when some other ‘Ranis’ are on a resolve to force their wardrobe on Malayali women, Kerala reacts strongly.
“A woman is another woman’s worst enemy and there is not a pinch of exaggeration in this statement. More than the men, it is the women who can’t tolerate another woman’s dressing or her ways or attitude. What do these women fear? That their husbands or brothers or sons might attack the other women or that these women might lure them with their dressing? Don’t they have any trust in them? Men are degraded by their own relatives it seems,” says Anirudh, an IT professional. Likewise many have agreed with Anirudh when they said no one but themselves had the right to decide what they should wear. Just like every other personal choice dressing is yet another personal and private decision.
These days when the numbers of atrocities against women are increasing by the second, a certain group of women moral police have come forward with their own explanation as to why this violence against women increase day-by-day. And voila! The barbarity has been attributed to the way the women especially the young girls dress these days. So this group has successfully narrowed down themselves to a single focal point ‘dressing’. Now if they could get all the women in the country to walk around in burkas(no offense intended to any burka wearing women) maybe all atrocities against women can be prevented!
Certain others feel any dress if ‘properly’ worn solves the problem. So who decides what is proper and improper, proper with respect to the men? Can a piece of clothing creating the minimal sexual arousal be termed as ‘proper’ dressing?
“They say proper dressing can solve problems to an extent, but is it the dressing the reason behind the rape of Soumya or the numerous infants that get brutally attacked in our society? Dressing is a personal liberty that another person has no right to point their fingers at,” says Aswani Dravid an MPhil Student.
When Aswani talks about individual freedom Swathi, an 18-year-old, says like every other woman in most parts of the world, Malayalis also should have the freedom to wear whatever they like.
“I really don’t understand the hullabaloo. What you wear is a personal matter. Look at foreigners, they are hardly conscious about their bodies and the amount of skin they are exposing. Short dresses are common in all metros but is considered a statement of obscenity in Kerala,” says Catherine Mathew, an IT professional.
When Malayalis wear saris to beaches and chunk jewellery to the office a call for propriety is necessary or so says Bhagyalakshmi, a teacher.
“There should be some sense of propriety. You cannot wear kanjeevarams to a funeral, likewise dress appropriately. You cannot roam the roads of Kerala thinking that you are on a beach holiday. Make yourself comfortable, but at the same time don’t force others to put up with vulgarity. Whatsoever, I don’t think dressing is the reason for increasing atrocities against women.”
Nonetheless, one cannot force a native food chart on Malayalis for their breakfast; give an agenda based on Malayali culture for your bedroom; similarly, the dresses he or she wears, leggings or no leggings, as per Kerala majority, is their choice.