#MakeOutInIndia: In the Land of Kama Sutra, Why is PDA Wrong?

Growing up in India is filled with instances of hush-hush make-outs. (Photo: iStock)

Kerala’s youth found an innovative way to respond to the self-proclaimed moral brigade that shoved, pushed and attacked couples at Kochi’s iconic Marine Drive on Wednesday, which was International Women’s Day.

Based on an invite sent over Facebook, scores of artists, students and activists sought to reclaim their access to the public sphere, as they kissed and hugged in the open.

We at The Quint had launched the campaign #MakeOutInIndia in defiance of ultra-conservative outfits. We are reposting some of our stories from the campaign.

There is a kind of sexism in India that is conveniently covert, as opposed to the other hypocritically overt kind. Let me explain the critical difference.

A first-ever UN-sponsored study of female characters in popular cinema globally, reveals that India tops the list when it comes to showing good looking women in its movies – 35 percent of which involve some form of nude depiction. The study, commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, further throws light on the deep-seated discrimination, pervasive stereotyping, sexualisation of women and their under-representation in powerful roles by the international film industry. While women represent nearly half of the world’s population, less than one-third of all speaking characters in films are women. Indian films, if you haven’t guessed by now, are at the bottom of that pack.

Sexualisation of Female Characters in Cinema

Kareena Kapoor in the item number Mera Naam Mary from Brothers.

Sexualisation of female characters isn’t purely a desi formula. Women are twice as likely to be depicted wearing revealing clothing, partially or fully naked, and thin, and five times as likely to be referenced as attractive, compared to men. At 25.2 percent, India rules the brat pack in showing attractive females in its movies.

Item numbers in our country are replete with lyrics that will make you cringe with embarrassment. They are downright demeaning to women, reducing them to sleazy sex objects – desired by debauched male villains who lick their lips, or swarming and cheering crowds, as if they were watching a cricket match. Our bodies, our breasts, our buttocks – in fact everything waist downwards are sexually suggestive, never sensual.

Sample Honey Singh – the hottest thing on ‘pop’ularity charts. The lyrics to one of his foot-tapping, popular numbers, played at every discotheque, sangeet function and neighbourhood jagrata follows:

Urre aa tenu ek gal samjaava
Maare purze nu kadi hath mai na paava aa
Vase ta mitran da bahut vadda score
But white chicks na I don’t like them anymore
Ban mitran di whore
I mean mitran di ho

Roughly translated, it goes, “Come here, let me explain something to you/I never touch anything sub-standard/By the way, I’ve scored many times/But those white chicks, I don’t like them any more/Come be my whore/I mean be mine.”

The Great Indian Moral Police

Women protest against moral policing. (Photo: Reuters)

Here’s the second part of my argument.

On October 23, 2014 nearly 20 people, who the police claimed belonged to the youth wing of BJP, barged into a cafe in Kozhikode, Kerala, smashing windows, overturning chairs, and destroying a television. The cafe, in their view, was facilitating ‘immoral activities’ – specifically couples holding hands and kissing. Young Indians all over the country responded to the incident, which was caught on camera, by occupying streets to stage what was popularly referred to as “Kiss of Love” protests.

Demonstrators gathered to openly kiss, caress, hug, and otherwise show affection all the way from Kochi to New Delhi, perhaps hoping to challenge the ‘moral police’. Some student organisations across the political spectrum lashed out against the protests as being contrary to ‘Indian values’. These counter-protesters screamed slogans against Western influence, as embodied, for example, in public displays of affection.

Could a kiss, or a couple holding hands, or parents hugging each other intimately be dangerous in a country where a woman is raped every 20 minutes? A country where the sheer number of marital rapes will shock you.

A Country Which Reveres Women and Kills Them

Domestic violence is the single largest crime in India. (Photo: iStock)

Let’s take a minute to mull over some statistics. The UN Population Fund states that more than two-thirds of married women in India, between the ages of 15 to 49 have been beaten, raped, or forced to have sex. In 2005, 6,787 cases of women murdered by their husbands, or their husbands’ families were recorded. 56 percent of Indian women believed that the occasional instance of wife-beating was justified. Recent studies showed that between 10-14 percent of married women are raped by their husbands. Sexual assault by one’s spouse accounted for approximately 25 percent of rapes committed. Women who became prime targets for marital rape are also those who attempted to flee.

Marital rape is illegal in 18 American states, three Australian states, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. And yet here, where Sita-hood is akin to sainthood – the Sati-Savitri woman, the word Sati preceding Savitri, or maybe they mean the same in the end, supreme self-sacrifice for one’s spouse – women suffer in silence. Taking care of in-laws, who burn them for dowry. Sexually violated every night.

A Swachh Bharat

The Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 categorically states that a wife is duty-bound to have sex with her husband, and divorces have been granted to husbands whose wives refused to have sex on grounds of “mental cruelty”.

What will all this closeted culture and sexual squeamishness bring about a ‘Swachh Bharat’? With our population literally bursting at the seams – 1,286,584,935 (1.28 billion) as of September 16, 2015 – Sadhvi Prachi asserts that Hindus must have four children, Sakshi Maharaj opines that the reason women should bear four children is to protect Hinduism, and Shankaracharya Vasudevanand Saraswati suggests that couples have 10 children in order to save the Hindu race.

Is biology not a part of our great Indian culture? Or is to be omitted from our school curricula, the way we glance away from compulsorily integrating sexual education? What should it be replaced with? Sanskrit, perhaps?