Let the women wear what and as they please

Satyawan Malik

Haryana, UP  and Rajasthan khap leaders and clerics in Saudi Arabia will disagree with Aamir Khan singing 'Ghunghat ki aad se dilbar ka didaar adhura rahta hai, jab tak na pade aashiq ki nazar shringar adhura rahta hai' in Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke. Recently, there was much hue and cry over the dress that Priyanka Chopra chose to wear while meeting Modi. The ghunghat (full-face covering veil) is an expression of nasty, subversive patriarchy in North India. It reflects regressive gender-specific impositions. 

The Haryana Samvad magazine, by celebrating ghunghat as an identity of the state's culture, has committed a faux pas. Married women resort to the ghunghat (prada pratha) without realising the patriarchal intentions in the name of tradition. Patriarchy in Haryana links the veil with chaal-chalan as much as Saudi feudal minds think that granting women the freedom to drive would promote adultery among them. The Haryanvi song 'Patla dupatta, tera muh dikhe' portrays a husband's objection to his wife for showing her face. It is viewed as an immoral nuance and a challenge to authority and social order. It is a typical puritan response. It will be seen as a symbol of coercion and violence in the First World. 

South Korea used to have real fashion police patrolling the streets measuring the lengths of skirts worn by women. If they were deemed to be short, the women could be fined or arrested.

Interestingly, Mark Twain in the US was pretty proud of his invention of bra straps and he wrote in the patent: "The advantages of such an adjustable and detachable elastic strap are so obvious that they need no explanation." More interestingly, the inventor of the modern bikini, Louis Reard, named his creation after Bikini Atoll — where the US did most of its nuclear testing — because he hoped that it would bomb the market and have a huge impact; yes, of course, he did succeed in giving women ample heed.

Female beauty has been a musical, intense and dramatic emotion in all cultures and societies. But liberty for women to wear what they want and please, not what is socially imposed, will constitute humanism...it is a need, not privilege or luxury in any egalitarian society. 

In India, endless prescriptions of what to wear and what not to wear continue to be released at intervals by irrational voices. They recommend burqa, veil, chunni, and ban jeans, tops, t-shirts; they worship stones and kill the living; we talk of humanity, but hate love; we want peace, but turn violent... these are practices of the dark medieval world happening in the modern India. 

In Europe and America, civilisation has taken off the burden of dress prescriptions. Don't Rosalind and Celia in As You Like It wear men's dress to avoid trouble-making from men? Shakespeare portrays Portia in The Merchant of Venice as not only physically charming but also intellectually agile and witty. These qualities were hitherto denied to women stereotypically depicted as beautiful but mindless and disloyal. Men expect faithfulness and servility from women in the matters of love and sex. They, however, wish to be prurient and libertine for their own selves. That is why bigamy or triple talaq still go unopposed, mostly by males. The Maharaja of Patiala had 365 wives! Draupadi's disrobing by Dushasana in Mahabharata was integral to its plot. 

The dress of women has always been at the centrestage, mocking at the double standards of the 'feudal mindset' or 'Taliban decree' or misogynism. Be progressive; think of the 'Anarkali disco chali' song in which the heroine celebrates leaving the suffocating streets of Saleem.

The Haryana Samvad magazine should have celebrated Sakshi Malik, Kalpana Chawla, or the Phogat sisters, or the rising wrestling-star Anshu Malik. Though much has changed, more remains to be changed. In Haryana, one of the most prosperous states of the country, it is time that there is an end to such practices as honour killings. Women should be happily free to wear as they please. That liberty, that equality, that education and that tolerance are needed which will make every being a human being; and for being human, one must consent.

The writer is Associate Professor of English, Government College, Jind