#17 moral policing…no thank you!

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The moral police has struck yet again, this time on Thasni Banu, a BPO employee from Malappuram, who was abused and slapped by a group of self acclaimed ‘custodians of culture’ because they wanted to save ‘Kerala from turning into another Bangalore’.


I got to know of the incident when my mother, a doctor and my brother in-law, a lawyer were discussing about it at home. They were reading an article written by Thasni in the newspaper and ended up concluding that she herself invited trouble when she chose to go alone with a man at night . Also they both agreed that if she had been slapped, she would have asked for it.


I read the whole article and asked my mom why should it be anyone’s – her’s, my bro in-law’s, or the auto driver’s (who assaulted her) -concern where she was going and with whom she was going. She was taken aback when I told her that she, being so educated mustn’t make such irresponsible comments. Every educated person like her and my bro in-law form a part of the “civil society” who are the first to complain about the hopeless situation of our country – but how can there be any development here where even education has not helped broaden people’s minds and thinking!


Before even thinking about what happened there, they were ready to point fingers on the girl’s possibly immoral character, just because she was out with a man at night. Who has bestowed upon the auto driver the duty of moral policing every woman who walks down the road? Was that man her brother, her father or her husband? In which way does it affect him if she was going on a bike with her friend? Oh yes, the culture of Kerala! After all he is the god sent saviour of our culture!


A famous retort to such issues are, like my mom and bro in-law concluded, “she asked for it”. Nandita Das, rightly pointed out once on her blog, after the Mangalore moral policing incident that, “If girls wearing “indecent” clothes are asking for trouble and sexual assaults are being justified, then how do we explain the rape of Bhanwari Devi and Mukhtar Mai, who were both very well clad, and not “westernised” young things?” 


The patriarchal society of ours just cannot bear to see women walking on the roads freely, earning their own livelihoods, speaking out their opinions, or even trying to defend themselves from goons like these. A woman who works at night is still talked about in hushed voices in our society. Mothers teach their daughters to never speak, dress or act provocatively because after all they are the ‘leaves on which the thorn falls’. 


All this unsolicited moral policing efforts will continue in the name of religion and culture as long as we keep tolerating this intolerance. We ourselves give them the right to do such things when we fail to react. Our silence is their license to continue indulging in such senseless acts. Isn’t it time enough that women in our country are given the space to just ‘be’? Let us not zip our mouths against incidents like this because if we do so, like Martin Luther King said “In our times, we will repent not for the evil deeds of the bad, but for the silences of the good.”