Feminist artist Barbara Kruger proclaimed the female body as a battleground. Or, in the case of activist Rehana Fathima’s body, as grounds for a legal battle. A battle that she has won, with the Kerala High Court smacking down the moral police for the second time in five years, by dismissing objections to depictions of the naked female form.
Fathima’s 2020 video showing her children painting her semi-naked torso became a cause celebre when she was jailed for allegedly circulating ‘obscene’ content. After a long and hard legal battle punctuated by below the belt comments from members of the judicial community, all the charges against her have been thrown out.
In 2018, vigilantes took exception to model Gilu Joseph appearing on the cover of Grihalakshmi magazine with a baby suckling at her breast. The most natural thing in the world, and very much in consonance with the Government of India’s pro-breastfeeding policy, one might have imagined. But then, as now, the self-appointed guardians of public morality chuntered that the visuals violated “child rights”.
The Kerala HC had thrown out the Grihalakshmi case with the trenchant observation that the image was unexceptionable and that vulgarity lay in the ‘eye of the beholder’. This time, the court has emphasised that nudity is not obscenity per se, and has upheld a woman’s autonomy over her anatomy.
The ruling also pointed out that the naked male torso is treated as normal and not sexualised in any way. A big win for Fathima (who is all about calling out double standards vis-a-vis nudity) and for all those incensed by the fact that while men get away with urinating in public, women are slut-shamed for revealing cleavage, much less breastfeeding.
However, two male celebrities may have something to say about that. Actor Ranveer Kapoor was booked by the Mumbai police in 2022 for posting nude pictures on social media. The complaint was filed on the grounds that he had outraged the modesty of women. The only outrageous aspect was the complaint itself, in that it equated tasteful nudes for a magazine photoshoot with sexual harassment of women. Model Milind Soman has likewise twice been booked for obscenity, once for a 1995 ad in which he appeared clad only in a python, and the second time in 2020 for tweeting a picture of himself running naked on a beach in Goa.
They aren’t the only ones — actors Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar have both faced the wrath of vigilantes waving copies of the Indian Penal Code. While a legion of Bollywood celebrities have been at the receiving end of IPC 294 (the section on obscenity), the number is disproportionately skewed towards women.
What is it about the female body that frightens vigilantes? There’s evidence to support the contention that men are more likely to be sexually aroused by visual stimuli — such as naked pictures of the opposite sex — than women. But that does not justify stigmatising the female form, any more than it does sexual harassment.
As the court pointed out, nudity is not obscenity by default. Certainly, depictions of nudity can be objectifying and demeaning to women, and that constitutes obscenity. But they can also be a form of self-assertion, or political protest. In art, nudes are respectable, devoid of sexuality and appeal to the aesthetic sensibilities. No one with a functional prefrontal cortex can describe nudes by Raja Ravi Varma or Amrita Sher-Gil as obscene.
Fathima referred to ‘politics of the body’. Certainly, the political sociology of women’s bodies is a subject of complex debate and study. Nudity has historically been used as a form of protest, to overcome cultural obstacles or assert gender equality. The Ukrainian social movement, FEMEN, is known for staging bare-breasted demonstrations. In Africa, topless protests are not uncommon. In 2019, a hundred people stripped in front of Facebook’s office to oppose censorship.
Nudity is everywhere, on OTT platforms and mobile phones. That a video or picture on social media shocks anyone, particularly in a country where naked saints are celebrated, is mystifying. Fortunately, the judiciary has taken a nuanced view. For instance, in the case of Bandit Queen (the Phoolan Devi biopic), the courts ruled that the nude scenes were justified by the context and did not constitute obscenity.
The Victorian prudery displayed by right-wing vigilantes takes on disturbingly gynophobic dimensions, and appears to arise from the same mentality that favours dress codes and other restrictions on women to “protect” and preserve their virtue and honour. It prefers women safely shrouded, that is, all but invisible. In that context, the Karnataka government’s claim that it will put an end to moral policing is welcome. But putting an end to gratuitous harassment of women like Fathima will take a lot longer.
Bhavdeep Kang is a senior journalist with 35 years of experience in working with major newspapers and magazines. She is now an independent writer and author.
