Actor Ranveer Singh’s ‘skinful’ Instagram posts are now the subject of an FIR, his pretty pictures having provoked an ugly response in the form of a police complaint. Laying bare his accuser’s motives may explain why some people take exception to celebrity nudity.
This is not the first time that moral outrage has erupted over depictions of nudity, eroticism or PDA.
Model Milind Soman has twice been booked for obscenity, the first time in 1995 for appearing in an ad with supermodel Madhu Sapre, both of them clad only in sneakers (and a python). The second occasion was 25 years later, when he was hauled up for running naked on a Goa beach. Actor Poonam Pandey, likewise, was booked for making and distributing an ‘obscene’ video with her husband.
That certain people may be personally embarrassed/offended by public smooching, Sunny Leone’s bottom-line or Malaika Arora’s undulations, is a given. The mystery is why this miniscule minority believes that it should — and can — impose its views on society. They appear to suffer from a peculiar form of exhibitionism, which calls for excessive and ostentatious displays of so-called morality. On the other hand, they may be genuinely convinced that it behoves them to protect public decency, Indian culture and the modesty of women, and to defend the gods from sacrilege. In neither case can they be taken seriously.
The gods are in no need of their protection, nor are women. The obsessive concern with the ‘modesty’ of women comes from the same mindset as ‘love jihad’, honour killings and dress codes. Forty years ago Amitabh Bachchan, looking disapprovingly at Zeenat Aman’s cleavage in Dostana, reprimanded her for wearing abbreviated clothes that were bound to invite eve-teasing. Bollywood has certainly come a long, long way since then. Even so, a desperate few still cling to the notion that women must be protected from their own sexuality. But where does the wellspring of such bigotry lie?
The naked truth is that India’s anti-eroticism and puritanism is a colonial phenomenon, absorbed by osmosis from her British masters. Every time a narrow-minded politician or self-proclaimed religious leader calls on women to be ‘modest’, rails against ‘obscenity’ or denounces LGBTQ life choices, he is validating the colonisation of the Indian mind.
Victorian prudery, smugly monotheistic, looked down on the Indian gods and ‘all their heads, arms and wives’ and many amorous adventures. Elite members of Indian society bought into this dry and joyless Protestant perspective – possibly to please their British bosses. For instance, India’s celebrated courtesans - from Amrapali in the 6th century BCE to Mubarak Begum in the 19th century CE – enjoyed legitimacy until the anti-nautch movement of the early 20th century, which stigmatised them as sex workers and ignored their seminal contributions to the arts and literature.
Why do we still carry the alien burden, specially when the former colonisers today have come around to celebrating the ancient Indian ethos? We have trapped ourselves in an illiberal frame of reference, mirroring everything we once deplored.
Not too long ago, right-wing activists made a bonfire of Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra at a bookshop in Ahmedabad, inexplicably chanting “Har Har Mahadev” – as if Lord Shiva would have approved of a protest against erotica. In which case, the Chitragupta temple at Khajuraho, dedicated to Shiva and noted for its erotic sculptures, should have attracted their ire. The incident was not the most egregious and irrational of its kind. In 2017, activists demanded a ban on the sale of the book in Khajuraho on the grounds that it defiled the “sacred premises” of the Temple complex, thereby undermining “moral values” of the visitors (most of whom are foreigners). The absurdity of banning the Kamasutra in Khajuraho is self-evident.
Khajuraho – and dozens of other temples with similar erotica – make the puritanical brigade acutely uncomfortable. The sculptures are sought to be explained away as ‘purely symbolic’ (of what exactly is rarely clarified). This brings to the fore the peculiar dichotomy of conservatism: the need to celebrate ancient Indian culture and traditions, while erasing any evidence of the liberal sexual attitudes prevalent at the time. Krishna’s relationship with Radha is celebrated, without acknowledging that it was extra-marital (or sexual).
The tendency to file frivolous complaints of this nature needs a strong response by the courts, which have generally held the view that there’s a difference between obscenity and erotica. Those who are offended by a depiction that others enjoy, need not look at it: “What may be obscene to some may be artistic to other; one man's vulgarity is another man's lyric”.
An exemplary financial penalty on those who mischieviously seek to abuse sections 262-264 of the Indian Penal Code, as well as provisions of the Information Technology Act, must be levied so as to discourage others from wasting the time of the courts and police and whipping up needless controversy.
The writer is a senior journalist with 35 years of experience working with major newspapers and magazines, and is now an independent writer and author. She tweets at @BhavKang
