There is hardly any inhibition about display of women for their sex appeal in the modern western culture. The USA and the European Community rather fashions things in the society on the patterns put forward by Hollywood. Bollywood i.e. the Bombay Film Industry has also started following the Hollywood style. Thus there is a sudden increase in scenes that exhibit parts of the female body. Is it not a humiliation of women in general?
According to the Constitution it is the “fundamental duty of all citizens to renounce practices derogatory to women.”
According to Krishan Mahajan “it is a fine emotive phrase put in by a specific amendment to the Constitution through Article 51 A.” But the whole morale behind the phrase evaporates when we look to what is happening in the society under the very nose of the law makers.
In the ads woman has rather become a commodity. It is rather queer that there is a sizeable number of women who offer themselves for the exposure in semi nude form (may be total nude after a couple of years). Not surprisingly a large number of educated girls appreciate it if not follow it.
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The then government got the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act passed in 1986. The National Law School, Bangalore invited a cross-section of the society including lawyers, judges, NGOs, law teachers and representatives of National Commission on women to have a discussion on the two bills proposed by the government “The Indecent Representation of Women” and “The Derogatory Representation of woman.” The purpose was that the bills should not remain vague and arbitrary.
The problem was what would be considered derogatory representation of women. The opinion was that “representation, visual or otherwise intended for public consumption and for commercial gain” is derogatory. It included presenting women as sexual objects or commodities, displaying women for their sex appeal to attract male audience, presenting women in postures of sexual submission or sexual aggression, glorifying women’s subordination to men leading to their servility. Who in India would not agree calling all these as derogatory and humiliating to women?
Two basic questions arise from all that went. The bills were passed. But what action is ever taken by the executive to bring to book the people who, have been indulging in the notoriety of exposing woman body in a hundred ways to make money by touching and exploiting the weaker side— the sex appeal of men who can spend on these frivolities to satisfy their craze.
Whenever there are scenes that have proximity to the nude it is only some women organizations that raise a voice or arrange a dharna or boycott the picture or smear the advertisement. The government—the executive does not take any action. Thus proximity to nudity is becoming an accepted norm both in pictures and advertisements. It is only the people forming NGOs that can raise a voice against the humiliation of the fair sex.
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But the second question is graver still. The elites in the society that have the women’s organizations opposing the European promiscuity invading the country have the ultras too. They do not believe in any type of inhibition. These ultra modern girls themselves have developed a taste for showmanship as the boys too have. But then the girls are at the receiving end.
By leaving inhibition on physical exposure they are gradually drawn to the world of sexual harassment. If they enjoy it they are in the flesh market in a number of ways. If they finally resist it they might have been a wreck by that time or may be on the verge of the streak of suicide row that ultimately does not spare even a Bollywood star.
The only way out to save the Indian women— specially the young ones is to let the elites and those who copy them in both the sexes be brought back to the realm of morality through a modem approach of frankness and pragmatism both in the family and the educational institutions that are gradually becoming a breeding place for sexual concepts and outrages.