Slut Walk to Chhattisgarh to the Streets of Guwahati

That morning, I could not find the most appropriate attire to befit the occasion. SLUTWALK, arthaat Besharmi Morcha. Besharm is a relative term, with a nuanced understanding spread across space and time. To be besharm, I settled for a pair of denim shorts and a blue T-shirt. I was staying in the Officers’ Mess of National Security Guard at Manesar. As ‘memsahib’ is not supposed to dress like any other girl, and not at all like a SLUT, I decided to wear a skirt to cover the legs. The skirt was supposed to be removed later.

The husband volunteered to drop me and our daughter, less than two years then, at the venue. It was an extremely uncomfortable weather to be outdoors and I immediately regretted bringing the daughter along. But then, it was for her sake that I was participating. Blame it on my hyper enthusiasm, we reached the venue before time. And after the husband left, daughter and I tried to make sense of the scene around us. I also had to get rid of my ‘modest’ avatar. Those now famous denim shorts had to be revealed. But how and where? There were no ‘green rooms’ at Jantar Mantar. Carrying the already flushed daughter to a relatively cool and shady spot, I spotted some minarets of chairs leaning precariously against the wall. So, this was going to be my little dressing (down) room.

A few steps away was a bevy of camerapersons and reporters from all the possible newspapers and TV/Radio channels. One of the camerapersons noticed our presence and kept shooting me while I took off my skirt. Others followed suit, obviously, and zoomed in. It is because of their dogged determination to find the ‘slut’ at the otherwise modest walk at Jantar Mantar that the trio, daughter-denim shorts-I, shot to fame. When I got back home that afternoon, the husband greeted me with a mixed look in his eyes: appreciative and yet confused by my dare-to-bare act on national TV. What?

The ‘media’ had done it again. The story had to be sold and it was important to focus on the ‘sellable’ aspect of the entire ordeal. The mundane act of getting ready for the walk received more attention than my reason to be a part of it. Runs and reruns of the footage did wonders. The men and women from national and international media houses hounded me for ‘bytes’ and would not relent even when I requested them to leave us alone. My two-year old was not comfortable with microphones thrust upon our faces. Thanks to their desire to develop a sensational mother-daughter narrative, I became the face of Slutwalk, Delhi. And yet, the skirt-dropping footage was what people talked about, on and off-record.  Actions speak louder than words, certainly.

I am reminded of my Slut Walk experience today but not only because it remains forgotten after a year or that it failed to achieve anything substantial for the cause of women empowerment. I’m compelled to rewind the happenings of that day to be able to understand the pain of girl from Guwahati. She, unfortunately, has clearly suffered much more than I did. In the Slut Walk case, I was perhaps a victim of the misplaced sense of support. The Guwahati girl, on the other hand, has suffered at the hands of unabashed pursuit of sensationalism. Now that it has been proved that it was the cameraperson who instigated an aggressive and hair-brained mob to molest this hapless girl, one wonders what do the upholders of “media as a pillar of democracy” have to say? To stoop so low to look for a scoop, and to create one when not finding any, is that what has become the norm? Yes there is outrage against such a barbaric act, and the strongest criticism has come from the journalist fraternity. Yet, there is no denying the rot that is weakening this fourth pillar. Only a matter of time when the collapse happens.

I do not wish to launch a tirade against paid-media, sensationalism and other such things. Yet, there are a few questions that I’m compelled to raise on behalf of every individual who has suffered because of media’s insensitivity and ethical malpractices. The business of news seems to be overriding everything else, even human life. Nobody should be allowed to forget about the death of Tarun Sehrawat, the young Tehelka journalist. The Frankenstein’s monster has begun feeding off itself. Many people blamed the young man’s act of bravado for his tragic demise but few raised questions pertaining to the pressure that he must have had to face, to prove his worth. A daring story from the forests of Chhattisgarh was perhaps going to be his ticket to fame. At what cost, though?

While the rot in media needs to be addressed pronto, it is hypocritical to blame the media for desperately trying to feed a gargantuan appetite that the readers and viewers exhibit all the time. The demand and supply dynamics cannot be wished away. Yet, we need to be constantly reminding ourselves that there is a limit to which one can ask for ‘news.’ Nobody deserves to die to fulfil our cravings for some piping hot news on the platter. Nobody deserves to be molested either.