So apparently, the latest national emergency is this: a woman walked around in a bikini in Rio, in a burqa in Abu Dhabi, and then, brace yourselves, said she hopes that one day she can walk freely in India wearing whatever she wants.
And of course, the nation imploded. Because nothing threatens Indian civilisation quite like a woman’s hypothetical outfit in a hypothetical future.
The self-appointed cultural zookeepers were out in force, waving their flags of sanskaar and screaming,
This is not Bharatiya sanskriti!
Because in their neat little world map, Brazil equals bikinis, the UAE equals burqas, and India equals moral panic wrapped in polyester. Only Vimal.
And these very same people, oh, the irony, never tire of telling the world how Hinduism is the most tolerant, most peaceful, most accommodating faith known to humankind. How we are the only civilisation that embraces all others. How we are, in fact, Vishwaguru, teachers to a lesser, narrower world. They love to remind you that while others waged wars, we offered wisdom. While others built empires, we built harmony. And yet, give them a woman in shorts and they go full Taliban in half a kshan. Bhai, heepocrassy kee bhi seema, and all that.
The funny part is that despite constantly ranting about Abrahamic religions, specifically Islam, the only thing they choose to emulate from them is, naturally, the rigidity, the misogyny, the puritanism. Sigh.
Then comes the grand finale:
Go to Saudi Arabia and say that!
Yes, thank you, Professor False Equivalence. Except she is not from Saudi Arabia. She is Indian. And India, at least on paper, is a democracy. You know, the one with a Constitution that guarantees freedom of expression and choice. That one.
On that note, I seriously wonder why every conversation about freedom is met with,
Try that in Pakistan.
Why would anyone, specifically an Indian, and particularly a liberal who believes in and practises constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, want to? Unless, of course, the right-wingers demanding this aspire to be like it. I mean, do you secretly wish we were Pakistan? Because you sure argue like you do.
This sort of intellectual dissonance would be funny if they weren’t so confoundingly serious about imposing it on those who can see the dichotomy. Patriots who look up to their sworn enemies with glitter in their eyes. Champions of “Indian culture” demanding Saudi-style restrictions. Men who shout Bharat Mata ki Jai while foaming at the mouth at the sight of a woman’s midriff.
It is absurd. It is tragic. It is the kind of stupidity that does not just deserve its own postal code, it deserves its own ministry.
A Ministry of Moral Outrage, perhaps. With a cabinet rank, budget allocation, and weekly briefings on who wore what.
And it would flourish, too, in a nation where the majority is hungry, for food, for shelter, for work, for dignity, yet finds nourishment in rage. Where poverty of stomach meets poverty of thought, and ignorance is dressed up as heritage. A country so desperate for pride that it will settle for prejudice, so terrified of freedom that it will mistake obedience for culture.
Wait. Scratch that. The last thing this regime needs is ideas on how to exercise more control over a hapless populace wallowing in poverty, of both the spirit and the flesh. And the last thing the already suffering Indian population needs is another form to fill, another document to produce, and another slogan to shout just to prove their Indianness, or indeed even humanness.
