The sexual harassment of Mallika Sherawat

Mallika at Cannes and with Obama. PR?

It is unbelievable that a woman who is independent becomes an object of derision for saying what we do almost on a daily basis.  I’ve already made a reference to her earlier and elsewhere. What I’d like to understand is that at a time when we are applauding some women for “having balls” (sexist terminology, anyway), an anonymous female on a social networking site, whose own picture is a pair of legs taken lying down, dismisses a woman as being “all boobs and no brain”. There are many such ‘brave’ people whose vapidity hides their stupidity.

Mallika Sherawat, who we are talking about, is successful partly because we are what she says we are: a regressive society, enjoying a spectacle. Initially, no one was even bothered about the content of her comments; it was the accent that they found weird. Yes, she is speaking with a twang, in this interview to Variety, as much as Aishwariya Bachchan does. It is as fake as that of some urban Indians. Was she dishonest for saying she was the first woman to kiss on screen and wear a bikini? I agree she is not quite on the dot here, but I am amazed that those very people who have problems with exposure on screen are now dusting memory files or running a search to find out who really sucked face first or wore a two-piece. Then there is this business about her wearing too little, especially at major events. Who does not? If you talk about a woman having control over her body, then she is well within her rights to dress as she wishes. If she stated that following such attempts, “instantly, I became a fallen women and a superstar at the same time”, then this is true. In fact, the reactions to her only prove her point.

I first watched her many years ago. She had already become known for her bold statements – yes, she does that too. It was a debate on just such a subject and in that panel that comprised a well-known media person and a feminist, she held her own without shouting down anyone. She made a whole lot of sense, and even as I write this it does seem so patronising. Why do we have to certify others? Who has given us the right?

Oh, but she was running down our country, they say. Ah! An India they remembered after they ran out of jokes about her accent and her body.

If she is of no consequence, why did Aseem Chhabra, the New York-based analyst of all things Indian, especially culture, write an editorial piece in Mumbai Mirror? “How is Mallika Sherawat walking red carpets all the time?” he asked, aghast. And answered it himself: “By splurging on a PR team.”

And then he does what any good man would do – pit her against other women.

“She is not a former beauty queen turned actress like Aishwariya Rai, with a major contract with a cosmetic giant, who has actually worked in a few non-Indian productions that do qualify as Hollywood credentials. She is not a former beauty queen turned actress like Priyanka Chopra, who is legitimately trying to establish a signing career in the west.”

What does legitimately mean? Since when have beauty queens, who are recreated in ‘labs’ and taught how to speak, become superior beings? Does Ms. Chopra not have agents? Heck, she needed one to handle the dead body of one of her team because she was too busy being legitimate. And what she sang is essentially mimicking the west, using their fantastic music studios to sound like anyone but herself. And, yeah, heard that accent? Aishwariya has a PR team that her brand arranges for her. Besides, for someone living in the US, it is surprising that the writer does not know that all Hollywood stars have their lobbyists. It is part of the business. But he is doing his business:

“So what or who is Mallika Sherawat and how does she get invited to parties and get pictures with genuine celebrities that she tweets all the time? That question baffles me sometimes, although usually I do not care much about it. The only answer, if any, is that she has spent a lot of money on a public relations team, which ensures she dresses sexy, is spotted on red carpets and paparazzi take her pictures.”

Are the others dressed like nuns? She wore such clothes before she got anywhere near the red carpet; they are probably now designer labels.  If it is a PR team that is managing it so well, then many more people ought to hire its members. At least they do not stage wardrobe malfunctions and make their real celebrities look like rag dolls. Are the big film festivals taking money from PR agents to let anybody walk the red carpet? What does it reveal about them? The same goes for the paparazzi that the stars love to hate.

“It is less clear what she gets out of all the partying and being spotted on red carpets. I know she made Los Angeles her temporary home. Even her Twitter handle - @MallikaLA says so. I suppose she believes that handle gives her certain respectability, an edge over other Indian stars who insist on living in Mumbai.”

He obviously has not seen our Page 3 and the fact that people do party. They do not have to give explanations and there might be none. Is it so difficult to understand? And if she is just doing it without any purpose, does it not mean that she is getting nothing out of it, and is not on the make, so to speak? What exactly does “certain respectability” mean? Is he implying that she lacks respectability? What is his yardstick for measuring it? I’d really like to know, for it was difficult to find any substance in the verbiage of inanities.

He mentioned her being photographed with “genuine celebrities” (I suppose Paris Hilton would figure prominently in the list, although he has missed out on President Barack Obama), forgetting that celebrity is itself a term that has to do with popularity and little to do with genuineness because all possible means are employed to get it.

He dismisses her acting, which is fair enough. It is also true that she does not have big films, although a part in a Jackie Chan movie would be considered an achievement by some, especially when our own biggies do walk-on parts in Hollywood films.  But to take a statement she made and then snigger is no different from groupie behaviour at a dorm:

“So I wonder what kind of ‘a lot of love’ Hollywood was showing Sherawat? Hollywood does do inexplicable things like inviting people with unknown celebrity quotient to parties. But Hollywood producers rarely take the risk of casting unknown faces that do not have much promise.”

If Smarty-pants has the answer, why does he go on and on? Has her PR agent hired him?! (You know what they say about bad publicity, although this is not even bad – it’s a lot of slosh.)

He too manages to get hot and bothered about the “peculiar accent”, but quickly covers it up with the patriot card:

“Sherawat managed to make a few jibes at India – ‘a hypocritical society where women are really at the bottom’. She said she made a conscious decision to divide her time between Los Angeles and India. ‘So now when I experience the social freedom in America and I go back to India which is so regressive for women, it's depressing,’ she said…The interviewer failed to ask her how India was regressive for a woman like her, who presumably is financially successful and a well-known Bollywood personality.”

Does he recall how Indian women and celebs were the toast of news channels after the Delhi gangrape? How every misogynistic statement was paraded so that people could hit out at it? This was Indians discussing our hypocrisy, our patriarchy. Even our prominent film stars discuss inequality when it comes to roles and pay. The writer probably lives in a cocoon where he believes money and celebrity save you from regressive behaviour. The Hollywood he is so in awe of has several such examples of chauvinism.  

But to expect depth to understand pop culture is asking too much from someone who says, “In fact, what has stayed with me about her is that she is Haryanavi and I smile when I think about it, a slight Delhi arrogance I have over people from Haryana.”

Priyanka Chopra poses with Gerard Butler. PR?

Think about how a woman from Haryana, without the ubiquitous godfather, made it. It is pathetic that Priyanka Chopra has decided to oppose her by stating:

"I think we are a progressive nation. I disagree that we are a regressive nation. We are all sitting here and talking about educating the girl child, taking our country forward. I think it`s a misrepresentation of what our great nation is on the world platform…When it comes to Mallika`s statements, I think they were very callous and I don`t agree with her. It was upsetting for me as a woman. It was upsetting for me as a girl who comes from India. I think it was extreme misrepresentation of our nation. I don`t think it`s fair."

As regards the world platform, even Satyajit Ray was accused of marketing our poverty overseas by actress and Rajya Sabha member, the late Nargis.

Unlike our cantonment beauty queens, who live in a protected environment, Mallika Sherawat comes from a conservative family in a region where khaps issue diktats. Mainstream films in which Priyanka acts also misinterpret India. As do Miss Worlds who talk about changing the world. Why, the fact that they want to do something for the disadvantaged means that there are a whole lot of them. And we talk about it because it exists. She said it and so do you. What makes you superior?

© Farzana Versey

Silencing Kashmir? The Valley’s Voices

Everyone is singing the Kashmir tune. An all girl-band has been banned. Most of us outside, and many in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, had never heard about them until this happened. The problem is not that one should refrain from opposing such censorship, but how the arguments are reduced to basics.

Most engagement with social issues is increasingly becoming one of transaction. This conscience barter is extremely populist and the agenda is clearly not to topple political correctness. Those who profess freedom of expression do not entertain even a devil’s advocate stance, which only reveals how close-minded and muzzling such ostensible independent thinking is. If we want to permit all kinds of thought, why do we seek to curb what in our opinion is regressive?

Three high school students – Farah Deeba, Aneeqa Khalid and Noma Nazir – formed a rock band.  Pragaash (First Light) has performed only one concert. Mufti Bashiruddin Ahmad, Kashmir’s state-appointed grand cleric, issued a fatwa asking them to “stop from these activities and not to get influenced by the support of political leadership”.

Odes are being sung to their talent, their courage. The right to expression does not need a quality certificate and those who back them could well be ignorant of their music. It is about not being allowed to do what they like.

I agree with this, but having lived all my life in Mumbai, the pivot of modern India, I can cite several instances where parents have objected to their teenage children participating in cultural activities, let alone taking an initiative to independently perform. This information is crucial because we use the convenient subterfuge of censorship to camouflage our own dissonant private behaviour. When we speak about Pragaash we are already dealing with young women who have not been stifled, have been exposed to world music, managed to train, buy equipment, and market themselves in a state that is considered repressive. It is rather unfortunate that even though they are way ahead than many of their well-wishers, they are now the object of sympathy.

Those fighting for their freedom are essentially offering condolences. After saying, “We are with you”, has support for the band gone beyond disingenuous analogy?

***

Pragaash’s manager and teacher Adnan Matoo, quoted in The Washington Post, said: 

“They feel terribly scared and want an immediate end to this controversy once for all. First, the girls had decided to quit live performance due to an online hate campaign and concentrate on making an album. But after an edict by the government’s own cleric, these girls are saying goodbye to music.”

As it did not start with the cleric, but an online hate campaign, it would fall under cyber law. Unfortunately, in India the hyperactive media ensures people are drugged and religion takes centrestage in almost every argument. Is the Grand Mufti’s fatwa the final word?

Mr. Mattoo follows the pattern set by the mainstream: 

“I know it from my last eight years’ experience that we could have easily dealt with the online abuse. We were failed by the government-run mufti, who asked us to forget our music and declared our band against the religion.”

While Indians have been arguing for long about the separation of state and religion, it is not possible in a country where building of a temple is the main agenda of the largest opposition party and the ruling party panders to all manner of minority votes. There is also talk about the Islamisation of Kashmir. Part of it may be attributed to the influx of jihadi elements in the separatist movement. However, intellectual discourse too harps on this aspect and uses ‘progressive’ quotes from scriptures, forgetting that much of what we call contemporary culture did not exist in the time of prophets and messiahs.

Why did it take a month for the Mufti to issue a diktat? Was he under political pressure, too? This might seem like a shocking query, but his mosque comes under the government’s purview. J&K isn’t really a rocking state.  Since the concert was for the paramilitary forces, there is a likelihood of intense anger among the locals. Stories of abuse of women by the security forces are a constant refrain in the troubled area. Why did the hate campaign against the girls not address this and instead choose to harp on their ‘un-Islamic’ vocation?

Pragaash band members

One reason is that the moment they criticise the ‘saviours’, they’d be dubbed militants. Anonymity might imbue them with temporary courage, but even in their unknown status there is a need for self-recognition. This is as much of an identity need as the cultural space for freedom. It is their azaadi (freedom) call versus the azaadi of what they perceive to be the copped-out coddled lot. A more nuanced reading would be that Islam, with its broad brush-stroke possibility of what is haraam (heathen), can factor in their ire and keep it alive. Politicians wake up. Pontiffs wake up. Separatist organisations wake up.

This is not to imply that there have been no strictures on modes of dressing, education and cultural activities. But these certainly do not happen in Kashmir alone.  It does not make them right. However, should there be no room for more than simplistic ideas of right and wrong?

The chief minister, Omar Abdullah, was applauded for standing by the band members: 

“I hope these talented young girls will not let a handful of morons silence them. Shame on those who claim freedom of speech via social media and then use that freedom to threaten girls who have the right to choose to sing.”

However, on Headlines Today he said he had not asked them to sing so he cannot ask them to continue to do so. He would be willing to provide security for them, though.

The BJP only needed this to further its anti-Islamic position. Its party president in the state said: 

“It is an attempt towards 'Talibanisation' of the society by certain fundamentalist groups who are uncomfortable with the return of normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir.”

The BJP ought not to speak out of turn. Its record in giving women liberty is abominable. The rightwing does not permit even the celebration of Valentine’s Day, using the same argument that the Mufti has used – it is western culture. Besides, the BJP has earlier had an alliance with the current party, the National Conference. Did they reach normalcy?

***

One cannot wish away politicisation. In fact, pop culture is political, in that it attempts to convey popular consumerist sentiment as retail therapy. Does this exclude political theism?

Mehbooba Mufti, president of People's Democratic Party (PDP), was being intimidated on a TV debate. Despite it, she made a most reasonable comment by saying that as a believer although she would not abuse a religious leader, she could well disagree with his views. Did this get any attention? It does not suit the archetype.

As happens with anything to do with Islam, when in doubt bring in the Sufi. The prevalence of Sufi music is mentioned as an example of the existence of such open expression in the Valley. People do not realise that it is deeply rooted in religion. It may not be seen as theological, but the fact is that it almost always addresses the Higher Being and seeks to drown the identity of the singer into the pool of devotion. The reason Sufi music is now being given a wider platform is because it falls well and truly into the ‘music bazaar’ as a commercial product.

Is this what drives liberalism? Asiya Andrabi, leader of the Dukhtaran-e-Millat, has had some amazing achievements to her credit – blackening the faces of women, shutting down beauty parlours. But, then, her political affiliations do not lie with India, as she openly states. For a moment, let us stand aside and check whether what she says and what some feminists do is much different. She believes that women are objectified; feminists think so too when they discuss certain advertisements where women expose their bodies. How do we decide to accept one version and not the other?

***

If this is indeed a larger issue about artistic license, then why did the Pragaash supporters have objections to rapper Honey Singh soon after the Delhi gangrape? His song, “Main balatkari hoon” (I am a rapist) was not new. It was obvious that this was not about concern, but a need to be acceptable and part of a trending movement. Among the many voices was one of senior journalist Vir Sanghvi, who used the social network to say: 

“For God's sake, Bristol Hotel. Cancel the Honey Singh show. Are you guys in the rape business or the hotel business? If the Bristol does not cancel the Honey Singh show then I would urge every decent Indian to boycott the hotel.”

No one seemed to have realised that the terminology, “rape business”, itself was offensive. Besides, how does one define decency? 

The moral spine of the amoral and unconstrained tends to be willing to bend as the occasion demands. Had there been no immediate ‘case’, there would be no such importance given to the singer or his lyrics. If we understand that art does have freedom – in films, paintings, music – then it follows that there ought not to be conditions that curtail it. Why is one boycott legitimate and another not? Why are the words of liberal sages acceptable and the concerns of the socially-conservative reprehensible?

MC Kash

Omar Abdullah too raised the question about local rapper MC Kash, wondering why he has not been banned for his obscene lyrics. This is telling and not surprising, for the singer questions the authorities and the security forces: 

“You sit your ass down & don't make a sound/you take off that Pheran, you Mother Fucking clown - Words said by Indian Forces durin' a crackdown.” 

Is such obscenity not proactive rebellion?

The online campaign referred to the girls as “sluts” and “prostitutes”. These words are used by supposedly reasonable people in the social media for what they look down upon, be it the item girls in Bollywood films or the increasingly brash young women who do not consider nudity to be an issue. One rarely hears any applause for them. Therefore, who really is in a position to take a high moral ground?

Kashmiri dancers for video albums

Perhaps we’d like to consider this story about dancers and singers in Kashmiri music albums. One of them, Sweety, said: 

“My mom accompanies me to the bus stop when I have to go to Srinagar. My profession annoys my maternal uncles, neighbours talk (bad things) about me.” 

A choreographer explains: 

“Most of them join to support their families after the death of their father. It comes as a handy option because they come from uneducated families and here they do not need any educational qualification. I request them either do something else or to be careful.”

This is a universal concern, more so when people cannot do “what they like” even in their daily routine because death is not too far away. Because singing and dancing are not about the luxury of freedom, but the last resort of orphaned hopes. 

(c) Farzana Versey

Tears dry on their own...

She died before she died. I was not much acquainted with Amy Winehouse’s work, but as happens with most of pop culture, I knew more about her than I wanted to – her big hair, her life larger than the moments that count. 27 is no age to die but it was probably not the age to live the way she did. Artifically.

Yet, what is so artifical about self-destruction? That’s what they said. Drugs, drinks, rehab. More than any of these it is the pressure to be out there, a voyeur watching your own antics with greater urgency than anybody else.

Just a couple of days earlier I read about the book that Britney Spears’ bodyguard wrote. He mentioned her unhygienic habits – she did not bathe for days, did not brush her teeth, did not use deo. He is a slimeball, but if any of this is true, it is a bit amazing that she did not care enough about herself for one in the job of projecting looks. Isn't this a form of self-destruction, too? He said she wanted him to join her in bed. Was it momentary desperation? Powerplay? Or just a young woman who wanted a warm body close to her, the body of a man who would detail her smells and sounds – her loud farts and loud laughs.

The problem is the business of being a rock star happens too soon. They are made to grow up, pump themselves with adrenalin and do the things that will not be acceptable. They are supposed to kick everyone in the ass.

Years ago, I sat on a park bench in Seattle. I did not understand the look of sadness that overcame faces of people who passed by as though it were a funeral. It was where Kurt Cobain used to visit; it had become a memorial. His death was replayed everyday. Elvis’s is. Jackson’s is.

Now Amy Winehouse will die again. And again. As she did when she lived. For she was meant to. And I am amazed that although these people are performers, they are not singing superficial stuff. They are snorting on sorrow as much as substances. The lyrics, even if they are macabre, tell of a truth we may not wish to accept. Our denial is their exposure.

Have we never at any point in our lives wanted to say something like:

I feel so small discovering you knew

How much more torture would you have put me through?

you probably saw me laughing at all your jokes

or how I did not mind when you stole all my smokes

You sent me flying – Amy Winehouse:

- - -

After I wrote this, I realised that 92 people have died in the blasts in Norway. So, why did I pen a piece on a person I know little about whereas I am aware of the consequences of terrorism and have analysed the motives so often from so many different angles? Such destruction is immense, and I do know that.

I think the death of a person in the public eye becomes personalised. There is something one can relate to, despite the 'distance' - geographical and in the details. For me, there is another reality. I had planned to post something that I have procrastinated about. Something has held me back. It lies curled up inside, a part of me that does not want to be a part of me and yet won't leave.

The words had formed and then someone else's words took over even as the voice has been stilled.

I procrastinate again.