On Second Thought

Look around, ya see so many social hypocrites Like to make rules for others while they do just the opposite - Bob Dylan (Ain’t No Man Righteous, No Not One - Slow Train Coming)

by VIKASH PRADHAN

FROM ISSUE # 81 (September 2002) | IN THIS ISSUE
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Just how long is long enough and how short is too short?

Talking about control and administering, I have always joked about a day dawning when we will have people on the streets minding our gait, the length of our hair, body weight or maybe even the shine on our shoes. I realize now that day has already dawned; there already are people monitoring our looks and get up - the moral police.

"That is the reason why girls get raped," was a comment that a person made when we intervened in his moral policing. While on a trip to Thamel, there was a man misbehaving with three young girls. He told us that he had a problem with a tank top that one girl had on. He apparently thought it too revealing and was forcing them into a taxi to send them home.

Is there a dearth of issues which need immediate attention that we rack our brains over a non-issue like exposure? If yes, who decides just how long is long enough and how short is too short? The other question that arises is why and on what basis or authority?

I have always admired proactive people, but not initiatives without proper logic and those that infringe on somebody else's rights. I remember seeing a mentally-challenged girl walking about naked. Not a single man or woman came forward to even try doing something about it. If a body needed covering up it was hers, if people needed to be proactive, it was then.

On the subject of morals, society and women, have we actually addressed all the relevant issues, the ones that matter, that we now move on to deal with exposure? Women are faced with inequality and discrimination with roots lying in our nations very laws. So why is everybody, apart from a few activists and women's rights group, all mute and dumb? Most of us haven't even dwelt about the fact that our women folk do not have equal rights and privileges, let alone raise our voices for them.

There are times in fact when women are physically harassed in the streets, in full sight of other people, without a single voice of protest being raised. The lolas hurled at women during Phagu Purnima, the catcalls and malicious comments that greets every girl in Kathmandu, are issues that need attention. Despite the dawn of the second millennium, women in our society have not yet crossed over from being mere objects. Our collective mindset is still primitive: women are nothing more then objects for use and abuse. Equality is a faraway dream, their transition from objects to human incomplete.

Back to moral policing, all Iask is why? A lot of you will come up with various reasons and justifications but take heed. It may be the length of a skirt today, the length of your hair tomorrow, the colour of your skin the next, the person YOU, thereafter. There is no end to it. It is endless and all encompassing, you, your life and your rights.

Before I even consider any thought on exposure, being a youth, I demand answers from our moral police on the following:-

- Women trafficking
- Unemployment
- Street Children
- Substance Abuse
- Corruption
- Economy
- Democracy

About issues and priorities: what we need is not longer skirts nor covered navels and arms. The need of the hour is honesty, ethics, principles and open minds that come from the heart and are not forcibly imposed. The most important need of the hour is PEACE.

About rights: it's one life, mine. Why should anyone else dictate the way I live?