Dear Society,

As a millennial student just about to begin her college studies, I am here today to bring to your attention matters that concern not only my, but perhaps my entire generation’s future. Much has been written about us millennials over the years in mainstream media and much will continue to be written, as you try to worry about us. I contemplated long and hard as to whether I must write to you directly or not, whether it was my place to do so, but I have decided that I must ask you some crucial questions. Before we do that, though, let us analyze some of what has happened in the past few years.

On December 18, 2019, Whatsapp chats of 13-14 year old schoolboys from a posh Mumbai school were leaked where they could be seen discussing their female classmates in derogatory terms and calling for their rape with the intent of “destroying them”. Eight students, all from affluent Mumbai families were eventually suspended from the school.

“Bois Locker Room” group on Instagram. Bois was a wordplay on “Boys”

On May 3, 2020, yet another group chat of boys between the ages of 16-18 from various South Delhi schools on Instagram, named “Bois Locker Room”, leaked. The members of this group, too, were not just making sexually explicit comments on the bodies of the girls in their network, but also allegedly discussing targeted sexual violence as means of taking revenge for petty fights. Some of the girls in question were barely 14. As these chats leaked on social media, the group members called for “leaking nudes” of the girls who they suspected may have leaked the screenshots. Police is investigating the matter.

As police investigates the details of Bois Locker Room, another troubling detail tumbled out. One of the girls who was being targeted by that group, herself used an anonymous account on Snapchat, pretending to be male, and suggested to her “friend” that she herself must be raped. When asked why she would do something like this, she said that she was hoping to “test” the character of her friend. The friend did the right thing in this case.

Do these developments that happened in my peer group trouble you? Judging by the reactions in mainstream news channels, I will assume that they do. So now let me bring your attention to another series of events.

Screen grab from Urooj Ashfaq’s show, “Uber Driver and Grandmother”.

In a recent episode of her show, popular standup comic Urooj Ashfaq narrated her supposed interaction with a cab driver, in which she casually stated, “Sir, aap mera rape karne wale ho!” (Sir, you are about to rape me). This was part of a joke, one that received a roaring applause from adulating crowds. I saw this episode on Facebook as it was shared by my friends.

In 2016, a Salman Khan starrer hit-movie, the lead character who is a middle-aged wrestling champion remarks, “When I used to walk out of the ring, after the shoot, I used to feel like a raped woman”. The movie, which by no means is an exception, was rated U/A (universal-adult) and deemed fit for consumption by all ages, including children. Needless to say, given Salman Khan’s popularity among India’s youth, millions of youngsters watched the movie, often accompanied by parents and adults and it went on to be a hit at the box office.

Fazal Siddiqui’s TikTok video showing a girl with “acid attack” makeup

Just yesterday, a video by TikTok star with over 13.4 million followers, Fazal Siddiqui, surfaced where he was seen making instant-videos where he asks his girlfriend if she would marry him. The girl says “No, my father won’t allow me”. In the next shot, the girl shows up with a bruised face with the caption “Why did you lead me on if you had no intention of following through?”. In another video by the same account, Fazal is shown to throw some liquid at the girl’s face, when she refuses his advances, and the girl is shown to be wearing makeup that indicates a cracked face (indicating acid attack). As this issue surfaced on social media, several ordinary accounts are seen defending the account owner.

These are just a handful of the thousands of examples I can narrate to you, that I have consumed personally, over the past few years. I am 17 years old. So I ask you, do you pay attention to the kind of media that kids of my age group are consuming? We covered comedy, movies and social media content, so far.

Now lets talk about News Media.

Last month, the rapists convicted of the 2012 gangrape that shook the national conscience, were hanged. Before their sentence was carried out, a high-voltage drama went on for days, where the lawyers of the rapists, appealed a stay on flimsy grounds in the Delhi High Court, Indian Supreme Court, back to Delhi Court [1] and even an attempt was made in the International Court of Justice[2]. While it is any convict’s right to appeal under due process, what was most appalling to me, was the conduct of certain sections of the media, known for their otherwise feminist-leanings, such as Caravan Magazine, who published mercy petitions of the rapists who until their last breath were claiming that they were only guilty of abetting and not actually raping. The language of the article painted the rapists as poverty-stricken victims of an unjust system. The lawyer of the rapist came on national television several times and smirkingly made statements trying to shame the victim, even posthumously and taunted her mother. Some extremely high-profile journalists, such as Hartosh Singh Bal quote tweeted this article stating “In the face of a cheering lynch mob, this is a difficult story to read, but we must all do so…” implying that those who sympathized with the family of the victim for finally getting justice after 8 years were a “lynch mob”.

Ms. Indira Jaisingh, the noted feminist lawyer-activist of India, urged the mother of the victim to “forgive” the rapists. [3] While we may also have mixed feelings towards capital punishment, what could possibly justify the harassment and taunting of the hapless mother who lost her child in the most heinous manner to a bunch of criminals?

Did any of these journalists, lawyers, activists, who are supposed to be the conscience of the society stop and think that by defending the accused, what message they were sending to me, a 17 year old girl, about to enter college? If a victim of the most high-profile rape case that India has seen in the last decade cannot get justice without getting shamed, without her mother being harassed, what hope is there for ordinary girls and women?

Although it has been more than a month since Nirbhaya’s rapists were executed, our net progress as a society remains zero. Every time a case like Bois Locker Room or Fazal Siddiqui emerges, TV studios wax eloquent in prime time debates for a few days and yet, every time it devolves into shrill political arguments and muck throwing but no constructive solution is found.

Perhaps I am not old enough to understand all the moving parts of this issue, but there are simple things that I can observe very clearly. Among the many contributing factors, the most worrisome perhaps, is the modern Indian society’s increasing tolerance for violence against women. This is not just an attitude espoused by men, but by women too. Hyper-sexualization, objectification, abusive language, defending various degrees of verbal, physical or sexual abuse is now considered “cool”. This is rampant in all sections of the society, including the elites. For while the connoisseurs of Salman Khan’s Bollywood masculinity which involves stalking, passing lewd remarks on girls and singing songs equating women to “tandoori chicken” [4] maybe the subaltern men, the creators and contributors of the movie are the crème-de-la-crème of elite Bollywood. The stand-up comedians may appear to be making jokes worse than the road-side louts, but the people attending these stand-ups, cheering and clapping at them are very much English-speaking elite Delhi/Mumbai crowd. The rapists of Nirbhaya may have lived in shanties, but those who made excuses for them, humanized them in national and international media journals, were very much elite. And yet, while plenty is written and said about the subaltern’s tolerance for misogyny, very little is asked of the elite circles where prominent journalists prefer to point a finger at Tarun Tejpal’s accuser than the accused himself. Even as #MeToo revelations shook Hollywood leading to high-profile rape trials, absolutely nothing happened to even one person who was accused in India.

We must ask uncomfortable questions to those who are in power, not just political power, but also positions of privilege and power in narrative-setting circles, from prominent journalists, movie-industry elites, and comedians as to why, such blatant normalization of sexual violence is allowed in their content, even as they often don the masks of being feminists in social appearances.

Child dancing at an Indian wedding. Credits: Flickr

Most Bollywood movies, over the past two decades have largely revolved around the idea of a macho-hero with a supporting role for a woman as his chief consort which he woos through macho-means such as stalking, leering, jeering, teasing etc after which the woman obligingly falls in love with him. The girl can be more well-educated or less, and the “hero” could be pretty much jobless, with a lot of time on his hands which he can invest in “chasing” the girl. And yet, highly qualified girls are seen abandoning their career prospects to fall for this lout. With the exception of a few, most movies have at least one, off-plot dance routine, called an “Item Song”. These include performances by “item-girls” — women who don revealing clothing and dance on sexually-suggestive lyrics, often for no reason whatsoever. Thes songs, make the movie a radio hit and they are then played endlessly in parties, clubs, and even social occasions like weddings. One of the pleasures of social media is that now, we can now also consume videos of young girls, sometimes as young as 2-3 years old, repeating the moves of these “item-girls” and parents proudly circulating such videos in their circles to show their child’s talent.

My questions to you, dear Society, here are two fold:

First, Bollywood, the largest film industry in the world, which produces films at a rate of more than thousand per year, has a huge role to play in influencing the youth since more often than not, these actors are considered as role models for the younger generation. So, we must ask these youth-icons, especially the many actresses whom many young girls look up to, as to why they do not raise a single question about the pervasive misogynistic culture in Bollywood, even as scandal after scandal hits continues to hit their industry? Why do respectable lyricists who make socially-responsible commentary on pretty much every national issue on social media, forget all proprietary while writing these songs which are borderline soft-porn? Mr. Farhan Akhtar runs a laudable initiative called “MARD” (Men against Rape and Discrimination), yet fails to say a single word against the slew of misogynistic movies that his own industry keeps churning out, the most recent of the lot being “Kabir Singh”.

Just like Bollywood, the other popular element of urban Indian pop-culture, Stand-Up comedy, is playing a an equally prominent role in normalizing misogynistic attitudes amongst my generations, in both boys and girls. Modern Stand-Ups which are aimed at the urban, elite, English speaking, “open-minded” audience, are usually full of sexual content and comics seldom restrain themselves from trivializing rape or other forms of sexual violence or even objectifying women.

A study of Standup Comedy in the Delhi-NCR region revealed a lot about the content of the Stand-Ups.

“Sexual content and vulgar language was another prominent feature the extensive use of which sufficed to generate laughter regardless of context. This was permissible since stand-up comedy constructs itself “and is perceived as” a privileged space free of the restrictions operating in society at large. In fact not only was such content allowed, but it was a major attraction which in part defined the character of these shows.”

Most of these videos are marketed to the millennial generation as “cool” content. Even the kids whose parents, like mine, are quite strict and keep a close eye on what we consume, have direct access to this content because it comes not through surreptitious channels but legitimate ones. I assure you, our parents perhaps know of and control only about 10% of the media we consume on a daily basis. Restricting internet usage is hardly an option as even our formal-education moves to the web. Can parents alone solve this? Isn’t the deck clearly stacked against them?

I appreciate the issue with parents trying to completely control the content that their children consume, but perhaps we can become critical consumers of this content, rather than consuming this mindlessly? A friend once told me that whenever her mother took her to see a movie, she would encourage my friend and her brother to have a discussion about what they saw and her mother would encourage the siblings to write a “review” of the movie where they got to criticize parts of the movie. The importance of such a little gesture on the part of my friend’s mother didn’t fully dawn on me until I began writing this letter to you. Today, those children have understood a very important lesson that took me a while to learn: Media can be consumed critically. We can watch entertainment content and think about the social message it sends or place the various lessons in context simultaneously. This little habit could really be the difference between us subconsciously learning and mimicking or normalizing these problematic behaviours and becoming thoughtful critics of it.

This brings me to the second part of my question: Why is it that for the past several generations, India’s youth has decided to find its role models in Bollywood or Cricket stars? Add “social media influencer” to this category for my generation. Just look at the popularity of Youtube or Instagram “makeup” and “fashion” influencers who are barely teens themselves. The faces of these “celebrities” are everywhere, not only in entertainment channels, but in everyday advertisements, instagram and youtube channels but even in news debates and, even government schemes are advertised through them. What does it say about our society where our role models are not scientists, philosophers, writers, academics, researchers, doctors, engineers or nation-builders, but entertainers? Entertainers, that too from an industry, which is hardly the epitome of cinematic or artistic excellence? Which for the past several decades has basically recycled the same 4-5 themes in every movie? An industry, where every generation sees a new set of people “speaking up” against “casting couch” and all that speaking up still hasn’t translated to any action. An industry, where prominent producers and directors who are accused of sexual harassment continue to thrive and where actors and actresses not only refuse to take a stance but worse, end up defending the accused and calling the victim a liar. Doesn’t all this lead to the obvious conclusion in the minds of the youth that idolizes these stars, that violence against women is justified behavior?

I must highlight here, that this is not a boys-vs-girls issue, this is a boys-and-girls issue. As young boys increasingly feel pressured to live up to this expectation of tough-masculine-hero and hide their vulnerabilities, young girls feel compelled to find their self-worth in their sexual-appeal. The pressure on both genders to focus on their looks, their bodies and their “open-mindedness” is unnaturally high. Irrespective of how talented or intelligent you may be, you are increasingly labelled as “nerds” as if it were a bad thing to be using your brain.

I know there are no easy solutions. Our families lead increasingly busy lives, with parents busy with their work and children being overloaded with schoolwork, there is hardly any time for social interaction in the family. For those who don’t live in joint families, even managing one square meal together is a struggle. As such, most of us learn important lessons in our lives indirectly through the media we consume. Having been privileged to grow up in a family where understanding and living through Dharma was an important aspect of any child’s upbringing, I have been able to develop the ability of discern the right from wrong, but as I look around me, I can assure you, not everyone is as privileged as I am. I see the normalization of violence, hyper-sexualization and vulgarity growing around me. The Dharmik concept of “mastery over self” where one starts learning control over their senses at an early age, is seen as “regressive” and the new-age mantra is living like YOLO (You-Only-Live-Once) which as many of you might know, is hardly the Dharmik stand point. Yet the prevalence of this increasingly self-centered way of life, concerns me about the well-being of not just my friends and peers but also my entire generation because it is us who will run this country in the future. Maybe I am too young to be worrying about this, but as I watch some of the debates that are happening in mainstream media, I can assure you, a vast majority of them are missing the point by a long shot.

I have no answers, I am only 17 after all. But I do have questions for you. I hope these questions from your future generation, will compel you think of systemic changes that are immediately needed to change the course of my generation. I pray that they do.

Thank you for listening to me.

Yours Sincerely,

Soumitri.

REFERENCES

[1] Nirbhaya gangrape murder case: Delhi High Court rejects final plea, convicts to hand in Tihar Jail https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/nirbhaya-gangrape-murder-case-delhi-hc-death-warrant-convict-hanging-tihar-jail-1657631-2020-03-20

[2] Nirbhaya Rapists move to international court of justice to seek stay on execution https://in.mashable.com/culture/12236/nirbhaya-rapists-move-international-court-of-justice-to-seek-stay-on-execution

[3] Indira Jaising asks the mother of the victim, to “forgive” the rapists after supporting a stay on their execution. https://twitter.com/MirrorNow/status/1218490576263208961?s=20

[4] Misogyny in popular culture: B'wood is culpable? https://www.news18.com/news/india/misogyny-in-popular-culture-bwood-is-culpable-529205.html

REFERENCES

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