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No short skirts: Mahesh Sharma's RSS-tinged gaffes are no longer funny

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Angshukanta Chakraborty
Angshukanta ChakrabortyAug 29, 2016 | 19:48

No short skirts: Mahesh Sharma's RSS-tinged gaffes are no longer funny

The big lens on women's clothing - whether they are at the French Riviera or in an Indian small town - never goes out of fashion. While some want women to cover up, some prefer it out in the open. While some say being clothed is culture and tradition, some drum up civic sense and liberty to make the case for the little black dress, the two piece swimwear or the mini skirt.

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Never in this great rigmarole is the question posed to women themselves: what do they want to wear? What do they feel comfortable in? Do they want to cover their head or bare it? Do they want to wear a bikini or the burkini when they go for water-sporting on the beach? Do they want to wear a sari or shirt-pants when they visit a temple?

Exactly as a Digambar Jain monk - Tarun Sagar - addressed the Haryana Assembly in his traditional attire (that is none), the high-serious debate in the country was about the hem length of a woman's skirt.

When on Sunday last Union minister of culture and tourism - Mahesh Sharma - declared as an "advisory" to foreign tourists to avoid wearing short skirts when they are in a small Indian town, he was pretty much focussing his lens of common sense and practicality on how the foreign women should behave in order to avoid situations.

The little "handbook of do's and don'ts" that Sharma says foreigners get from the ministry of culture and tourism is peppered with such practical advice on how not to get raped in India.

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Just like the African students who were responsible for the beatings that they got from volatile Indians, or Mohammad Akhlaq, who should have thought the better of storing meat, any meat, in his refrigerator in order to avoid getting lynched to death.

The onus, in Mahesh Sharma's RSS-tinted worldview, is always on the victim, never on the perpetrator.

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Exactly what is the purpose of Mahesh Sharma's serial 'gaffes'?

When the French supreme court overturned the disgusting burkini ban, it had the following thing to say: the ban was "illegal and a violation of fundamental liberties", that it "dealt a serious and clearly illegal blow to fundamental liberties such as freedom of movement, freedom of conscience and personal liberty".

Whether it's a beach or a small town in India, the last thing women need is the sartorial policing they face on a daily basis, whether in the East or in the West. The garb is either religion in India or a twisted version of secularism - as in the case of France, and hilarious as it may sound, both are equally problematic.

But coming back to Sharma and his serial "gaffes" - can we really keep dismissing them as a mere foot-in-the-mouth problem and not the symptom of a deeper malaise, that is a pungent mix of patriarchy and religious bigotry doled out as the manual to avoid sexual harassment and offending Indian men in various stages of psychological evolution?

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Can Mahesh Sharma explain exactly why is a short skirt a hazard for women but a khaki  half-pant - that is the RSS uniform - not exactly an issue? Let's not forget that it was none other than Sharma who had said - "let writers stop writing if they have a problem with the government" - when authors were returning their awards in hordes to protest the climate of intolerance.

But then the other time the short (read mini) skirt made news was in the case of the epiphenomenon that is Radhe Maa, the "famous godwoman", a saintly being with high-profile devotees, and a fan club of satsang-loving, trishul-flaunting religious richie rich of India. However, when the leaked pictures of their beloved Maa in a little red dress, "cavorting" like Bad Santa, made headlines, these crorepatis didn't know where to hide their hypocrisies so out in the open.

Just like the elaborate costume drama that is Radhe Maa, good Indian culture, something that Mahesh Sharma, and every other RSS apparatchik, wants imprinted on our glocalised minds, is an error-ridden period film like Mohenjo Daro, in need of major editorial intervention.

The whole point of being Mahesh Sharma, let's admit it, is merely do his bidding as an obedient RSS point person. He has been manning and touring Indian culture just the way he should, exactly as Nagpur expects of him.

He may be a medical doctor by profession, but his prescription to cure the Indian condition of its liberal disease is to hand it over the hajme ki goli to make the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its Hindutva digestible, almost every day and unsurprising.

Sharma, from his student days of ABVP, to winning the 2014 Lok Sabha election on a BJP ticket from Gautam Buddha Nagar, has been practising for this day when he - as a loyal foot soldier of the great Sangh Parivar - steers the big ship of India towards becoming the full-fledged Hindu Rashtra that is the RSS-VHP project.

Mahesh Sharma's controversy delivery has the perfect timing of a pizza service. It's so mundane and predictable that it's no longer hilarious, but skirting the issue is hardly an option.

Last updated: August 31, 2016 | 15:35
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