Girls walk for pride

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No fear. No shame. A few months back it was the anger against stereotyping women that lead to a major phenomenon called ‘Slutwalk’ in Toronto and London. On a hot and humid Sunday morning, even the capital of India witnessed a similar wave of change at the Slutwalk Arthaat Besharmi Morcha, which was held at Jantar Mantar.
The event which was created on Facebook by a young college girl Umang Sabarwal gained popularity over the past two months. Perhaps, the hoopla surrounding the march led to frequent date change, name change etc, but finally the groups of young organisers were able to pull it off.
Due to security reasons, the walk was reduced to just a congregation of 300-400 college students, a handful of foreigners and more than 500 police personnel. Various groups, who planned to attend the peaceful protest were presented with bright done placards that read, “Freedom means to dress as you like, without fear,” “My dress is not a YES” and “Stop staring. Women are not aliens from Venus.”
Vibhuti Varma, a DU student and one of the organising members, informed that the turnout was better than expected. She says, “Many college girls and boys gathered to spread the message. Our main motive was to tell people not to stereotype women and respect them.” Even Umang added that “it was a good experience; the success of this event proves that Delhi is ready for the change.”
Rignhild, a 25-year-old professional from Norway, says, “I am living in Delhi from past one month and I wanted to participate in this walk today to show my support to women who are discriminated against their clothing. It is very important that men should not typecast women. It’s a global mindset and needs to be changed.”
Ranjana Majumdar and Sonakshi Verma, volunteers from Kamala Nehru College, disclosed that every participant was preparing for this from the past two weeks and most of them gathered in the morning to get the ball rolling. Ranjana says, “This walk was organised to send across a strong message. We are not here to reclaim the work ‘slut’, we want to tell people that if a girl wears shorts or skirts or any other garment, she should not be misjudged.”
Similarly, Ipsita and Shreiya from IP University gathered to express their views about the need for change in mindset. Says Ipsita, “Just because I have my ears pierced and have tattoos, doesn’t mean that I want men to pass lewd comments and whistle.”
However, a striking thing that we observed at the Besharmi Morcha was the presence of more men than women. Aditya, Arpit and Apoorv, students from DU, came to the morcha out of curiosity and pointed out, “We just came to see ‘catwalk’ and skimpily clad women, but sadly there are none. Most of the men and onlookers are here to see some action but sadly there is nothing interesting happening here.”
So after the first edition of Besharmi Morcha, we can surely hope that even though the change won’t happen overnight, but protests like this will create awareness at some level.