Feminism Raises A Hand
ANURADHA MAHINDRA, Founder-Editor, Verve, breaks down the social and cultural repercussions of the recent Kangana Ranaut slapgate taking into consideration how women all over the world have generationally paid a price for protecting members of their tribe from abusive circumstances, public and private
The uniformed (and officer’s insignia-wearing) female constable, member of the CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) at Chandigarh Airport since 2009, equal to her husband who is also a personnel in the same force, can easily be termed a feminist. The 35-year-old had perhaps nailed career equality in her marital relationship. That woman power is important to Constable Kaur can also be acknowledged in her unassailable support of her mother who sat in the farmer’s protests in 2020, along with her brother, Sher Singh Mahiwal, the organisational secretary of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee that was part of the remonstrance.
That is, until Constable Kaur used violence to compensate for her feelings of humiliation, and smacked another woman — Kangana Ranaut — in public, right on her face to settle scores. To redeem the sting of the actor’s alleged comments on the protests — which supposedly indicted her mother — she literally swung into action and gave Ranaut what we often in facetious parlance refer to as “one tight slap”. Succumbing to an offence that women in this country have been trying to shield, disempowered and abused members of their tribe from. The smack seemingly pulsated on the cheeks of all those women who had been subjected to physical violence and rage in power imbalances whether at work, home or in their communities. Raising a hand on a woman is probably considered one of the worst offences within the Indian cultural context, yet the unseemly scenes are rampant both in reel and real life.
Actors develop thick skins from constantly being in the public eye, and the victim, a recent MP-elect who is used to being the cynosure of fans and constituency supporters, may well have turned the other cheek. But she took the opportunity to stand up against aggression of any kind and several Bollywood and media influencers posted thumbs-up emojis on her video condemning the incident. Internet activism is alive and well, and the movie fraternity came out in support of their fellow actor. Bollywood is ironically known for its iconic slapping scenes, where the whacks often resound with the piety of redressing misdemeanours of bad behaviour. In reel life, we frequently see the slap as a Teflon-coated weapon against the “slapee’s” apparent badtameezi [rudeness], an offence that in the social and cultural construct of the film is unforgivable. If ahimsa is our birthright, do such instances deprive women of Bapu’s non-violent mantra?
With social media’s brazen instigation of voyeurism, and the credulity that goes along with it, the underlying danger is that public shaming can rise to a new art form, with disregard to any so-called loyalties among kindred communities, women included.
The chaanta [slap] reverberated beyond the security booth of the airport, unnerving many women in environments they might have considered to be safe havens. Women’s empowerment demands that we give a thumbs-up to all those who have paved the way for others, however controversial they may have been. But if the vote of no confidence towards another woman deteriorates into an impulsive slap on the face, it denounces and denigrates every step forward that womankind has taken. Armies of real-life women have worked tirelessly in building respect for their kind — long before the celluloid “Queen” played by Ranaut left her mark on the audience in 2013. They have worked hard to protect women from the assault of misogynistic and patriarchal missteps.
Every woman is worthy of respect and has the right to be treated like a human being with self-worth, and with the license to voice her own independent opinion. Way back in 1978, Madhu Kishwar and Ruth Vanita had founded Manushi (albeit it has devolved into a very different platform since). At that time, it was one of India’s first publications with a feminist lens. Today, many public figures like President Droupadi Murmu and Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s first female Finance Minister, stride through airports and hotels, traversing the country to give inspirational speeches, or distribute awards among women’s groups, wearing their sense of responsibility firmly on their sleeves. Their years of public life have braced them for opposition and possible heckling, but if their personal boundaries are violated, it would be an insult for Indian women at large.
In defence of her mother, Constable Kaur publicly shamed another woman, a one-time feminist darling, whose screen personas have defended women’s rights. She is now a newly-minted Member of Parliament, besides being prized with a National Award and a Padma Shri.
With social media’s brazen instigation of voyeurism, and the credulity that goes along with it, the underlying danger is that public shaming can rise to a new art form, with disregard to any so-called loyalties among kindred communities, women included. The video of Ranaut receiving the blow went viral. Like the Oscars moment featuring Will Smith and Chris Rock and the ludicrous television soap moments of Sasural Simar Ka, the slap has become a mainstay of internet culture and continues to pop up as meme fodder.
Will we now feel more scrutinised than before? Will that in turn moderate or stifle our ambitions? Will this endanger our species further to vulnerabilities we are still battling against, like domestic violence, dowry harassment and other forms of male chauvinism?
If a celebrity and MP-elect’s security cordon could be penetrated, where does it leave the average woman whose sense of self-esteem and dignity is her only barrier? The irony could be that this so-called power woman for that split instant became the symbol of the many social injustices the woman constable might have experienced. In trying to redress those inequalities, the latter raised her hand at another empowered woman. It was clearly a step backwards in our march towards winning more rights, be it in the political, business, creative or domestic arenas.
The only thing is that instead of expressing that right with a bitch slap, we are better off adding muscular language to the female voice — rather than beefing up the power of the chastening hand.
Mothers, who are occasionally guilty themselves of admonishing their daughters with a tight thappad [slap], an Indianism, also implying an intimacy between the two, will now feel there is more that threatens their female progeny beyond the safe purview of the home. That is, if independent thinking can so impulsively transform into aggression unleashed or unplugged. Today the 2002 MTV series, One Tight Slap would be an anachronism (or become a part of cancel culture) rather than a cool way of hitting out at unacceptable tropes. But when it was conceived, they were leveraging the phrase as a heavily amusing Indian colloquialism to induce corrective action. The young constable has certainly redefined our culture book; even the threat of a chaanta, an innocuous and often loving and humorous rebuke, has made the swing of a palm akin to the drawing of a sword.
It is also time that cliched Bollywood scenes — catering to roaring audiences — turn the volume down when a slap echoes with comedic slapstick humour. Also more appropriately, slapping scenes should get a good smack of the Censor Board’s axe. While culturally in real life, we frown upon the slap, on celluloid the resounding whack, delivered by the heroine on the face of Bollywood’s infamous villains, often has the audience breaking into spontaneous applause. The female slap to the molesters played by Ranjit or Pran is seen as a justifiable act on the heinous villains by the victims.
In a video on X, addressed to the media and her well-wishers, Ranaut said she was safe, and perhaps while still under the sting of the “surprise” public humiliation, in a calm composed speech, she did not hesitate to warn against uncontrolled violence and aggression that are often triggered by strong emotional impulses; anger boiling under the surface from years of suppression or oppression.
What this incident has also inadvertently brought to light is that in their own ways, neither the female “slapee” nor the woman who was slapped are actually victims. Neither one permitted subjectification. Instead by giving a “slap in the face to social hierarchy”, the constable was trying to say that they each had their own very strong points of view, which in some sense is also an indisputable human right.
The only thing is that instead of expressing that right with a bitch slap, we are better off adding muscular language to the female voice — rather than beefing up the power of the chastening hand. “It doesn’t matter how much we disagree with views and statements made by someone, we cannot react with violence and we cannot condone it,” was one of the statements posted by journalist and feminist, Faye D’Souza, right after the incident.
It’s this voice that needs to be heard more in public forums of discourse, debate and discussion. If that happens, thanks to one of the positive fallouts of the age of infectious social media, hopefully the sounds of women speaking up, not lashing out, will go viral.