{"id":19850,"date":"2020-09-01T09:52:15","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T04:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?p=19850"},"modified":"2020-09-01T15:24:38","modified_gmt":"2020-09-01T09:54:38","slug":"pda-slippery-slope-from-law-to-moral-policing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/pda-slippery-slope-from-law-to-moral-policing\/","title":{"rendered":"PDA: Slippery Slope from Law to Moral Policing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you remember the FIR filed against All India Bakchod in 2015 for their satirical <\/span>roast<\/a><\/span>? Well \u2026 you can be charged under the same law for kissing another individual in a public place. <\/span><\/p>\n

Public Display of Affection is deemed a criminal offence under<\/span> Section 294<\/a><\/span> of the Indian Penal Code. If proven, it can lead to imprisonment of up to three months or a fine, or both. Section 294 of the IPC criminalises \u201cobscene\u201d acts but what is considered obscene, is a vague valuation of what causes \u201cannoyance to others.\u201d Sexuality is taboo in our context, and expressions of it publicly or even in the home setting outside the bedroom, especially by those who are not in ‘legitimate’ relationships ‘alarm the modesty’ and are generally considered anti-culture or simply categorised as Western concepts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Similar to the arguments listed out <\/span>against supposedly \u2018obscene\u2019 pieces of literature, PDA is derided for \u2018corrupting Indian values\u2019. PDA cases rarely reach higher courts and simple acts such as holding hands or hugging are not charged as an offence. But before these cases can reach courts, local goons, police authorities or even \u2018well-meaning\u2019 bystanders exercise justice as per their own moral compass. They shame couples who display affection in public, or worse, beat and\/or <\/span>harass<\/a><\/span> them. <\/span>The job of a police officer is to implement the law, not act as a moral watchdog. A young man and woman\u2019s sitting together on the beachfront or in a park violates no provision of the law. However, they may still be a target of threats such as \u201cShould I call your parents?\u201d or \u201cDo you run a sex racket?\u201d and unfortunately for women, \u201cTomorrow, don\u2019t come running to us crying rape.\u201d <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes one finds young couples from less privileged backgrounds kissing each other behind bushes and trees in public parks because they don\u2019t have a room or private space to meet in and I myself have been guilty of experiencing a feeling of discomfort at seeing this. It\u2019s imperative to examine from where that feeling of discomfort originates from. What\u2019s criminal about an expression of love or of desire? The root cause is the bias, prejudice and taboo associated with expressions of sexuality. We have have been conditioned to believe that sex is acceptable only in a certain way, between persons of certain genders who are in certain relationships. For many people, the \u2018A\u2019 in PDA equates any act of affection or romantic love with a sexual act. Hugging or holding hands isn\u2019t always a display of sexual \u2018affection\u2019. Friends and siblings hold hands too! The Supreme Court of India,\u00a0 in the case of <\/span>S. Khushboo v. Kanniammal & Anr<\/i><\/a><\/span> held, \u201cobscenity should be gauged with respect to contemporary community standards that reflect the sensibilities as well as the tolerance level of an average reasonable person.\u201d<\/i> This, like any other definition of \u2018obscenity\u2019 is subjective and contextual. Holding hands may be considered obscene in a small town and be acceptable in a metropolitan city. The slippery slope gives those in power an opportunity to bend the definition according to their convenience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Recent criticism around the Netflix series Indian Matchmaking<\/i> has made it clear (and alarmingly so!) that in the Indian context, the choice of who you love, date and have sex with is dictated by multiple social and cultural factors. Another reason for the moral stance against PDA is that when people choose their own sexual partners they may breach social barriers. Paromita Vohra\u2019s 2007 documentary <\/span>Morality TV & The Loving Jehad: Ek Manohar Kahani<\/i><\/a><\/span> delves<\/span> deep into the dangerous tones \u2018romantic love\u2019 can take in the Indian context. Love Jihad has become a well-known crusade against interfaith couples and honour killings are prevalent enough to be the subject of popular Bollywood movies such as\u00a0Ishaqzaade \u00a0and Dhadak<\/i>. Films romanticise the notion of love that breaks barriers with references to Shakespeare\u2019s Romeo and Juliet<\/i> and the nobility of loving beyond caste and class identities. <\/span><\/p>\n

But, in reality, the obscenity lens is heavily influenced by patriarchal and Brahmanical superiority. Sex, love, and desire can only be accepted when expressed with the aim of producing heirs with the same social identity as the dominant community. Here, the female body\u2019s sole purpose is reproduction. Your personal \u201clove\u201d or choice in holding the hand of your partner topples this system. Nivedita Menon in her book Seeing Like a Feminist (Zubaan-Penguin, 2012), talks about the subversive potential of love and how the \u201cus\u201d vs. \u201cthem\u201d divide is maintained by controlling which bodies can engage with each other. In the Indian context, sex is accepted only when it\u2019s practised after the wedding vows. Your body\u2019s sexual desires are acknowledged only when the purpose is reproduction, not pleasure. And, so certain bodies can only meet in parks and beaches, and try and a find a private space in the public.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even for people who can afford to \u201cget a room,\u201d the reality is somewhat bleak. My young adult friends and I met before the pandemic, and as usual our banter revolved around a few common topics: aspiration, ambition, existential dread, and love lives. A few of us still live with our families and some of us are locked in restrictive housing societies. How do you live out your roaring 20s when all the roaring is done hush-hush and behind closed doors? Online hotel booking and dating apps do help. But then there too, the question of safety quickly takes precedence. <\/span>Everyday incidents of aggression against women have become a part of the news cycle. For a woman then, there are extra steps of caution she has to exercise before choosing a sexual partner or a new surrounding. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The population size of India and our family-centric culture ensures that the divide between public and private isn\u2019t as clearly demarcated as it is in the West. A large part of the population survives in cramped spaces with ever-growing families. Is your living room a public place? What about the housing society\u2019s staircase? Shouldn\u2019t the discourse move towards finding safer, sexuality-affirming alternatives?<\/span><\/p>\n

In the field of economic development, India constantly looks towards the West. But economic or technological progress hasn\u2019t directly translated into progressive thought.<\/span> Biases and prejudices are still prevalent in our \u2018progressive\u2019 big cities. Every year, <\/span>news headlines<\/a> \u00a0<\/a><\/span>around Valentine\u2019s Day <\/i>flash names of groups threatening couples and burning greeting cards in the name of preserving their narrow definition of \u2018Indian culture\u2019.\u00a0 In 2014, The <\/span>‘Kiss of Love’<\/a><\/span> campaign gained momentum all over India. The movement was a non-violent protest against moral policing that started out as a Facebook page.\u00a0 It began after a mob vandalised Downtown Cafe, coffee shop in North Kerala’s Kozhikode. The mob violence was prompted by an exclusive report telecast on\u00a0 Jaihind TV<\/i>, a Malayalam news channel alleging \u2018immoral activity\u2019 in the coffee shop.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For a country with the <\/span>second highest population<\/a><\/span> in the world, it is farcical that a kiss can create such an uproar. The law\u2019s slippery definition of obscenity bestows the responsibility of its interpretation in the hands of those in power. Law here doesn\u2019t uphold the image of objectivity; instead it quickly slips down to regressive moral policing. This, in turn, restricts sexual agency and autonomy over one\u2019s body, sexuality, and identity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cover Image: Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sexuality is taboo in our context, and expressions of it publicly or even in the home setting outside the bedroom, especially by those who are not in \u2018legitimate\u2019 relationships \u2018alarm the modesty\u2019 and are generally considered anti-culture or simply categorised as Western concepts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":357,"featured_media":19896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2372,8],"tags":[28,149,66,27,2406,2408,222,2060,696,1977,99,2407,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-19850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-categories","8":"category-law-and-sexuality-2","9":"category-voices","10":"tag-bollywood","11":"tag-choice","12":"tag-desire","13":"tag-feminist","14":"tag-indian-matchmaking","15":"tag-indian-penal-code","16":"tag-law-and-sexuality","17":"tag-netflix","18":"tag-obscenity","19":"tag-pda","20":"tag-relationships","21":"tag-romantic-love","22":"tag-sex"},"menu_order":288,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/357"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19850"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19936,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19850\/revisions\/19936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}