Outrage After Assam Channel Targets Women Wearing Shorts

A local channel in Assam has provoked public anger after it ran a deeply offensive report that complained about young women being "scantily-dressed". The report aired last month, but grabbed attention on social media last week.

Pratidin Time, the channel, has now removed the report from its website

The video began with a shot of a monkey dressed in pants and claimed that while monkeys have been trained to understand the importance of dressing well, young women have lost a basic value.

The video, which was more than three minutes long, then showed many women walking around state capital wearing dresses and shorts. It focused on their bare legs and, in its claim that these were proof of its premise, made no attempt to conceal their identity.

On Sunday, the police inexplicably arrested some women who organized a peaceful demonstration against the channel in Guwahati, accusing them of violating a curfew, though none had been announced.

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Among them was Minakshi Bujarbruah. "Nowadays, we are more scared of the media than the police because you never know when and where mediapersons will catch us and shame us  in the name of news," the researcher and gender rights activist, told new agency IANS.

In a strong open letter, a woman who did not feature in the report, spoke about just how wrong the channel got it. "You chose to overlook all my educational qualifications, all my degrees, my achievements, my struggles and joys being a woman, my strength, my talents, my traits, my difficulties, my qualities and compare me to a monkey? You stalk me without my permission on the road, focus your lenses on my body, yes, my body, play an objectifying song in the background, air the video on television and still have the audacity to claim that it is me who has forgotten our Assamese culture?"

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The channel's editor-in-chief, Nitumoni Saikia, posted an apology on its Facebook page for "unintentionally hurting people's sentiments."

However, he appeared to justify the story. "Will you go to a wedding to "naamghar" (traditional Assamese prayer hall) wearing a pair of shorts? No. Some things will never be a part of or be welcomed into Assamese society," Mr Saikia asserted.