Girls Should Not Wear Jeans or Use Cell Phones: Muzaffarnagar Panchayat's Diktat

Muzaffarnagar: On Saturday, a panchayat called by a Gujjar Samaj committee in Muzaffarnagar issued a stern diktat - "Girls should not wear jeans or use cell phones. That should be forbidden in our village."

The panchayat in Jadwad village, had been called to discuss lawlessness in the village. At the end of the meeting, besides this diktat, the committee also decided that no alcohol will be sold in the village and anyone who is caught doing so will be fined heavily.

"Young unmarried women anyways do not need cell phones. What will they do with it? After marriage maybe they can. And wearing jeans is against our culture. So they should not," said Ashok Kumar, a Gujjar Samaj member and village head.

However, this is not the first time the diktat has been issued by a local village council.

Last year, a Khap panchayat in Birhore village in Haryana had issued the same diktat for girls above ten years of age. The diktat was then issued in the interest of stopping eve-teasing.

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Two years ago, both Muzaffarnagar and the neighbouring district of Baghpat had imposed the same ban on jeans and cell phones for young women.

Though not affected by the diktat directly, college-going girls in Muzaffarnagar are upset.

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"I need it more for safety when I am going to college or outside. I can call my parents whenever I want with my phone. Rather than putting restrictions on what I can wear, why don't they just talk to boys and tell them to behave?" said 19-year-old Subhasini Prasad.

At the same time, women's rights activists are outraged that village panchayats are curbing a woman's freedom instead of addressing the real issue of rising violence.

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"The excuse that is being used is to say that this causes eve teasing and harassment. But by asking women not to use cell phones, they are just trying to curb her freedom to choose who to talk to and how," said Kavita Krishnan, a women's rights activist.

Though none of these panchayats are supported by the state government, rarely has the state issued objections to such diktats.

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