Last week, I was with friends watching the brilliantly-crafted
Masaan, a film that got a standing ovation at Cannes. The opening sequence of the film (spoiler alert), set in North India, has one of the protagonists, Devi, being harassed and pictured without clothes by the local police after being caught by them in a hotel room. Her boyfriend, who runs into the bathroom, is unable to face the humiliation and commits suicide while Devi, who is slapped by a woman cop, has to face the trauma of being blackmailed by the cops and society at large. "God, you know such things indeed happen in small towns," my friend exclaimed, as I nodded in agreement. Little did I know that life would imitate hours within hours of us watching the film.
On Saturday,
mid-day.com published pictures of couples who had booked themselves in hotel rooms at popular resorts near Mumbai; they were humiliated, dragged out by the police, and made to call their parents.
"Consenting adults who had checked into various hotels in the Madh Island and Aksa area to get some privacy were shocked to find the police knocking on the doors of their rooms on Thursday. More than 40 couples were rounded up and taken to the police station, where they were insulted and some of them, especially college students, were made to call their parents,"
mid-day.com reported.
The report pointed out that the same Malwani police had just weeks ago been pulled up for failing to check the trade and sale of adulterated liquor which led to 100 people being killed.
The script of one of the most brazen moral policing by the cops in Mumbai was uncannily similar to the film
Masaan, except that it took place in cosmopolitan Mumbai which prides itself on its liberal culture.
Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria has ordered an inquiry into the raids, but just how will it allay the depression of the 19-year-old whose parents have boycotted her, or the prospects of a 21-year-old who was in a hotel with the fiance she is to marry in a month.
In a country where women are often involuntarily considered the flagbearers of morality, where have we left these women, who will now have to deal with families and a society prone to quick judgements and uncharitable tags?
Must it surprise us that this raid was carried out in a state like Maharashtra and a city like Mumbai, where cops cite lack of manpower in the police force to maintain law and order on many occasions? Must we be surprised that this raid took place in a state which banned dance bars years ago, but chose to remain silent on the endorsement on the private
mehfils by top cops and politicians where these 'bar girls' were made to dance in real-life item numbers?
No. Mumbai has long worn the facade of being a resilient, liberal city which has no space for hypocrisy, but scratch the veneer of modernity, and you will be ashamed of the dirt that lies beneath. What I write today is no secret, for this is the very city that has wilfully agreed to a ban on beef and 'red' T-shirts in college in the past. It is a city that sells pornographic CDs outside railway stations after having bribed cops, but will not tolerate a dent on its "Marathi asmita" (self confidence) by "non-Maharashtrian outsiders".
Maharashtra and Mumbai, which boasts of the liberal film industry, is flying the flag of morality of the Union government. Let's not forget that this raid on hotels has come in the wake of the ban on porn sites in India which was called off within a day.
Yes, the hypocrisy stares at us when we appoint Gajendra Chauhan, a man to head the film institute in Pune, and his claim to fame are semi-porn films that he says were silver jubilee hits. Him we honour, while forcing the faces of those who were caught on charges of consensual sex in hotel rooms to hide their faces as we parade them. And let me remind you that the BJP and its allies, which have in the past let loose workers on couples celebrating Valentine's Day, do not hold hegemony over this hypocrisy.
Remember it was the Congress-NCP government that was in in power in Maharashtra when the dance bars were termed taboo and hundreds of women left jobless; many later were forced into prostitution. Let us remember that it is the same state which in February 2004 saw an angry mob calling itself the Sambhaji Brigade of the Maratha Mahasangh storming the 87-year-old Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), Pune, to destroy priceless manuscripts and artifacts. This was its way of "protesting" against James Laine's book on Shivaji, the iconic Maratha king. Sharad Pawar, whose party was in power, had in defense said that scholarship should not clash with public sentiments and faith.
Let us not forget, that in a country like India, "Morality" has been the calling card of all political outfits. So be ready to outrage again!
(Rana Ayyub is an award-winning investigative journalist and political writer. She is working on a book on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which will be published later this year.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.