A city which has caught the world’s eye for all the wrong reasons in the past year, Mumbai has recently passed a ban on provocative mannequins, hoping to halt sex crimes in India’s ancient capital.
Representatives from Mumbai’s local authority, a body which is dominated by the right-wing Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, voted on May 28 to ban the plastic models. The prohibition is based on the “Provisions of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986,” which defines indecent representation of women as “the depiction in any manner of the figure of a woman; her form or body or any part thereof in such way as to have the effect of being indecent, or derogatory to, or denigrating women, or is likely to deprave, corrupt or injure the public morality or morals.”
The initiative was led by Ritu Tawade, a member of the Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party. According to Tawade, these “immoral” figures are partly to blame for Mumbai men’s indecent and dangerous behaviour towards women. “It’s time to end shop windows showing women’s breasts and bottoms,” said Tawade. “Young boys see the mannequins and the minds of grown men too are corrupted by these images.”
This ban confronts the increasing number of rapes and sexual abuse in India. According to National Crime Records Bureau, the cases of rape went up by 873 percent between 2001 and 2011. Broken down, Mumbai has India’s second highest number of rapes after Delhi, totalling 231 last year; in Delhi, the total was 706. In India’s capital, a woman is raped every 18 hours, and is molested every 14 hours.
When looking at the country as a whole, one woman is raped every 20 minutes in India. This is calculated only from the reported cases; the actual number of rapes is most likely significantly higher. In a 2011 survey by Trust Law, it was revealed that India is the fourth-worst country for women to live in, on account of trafficking and sexual slavery. It is only preceded by Afghanistan, the Congo, and Pakistan.
This issue hit the world stage last December, when a young physiotherapy student was gang-raped on a bus in Delhi. Since then, the country has been swept by anti-rape protests that have gained impetus from other high-profile incidents of sexual assault in the months following, including a US tourist who was raped in Manali, a resort town in the north.
Nevertheless, this mannequin ban has been criticized for its failure to address the deeper cultural issues at play. A survey by the International Centre for Research on Women found that 75 per cent of men in New Delhi felt that “women provoke men by the way they dress.” This thought process does not stop with men alone, as shown by the comments of Asha Gaitonde, a Mumbai waitress: “Girls wear spaghetti straps, short skirts and tight jeans. These clothes make everyone aware of sex and if men start thinking of sex because girls make them look at them, what do you expect?”
Not only do critics find fault with such “outdated” ways of thinking, but in the city’s failure to address other potential causes of violence against Indian women. Opponents of the ban refer to erotic sculptures and carvings at celebrated temples like Khajuraho that feature scenes of group sex and bestiality, claiming that these images are more culturally harmful than the mannequins.
Fingers have also pointed to Mumbai’s Bollywood film industry, which produces films that feature scantily-clad women dancing provocatively. When confronted, Ekta Kapoor, a co-producer of The Dirty Picture (2011), responded, “Stop your men. Don’t just cover your women. There’s a bigger problem with the mentality of the men in this country.”
Responses from the fashion and advertising industry were similar to those of Kapoor. “If the plastic curves of a mannequin can turn these guys on, they should go see a doctor,” said advertising executive Pritish Nandy.
Once approved, the ban will give civic officials the authority to remove any mannequins that they feel are offensive and in violation of the 1986 Act. If shopkeepers refuse, they will be fined. As of yet, the amount of the fine has not been specified.
