Indecorous dresses make even decent men indecent-I

Leave aside the upcoming woman Tennis player Sania Mirza from India getting wardrobe advice from Mullahs and the corresponding fatwahs against her because she happened to born to Muslim parents, a debate is going on in India on the dress code for women, in particular girls. Writing in The Hindu (Oct. 09), Ms Jyothirlata Girija says that though a girl is at perfect liberty to choose her own mode of dress, the fact remains that indecently revealing dresses instigate the opposite sex and adds fuel to the (already) burning fire. Though there is definitely some logic in the question, “Then, why should men eve-tease and molest even the decently dressed girls?” a sane girl would ponder the consequences of inviting avoidable trouble on herself by wearing such dresses that border on obscenity by posing herself the counter-question, “When most men cannot behave decently even with decently dressed women, what a more dangerous situation an indecently dressed girl would be inviting upon herself?” In fact, any dress can be worn both decently and indecently. The mode of dress has nothing to do with decency, but the mode of wearing it has something to do with it! She advises: ” My dear girls! Have not you observed where the gaze of men around you and opposite you travels on your bodies, irrespective of their being either close relatives or strangers? Some of them are so clever as to look at you that may when you look away from them. Men are born as such and girls wearing indecently revealing dresses would only be attracting their attention as well as that of even decent men making them also cast furtive glances at you. Let us not make even decent men indecent by wearing indecorous dresses and T-shirts with obscene wordings”. All this is happening in the land of the Kama Surta where one can find the centuries old temple depicting sex scenes in the stone. With the arrival of Muslims, the dress code, in particular for women, underwent a drastic change. A few years ago, when a woman Information Minister decried some television channels for bordering on the ‘obscenity’ Mr Vir Singhvi, Editor of the Hindustan Times, in his editorial comments asked that whether the minister was considering to create a ‘nipple police’.