L Z September 13, 2007

Tags: women , feminism , HIV , movies , prostitution , society

Chunari Mein Daag

href="/tag/art">art.

In Chunari Mein Daag, Rani Mukherjee, one of my favorite Indian heroines turn from the nice 'shalwar kameez' wearing Indian girl into a slinky black dress wearing sex worker called Natasha.

Natasha becomes a liability in a culture which makes her into a potentially 'daagable' commodity. Can't they find a better way to humiliate Woman? No man ever had a daag in his topi or sherwani, regardless of how many women he impregnated. The only 'daags' I've seen, are from gorging on the biryani kormas at weddings funded by dowry mortgaged fathers.

The guilt associated with the 'chunari' taints the Indian woman's being like nothing else. What of the men who frequented her 'kothas'- it manifests in ever rising numbers of HIV positive men in India.

This is how national media would like us to believe of homosexuality in India:

"Gay people have not just 'imported' the idea of homosexuality from the West, but their import of capital from the West (which happens, of course, to be teeming with 'Pakistanis') makes them a renewed national threat. It is not that a social/cultural threat is considered less pernicious than an economic one, but it is the logic of the new kind of economics meshing with the cultural that bolsters social and psychic hatreds. Such hatred would never be leveled at Manmohan Singh's global economics, which is completely a product of the contemporary West, but the focus is conveniently displaced onto the foreign 'gay' menace."

('Four held for "unnatural sex" in UP, Indian Express, January 14, 2006.)


Like there hasn't been a thriving gay subculture in the subcontinent for centuries. Ardhnarishwara and what not.

The disturbing part is that the 'nuisance' of sexuality-based work was first booked under Section 133 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which effectively disbanded the Sahayog NGO and its work in the area (not just confined to AIDS-related activism, but also women's rights and Dalit activism). After this, four people from Sahayog were detained under the District Magistrate's order of preventive detention under the National Security Act of 1980. The Act allows for long terms of detention without trial for actions 'prejudicial to the security of the state'.

Considering India is already has the highest number of people estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS in the world (5.7 million), this is a TRAGEDY. (UNAIDS, Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic; May 2006)

Quote again, from Tellis:

"Safe-sex educational materials were considered porn, an office was mistaken for a sex hotel and HIV outreach work considered running a gay racket. It was only after concerted pressure from same-sex groups, feminist and Left groups across the country that the men were released.

Committed to the agenda of liberalization, the Indian government has built a thriving system of funding from international bodies for 'development' and other such excuses. A similar trend can be observed in the working of Indian NGOs . But the same action translates as an attack on 'national security' when committed by an organization working with sexual minorities and sexuality. Homophobia has always deployed the two registers of individual pathology and national-cultural purity to oppress 'gay' people and sexuality issues in India. "

So, the point remains that Benaras- as shown in the movie Laaga Chunari Mein Daag - is the epitome of purity and the West- with its black dress wearing Natasha- the den of vice- which a simple salwar kameez wearing girls get pushed into.

Who's to say when the HIV numbers speak volumes about the 'Daag' in the 'Chunari'?

When will we learn that the 'Daag' isn't imported and not on the 'Chunari' at all?