I shall sit here!

Aradhika Sharma

Take a Saturday siesta. Alone or with a group. With your best friend. With a stranger. Sleep. Alone. Together. Fight Fear. Through Trust. In sleep we protest,” says the announcement on the blog of the Blank Noise Project. The ‘Meet to Sleep’ initiative, started by Blank Noise, spread across several cities. It has re-started the dialogue of the rights that women in India have over public spaces in their cities.

Women constantly blame themselves for what a man does, for breaking the boundaries of spaces or behaviour that are set for them by men! If a girl is eve-teased or stared at or touched when she’s in a public space, the assumption is that it’s not because the man is a defaulter but because it’s her behaviour that’s questionable. Why was she out that late? Why was she alone? What was she doing in the park? Where was her brother or father or male friend? If she was wearing that short dress, well, she was asking for it!

Branding and boundaries

This unwritten conclusion is being critically examined by more and more women in the country and across borders among women of countries that share the socio-cultural concerns similar to ours. Movements like ‘Why Loiter’, groups like ‘The Fearless Collective’ and films like Angry Indian Goddesses strive to bring the idea that although spaces in the country do not give easy access to women but this admittance and the right has to be fought for.

There are no signs saying that ‘Dogs and women not allowed’, but if a girl is standing on the side of a public road waiting to be picked up by her friend, there’s bound to be a lot of unwarranted interest in her, as vehicles slow down and men poke their heads out inquisitively to see what business the girl has to be alone at that particular spot.

“The surmise then is that surely, she must be ‘that type’ of a girl’. Contrarily, they are unlikely to come to the same conclusion if she’s waiting for a bus at a bus stop. And so we tacitly define areas that are OK for women and areas that will allow nasty conclusions and behaviours to take place,” says Sameera Khan, co-author of Why Loiter? Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets.

“As girls grow older, their spaces become limited while those of her brothers expand,” Sameera she says.

Reclamation of space and identity

It’s to challenge this mindset and reclaim public spaces for women that in 2011, sociologist Shilpa Phadke, journalist Sameera Khan and architect Shilpa Ranade launched their book Why Loiter....

Simultaneously, they started a ‘Why Loiter’ campaign around it, asking women and girls to come out to public places and reclaim them. The cities were theirs too — anytime of the day or night. This collective social media campaign was aimed to focus on the presence of women in public spaces.

Girls were invited to post videos and pictures of having fun in public spaces on Facebook and initiate Tweetchats, start online and offline conversations about loitering about their own city spaces, reclaiming-or rather-claiming them.

Last November, as a reaction to the taboo and their ban on the entry of menstruating women to the Sabarimala temple, a girl from Patiala, Nikita Azad, launched a Facebook campaign aptly named “Happy to Bleed.” Her Facebook page declared: “This is a campaign against menstrual taboos that prevail in our society. Women are considered ‘impure’ during menstruation, are barred from entering kitchen, are isolated within homes, etc. Happy to Bleed is a counter campaign launched against menstrual taboos, and sexism that women are subject to through it.”

Equality in worship

The Sabrimala incident was a forerunner of the more recent furore over the entry of the 350-strong group of women from Bhumata Ranragini brigade. On Republic Day, the women tried to break the 400-year-old tradition of the temple banning women from entering its inner sanctum. They were prevented from doing so by barricades by the police and temple authorities.

Both actions, coming so close to each other, have opened up the debate about exclusion and equality in the house of God. Thus women are breaking out of the placidity about being marginalised through religious norms, but are demanding the progressive values constitutionally granted to them.

Movements like ‘Why Loiter’ have gained impetus since these started, growing organically as more and more women get associated with them. Natural, since the issues of space and security they address concern an entire gender.

Individuals, groups and feminist organisations like Blank Noise, Feminism in India, Prajnya, Queer Feminist India, Girls at Dhabas (from Pakistan), The Fearless Collective, Point of View and CREA are associating with the movement, asserting their right to be part of their cityscape. Add to this, rural movements like the Gulabi Gang, where women come together against domestic abuse and it seems as if there may be a wee light glimmering at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

Assertions and claims

Tweets, walking together, having fun at parks or at dhabas, catching a nap at a public park, sharing chai at a tapri, standing at a paan shop, hash-tagging, and through art, theatre and talk, women are sharing their stories and if they can’t muster up the courage to be at a demonstration at India Gate, at least they are adding their names or comments of support to an online campaign of their choice.

It could be that time has arrived when women are not willing to just let things happen to them but to do something to bring about the change in their visibility and status of equality with males with similar rights to public spaces.

Cross-border collaborations

It’s interesting how groups across borders are getting together to promote the same idea, using each other’s methodologies in their own contexts. In December last year, Shilo Shiv Sulaiman was invited by Nida Mushtaq, a sexual rights activist and advocate, to paint walls in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Karachi for ‘The Wall’, a project by Nida Mushtaq, in collaboration with ‘Why Loiter’, using the methodology of the Fearless Collective.

The Wall was about women loitering around in public parks and exploring places of intimacy in public, the affirmation being: ‘azaadi sab ke liye’ The aim was to speak up for everyone to have the freedom to be, do and love as they like.

Organisations use tools like research, collaborations, workshops, talks, interventions, live action, fund raisers, new projects and participation and involvement of more and more women, thus creating a wave of protest and an atmosphere of fearlessness. A representative example was the ‘Meet to Sleep’ initiative that was held in Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Jaipur recently, where Blank Noise, the organisers, were joined by Girls At Dhabas, Pakistan and Action Heroes and Why Loiter Mumbai.

Women feel the need to participate in such initiatives and programmes because they want to shed the fear that is inherent in being in a public space without being afraid of their safety. They want to reclaim city spaces and places that are as much theirs as these are anybody else’s. The endeavour is to try and replace fear with trust. It’s a long and arduous task but with more and more women and empathetic men participating, it will be possible.

Organisations at wor
Girls at Dhabas

Girls at Dhabas is an initiative of Karachi-based journalist Sadia Khatri. https://www.facebook.com/girlsatdhabas/

Blank Noise

Initiated by Jasmeen Patheja in August 2003, Blank Noise is a community project that tries to challenge street harassment in India.

http://blog.blanknoise.org/

The Fearless Collective

The Fearless Campaign started as one poster that artist Shilo Shiv Suleiman made and put up on Facebook to reaffirmed fearlessness. 350 artists responded to her call for posters and the campaign went viral online, with thousands of shares.

http://www.shiloshivsuleman.com/375103/5448517/all-of-me/the-fearless-collective