These Self-Appointed Custodians Of Indian Culture Want To Dictate What We Watch And Wear. How About No?

These Self-Appointed Custodians Of Indian Culture Want To Dictate What We Watch And Wear. How About No?

There are always two kinds of kids you’d meet while growing up. The ones who stick to minding their own business, be it studying, playing, sleeping on the last bench or even indulging in some harmless teenage romance; and the second, who have the ‘monitor complex’ and always want to police people in everything they do, most of which doesn’t concern them. Turns out, not much has changed from then to now, you can still categorise the people of the society in those very two broad categories – the indifferent and the nosy meddlers. And while people from the former category are scarce, people from the latter category are so widely spread, you could almost spot one in every direction you look at. And the direction that we are currently looking at is Ghaziabad, where a BJP MLA, Nand Kishore Gujjar has requested the Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar to take off the show Bigg Boss.

I mean, yes the show is an insult to our intelligence and offensive to our senses but that’s not what has this guy all hot and bothered. Writing to demand the show be taken down, MLA Nand Kishore in his detailed letter wrote about the show that, “The show was promoting obscenity and vulgarity and was unfit for family viewing. The show is against the cultural ethos of the country and highly objectionable intimate scenes were a part of it. Couples of different communities were being made to become bed partners which was unacceptable.” Obviously, because what else does two people falling asleep on the same bed even imply if not sexual relations? And that too when they’re from different communities? Whattey tauheen!

Also Read : Ex-Contestant Payal Rohatgi Calls Current Big Boss Contestants ‘Jobless’. We’ve All Been Thinking The Same Thing

The MLA, who at this point wasn’t making much sense, continued to talk about how the show Bigg Boss was promoting adult content that may not sit well with children and the rest of the people, claiming it would dilute the cultural values of our country. He said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on one hand, is trying to make India regain its lost glory and, on the other, such shows were demeaning the country’s culture,” and we honestly didn’t know that such custodians of culture even existed. Or maybe we were just so used to calling them nosy pricks.

Singing on loop over how the show’s content promotes ‘vulgarity and hurts the social morality of the country,’ the guy went on as a self-proclaimed cultural custodian we did not know we needed and definitely did not want. And he wasn’t the first of his kind either. There are more from his tribe, scattered all across the country. Just a few weeks ago, another such gentleman took upon himself the divine responsibility of calling out a woman for wearing shorts.

https://www.facebook.com/421simi/videos/1172495196272098/

This video that has made several rounds of the internet, showed how a guy slammed a girl for choosing to wear shorts and said, “You must follow Indian rules; Please wear proper clothes” over and over again, until she threatened to file a case of harassment against the guy. Referring to what she wore as unacceptable and ‘not Indian’, whatever the fuck that means, the guy was unimpressed that she chose to dress as she pleases and not what suited his sensibility. And this is where the problem lies.

So many people in the country, conveniently pin their own shallow mindsets and orthodox ideals on India’s culture and try to get away with anything and everything, not realising that India’s essence can and should NOT be looked for in a woman’s shorts or on a show on television. That the shoe may be controversial yes, but is far from demeaning Indian values- the ones that you choose to follow.

People need to open their minds a teensy bit and make peace with the fact that times have changed and it is okay to change with them. That a girl and a boy can now be friends, that two people sleeping together doesn’t mean they’re having sex and that a girl wearing a skirt is not a slut. Which is why when people like Amit Jani, president of the Uttar Pradesh Nav Nirman Sena, gets up to speak on the topic and say things like, “I will survive on fruits and vegetable until the government takes steps to ban the show which is promoting vulgarity and misleading the youth. Showing young couples sharing bed on national television is not acceptable and I am shocked that the RSS which claims to be our moral police, has not even taken note of this,” we couldn’t care less. He could starve and we would be fine.

Had he called out the show for its un-originality or absolutely pointless content, we would’ve cared to lend an ear, but this is just a clear case of misogyny and stereotyping. For all we know, maybe eating healthy will help you think a little healthier too. Go for it, we say!

Also Read : Tamilian Actor Ousted From Bigg Boss Tamil For Admitting To Groping Women. But On The Show, People Thought It Was Funny

Sadhika Sehgal

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