Mahakaal and the Dress Code Divide

A new dress code at Darjeeling’s Mahakaal Temple exposes how patriarchy still polices women’s bodies in the name of tradition.

The Mahakaal Temple in Darjeeling is hot news right now not because of its religious and devotional connotations but because it has recently banned the entry of women in short skirts, shorts and short dresses. If it is not easy or possible for some women to wear sarees or salwar kameez, the temple has also announced a scheme under which women devotees dressed “unsuitably”can hire a ghagra outfit for Rs.100 of which Rs.75 will be refunded during exit. The question of hygiene through such used dresses is debatable as we do not know the details yet but the Rs.75 each will certainly add to the temple kitty unless women bow down to the rule which is put up on the board at the entry of the temple complete with a crude illustration.

Mahakaal Temple, founded in 1765 however, is not the sole exception to the dress code. But the other temples such as the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, Rameswaram Temple in Tamil Nadu, Sabarimalai and Guruvayur temples in Kerala, Kedarnath and Badrinath in Uttarkhand, Shani Singanapur and Bakdreswar in Maharashtra, Somnath Mandir in Gujarat and Kashi Viswanath Temple in Varanasi - all have prescribed normal and civilized forms of dress for both men and women.

Gender Policing

Mahakaal temple authorities have declared the rule exclusively for women pilgrims only and this has created a lot of debate and criticism. The rule comes with a clause – men visiting the temple might get distracted by women visitors who dress revealing a lot of skin!

In patriarchal societies, men have the power and control over manipulating women’s conduct. They use this power to enforce modesty on women. This is traced back to man’s unconscious fears of the castrating mother. Bergler, a social scientist, argues that unconsciously, every man is afraid of every woman. His relationship with his mother evokes in him a number of baby fears which, as he grows up, he transfers to all women in general. These are - the fears of being starved, devoured, poisoned, choked, chopped to pieces and drained. All these culminate in a phallic fear of being castrated. They lead the man to evolve an unconscious, powerful portrait of himself. Therefore, if he finds a woman imitating and/or equaling his way of dressing, which is an integral part of this ‘powerful portrait,’ his defenses are up at once, and he proceeds, with the help of this ‘powerful portrait’ and the ‘strength’ he derives from patriarchy, to ‘cut the woman down to size.’ In so many different ways.

The history of clothing and fashion across the world reveals different codes of dress for men and women. Clothing for both men and women, historically speaking, was dictated both by gender and by modesty. But while for men, clothes were mainly indicative of social status, for women, the criteria were different. Clothing and fashion became a means of social control, legitimizing moral and social distinctions between and among women. Women of royal lineage for example, had a different code of dress and fashion, even if, in some societies, they were denied the public space where men functioned. In Moghul royal families and in high-caste Hindu families in earlier times, women remained in purdah. Purdah here meaning, not the item of clothing used to cover the body completely, but the inner space of one's residential premises, which clearly marked out the space beyond which women within the family were not allowed to move out of.

Constitutional Contradictions

Article 19 (1) (a) gives the citizens of India the Right to the Freedom of Speech and Expression. In a country, which holds a multitude of cultures, dress is a recognized form of expressing identity. Article 15 of the Constitution recognizes the weaker status of women in the Indian society and provides for positive discrimination in clause 15 (3) asserting, "Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any special provision for women and children". The Article 51 A (e) -Fundamental Duties also states that “It shall be the duty of every citizen of India - (e) to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practice derogatory to the dignity of women.”

The moot question here is why the gender discrimination by imposing the taboo only on girls and women? Why should men visiting the temple be distracted by women’s legs or short skirts? (There is no mention of cleavage though). They are coming to pay reverence to the Gods existing (It is a blend of Buddhist religious heads and Hindu priests) so if they are no devoted in mind and spirit, why should their eyes wonder?

Wearing clothes that are immodest, by patriarchal norms, for the sole purpose of tempting the male, is considered a social vice, but, a vice exclusive to women. What do ‘immodest’ clothes imply? Styles which expose too much of the feminine body are condemned for their enticement. Such fashions are considered appropriate for a prostitute, not for the ‘virtuous’ woman. Moral criticism of female ways of dressing highlights the moral judgment society makes on individual choice, if the 'individual' is a woman.

This is precisely why, sometimes, the disrobing and stripping of a woman in public is resorted to, in cases where the woman has taken some step towards political autonomy, or, has in some way or other, toppled the apple-cart of patriarchy, in order to ‘disqualify’ any move of hers towards equality with man. It is a desperate measure to undress and sexualizes a woman who wishes to assert and reinforce her subjectivity in a society, which has, by and large, reduced her to an object. This could even happen in cases as simple as a woman raising her voice against male authority that oppresses her either directly, or collectively, alongwith other women. The only provocation Bhanwari Devi, a social worker 'saathin', a lower caste woman who was raped by Brahmins, wore was that of defiance - she had intervened to stop a child marriage. Wendy Wade, a rape victim, talks about her experience of being defecated upon, bruised, raped and sodomized by two men in May 1996 through Rophynil, which, she says, is the “Date Rape Drug.” Her family’s first question to her after the incident was, “what were your wearing?”

Clothes veil the body. Do they disguise the body’s nakedness? Or, do they enhance the body’s nudity that is fantasised behind the clothes? Remember the furore over the song “choli ke pichhey kya hai?” A lot of the allure of clothes for women, lies in the interplay between the covered and the partially clothed. Jeans definitely do not provide for any interplay between the covered and the partially clothed. If skirts do, then so do the saree and the salwar-kameez, depending on how they are draped and/or tailored to fit into the sensual contours of the female anatomy. The half-naked woman, the suspended promise, is always more erotic than the naked. Is that a quality of the dress, the wearer, or the eyes that are looking?

(The writer is a noted film scholar who writes extensively on gender issues. She is a double-winner for the National Award for Best Writing on Cinema. Views personal.)