Sanskari Stranger Yells At Woman In Bengaluru For Wearing Shorts

In yet another case of moral policing, a young woman was harassed by a passer-by in Bengaluru as according to him, the woman was not wearing proper clothes. In a video shot at the HSR Layout, a couple was stopped by a man and was subjected to moral policing, only because the girl was in shorts.

“Even the police have the same mindset. If I went to them, they would probably ask me to wear some other clothes too, so I did not file a complaint,” the woman says.

Key Takeaways: 

• At around 10 pm on Thursday, a woman, who is a Mumbai based techie, went out shopping with her boyfriend.
• On her way, she was targeted by an unidentified man, who began lecturing her saying she must “Wear Proper Clothes.”  
• The man also started yelling at the woman and her boyfriend for not following Indian rules.
• The man, who was also on a two-wheeler, allegedly stopped them and said, “Don’t you have any clothes at home?”

“I Know The Constitution, Do You Know It?”

When the unidentified man started yelling at the couple, the woman's boyfriend decided to shoot the video. In the video, the man can be seen saying, “You must follow Indian rules. Please wear proper clothes,” To this, the boyfriend, who was clearly outraged, says, “I know the Constitution? Do you know the Constitution? We have the freedom to wear whatever we want.”

The stranger who yelled at a woman for wearing shorts in public.

Speaking to TNM, the woman, who does not want to be named, says, “I heard someone yelling. I was riding pillion and I looked to my right side. There was a man on a two-wheeler, who began yelling at me and said, ‘don’t you have any clothes at home?' When I asked him what his problem is, he began yelling at me, saying that Indian women must not wear ‘such’ clothes. I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I don’t see what the problem is.”

“My boyfriend began questioning him and when the man realised that we were shooting the whole thing, he lowered his voice and became polite. But he did not stop telling me that I must not wear such clothes and that it's ‘Indian rules’. My boyfriend yelled back; he told him that we are free to choose what we wear and he has no right to tell me what to wear,” she added. “Maybe he expected us to be scared. I also told him that I would go to the police. That’s when he got back on his bike and fled,” she says.

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  “Even The Police Have The Same Mindset”

The girl also said that she wanted to file a police complaint, but she strongly feels that the police won't support her. “Even the police have the same mind-set. If I went to them, they would probably ask me to wear other clothes too, so I did not file a complaint,” she says.

There have been instances where politicians blame a girl straightaway for whatever distasteful action has been meted out to her. Abu Azmi, a member of the 12^th parliament of 12^th Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, said in 2014, “The more nudity, the more fashionable a girl is considered. Ants will swarm the place where sugar is.” While Mohan Bhagwat, Sarsanghchalak of the Hindutva nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, in 2013, said, “Rapes are rare in ‘Bharat’ (rural India) but occur frequently in ‘India’. You go to villages and forests of the country and there will be no such incidents of gang-rape or sex crimes. They are prevalent in some urban belts. The Indian ethos and attitude towards women should be revisited in the context of ancient Indian values.”

Picture Credit: The News Minute

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