Parading Women Naked: How Female Nudity Is Both Power And Shame

Parading women naked has nowadays become a common way to punish women who break social norms. It is mostly practised in villages or small towns if we see the cases that have been reported. It doesn't matter if a man too was involved in the action of breaking the norms. The woman is considered guilty and made the target of being paraded naked. Earlier, different punishments like ostracisation, sexual crimes, home arrest and even murder were given to such women. But now people are shifting towards naked parade. Why? What could be the reason for considering a naked parade as the worst punishment?

A woman in Sarwadi Village of  Rajasthan's Barmer district was paraded naked for having an affair with a married man. The video of the incident surfaced on social media too. The police said on Sunday that the wife and the family member of the man involved in the affair found out about it. In the video, a woman can be seen dragging by hair the other half-naked woman who was involved in an affair.

Superintendent of Police, Barmer, Kundan Kawaria said that a case was registered at the Samdari police station after which two women were detained. The woman who underwent the torture is now undergoing counselling.

Other cases of women being paraded naked

Recently during the Holi celebration, a Dalit woman in Gautampura village of Madhya Pradesh was beaten, stripped naked and paraded through the village by four women. 

In July of 2023 when Manipur was facing the unforgettable communal riots, a video of two women from the Kuki-Zomi community being paraded naked by a mob of men went viral and invited huge backlash. In the video, some men were seen dragging the two women- one in her 20s and the other in her 40s-while others were forcibly groping them. When an FIR was registered, it revealed that apart from the two women, another woman in her 50s was also forced to strip. The younger woman was brutally raped in the daylight.

In December 2023. in Belgavi, Karnataka, a 42-year-old woman was assaulted by the family of a girl who eloped with the woman's son. The girl's family found the woman at home and dragged her out of the house, assaulted her physically, stripped her naked, paraded her and tied her to an electric pole.

The Karnataka High Court had taken suo motu cognizance of the incident and said, "How does this happen? On one hand, we are celebrating Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav and after 75 years, this is the situation?" The court further added, "Are they (assailants) human beings? Even animals have some sense. Is this the way human beings behave? For two hours she was beaten by animals. I am ashamed to call them as humans. How can someone be so cruel, so inhuman? We know you (State) are taking things with all seriousness, but look at this!" 

In September 2023, a woman was paraded naked in Rajasthan. And she was pregnant! The 20-year-old woman was paraded naked by her husband and in-laws because she fled with another man in the same village. Angered by the incident, the husband and the in-laws brought the woman back, beat her up and paraded her naked in front of the entire village.  

We live in a society where Goddesses are worshipped even though they are naked. Nakedness at that time becomes sacred, holy and powerful. But when it comes to common women, nakedness becomes shameful, obscene, immoral, disgusting and even sexual. However, the nakedness of a female body doesn't always bring shame or impurity. It is used as a symbol of power, and empowerment and even to defy patriarchy. 

A glimpse of literature depicting nudity as empowering and defying

As a literature student, I have read a lot of works by women who defied the stigma around the naked body of a woman. A very vivid picture that I remember is of Mahashweta Devi's Draupdi in which Dropdi, a tribal woman, used her bare breast to scare and disempower her assailants who brutally raped her. Another picture is from Bama's Sangati in which a Dalit woman, Raakkamma, challenges her abusive and drunkard husband and scares him away by lifting her saree and showing her genitals in public. Lastly, another powerful image from the same book is of a Dalit woman who spilt a mouthful of water in a well restricted for Dalits and stood in the well naked. The upper-caste men who were opposing her automatically considered the well impure. 

In fact, nudity was not supposed to be immoral or be objectified as a sex object. Let's look at the history for a bit. 

Until the 1800s in Kerala, clothes were not worn by either gender. Barechest didn't bother people, be it upper caste or lower caste. Women's breasts were not seen as arousing as it was as common as men's nipples in public. However, upper-caste women had the choice to wear top clothes as top clothes were a marker of upper caste, lower caste women had to pay a high breast tax to be nude with no choice to wear clothes. 

Nudity is considered as empowerment by modern women

Many women have used nakedness as a means of activism. From history till today, many women go naked in public to speak up against social issues. For example, in 2020, a feminist group FEMEN staged a topless protest at Paris’s Musée d’Orsay against the museum's act of barring a woman from entering the galleries until she covered up her low-cut dress. A group of 20 activists took their shirts off and shouted the slogans “Obscenity is in your eyes” and “This is not obscene.” 

So how does the idea of parading women naked become a punishment? Why is a stripping woman naked considered shameful? 

Conclusion

One answer to these questions is the idea of izzat that is attached to a woman's body. A woman's body is considered the family's izzat and any harm on it will affect the entire family. So women who are considered guilty are stripped and paraded naked to symbolise the deterioration of their izzat. And no woman in our society can survive without the so-called izzat. The second and most important answer is consent. Parading a woman naked breaches the consent of a woman. Nakedness becomes powerful when it involves the woman's consent. Otherwise, it is a crime. Lastly, how does the definition of female nudity change from sexual object to punishment? Who decides that when female nudity is arousing and when it is shameful? I think women alone should decide it. 

So, in conclusion, all I would like to say is that objectifying women's naked bodies as sex objects, izzat or punishments need to stop. Neither traditions nor modern times consider nakedness as shameful. Stop blaming women and confining them within social norms- be it the notions around the body or the sanskaar. I am not suggesting that removing the taboo around nakedness means resorting to other forms of punishment for women. The idea of public punishment itself is contentious, firstly and secondly, there is law to decide who is right and wrong. Start using that instead.     

Views expressed are the author's own.