Why Urfi Javed Is Right In Apologising To Chahatt Khanna For Her Divorce Remark

Bigg Boss OTT fame Urfi Javed had once shamed actor Chahatt Khanna about her two divorces in response to the actor's comment on her clothes. While Khanna took a dig at Javed’s dressing sense and how it is misleading the current generation, the latter alleged that she was living off her ex-husbands' alimony and spending it on her new boyfriend. However, now Javed has apologised for her remark on Khanna’s marital status. She admitted her mistake and said that it was very low of her to say something like that.

"I was wrong. I shouldn’t have commented on her divorces. It was very low of me. No matter what anyone says I should keep my calm and I should stand for what I believe in. So that was wrong on my part," said Javed in an interview.

While Khanna was wrong in commenting on another woman's clothes, she is not alone in being shamed for her divorcee status in our society. Whether a woman is a celebrity or not, she is criticised for not being able to sustain a marriage or being a gold digger who is after hefty alimony, if her marriage fails and she seeks a divorce.

It is not shocking that in our country the rate of divorce is less than or equal to one percent. Divorce is still a taboo in our society despite issues like intimate partner violence, marital rape, dowry harassment or marital discord being commonplace in Indian households. Women are rarely encouraged to take drastic steps like divorce because marriage is considered to be their destiny. For women, walking out of a marriage is equivalent to putting their life, dignity, and safety at stake. Along with them, their families are also shamed for raising a daughter who turned out to be a "bad wife" and is selfish and greedy. But it gets worse when women themselves shame other women for seeking a divorce.

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Why is it so difficult for our society to normalise divorce? Why is it assumed that through divorce women want to fulfil their selfish needs? And is a woman even selfish if she is prioritising her happiness and seeking alimony which is her ">legal right?

Urfi Javed apologises to Chahatt Khanna: Why that's important

In case of Urfi Javed and Chahatt Khanna, a woman became the guardian of the patriarchal mindset from which another woman was trying to free herself. But the only difference was that Javed owned up to her mistake and offered an apology, publicly. She realised that it was wrong to shame a divorced woman and label her as greedy. It is this process of learning and unlearning that women need to embrace in order to build a sisterhood against the reign of patriarchy.

Not just women, we need to encourage and applaud any individual who owns up to their mistakes and shows an inclination towards undoing the damage that their words or actions might have caused. The idea, after all, isn't to create a wide rift between enablers of patriarchy and feminists, but to bridge this gap with back-and-forth conversations, giving us a chance to cross over to a more progressive school of thought.

Hopefully, more people will see divorce as a opportunity to walk away from toxic relationships and starting life all over again, instead of a selfish act in future.

Views expressed are the author's own.