Follow TNM’s WhatsApp channel for news updates and story links.
The controversy over covering up the torso of the Indus Valley Dancing Girl in an NCERT textbook brought back an old memory.
Many years ago, I attended a performance of The Vagina Monologues. At one point, actor Dolly Thakore stood on stage and asked the audience to shout, “Vagina! Vagina!”
A surprising number of people found this difficult. The word seemed to get stuck somewhere between the brain and their vocal cords. Some people whispered it. Some giggled. Some looked around nervously to see whether anybody was watching. A few brave souls shouted it out. Most appeared to be wondering whether respectable people should utter the names of intimate body parts in public.
I wondered, how do we discuss something if we cannot even name it?
The same thought has occurred to me repeatedly during condom demonstration sessions. Health workers can explain HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and prevention strategies with great confidence. Then comes the crucial moment.
The condom must be placed on a penis.
At this point, panic often sets in.
The word “penis” disappears from the vocabulary altogether.
It becomes “samaan.”
Or “the male thing.”
Or a word from the local language that is often used in an abusive way.
This national discomfort with body parts makes the Dancing Girl controversy particularly amusing.
A civilisation that produced a bronze figurine of a young woman standing confidently with her hand on her hip apparently finds her troubling thousands of years later.
The poor girl survived floods, invasions, colonisation, archaeological excavations, and museum curators. What she could not survive was a textbook committee.
And I keep thinking about the temples I have seen that had far more explicit images on their walls.
I remember a guide explaining to me why those sculptures were put on temple walls. He said that after the Kalinga War, the population had reduced and libido had fallen, so these sculptures were created to encourage people to reproduce.
I have no idea whether this is historically accurate.
Imagine a government department today attempting a similar intervention in states with low birth rates.
Whether the guide’s explanation was true or not, the sculptures certainly exist. They have existed for centuries, and families visit these temples.
Yet somehow, a tiny bronze figurine in a textbook has become a matter of concern.
Perhaps we should be consistent.
Maybe temples should introduce age restrictions.
No entry below eighteen. Possibly twenty-one.
More explicit sculptures could be covered with blue plastic sheets.
Visitors with families could be advised to avoid some panels. Or those panels could be marked “not for families,” meaning only for voyeuristic men.
Guides could replace all references to the human body with the word “samaan” to save everyone considerable embarrassment.
Meanwhile, young people continue to live in a world where sexual imagery is available in advertisements, films, social media, music videos, and on every smartphone. We are OK with it. After all, we are living in a modern world. But archaeological artefacts break the myth that Indian society is inherently modest, so we had better remove all such references that celebrate human bodies and sex.
The older I get, the more I think that our discomfort with talking about bodies is one reason we are so obsessed with them. Things that are normal do not usually become objects of endless fascination. Things that are forbidden, hidden, and whispered about often do.
The Dancing Girl, meanwhile, seems entirely untroubled.
For four and a half thousand years, she has stood exactly where she is, without shame, embarrassment, or anxiety.
It is us, blushing and running with towels to cover her up.
Sharada AL is the Director of Population First, a non-profit organisation focused on population and gender issues. She is the founder of Laadli, a premier advocacy initiative and media campaign designed to promote gender sensitivity in journalism and advertising.
Views expressed are the author's own.