This story is from April 6, 2015

Where should we draw the line?

The vociferous slogans of “Hok Kolorob” have barely subsided and Jadavpur University has taken up the mantle of the sanitary napkin protest that started on Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) campus a few days ago.
Where should we draw the line?
KOLKATA: The vociferous slogans of “Hok Kolorob” have barely subsided and Jadavpur University has taken up the mantle of the sanitary napkin protest that started on Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) campus a few days ago. Around the same time, a controversy erupted on social media worldwide over online photo-sharing platform Instagram twice removing a picture of Toronto-based Sikh author Rupi Kaur lying on a bed with patches of period blood on her pants and the bedsheet.

While the website said the photo didn’t ‘follow their community guidelines’, a section of the society has seen it as a refusal to accept a woman’s body, and sexualizing something as natural and healthy as a woman’s menstruation. In the case of the ‘Pads Against Patriarchy” campaign, the promoters, many of whom took active part in the Hok Kolorob ‘movement’ a few months ago, say they want to convey messages of gender sensitization and lodge their protest against the culture of naming, shaming and blaming the survivor in cases of sexual harassment or rape.
While JMI showcaused students spearheading the movement, JU pro-VC Ashish Verma promptly set up a committee to look into the matter and made a very pertinent point: “There is always space for freedom of expression but students should also know where to draw the line.” His response leads to a fundamental question — is privacy passé? The city’s intelligentsia, as expected, is divided on this.
Associate professor of English at Presidency University Sumit Chakraborty took to Facebook to vent his discomfort. “I do not understand my milieu anymore. Perhaps I grow old. I would not make public my private thoughts or habits, deepest pain or dear-most pleasure. I would not upload a video of my daily ablutions, or of picking my ears, or if I am bleeding from a bout of piles. All of these are natural. All of these are private. If I menstruated, I would not advertise it: Not because it is shameful; but because some of what happens to my body, as some of what happens in my mind, is private,” he posted.
The counterview came from assistant professor of Bengali at Visva-Bharati, Biswajit Ray. He makes no bones about the fact that when he buys a packet of sanitary napkins for his wife, he neither wants it wrapped in polythene nor does he hesitate to put it in his bag in full public view. Coming out in full support of the campaign at his alma mater, Ray declares on social media that such drives will go a long way to eradicate meaningless taboos regarding a natural process.

But president and CEO of Apollo Hospitals Dr Rupali Basu says, “There is a need for protests and change of mindset. But to me, civility is supreme. I would never endorse a campaign which is insensitive. Modernity means being sensitive to other people’s feelings. This is uncivil.”
Actor and state women’s commission member June Malia, however, refuses to see it as anything but students’ democratic campaign. “These boys and girls are on their way to becoming adults. They have the right to protest on their campus. If they think this should be their mode, who are we to stop them?”
‘Feminist’ author and columnist Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, however, sees it differently. She was approached by the JU students for a message endorsing the campaign. She refused. “I see more sensationalism in this than meaningful activism. I refused to be a part of it because I am more worried about millions of menstruating woman of this country who do not even know what a sanitary napkin is,” she told TOI over phone from Delhi.
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