Indian students from Harvard university went topless to give a message

These Indian students from Harvard went topless for a shoot to give out the message- A woman’s body is her own.

Their website, embodyindia.tumblr.com, has put down a powerful letter revolving around the Deepika-ToI row. Read excerpts from the article.

To walk down the street in India as a woman is to understand the complexity, discomfort surrounding feminism and women’s rights in India. Whatever one wears, however unengaged and stoic one may be, the very presence of a women in a public, likely male-dominated space, ‘invites’ attention. Those that might show a shoulder or a midriff? Well, they’re obviously ‘asking for’ the leers, the whistles and the lip-smacking.

In their recent op-ed, the Times of India asks mockingly if Deepika thinks that they should ask her for permission every time they print her picture. What Priya Gupta and her associates do not understand is the intent behind the publications photographs: Consent, of course, to the Times of India, is a laughing matter, and public shaming, apparently, is an acceptable tool to make a point. Publishing a picture of a person’s breasts, surrounded by red arrows and circles, is ultimately no better for a woman than being ogled on the street: it is an act equally lacking in consent, and one that has much greater potential to harm and violate a victim.

Yet, this is not the vocabulary one sees used by the Times of India, because a woman going to a bar in a “slutty†outfit is asking for it. A woman out at night, is a hypocrite—if she’s such a smart, independent woman, she should know better. If she gets raped, shame on her for losing her virtue. If we cannot expect the press—the philosophical ‘Fourth Estate’ and protector of our democratic rights—to show women respect, how can we start to expect respect for the state? Public discourse on women’s rights in the media and in civil society is couched in offensive and insufficient rhetoric, as are many of the articles of this publication.

A daily publication, however banal their content is, stoops to ad hominem attacks, the immature re-publication of photo-shoots, and utterly insipid arguments like: “Deepika, just for the record, we do not zoom into a woman’s vagina or show her nipples. As a newspaper, we take every care to ensure that we pixelate them if they show up in a picture.†(How mightily conscientious of them!) It is utterly abhorrent that the Times of India felt that “Deepika chose to raise a furor and suddenly felt ‘violated’ only during the release of her movie Finding Fanny,†and further, that writer Priya Gupta chose to put the word ‘violated’ in quotation marks, as though Deepika as a woman, her fears for her own and other women’s privacy, and the broader question of misogyny and the sexual objectification of women ought not be the legitimate concerns of the paper or the public.

This issue doesn’t just concern women. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect. We do not doubt that Indian men are capable of respect, love and affection towards women; and the movement we are launching includes both genders. It is time we speak meaningfully about these issues, and start to accept women for who they are and who they choose to be in the most holistic way.