The Apparel Apparatus: Covert Body-Politics and Violence against Women in India

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Sanghita Sarkar

Abstract

It is an undeniable fact that crime rates against women has increased to an alarming degree in India over the past few decades. With this alarming condition has risen up the question, where the ‘reasons’ behind such situation lie. The increasing number of violent atrocities against women has led to a number of debates in the present day scenario. One very important among them is the responsibility of the women themselves in such cases. Many have blamed the rapid westernization of our country in the past few decades and the changes that entailed them are loosening the moral values of our society. Such changes include the changing roles of the women in our country, such as working outside, having not only a private but also a public life, wearing western clothes etc. Some traditionalist termed these clothes as immoral and provocative to male eyes and should be discarded for they can loosen the moral of the male part of the society. Now the question is how far the women can be responsible for wearing an ‘immoral’ cloth or even crucial, can a ‘cloth’ be termed as ‘immoral’? What is this ‘moral guideline’, if any, that the women should follow? Is it even ‘moral’ to have such a guideline? Or is it another agenda of the hierarchical society to mask the reality colonization behind ‘morality’? 

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How to Cite
Sanghita Sarkar. “The Apparel Apparatus: Covert Body-Politics and Violence Against Women in India”. The Creative Launcher, vol. 5, no. 3, Aug. 2020, pp. 31-39, doi:10.53032/tcl.2020.5.3.05.
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