On 19 June, Thesni Bhanu, an infotech professional, was on her way to work at Kochi’s Info Park, riding pillion with a male friend on his motorcycle. They stopped at Kakanadu, a small town en route. Thesni stood near the bike while he went to get a cigarette. Out of the blue, a group of about half-a-dozen men charged up to her, and started making pointed queries along the lines of ‘Who are you?’ and ‘Where are you from?’ Since it was none of their business, Thesni ignored them. The men, clearly drunk, started using swear words. When she retorted in kind, one man slapped her and twisted her arms, as two others cheered. She fell to the ground, twisting her neck badly. When her friend returned from the nearby shop, he too found himself at the receiving end of an ugly interrogation.
Seizing a moment, Thesni rang the police. They arrived in about 15 minutes, but would not register a case. Her neck was aching, and it was only after she was admitted to hospital the next day and the assault caught media attention that the police top brass took notice. Once the case was logged, 72 hours after the incident, three of the men were arrested. But Thesni is far from reassured of her safety. “If a woman travels with a male friend in Kerala, she will be manhandled,” she says, outlining the problem, “If we travel alone, we will be sexually attacked, probably by the same moral brigade that cannot stand us travelling with males.”
Men in Kerala appear over-concerned about what women do, how they turn up in public—with whom, how, and when. To fall in love is almost seen as a crime in the state now. Public spaces are being fumigated, so to speak, to protect society from such dangers as public displays of affection. A couple sitting together in a park or on a beach can expect to be roughed up by strangers, some of them in police uniform. Meanwhile, cases of sexual harassment, molestation and rape have reached levels never seen before. Newspapers regularly report minor girls being abducted for sex slavery and daughters being sold into the trade by their own fathers. Things are so bad that everyday life for women is turning into a nightmare. Take just the last month or so.
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On 19 July, Premjith, an art director, was at home in Thiruvananthapuram with his girlfriend, when there was a knock on the door of his flat. There stood a group of men who introduced themselves as workers of the DYFI, the youth wing of the CPM. One of them was a panchayat member. They had come for fund collection. But when Premjith went back in to get some money, the group followed him uninvited, and asked who the girl was. A friend and teacher at a nearby school, said Premjith. Unsatisfied with this introduction, they subjected him to a loud harangue on his alleged lack of morality, before beating him up.
The ordeal didn’t end there. They called the police, who took the couple to the station for further humiliation. The sub-inspector used abusive language and called their parents. Ignoring his girlfriend’s frantic pleas, he also called up her school authorities to verify her identity. Premjith is 32 years old, and his girlfriend, 28. But the cops insisted they could be released only after their parents turned up.
Something just as shocking happened two weeks later in Kottayam district. Friends of Syam Nair, a government employee in Kottayam, received an SOS call from him on a Sunday evening. The police had caught him for ‘immoral trafficking’ at home. Two male friends and three female friends had gathered at his place to catch up over some snacks and drinks. At 4 pm, a police jeep barged into his compound, and six energetic cops jumped out to cordon off the house as if it were a terrorist hideout.
Syam and friends were psyched by the intrusion, but the cops insisted they’d been tipped off about sex trafficking at his residence. So each of them was taken aside and questioned alone to check how well s/he knew the rest. The cops failed to gather any evidence of the aforesaid sexual offence, but once they discovered that one of the women was Syam’s live-in girlfriend, their cheesy expressions returned. Triumphant, the sub-inspector threatened to arrest them for staying together, and issued the girlfriend an ultimatum to move out.
The cops backed off only after Syam’s friends called up the circle inspector and demanded to know what law barred a man and woman from staying together. “The irony,” says Syam, “is that this is the same society where a person hit by a vehicle lies on the road unattended for hours because the general tendency is to avoid the trouble of carrying an accident victim to hospital.”
The scenario is so bad that even families travelling together risk being assaulted by overzealous moral policemen. On 4 August, Vijesh Vijay, an infotech professional in Thiruvananthapuram, was driving to a relative’s house with his wife and mother-in-law. A group of men stopped him and accused him of sex trafficking. When he said the women were part of his family, they demanded a marriage certificate. To his horror, they even asked him to turn the women over once he had ‘finished’ with his ‘need’ (sic). “They introduced themselves as policemen,” recounts Vijay, “One of them grabbed my collar and started talking in a crass manner. I grew suspicious and tried calling the police. They would not let me, but still [succeeded somehow].” The police arrested the men.
Four days later, another case made the newspapers. A man and woman travelling in a state transport bus in Idukki district were intercepted by the Kerala Police at Ponkunnam and detained for interrogation. A fellow passenger—a personal assistant to a former legislator, no less—had called the police to say that two youngsters on the bus looked like eloping lovers. To nail the offenders, an on-the-spot interrogation was conducted by the cops, followed by calls to the detainees’ relatives to cross-check what they were saying. The elopers were found to be siblings, returning home after some work at the university in neighbouring Kottayam district.
Online harassment can be a menace too, but enduring primitive police attitudes can be worse. Consider Reena Philip’s case. An activist of the CPI-ML (Red Flag) and also a research scholar at University of Kerala pursuing a PhD on the ‘Impact of Globalisation on Education’, Reena was invited on Facebook to a chat by a man. When she replied that she was not interested, he let loose a barrage of obscenity online. Offended, Reena complained to the police’s cybercell. The deputy superintendent advised her not to put up photos on Facebook, since this could provoke men, and then officiously compared her stance to that of a sex-worker who places money in her blouse for the police to grab. Sickened by this, Reena approached the Director General of Police with a complaint against this obnoxious man in uniform (a probe has been ordered).
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Moral policing in Kerala is distinct from what is seen elsewhere in India. For one, it is not right-wing extremists (of the Sree Ram Sene sort) who are out to impose their own code of morality on others, it is sometimes workers of the state’s Left parties. For another, it has its origin in a crisis of gender relations all of Kerala’s own. “Something is seriously wrong with the Malayalee man, especially in the 30–60 age group,” believes KP Aravindan, a doctor and social activist, “Simply put, the Malayalee male is sexually repressed. Schools are segregated as nowhere else. This segregation prevents natural friendships between boys and girls. During the period of sexual awakening and beyond, they see each other only as sex objects.”
There are many colleges, even state-run institutions, that ban T-shirts and tight pants worn by girls. “But the sexual aggression that women in Kerala face is not addressed by these so-called ‘legitimate’ acts of moral policing in academic and other institutions,” says T Muraleedharan, a teacher at a private college in Thrissur who believes that a strict dress code only victimises women more by shrinking their choices. “In my college, a ban has been imposed on T-shirts and tight pants with the wholehearted support of 80 per cent of the staff,” adds the teacher, “Girls and boys talking for an ‘unnaturally long’ time are also monitored. They are told that if they do not stop, their parents would be summoned.”
The same attitude is evident in a recent ban imposed on filmi dance in schools. “The thought behind the Kerala government’s ban is quite like that behind honour killings. It is an anxiety over ‘our’ children going bad that might come to shame ‘us’,” says AS Ajith Kumar, a musician and Dalit rights activist in Thiruvananthapuram.
Kerala’s political culture has plenty to do with the social (if not legal) criminalisation of behaviour that conservatives consider taboo, even if nobody’s rights are violated by it. Consider the scandals that have stormed Kerala politics of late. Gopi Kottamurikal, the CPM’s Ernakulum district unit secretary, was forced out of his post on allegations of having been seen with a female comrade in a ‘compromising position’ at the party office. A loyalist of VS Achuthanandan, he had switched sides to the Pinarayi Vijayan faction, and that was enough for his former fellow factionalists to use a spy camera in the office to gather evidence against his moral stature. Immediate suspension was the only option for the state committee. “Otherwise that video would have been playing on the internet,” says a state committee member close to Vijayan. It did not matter that two grown-ups engaged in a consensual act injures nobody else and is not a crime.
In another incident, PJ Joseph, the state’s minister for water resources and chairman of the Kerala Congress (J), was caught in a controversy after a woman complained that she had been getting unwelcome SMSes from the minister’s phone. The counter-allegation was that PC George, a fellow leader of the party and its chief whip in the Assembly, had framed Joseph in connivance with the woman’s husband. The story took another turn later, with the woman complaining about her husband having hidden facts about his first marriage.
Unfortunately for Kerala, moral policing is still testing new limits of absurdity. In Thrissur district, a police officer recently implemented a ban of his own on low-waist jeans. He sent the police out to patrol the streets near colleges. Obedient cops that they were, they nabbed men clad in such dangerous denim. Why were no girls hauled up? Elementary. Because in Kerala’s small towns, they are yet to start wearing low-waist jeans. Given the social scenario, it would be the devil’s own advice.
OLDER COMMENTS FIRST
38 COMMENTS
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Twenty five years ago, when I was a very junior lecturer in Kerala, I used to ride a bus to work from Trivandrum to Quilon with a couple of my colleagues. One day, when I was sharing a seat with a senior female lecturer and chatting about nothing in particular, a co-passenger planted herself in front of us and threw a hissy fit. Apparently, she didn't approve of men and women sitting together, regardless of their professional relationship or age difference. My colleague was mortified and would never sit with me again. It's not just the men who do moral policing in Kerala, and it's interesting to know that nothing has changed in a quarter of a century.
I found another job in Delhi some months after that embarrassing incident and, like so many of my fellow Malayalis, never returned to work in God's Own Country.
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well said. Congrats Shahina.
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Brilliant piece. This is definitely not a new phenomena.It was always there--silently brewing and now boiled over.
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useless bums and policemen. how dare they call a 28 yr old woman's parents? 28!! outrageous.a woman should be free to be with whomever she wishes to be with. free will! heard of it, people?
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After I moved in to Calicut past year, I got a fair idea of how far behind Kerala stands when it comes to judging relationships. Your article makes my judgement of the scenario an understatement. I am sure Kerala is the least corrupted state and all but I can see the public's thinking has been the same in the past 50 years. People here push the whole morality bar a bit too much. I have barely seen any girl dressed in decent cloths (decent in modern times, not what it was like in 1963). I kept my things in the Rlystation for half an hour, unattended, and no one bothered stealing it. This being the same place, I must mentioned I have been more than just touched in an unwelcome manner, in more than one occasions , by lets say people who aren't heterosexual, me being a guy.
Majority people here dont speak any other language other than Malayalam and have never stepped out of Kerala. They have no idea of how the culture everywhere else has changed, and dont see the need to understand why they should upgrade their lifestyle.
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Good article. The self appointed moral policemen should be dragged to courts & dealt with. The repressive & sick mentality is there everywhere. No woman can travel without being grabbed or fondled. What does literacy mean in this state ?
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an excellent article about the true events. for the first time in my life, i'm ashamed of the place i was born. :( it's also sad to know that Kerala is the leading state in literacy and the most backward in broad mindedness. i personally think it's up to the people who has the courage and brains to step up and beat the crap out of these few idiots who spoil the name of our great state.
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People in kerala always claim they are the best people in world and their state is the best. Only the natural beauty of Keral could be praised. When comes to job oppurtunities,keralites always move out and criticise other state people. They behave just like any normal human beng when they are not in their state. But with in Kerala they always humiliate couples ,even siblings , or relatives as if they are born alone with out relations. As we all know that malayalies do talk in a very good way, little un shared thing is that They talks equally with out respect. Please respect humanity and others in your society. Through out India, kerala is a place even where lot of A -certified movies are released for decades, How could you rexpect people to respect ladies or any females accompanied by a male.:P
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the fact that people find themselves in a position to dominate others and repressed sexual tension which ws not given an opportunity since childhood is what i believe to be the reason for all this....i think there has to be a change implemented in the school level itself in every institution...state run and private to not just providing quality education but also to mould a model personality and to provide men and women with an updated sense of norms and morals....
it is only when the women in the country enjoy equal rights that i believe the country to realize the idea of equity and not just equality..
as a student who has many girl-friends, i too have been subjected to humiliation in public and it is one of the very few reasons that my friends circle do not include the women in most of our escapades...and i am ashamed of doing so...i truly hope one day I would be able to breathe a sigh of relief from this insane sense of misplaced "morality" that these men so enthusiastically follow.....and I will not rest until that this feeling has been shattered.
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Its a highly hypocritical society out there in Kerala now. All the education and awareness hasn't been able to change the outlook of people towards sexuality. I guess it was a much more open society in the 80s. May be it is because the sensible people no longer stay in Kerala due to the lack of suitable employment. As of now it is Groper's own country!!
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Absolutely, It was pretty bad for women or normal men in Kerala 10 years ago. But not as bad as it was in other parts of the country. From what I hear its a whole lot worse now. The media has to shoulder an enormous part of the blame for this conflicted society. And it is the best and most powerful tool for positive societal change too. Articles like this are a step in the right direction.
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ppl in kerala are more concerned about polishing other ppl even when in their own homes, things rot!!! its the same old story of the crabs in the bucket who has not seen the outside world, who cannot see others prosper... ppl here almost have a saddistic thought of if i have nt had the "luxury" of a gal friend (which they still cannot agree to the fact that its completely normal and natural to have a love life) so ll not the other, so they try and prevent others ... even a gal and guy walkin together is hooted and embarassed by these 'morally perfect gentlemen' just wanna tell this to all the sad ppls in kerala who doesnot mind their own business,.. get a life dude!!!!!! from a very normal malayalee who is sick of the character of my own ppl!!! especially and shockinlgy. the youth who should by far ve started thinkin in a broader perspective!!!
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" It did not matter that two grown-ups engaged in a consensual act injures nobody else and is not a crime."
Uh, it was in the party office. It matters. So your argument doesn't hold water. Remember Clinton? Its another matter that Gopi Kottamurikal would have met the same fate even if they did it in the private confines of their own house.
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It's an established fact that the more moral a society claims to be, the more hollow it actually is. India is a prime example of this. Thankfully the situation is much better in some parts, but many other parts are still in the 80s.
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I believe this article was written on the basis of one or two issues that happened recently. Trying to generalize the entire Kerala male population on the basis of one or two incidents such as mentioned here is so unfortunate! It also mentioned that these people were drunk! Just because of one or two groups of drunk people, you cannot categorize the entire state as unfriendly for women!
Now about the moral policing, compare it with the recent incidents in Karnataka and Mumbai! There were at least 30 incidents each in 3 months reported in these states and no one calls these states unfriendly for women???
Kerala has always been a state with high regard to women and the poor. The family value that the Malayalis uphold is of high esteem for the women. I m not denying that there were incidents in which women were attacked. And it happens everywhere, not just in Kerala, and comparatively its much lesser in Kerala!
In my opinion this article is totally biased with some unknown, unannounced purpose in mind. Most of the websites and forum vote Kerala as one of the most safest places in India, I don't understand how this freaking author came to a conclusion that it is devil's own country!
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Great article...
unrevealed truth of Kerala....
May be all men are not like this,still few people with narrow minded mentality can cause
shame to entire Kerala.
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Very true. Kerala for all its supposed matrilinear leanings remains intensely chauvinistic. I've seen this first-hand where mallu women are conditioned to believe that raising their voice or having an opinion is not in "good taste." My sister who went to med school went through a terrible phase in college when she tried to address issues on Campus. She and her bunch of friends were accused of being "fast and forward" because they had a point of view. They were ostracized by the women in their batch for raising an issue about a male streaker in the ladies hostel who they wanted to complain about!
Popular culture endorses that view. The ideal mallu actress is one who keeps quiet, cries copiously and the evil vamp always gets slapped in the end by her husband and told to "behave."
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utterly ridiculous article, full of twisted facts !
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I agree there are frustrated psychos who take every opportunity to take advantage of women and couples. But it is unfair and preposterous to tag the average "malayali" as a frustrated psycho.
I was born and raised in this beautiful state and I've had no such experiences. We've always been taught to always treated women with respect.
Please do not extrapolate facts out of proportion. There are problems, and it happens everywhere. Lets not forget instances of people getting raped and killed in places like Delhi and Bangalore.
It sure is a social evil, and must be eradicated.
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This is a very serious situation and something that cant be treated very lightly. I think people need to grow up and act more matured. Morality of people cannot be questioned by some XYZ of the society. I think its high time people knew what their business and boundaries are. I think somewhere the govt is to be blamed to this for being so out of control that even police whom we seek protection from start acting bizzare and resentful. Such acts are absolutely disapproving. Anyone who is a major has a right to be with whomever they want, wherever they want until and unless its in consent of the individuals involved and have been agreed upon mutually. I wouldnt call this orthodox behavior but will call it a a very psychotic act by f***king psychos and ill minded morons. Wondering "when people in our country will understand that Women are not just some meager sex objects and stop treating them like one". The kind of harassment and embarrassment that women in India go through is undefinable. Waiting for that day when things will change for the better and not the worse...
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As like most of malayalees, I did my schooling in other state Tamilnadu where women are respected and came to Thiruvananthapuram to do graduation... The thought of travelling in bus there horrified me because most of the times, we have been in the receiving end in the bus as government buses have only backdoor and women are supposed to sit at the back the filthy minded people always had their way..
Kerala is the worst country in India in sexual harrasment.. But i never knew that it has gone from bad to worse now. Educational institutions should atleast change their approach as they are the ones who shape the young minds.. If this continues, Kerala will no longer have educated youngsters settling there...
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This just make me sick... And we dare to call ourselves people from the most literate state in India... YUCK!!!
http://whendasungoesdown.blogspot.com/
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these malayalees should go get a life!! I'm an unfortunate by-birth-and-not-by-blood malayalee. I've been on the receiving end of this sick attitude of mlayalees. At times like those, i wish i'd a gun...
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The time will come when these buggers are stabbed in public by groups of women, perhaps their own family members. I haven't been in Kerala for a while, it was never like this when I was around. I mean, we killed Naxals and other anti-social elements for the same reason. Would be nice to see some good, friendly vigilante action against these scum that have made the state a cesspool by urinating outside their own houses.
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I always thought Kerala was a tad bit more liberal than many other places in India. Sadly no! Sigh! With the population leaning towards women one would expect so! And ditto with the educational standards of the masses! Is that to just a myth?
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A very true account of what goes on in Kerala. It's truly sad to see that such levels of intolerance and incompetence can exist in a society as educated as Kerala's. And the worst part is, even the Police and Society supports these self proclaimed moral police either proactively or silently.
To respect women, we first need to get to know them! And even this is snuffed out by all the restrictions placed on Kerala's youngsters. Our society really should be changing its attitude or else risk the scenario where we get branded as an intolerant people!
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One of my girl friend, a lady doctor from Bangalore had a severe experience once she had visited Calicut Dist of Kerala for a medical conference in 2005. She came in train by wearing a tight jeans pant and a jeans shirt with four pockets. Everything was fine until she touched Calicut railway station. As soon as she reached there, people stated staring on her. She ignored those penetrating eyes and somehow reached near to one of the senior male doctor who came there to pick her up as per the instruction from the organizers. As soon as he found the lady doctor with a tight jeans and shirt, he told her straight away that it is not a proper dressing pattern for a doctor. When she had responded so quickly and points to her freedom while travelling, he nodded as if he was her guardian and he would not allow if it was his wife. When she tried to get into the front seat of his car, he objected and asked her to sit in the back seat otherwise people might make a story as soon as they reach in the hotel. She politely denied his offer and picked an autorikshwa to reach the hotel where the former male doctor with his supporting team of doctors (including lady doctors too) rallied together and “greeted” her well and gave her a morality lecture before she get into the medical conference session.
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Men in kerala are the biggest hypocrites. I had terrible experience in a bus by a man and the fellow passengers had nothing better to say than " dont make an issue". Yet they make a huge deal if someone walk in jeans in my small kottayam town. I hate kerala men.
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This has been a growing issue in Kerala for many years. For most men in Kerala society, its absolutely normal to objectify women just as sex objects. Walk by any educational institute and you will see a bunch of men sitting together just staring at women or passing obscene comments everytime a girl walks by. And the same men who pass these lewd comments will also be the first to act as moral policemen! Sadly the culture and the media not just turn a blind eye to this, but are in many ways responsible for this situation. The arcane views on girl-boy interactions during their school years, movies and TV shows that portray women in tight clothes as either sluts, prostitutes or women who are evil and a wide-spread indignified attitude and opinions when it comes to treating women. Attitudes such as women in short skirts and tight clothes are morally vulnerable, constant comments of 'available' women in high society and soon are fearfully common-place. Its like a massive blanket of sexual repression is draped over the society. And when attitudes like this are ingrained in most people its easy to see how they would turn a blind eye to acts such as moral policing and eve-teasing that are extensions of their own opinions and thoughts!
Its sad that a society that is so highly educated has fallen into such a shameless and unacceptable situation. As a malayalee myself, I am ashamed of how things are.
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I agree with what Dr. K.P.Aravindan has said.Men in Kerala has some kind of attitude problem which might be due to sexual suppression.Walking with a friend from the opposite sex is considered to be the most offensive thing and the funny thing is that even the most educated people like teachers also support this immature attitude.
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If a women is with a men , whoever the women be.. it is the normal decency between men and men not to irritate the women with a stair. Kerala is loosing that too ! recently i read a news about moral policing against a superior lady officer and her subordinate men in uniform , were on her house for official purpose ! why the people are bothering if something happening in ones own privacy ! its time for the state to enact new individual privacy laws !!
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shahina...this is a very well written article. you have put every girl's nightmare into that.
apparantly...this is more visible to girls who live outside kerala and then either move in there or come down for vacations. because...the girls who are already living in kerala..are so bound already my morals, traditions, customs...the chains of honor and family name tie them up so hard that they cannot find the guts to even simply wear a pair of jeans if they want to also.
citing another example of this scenario...I'm an NRI return and in one of my holidays in kerala...i was walkin wit my younger cuzin brother (almost 8 yrs younger to me) but since im short in height he looked as tall as me. the minute i reached home i was confronted by my relatives askin which "guy i was hanging out with and shaming them" . the only answer i cud give was a look of disbelief. then finally coming bak to senses i told them it was my cuzin. to which they all relaxed. to my suprise the "source of the information" came from some unknown lady who was a neighbour of the servant in my house!!!!!!
it cemented all my fears then.
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The influence of "Gulf" Malayalees and the rules of the authoritarian countries like Saudi Arabia has a significant influence in the mindset of the people. Even educated middle class families get transformed to this puritan belief across all religions. It started off with Muslims, then Christians, and now Hindus. You can see this fundamentalism in schools, colleges, and work places.
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there is nothing wrong legally in 2 adults in a live-in relationship. there is a supreme court order to this effect. dont the policemen know this even?
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Indeed, this confirms my opinion that the harassment is worst in Kerala. I lived all across India as my father was in Defence services. And one of those places was Kochi. Where I faced there the maximum & most invasive 'eve'teasing' as it is called. Men would touch, push themselves against you whenever opportunity arose - and I was 14. What kind of a mindset is that?
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Very true... Carry these documents all the time if you are with
1 - Mother -- Passport and Birth Certificate - To prove she is your mother
2 - Sister - Birth Certificate, Passport and Ration Card - To prove she is your sister
3 - Wife - Marriage certificate, wedding photo album - To prove she is your wife
4 - Daughter - Kids birth certificate, your birth certificate, your health certificate (Special mention on your reproduction capabilities - a must have)
5 - Mother-in-law - Wedding album, her passport, your father-in-laws affidavit, NOC etc...
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I agree with everything you say. What these Sree Ram Sena guys doing is they are trying to establish their presence by moral policing. They are so stupid..all these BJP politicians are behind that.
But you are wrong about the conclusion and heading because you are just seeing the wrong side of Kerala. Kerala is much more safer compared to other states and countries.
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Some malayalees have found this article a generalization, others prefer the security of 'relatively safer'...
I agree with a critic who said"..malayalees are literate, not educated'
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