Recently, a Raksha Bandhan ad in India created a controversy — for tying a rakhi to a dog, and for the clothes being considered inappropriate.
Got me thinking. Where is the line between personal freedom and choice, and social appropriateness?
Raksha Bandhan — what is the right way? Is it the social norm today, i.e. sisters tying rakhi to brothers? Or is it the substance of tying the thread — seeking, or in fact even praying for, protection? Who decides? In our home, both Aarav and Chahel now tie to each other as a symbol of siblings. In some other families, I have seen other families tying to each other. Seems like what the thread signifies isnt universal.
And would the clothes matter if it were a personal affair and not publicized? Do what you want in private and social appropriateness doesn’t matter there. In public, however, is personal freedom subservient to social norms? Is the audience then the defining yardstick? Its almost what we face everyday depending on the audience on what to wear.
Or is it about who is involved? If someone is famous, do they have a greater social responsibility, and should their personal freedom therefore remain within some social remit? Would it matter if a nobody did the same thing? Literally a question if my wife Jainee, who is a celebrity (atleast by many people’s standards) is seen wearing vs me – who is hardly known!
Or maybe it’s a combination of all of the above?
Clearly, if something is a matter of law, things become a little clearer. Though even the interpretation of law itself can be a grey area and isn’t always black and white. Societal norms are fluid too — they change across regions, communities, religions, castes, and cultures. It is therefore not easy to decide which social norms personal freedom should submit to.
To make my thinking broader, I went to my better half.
When I discussed this with Jainee as to what she saw was the gendered dimension of it. Men are not subject to the same standards — the burden of social appropriateness and cultural norms is disproportionately placed on women.
Even though my question was gender agnostic, in the example being discussed, she saw feminism as the core issue, while I saw an inherent question of personal freedom versus social appropriateness.
Interesting, isn’t it? The same example, but two different people see two different issues.
I saw the controversy and my mind, because I have not experienced moral policing so much went to a broader question of what defines appropriateness. But for Jainee, having been subject to such policing before, saw it from a gender policing view.
Perhaps that is the more interesting question. Not whether one of us was right and the other wrong, but why the same event made me question freedom versus norms, while it made her question gender inequality.
To some, the dog with a rakhi was the issue. To some, the clothes were. To some, the very questioning of the issue might be the problem.
Maybe what we see in the world is never entirely independent of what we have experienced in it.
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