The Vagina Monologues In Hindi

Sometimes I have the idea in my head that when I get sexually harassed in India, it is because I am a fair-skinned Western woman. I didn’t come up with this myself. An information packet from the institute where I study in India advised us female students to try not to blame ourselves if we get assaulted–especially if we have blonde hair. A public service video by the Indian Ministry of tourism portrayed superstar Aamir Khan protecting white European women from lecherous Indian men. I’ve heard multiple people come up with this explanation for harassment of foreign women: that many men who don’t know what Western women are really like assume they want to have sex with anyone, anytime, because they’ve seen American porn. Rashid Rana, a famous artist from Pakistan, described his inspiration for a piece that depicts how people from different parts of world distort the image of their women in different ways: “Men who haven’t been exposed to the West or haven’t traveled there, because of their exposure to pornography they will think of Western women as very promiscuous and they think that, when they’re going to land in the West, people will be having sex on the roads and streets.” It’s a brilliant artistic concept, but brilliant artistic concepts don’t encompass the whole of reality–that is, that some Indian men are capable of treating their own women equally perversely. That even in the part of the world where they were invented, short skirts have been used as legal evidence to justify rape.

People are more willing to talk about violence against women if that violence is perpetrated by “the other.” That’s why ex-pats are so keen to talk about bad experiences women have in the street in India–less so in their own college dorms in America.  I’ve heard other foreigners seem to almost relish conversations about “creepy Indian men” and even openly suggest that all Indian men are incapable of respecting women, which daily experience teaches isn’t true. The ease with which people blame outsiders also explains why Indian politicians try to avoid the issue of widespread rape by pinning it on the West’s influence, even on Western clothing. These kinds of discussions are easier to have because they don’t require introspection. But they are also distorting–and worse, isolating. If you’re made to believe that harassment occurs because you’re an outsider, you’re less likely to feel like you can ask for help. Realizing that many Indian women also have to deal with this daily makes me feel like I have allies everywhere. On a larger scale, more open discussion of sexual harassment worldwide will make it harder for anyone, anywhere, to claim that it is another culture’s problem.

The success of the translation of The Vagina Monologues shows that the troubles women have due to our anatomy are present across cultures. And the translation is a success. In Lucknow, audience members had to be forced out of the theater because so many of them were eager to share their comments in the guestbook that had been placed on stage.  In its home, Mumbai, the show has been running in front of full houses for 5 years. (The English version has been running Mumbai for 10 years.) As this play’s candid discussion of violence against women spreads to more and more corners of the country, I hope that reactions to the recent rape case will also continue to open up the discussion of violence against women in India. I hope that self-reflection will outweigh political excuses and that the strength of women’s rage will be an example for the world.

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