GIVA’s Raksha Bandhan Ad Wasn’t ‘Creepy’. Our Policing of Women’s Clothes Is

Why does the fact of being someone’s sister require a woman to dress a certain way?

The controversy surrounding this became large enough for GIVA to withdraw the advertisement, saying that it had “the highest regard and deep respect” for Indian culture, traditions and festivals.

(Photo: Kamran Akhte/The Quint)

“Put on a bra. Your brother is home.”

“Change your shorts. You can't dress like that in front of Chacha Ji.”

“At least put a dupatta on.”

The backlash to Kriti Sanon’s clothes in GIVA’s Raksha Bandhan ad is essentially the same instruction. The only difference is that this time, instead of a mother, grandmother, or an aunt policing a girl’s clothes at home, thousands of strangers have collectively assumed the role of telling an adult woman what to wear while celebrating a festival with her on-screen brother.

The controversy surrounding this became large enough for GIVA to withdraw the advertisement, saying that it had “the highest regard and deep respect” for Indian culture, traditions and festivals, and that if the ad had “inadvertently hurt the sentiments” of some people, that was never its intention. The brand said it had therefore withdrawn the advertisement “out of respect.” 

Threads of (Im)Purity

There is, of course, nothing inherently misogynistic about disliking an advertisement, questioning a brand’s interpretation of a cultural tradition or finding its attempt to modernise a festival aesthetically unconvincing. But the criticism of the advertisement, where Sanon appears in an Indo-Western outfit featuring a bikini-style blouse, is driven by the glaringly misogynistic idea that a woman dressed like that should not be celebrating Raksha Bandhan with her brother.

Responding to the backlash prior to the ad being taken down, Sanon had said, “When will we stop telling women what to wear? Ethnic fashion has evolved over the years, yet a woman’s respect for her culture is still measured by her clothes. Culture and traditions are in her heart, not in her neckline.”

The problem, however, is not the blouse alone, but the blouse being worn in the presence of the brother. The same garment might be considered fashionable or glamorous elsewhere, but his presence changes how Sanon—and, by extension, the women and girls whose lives this supposedly represents—are expected to present their bodies.

Why does the fact of being someone’s sister require a woman to visually desexualise herself? And, more importantly, why are we reducing her identity to ‘sister’ in a way that makes her other identities—as a woman, a sexual being, an individual with her own relationship to her body—suddenly irrelevant? 

Between Obscenity, Sexualisation and Abuse

In India, right from childhood, girls are taught that the clothes they’re wearing within their own homes can quickly become inappropriate if a male member is around. Even in the oppressive Indian summer, girls are routinely directed to cover up their arms and legs—and, often, wear bras, too—because an uncle or a male cousin is on their way to visit. Meanwhile, the men in those same households can walk around shirtless, or in little more than a vest and shorts without anyone suggesting that their bodies might compromise the dignity or comfort of the women around them.

Girls learn that their bodies are somehow more consequential, more sexual, more distracting, more capable of creating discomfort, and therefore, more in need of regulation than male bodies.

What they are not taught to ask is why the arrival of a male relative should require their bodies to change.

Even the admonitions that come their way are rarely framed as explicitly as, “A male relative might sexualise you, so cover up.” They arrive, instead, as  ‘established rules’ about decency, respectability and appropriateness, “You cannot wear that around family.” 

In truth, given how frequently sexual abuse is perpetrated within families, naming men as the problem would, at the very least, make the logic behind asking women to cover up around male members shockingly legible, horrifying as it might be. But our patriarchal discomfort with implicating men means the responsibility is displaced onto girls and what they are wearing. 

Normalising Victim Shaming

Rather than asking why a man might sexualise a girl in his own family, we ask why the girl was wearing shorts. Rather than interrogating the male gaze, we adjust the neckline. Rather than teaching men that familial relationships do not become sexually ambiguous because a woman has bare legs or visible cleavage, we teach women to make their bodies less visible. 

That is why calling the ad “intentionally creepy”—as actor and politician Kangana Ranaut did—inadvertently exposes a far creepier truth about the way our society has normalised the idea of grown men sexualising young girls in their own families.

There is something profoundly unsettling about a social order that finds it more reasonable to regulate a young girl’s clothing than to question the possibility of a grown man sexualising someone in his own family. The former is treated as prudence; the latter is treated as an uncomfortable thought that should remain unspoken. Together, they allow rape culture sustains itself.

That is precisely the logic feminists have spent decades challenging when it is used to explain sexual harassment and violence outside the home.

We know that a woman’s clothes do not cause sexual violence, invite harassment or make her responsible for another person’s decision to violate her boundaries. Yet, within the family, we continue to preserve a softer version of the same principle.

The distinction between the two contexts is important, but so is the contradiction. If we genuinely believe that men are capable of distinguishing between attraction, sexualisation and familial affection, then a sister’s blouse should not determine whether her relationship with her brother appears appropriate. And if we believe they are not capable of that distinction, the answer cannot be to teach girls that their bodies are responsible for maintaining the boundaries of relationships between adults. Either way, the burden should not begin and end with what women wear; women should be free to cover themselves for cultural, personal or practical reasons just as they should be free not to.

Patriarchy Thrives on Woman vs Woman

Patriarchal culture simply prefers to divide women into categories of the desirable woman and the respectable woman, the woman who can be looked at and the woman who represents family honour. Sanon’s appearance collapses those categories when she appears, simultaneously, as both a glamorous woman and someone’s sister.

This is where the withdrawal of the advertisement becomes more than an unfortunate footnote to the controversy. Sanon had asked, “When will we stop telling women what to wear?” The answer, at least in this instance, appears to be, ‘Not yet.’

Faced with outrage over a woman’s clothes, GIVA’s chose to remove the ad, rather than acknowledging the criticism while standing by its depiction of a contemporary reimagining of sisterhood. GIVA may have intended to respect cultural sentiments, but the result is that the people demanding that a woman cover up got precisely what they wanted.  

The irony is particularly striking on Raksha Bandhan, which is popularly understood as a celebration of a brother’s promise to protect his sister. But if the sister must cover herself to preserve the propriety of that relationship, are we trying to suggest she needs ‘protection’ from her own brother? Or are we saying only women who cover up deserve to be protected?

We have spent generations teaching girls to cover up around fathers, brothers, uncles and cousins in the name of safety, respectability or convention. Perhaps, it is time to ask why we have found that lesson easier to accept than the possibility it is designed to prevent. 

(DevRupa Rakshit is a queer, autistic individual, ARTivist and independent multimedia journalist based in Bengaluru. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)