American journalist and feminist Susan Faludi once wrote, “The backlash is a pre-emptive strike that stops women long before they reach the finishing line.” In India, that strike often comes not from adversaries, but from the very institutions meant to uphold equality.
In March 2023, a Holi Milan celebration complete with vulgar display and dance at Delhi’s Patiala House Court turned into a spectacle that outraged the legal community particularly women lawyers. When I signed the protest petition condemning this gross violation of professional dignity and textbook case of workplace sexual objectification, what struck me most was the sheer tone-deafness of it all: this was a court complex, in the heart of the national capital, reduced to a stage for sexist spectacle.
Worse still, what made the incident at Patiala House Court even more galling was the collective apathy of the legal fraternity. None of the organisers saw a problem with hosting an “item number” dance inside court premises, not during planning, not during execution, not even after the backlash.
Many attendees watched without protest. Those of us who raised objections early on were told to “stop overreacting” or asked why we were being “so touchy” about it, as if demanding dignity in a workplace was an emotional overreach.
It revealed a deep cultural rot, where objectification is normalised and women lawyers are expected to either laugh along or quietly look away. That silence is not accidental.