The Maharashtra government’s decision to ban sex education in high schools with a view to protecting Indian values — and the support of political parties in the opposition on the stance — demonstrates two things. One, when it comes to matters related to sex, the social attitudes of Bharat sideline those of India, so there is an overwhelmingly conservative slant in the country’s gender equations as well as widespread sexual hypocrisy and misogyny. Two, when it comes to matters related to women’s and children’s rights, political leaders across the political spectrum espouse antiquated, paternalistic notions about gender roles and responsibilities, and do not really represent a diversity of viewpoints.

Although educated and urban India is much more open and right-minded about sex matters, Bharat’s sexual hypocrisy is there for all to see. Be it in the witch-hunt organised in Tamil Nadu against film actress, Khushboo, for speaking her mind on sex, or the fatwa issued against Sania Mirza for wearing short skirts on the tennis court, or the government-led effort to scapegoat bar dancers in Mumbai, Bharat’s is a deeply woman-hating culture, one that shifts all the blame from the lecherous male gaze to the hapless woman.

Even as Bharat erects temples for Mother Goddesses and film starlets alike, almost any woman living in any part of the country will tell you that 'eve-teasing' and sexual harassment are so commonplace and a woman’s legal and social options to retaliate so limited that they implicitly teach women to accept being treated as objects of sexual pleasure as simply a way of life. Existing in a stifling culture of silence and compromise, then, has become synonymous with being an Indian woman/Bharatiya nari. Learning not to “talk back”, wearing “simple” clothes, knowing just when and how to “adjust”, showing distaste for anything vaguely sexual, and marrying only the boy papa chooses have become the criteria for being a “good” Bharatiya nari.

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