Mamata Shankar stuck in Dark Ages. Gen Z showing India there’s no one way to wear a saree

In an interview with Anandabazar Patrika Shankar waxed eloquent about her many objections to the pallu not covering the bosom area of Gen Z women. She called them ‘women of the street’.

File photo of Mamata Shankar | Facebook

Boomers usually have a lot to say, especially about Gen Z. After all, it is an entirely new generation, experts in tech, and most importantly, on social media. They are earning while being at home, through content, or even demanding better pay and less work, much to the chagrin of many ‘stalwarts’. The latest act boomers are offended by is the way Gen Z drapes their saree. Mamata Shankar, danseuse and actor has equated those who don’t drape the saree as she deems fit with ‘sex workers’, conveniently ignoring the misogyny and classicism the remark carries.

Shankar, in a recent interview with Anandabazar Patrika, waxed eloquent about her many objections to the pallu not covering the bosom area of Gen Z women. Shankar had a lot to say when asked about the fashion of the youth. As if it was all pent up, waiting for an interview opportunity to come out. “I am sorry that I am mentioning this. But those who drape sari immodestly are, forgive me for saying this, like those who stand in the street under the lampposts [sex workers],” she said.

It is a statement glorifying the rape culture, which asks women what they were wearing when being physically assaulted, bullied or harassed. She asserts that such women must not be respected by men, because for Shankar fully covered breasts are the locus of a woman’s right to be respected. It’s nothing but pure misogyny.

Niece of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, and daughter of dancers Uday and Amala Shankar, shehas a brand of her own, acting in critically acclaimed movies such as Dahan (1997), Utsab (2000) and Shesher Golpo (2019). Shankar has been running the Mamata Shankar Dance Company since 1986, and travelling extensively. Despite all her access, education and travel, she continues to talk like someone stuck in the Dark Ages.

Shankar even gestured to show how the pallu of the saree not covering the breasts is what made young girls seem like ‘women of the streets’.

Colonial construct

Shankar has forgotten that there was a time when women of Bengali Hindu upper-class and upper-caste families didn’t wear blouses. When Rabindranath Tagore’s sister-in-law Jnanadanandini Debi was denied entry at a club run by the British for her lack of blouse, it prompted her to be innovative. She draped a sari in Gujarati style — bringing the pallu to the front, and throwing it over the left shoulder, a style now referred to as Bengali way of wearing saree.

So Shankar’s statement in the video about old style of clothes having ‘weightage and dignity’ is just colonial subservient behaviour, which the educated Bengalis adopted to get into the good books of the British regime.

Shankar’s disdain for Gen Z not covering their breasts reeks of the same colonial, classist and casteist mindset. In a world where Bengali women are constantly trolled for being ‘too progressive’, Shankar is breaking out of the norm, and it is not a compliment for her.

Justifying harassment

We already have male politicians blaming rapes and harassment on everything from jeans to chowmein. But Shankar takes it a step further. Shankar’s ‘defence’ of her ‘sex worker’ statement was that they unfortunately had no choice but to prostitute themselves for money.

‘Women these days wear saris like them [sex workers] and then if someone says something, they get offended. Why should a man respect such women anyway?” she asked, justifying the harassment or bullying of Gen-Z women and girls, under the age of 25 as per the bracketing, by men for wearing the sari in a particular way.

Gen Z girls have a choice. Shankar clearly missed the point or definition of the word ‘choice’, it means deciding the best option for oneself. Just like she actively chose to be classist and misogynist.

Also, a blouse, no matter how skimpy, does cover the breasts, so Gen Z women are not walking around showing off naked breasts. Shankar, however, is horrified by even the possibility of an already-covered breast being not covered by the saree.

Views are personal.

(Edited by Theres Sudeep)