Virgin Bride AKA A Sealed Bottle, Says Jadavpur Professor & Gets Badly Slammed On Social Media
It must startle us when search engines suggest results to questions like “how to identify virgin female by walking” or “how to determine virginity of a girl after marriage”.
More surprisingly, these questions appear on browsers as per the past searches of people worldwide, which implies the hideous mindset of persons all around. It must be noted that even these google searches are gender biased and only question the apparent dignity of women. By having sexual relations with another before marriage, not only a woman loses her virginity, but she also loses in the eyes of others her character, virtue and honour. This social stigma of associating notions of virginity with piousness have been formulated by nobody other than us who are components of this very society.
In a recent incident of times, as late and apparently-modern as January 2019, an International Relations professor by the name Kanak Chandra Sarkar of Jadavpur University expressed his own extremely obnoxious stance over virginity and how it solely concerns women. He has blatantly been comparing the virginity of a female with absurd figures of speech i.e. a sealed bottle or an unopened packet of biscuits. These flagrant thoughts of his had been conveyed by the means of Facebook post which was later deleted, however, Kanak had later confessed his act of putting up and deleting such a post from Facebook.
Precisely, his words were as follows :
“Are you willing to buy a broken seal while purchasing a bottle of cold drink or a packet of biscuits? A girl is born sealed from birth until it is opened. A virgin girl means many things accompanied with values, culture, and sexual hygiene. To most boys virgin wife is like angel.”
Perturbingly, Kanak has attempted to be protected under the ambit of Article 19(1)(a) i.e. Freedom to Speech and Expression of the Constitution of India which is not an unlimited provision, however, it welcomes interpretation. It must be noted that the framers of the Indian Constitution were skilled enough to enact provisions personating the saying that diamond cuts diamond. Article 19(2) was simultaneously added as a reasonable restriction on the power granted to the public under article 19(1)(a) i.e. Freedom to Speech and Expression. This implies the legislatures intent to control, supervise and regulate the freedom granted to the public in general.
The statements made by Kanak through his maligning Facebook post directly slaughtered the sentiments and emotions of a large social group i.e. females and further the professor was slammed on Facebook. Such abuse of power does not fall under the protective umbrella of Article 19(1)(a) because such an act committed by Kanak indicates his intention to specifically target a target group and continuously harm their goodwill.
The purpose of Constitution of India is to embrace the notions of justice by means of administration of the country, however, getting liberal coverage under exemptions of law shall not lead to the betterment of a nation as a whole. The steps should be taken beginning from the grassroot level i.e. firstly tackling the thought process of people of attaching the concepts of sacredness and morals with virginity and liberalism by means of letting one live their life by the rules of oneself.
————
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: This article is written by Ragini Juneja, our intern. Ragini is a student of law in Amity Law School, Delhi (Affiliated to IP University). She lays immense emphasis on awareness of one’s own rights and entitlements as a precondition for confidence, self-esteem and dignity. Her words strive to help women in unclasping their latent strengths which have been suppressed by male chauvinism.
