By George Jacob

Kochi, July 20, 2023: Recently, the hot (pun intended) topic of nudity made headlines in Kerala, a southern Indian state.

The story dates back to 2020, when a video by Kerala-based ‘activist’ Rehana Fathima appeared on social media. In the video that went viral, Rehana was seen partially nude with paintings done by her minor children on her body.

The video enraged the Kerala State Commission for protection of child rights who demanded police action against her under the POSCO Act. Multiple FIRs were filed. Her anticipatory bail was rejected. She was subsequently arrested. Later, she was granted conditional bail by a special court.

Appealing to the Kerala High Court, Rehana asserted that the body paintings in the video were meant as a political statement against society’s default view that the upper body of the female is sexualized. She argued that the male body is treated differently, by being not sexualized or objectified. She claimed that her video was meant to impart sexual education.

Rehana was seemingly attempting to flaunt her skin through outlandish arguments.

Who is Rehana Fathima?

She is an ‘activist’ who captured public attention through numerous methods.

In 2014, she participated in the ‘Kiss of Love’ protest against moral policing in Kochi accompanied by her partner Manoj Sridhar.

In October 2018, Rehana along with Hyderabad Journalist Kavita Jakkal was among first women to visit the Sabarimala temple amid heavy police presence following a landmark Supreme Court order that allowed women of all ages to enter the temple. However, she was turned away 500 meters from the temple’s sanctum sanctorum, by a rightwing mob.

In the same year, when a male college lecturer compared women’s breasts to watermelons, the activist retorted by uploading a photo covering her breasts with only watermelons.

In 2016, she took part in Pulikkali, the tiger dance associated with Kerala’s annual festival of Onam. This dance form is usually performed by men, whose bare torsos are painted as tigers.

Rehana who worked as telecom technician with BSNL was axed from her job in May 2020 following an internal inquiry into criminal cases against her.

She has also acted in the art film, eka, which dwells on intersexuality.

Posting the controversial video on her social media with the hash tag, body art and politics, Rehana wrote in June 2020, ‘No child who has seen his own mother’s nakedness and body can abuse the female body. Therefore, vaccines against false perceptions about women’s body and sexuality should be initiated from home.’

Logically, majority of men who have been nursed by their mothers as infants should be respecting women. Exceptions could be sons ‘born’ to women through surrogacy or male children adopted by women who choose surrogacy or adoption over pregnancy to preserve their anatomy from ravishes of motherhood.

To people with common sense, the impulsive and cunning activist was attempting to tag her abhorrence for clothes to motherhood- one of the most sanctimonious concepts known to humankind.

How could a woman by permitting her children to paint her seminude body instill ‘respect’ for the female body? Won’t the naïve children equate their mother’s body to an easel? It is hard to believe they would respect the feminine body merely by painting it.

Surprisingly, the judiciary saw sense in her wayward ways.

The Kerala High Court on June 5 2023 dismissed the criminal case against Rehana for posting the controversial video.

As per Bar and Bench, Justice Kauser Edappahath observed that ‘it is wrong to classify nudity as essentially obscene or even indecent and immoral.’

A woman permitting her children to paint on her seminude body is certainly obscene. Whether the act is indecent or immoral depends on if that woman is decent or moral herself.

‘Nudity should not be tied to sex,’ the justice continued. Even to a kindergarten toddler, sex is nudity. The only exception could probably be the modus operandi of James Bond.

‘The mere sight of the naked upper body of the woman should not be deemed to be sexual by default,’ the court observed. The court seemed intent to let the activist off law’s hook.

‘Depiction of the naked body of a woman cannot per se be termed to be obscene, indecent or sexually explicit. The same can be determined to be so only in context’, the Court went on. Is that ‘context’ definable? What are the contexts in which female nudity can be publicly flaunted?

In that case, the Censor Board which confers adult certification of movies, soaps, magazines and other media will need to undergo course correction.

Moreover, were women of lower castes who fought the ‘breast tax’ levied in early 19th century Kerala out of their minds?

Significantly, the High Court pointed out, through its judgment, the differing attitudes of society towards male and female nudity. ‘Painting men’s bodies is an accepted tradition during pulikali- the tiger dance during Onam festivities, and theyyam performed in temples. We often find men walking around without shirts. But these aren’t considered obscene or indecent’. The Court wondered.

My father never used a shirt at home. My mother chose not to imitate him, because she respected her womanhood, something which is foreign, and probably unknown to the likes of Rehana. My mother who never dreamt of letting her children paint on her seminude body inculcated in her children the virtue and importance of respecting her gender, more effectively than the fiery activist.

This is not to annoy women who might be allergic to clothes, or to get under their exceptionally thick (unclothed) skin.

Nudity recently found in Rehana Fatima an unlikely sponsor. ‘Unlikely’ because nudity is something women would not like to clothe themselves with. Especially in Indian society, except when she bathes, or makes love.

Biblically, the first woman on the planet attempted to hide her nudity when knowledge dawned on her on eating the forbidden fruit.

Illustrated Bible Christian children are familiar with depicts Eve’s attempts to cover her nudity with leaves strategically placed in her anatomical landmarks that mattered. This was later adopted by Jane in Tarzan movies and comics.

Indian women seem to increasingly develop anaphylaxis to these leaves and their more evolved versions.

(Doctor George Jacob is a Consultant Surgical Gastroenterologist at Lakeshore hospital, Kochi, Kerala.)