IIT Bombay & IIT Roorkee “vulgar” dance video controversy: Justified, or moral meltdown?

Recent videos from IIT Bombay and IIT Roorkee, which showcased female students dancing to “item songs” as part of cultural events garnered heavy backlash on social media. Is the backlash motivated by sexism and narrow moral standards?
IIT Bombay & IIT Roorkee “vulgar” dance video controversy: Justified, or moral meltdown?
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Stop if you’ve read this headline before:

“Video of girl dancing at college fest goes viral; sparks online debate on vulgarity”

If you did, you might have also noticed that this has been a recurring incident of late.

While dance performances have always been a part of college fests and events, they are being met with sharp criticism on social media, with users decrying them as “shameful”, “waste of taxpayer money”, “promoting vulgarity”, “attacks on Indian culture and values,” and “ downfall of Indian higher educational institutions.”

Reputed institutions like Presidency College in Chennai, Chandigarh University in Mohali, and even Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) were not spared from these attacks.

Picture this — recent videos of dance performances from IIT Bombay and IIT Roorkee have become fodder for trolling and extreme moral panic, with users terming them as dehaat and sadakchaap (rustic; derogatory terms to denote being uncultured), and calling these institutions kothas (brothels).

To add context, the videos circulating from IIT Bombay show what appears to be a fashion show and a dance performance on the Bollywood number Munni Badnam Hui. The video from IIT Roorkee, which went viral yesterday, October 27, showcases a student dancing to a recent Bollywood hit at Thomso, the recently concluded annual cultural festival of the institution.

What do students from these institutions have to say about this backlash? What do these reactions have to say about society in general?

Laughable to react to regular fest events like this, say students

According to Siya (name changed upon request of anonymity), a student of IIT Roorkee, it is ridiculous that videos of dance performances from fests at IITs are even subject to such discussions.

“The kind of trolling received by these performances is laughable. People are losing their minds and sharing extreme reactions to something that is an entirely regular aspect of campus life,” they say.

To allegations that students are wasting time and taxpayer money by participating in these fests instead of studying, Siya says that they cannot be expected to be buried in their books all the time.

“Undergraduate, Master's and PhD students at IITs have worked extremely hard to get here. We study equally hard whilst in IIT and contribute greatly to the technological and scientific advancement of India. There’s no harm in us having a bit of fun and participating in these fests,” they say.

Such trolling also does not have any bearing on student life at IITs, says Preeti, another student at IIT Roorkee.

“While I believe that everybody is entitled to their opinions, I do not pay heed to these comments as they don’t affect our lives on campus. It makes no difference to us,” the student says.

On whether educational institutions should allow place for such activities, Taanya Kapoor, a researcher of Gender at the Department of International Studies, University of Oxford, questions, “At one level, the issue of educational institutions being an inappropriate forum for such dances gets raised, while on the other, one can question why celebrations by a joyful group of young college-going students should be subject to such scrutiny at all?”

Slut-shaming, misogyny and the notion of vulgarity

The controversy surrounding these videos also brings into question the nature and intent behind the trolling they received — which is coincidentally directed at two women performers.

Many people, ranging from social media users who defended the performances, to students of these institutions and academics, believe that the backlash to these videos comes from a deep-rooted ethos of conservatism and patriarchy in our society, which is now resurfacing.

“There is certainly a conservative movement rising in India currently, due to which the women in the videos have been slut-shamed, trolled, and termed as characterless,” says Siya.

Adding to this, Kapoor says that the circulation of these specific videos and the targeted bullying, character assassination and harassment of women serve as excuses to enforce surveillance on them.

“These acts have potentially dangerous consequences if private information such as names, addresses and other details of these women become public through these harassment campaigns and doxxing,” she says.

She adds that such “clickbait, out-of-context and trimmed videos” of women with “moralistic taglines, designed to garner engagement and reactions,” are usually shared by “self-appointed guardians of culture and morality.”

Many also pointed out that terming dance performances of women students as “vulgar” or “crass” is telling on the gaze and mindsets of these so-called guardians.

“While there is no fixed notion on what is considered as vulgarity, terming female students dancing as ‘dehaat’ or ‘sadakchaap’ indicates that these trolls have a casteist and classist notion of what they consider as vulgar,” says a student of IIT Bombay, on the condition of anonymity.

While acknowledging the scholarly work on the objectification of women perpetrated through the so-called item songs and other Bollywood numbers, Kapoor says that they are also celebrated by huge numbers of people — and often by those who deride dance performances on them as “vulgar”.

The researcher adds that such attacks merely enforce pre-conceived notions of how women should behave, especially in public — based on a puritanical moral ideal.

“It is almost a form of punishment, a warning to women, who are seen as having been given 'too many freedoms' by society and must be restrained. The accusations against such performances also become an easy way for many to lament the cultural and moral degradation of society,” she explains.

Further, she adds that several other identities are denigrated in such lamentations, based on their idea of the right way of living, and anyone who transgresses is taken to task.

A way for recourse?

Kapoor says that the only way to prevent such incidents from taking place is through better vigilance by educational institutions against such harassment and trolling, more robust complaint mechanisms to remove abusive posts and a “general awareness that women’s bodies must not always be seen as a cultural battleground for moral debates.”

However, she adds that it is unlikely for change to take place until society’s ideas of respectability and morality don’t converge.

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