Strip Bollywood songs of sexism, Indians urged
Rights group’s contest aims to raise awareness
MUMBAI // A women’s rights organisation is asking movie- loving Indians to rewrite sexist Bollywood songs, in the latest attempt to draw attention to gender stereotyping and misogyny portrayed by the film industry.
Akshara Centre’s Gaana (song) Rewrite competition, launched last month, invites people to change the lyrics to any Bollywood movie song they find sexist.
The group said it might engage with the film industry to push for change. “In our gender awareness work, one of the issues that’s been raised repeatedly by young women is being harassed by men singing inappropriate Bollywood songs,” said Snehal Velkar, a coordinator at Akshara centre in Mumbai, the Bollywood hub.
“Bollywood songs are great to sing and dance to, but when you pay attention, you realise that many of them objectify and demean women. This leads to normalising sexual harassment and violence against women,” she said.
The Hindi film industry, commonly known as Bollywood, is one of the world’s most prolific, making hundreds of movies every year. They are generally syrupy romances, family dramas or action movies peppered with elaborate song-and-dance routines. Many movies also have socalled item numbers or songs, which often have little to do with the subject of the film, and typically feature scantily-clad women.
In recent years, as violent crimes against women have made the headlines, women activists and some movie stars have taken Bollywood to task for its sexist themes and for glorifying violence against women.
About four out of five women in India have faced public harassment such as staring, insults and wolf-whistling to being followed, groped or raped, according to a recent survey by charity ActionAid UK.
Well-known Hindi film songwriters including Javed Akhtar and Prasoon Joshi have criticised their peers for writing vulgar and irresponsible lyrics, while also blaming moviegoers who encourage such music.
Last year, activists urged the Tamil film industry to stop portraying stalking as cool, and instead see it as a crime that has resulted in violent deaths in Tamil Nadu state in southern India. The Indian government has introduced tougher penalties for gender crimes, including criminalising stalking and voyeurism.
Yet popular culture, including Bollywood, must be accountable for the enormous influence it wields and help to ensure a more responsible portrayal of women, said Ms Velkar, who is spreading word of the competition using hashtag #BollywoodCanChange. “We want to send a message to the industry that we can have popular music without it being sexist or humiliating to women,” she said.