This picture was taken in May this year.  That’s me in the center with some local guys on the streets of Calcutta.

There are 2 things I’d like to point out about this photo:

1) If you walk down any street in India, it is not at all uncommon to find men partly clad like this — as they work, or sleep or, urinate, or play cards or just sit at the local tea vendor’s chatting with friends. 

2) You would never see a picture like this in the reverse — that is, a man sitting all clad in the center, with a bunch of semi- clad women prancing around him, on any street corner of India!

And when the Slutmarch came to India, the people who were organizing it were really not demanding the right for women to run around, tearing their clothes off.  They were asking “Why is rape the fastest increasing crime in India even though women go around fully clad and men have the freedom to take their clothes off anytime and anywhere?”  Do read this article “Slutwalk to Femicide” that I wrote for The WIP (The Women’s International Press) where I argue why the fundamental message of the Slutwalks was lost not only on India, but on the rest of the world, and why it is of significance not only to the issue of sexual violence against women, but also to the issue of India’s ongoing femicide. Click here for the article.