Watch: Bengaluru girl asked to wear ‘Indian dress’ fights moral policing

The incident took place on Thursday night around 9 pm and the video was uploaded on Friday, following which it went viral on Facebook and Twitter.

As per the caption of the video, a lady and her friend, who were on a bike, were stopped by the person who “commanded” the lady not to wear the type of clothes she was wearing.

“….This fellow Indian is proof of the degrading and dangerous state where our society is heading . HE WAS NOT DRUNK . He was a sober, educated, Indian common man who is now keeping a watch of the sanctity of his own “INDIAN CULTURE “ that he thinks is wronged by dress code of my lady friend. His nonchalant behaviour was so scary as he kept on asking people nearby pointing at my lady friend in support to give a judgement weather he was right or wrong as you see in the video . THIS MAN WAS NOT AT ALL CONFUSED. CONVINCED!,” the caption read.

The video, which was shot by a male friend of the ladies, shows the outraged person take on the ‘moral police’.

The lady can be heard asking in the video, “are you going to decide what Indians are going to wear?” to which the man replies, “Please wear the proper dress code of the Indian. (sic)”

“Do you know what the Indian constitution offers? The freedom of choice to wear anything,” the lady promptly replies back.

According to the woman who was questioned for the same, the man, on realising that he was getting recorded on phone, lowered his voice to sound polite.

“However, he kept yelling that I must not wear such clothes as it is against ‘Indian rules’. When my boyfriend chose to yell back trying to question his stance on the same, also pointing out that none had a right to enforce another on what to wear,” the lady, who wishes to be unnamed, told indianexpress.com.

The man stopped commenting when the lady said she would approach the police to lodge a complaint about ‘vocally harassing’ her on the street.

However, the lady who wished to file a police complaint, doubts the support she would get from the system as well. “I have not filed a complaint as I feel even the police would have the same mindset.”

Meanwhile, mixed reactions poured in after the video was posted online, with a majority of them condemned the man’s act for questioning the lady, but some questioning both sides.

“If he is asking her to wear a proper India dress code, then I guess he should stop wearing the shirt and pants that he is currently wearing and strt wearing a dhoti,” a user commented.

“The best way to stop such stupidity is to share videos of such madmen….put them to shame… make them famous… so if by chance they cross our path… then we can give a hard smack on their face…,” another user’s comment read.

The incident comes after earlier in March this year, students of Christ (Deemed-to-be University) had met DCP (South East) Isha Pant to discuss an incident of moral policing by a woman police officer. An online campaign with hashtags #NoMoreAbuse and #StopPowerAbuse had garnered traction which brought out many such incidents in the city, after which police officers were given awareness on how to handle such issues.