Why is bikini a taboo in India
Wearing anything is your choice by the end of the day. However, in India, it is only prominent in places with tourist culture like Goa. On the other hand, there are conservative societies where anything less than full-body swimwear is deemed inappropriate. In the world of fashion, a bikini is a necessity, but it is still challenging for Indian society to accept it.
What is the purpose of a bikini? Of course, two-piece clothing is fabricated strongly enough to resist the onslaught of salt and chlorine water. Even so, the perception defeats the purpose of swimwear. There are many possible reasons for this fact.
Indians come from a mentality that a woman should be covered from top to bottom, hence suits, burkas, etc. Many people are not comfortable with the image of a woman exposing the most amount of her body and straight away guesstimating her as shameless. Bikinis make some men’s brains inspect a woman’s dignity and objectify her. It may urge men to decide on how much a woman has to offer.
Most Indians are from the middle class, born and bred with certain values and find it difficult to accept something Western. This has to do with the unspoken history of slavery in India by the British. Yet, the west has left its remains in every critical pillar of Indian culture — clothes, literature, music, dance, lifestyle, social systems and many more. Calling India a traditional country with a conventional state of mind is correct, but having a non-conservative outlook doesn’t make women any less cultural. A lady can hit the club, drink booze and perform Puja the very next day.
The supposed patriarchy gives men the right to be biased against short clothing even though men are the more guilty sex in these affairs. Show visuals on any issue and add a picture of a woman in a bikini, and the restless minds will remember that image only. The sole idea of women being comfortable with their bodies and skin is not adequate for Indian men because they think they’re losing power over their possessions if women start showing off their bodies. Still, they are not just the men who find bikinis disgraceful but the Indian society at large.
In contrast, according to ancient history, women who did not cover their upper bodies were accepted in India’s various parts. A big chunk of North India and central India accepted this typicality. So it was when the Mughals introduced the concept of garments that would give enough coverage to the body. In Southern India, the amount of clothing on a woman demonstrated her class, whether she belonged to either the upper or lower level. Thus, British colonization instated proper attire idea in the nation.
Sometimes, the biased judgements by others outlining the “perfect body” lead to women shaming themselves. For example, Indians have sternly considered swimsuits a promotion of an unhealthy lifestyle. It’s like marking an aspect of life as the only phase and saying everyone should only live up to it, ignorant to the reality that there is more than just one way of doing most things in life, and they all deserve to be honoured.
The bikini was a heritage of skeptic culture, was fostered by another pagan religion, and finally went worldwide about not too late prior to the women’s freedom or the sexual revolution.
Indeed, India is growing and embracing the fact; however, the future of two-piece clothing (Bikini) is unpredictable in India. Wearing a bikini should be a decision, a decision a woman has to make without any bad-mouthing. Wearing a bikini is a decision; a decision woman should drive without being shamed or judged. Wearing a bikini is not a sin; it equals freedom.
