India’s Holi festival is known as the “festival of colours”, and is associated with fun, laughter, song, and dance, as Hindus celebrate in honour of the god Krishna. The usual depiction of celebrations is one of colour and life – people sporting shades of pink, yellow, red, and blue; dancing to Bollywood songs with water guns in their hands.

But recently, Holi celebrations have come into question by various sectors of Indian society, as a worrying pattern of sexual harassment amidst the celebrations has begun to emerge.

Cause for concern

Although this isn’t the first instance of a festival coming under attack as an unsafe space for women, Holi celebrations have become notorious for crossing lines of consent and harbouring inappropriate behaviour for decades.

Such behaviour is reinforced by the popular saying “bura na maano, Holi hai!” (“don’t be offended, it’s Holi!”). The words have been known to lift barriers, leading to breaches of consent. On the other hand, young boys growing up with such normalised harassment that they feel that it is “okay” to behave inappropriately during Holi.

However, such discourses against the normalisation of violence on Holi are yet to trickle from India’s metropolitan heart to its smaller towns and rural populations.

Backlash

In Barsana, a small town related to the mythology of the Hindu god Krishna and goddess Radha in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, a more radical version of Holi has emerged: Lathmaar Holi or ‘Holi with stick-beating’.

Tradition dictates that the boys tease the girls so mercilessly that they are forced to take up sticks to defend themselves. While this practice is more of an oral tradition than one exercised in practice, in such rural areas of India as Barsana, women and girls rarely have anywhere to turn.

Unpleasant experiences

India’s cities have also proven themselves to be difficult places in which to celebrate Holi. Even Delhi’s upmarket neighbourhoods bear witness to hooliganism and eve-teasing (a predominantly Indian term describing unwanted sexual advances) in the days around Holi.

Women of all ages have been targeted by men throwing water balloons – not a crime in itself – but the practice has been interspersed with incidents of women having glass powder thrown at them, injuring them.

Recently, this phenomenon dropped to a new low when balloons filled with semen were thrown at university students in Delhi. This sparked wide outrage on social media and led to protests around Delhi.

By brushing problems under the carpet with a cry of “bura na maano holi hai!” and failing to have an open conservation about the darker face of Holi, its reputation as an open and diverse festival could well be threatened.

Dr Anshul Mahajan 

 Consultant psychiatrist