She is only 4.1 inches tall and weighs about one and half ounces.
And she is 4,500 years old.
She was called the Dancing Girl of Mohenjodaro.
Discovered in the Indus Valley in 1926 the little bronze statuette, made using the lost wax technique, has become probably the most iconic example of ancient Indian art. A source of immense pride.
But recently she's suddenly found herself facing a question she might not have expected. About modesty.
The little statuette, slim with one hand on her hip, is only clad in necklaces and an armful of bracelets. And a textbook from India’s NCERT or National Council of Educational Research and Training decided to cover in a more family friendly wrap.
That led to howls of protest. The decision was reversed quickly but the questions it raises about our obsession with defining what is vulgar and obscene remain.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata
The dancing girl isn’t really an isolated case. Earlier this year, artist Shakibul Islam went to the Lepakshi temple in Andhra Pradesh. A 16th century temple famous for its stone relief figures. He says he was shocked to find the figures, both male and female, had their private parts discreetly covered by strips of cloth. What was worse, the modesty strips had been nailed in place.
He said the guard told him “Local families come here. They have done this so there’s no bad influence on the children. We cannot do anything.”
Shakibul was so distraught he wondered how far this impulse to censor art could extend. So he created an artwork based on the Dancing Girl with a strip of white draped across her naked torso. He never showed it but within two months to his shock he found his satire had become textbook reality
The fact is we know little about what the Dancing girl represents. Or whether she was meant to be a dancing girl at all. Mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik said,
DP1: but this is exactly the way a woman stands when she is quarreling. And she's like, making arms akimbo, shouting and screaming. And I said, why can't you see a girl, a petulant girl, by the way, that image is repeated 3 or 4 times, which means it is not just a random pose, it is also has some ritual purpose.
Calling her a dancing girl says less about her and more about us. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. Like Vulgarity and obscenity.
The Regina v Hicklin case of 1868 established the Hicklin test which said it a portion of a work was deemed obscene as in it could deprave or corrupt the entire work could be outlawed. At issue was an anti Catholic pamphlet showing depravities of priests since its aim was to show the problems affecting the church not to titillate and corrupt. The Hicklin test said it could be banned.
And that’s how it was for years till 1933 when a judge in the US ruled no one could cherry pick passages from James Joyce’s Ulysses and call the whole book obscene. And it said a court needed to consider its impact on the average person, not just the most susceptible person.
Indian courts kept relying on the Hicklin test. For example, a bookseller was prosecuted for selling unexpurgated editions of Lady Chatterley’s lover in 1964. But slowly Indian courts too went the American way relying on context and community standards. So, a nude photograph of Boris Becker and his fiancée was deemed journalistic, not obscene in 2014. All along we keep saying it’s about protecting the children but one wonders if the children are just the fig leaf for our own discomfort.
Recently Donald Trump celebrated his 80th birthday with a cage fight on the White House lawn.
CAGE FIGHT: On the white House lawn on the 250th birthday of America. This really is the most historic sporting event ever.
Conservative commentator Bill Kristol called it vulgar, violent, commercial, grandiose and tacky. In other words he said its Donald Trump.
But it makes one wonder, whether this dressing down of the cage fight in America and the dressing up of the dancing girl in India remind us that we live in an age where we rush to cover what we deem obscene but are happy to flaunt what many consider vulgar.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW