Sir,

India is a democratic land which allows freedom to every individual to live according to his wish and will, as said by our Constitution. And to let modern democracy function properly, altogether six basic fundamental rights were written down. It includes ‘right to equality, right to freedom, right against exploitation, right to freedom of religion, cultural and educational rights followed with right to constitutional remedies’.

There is one fundamental right that doesn’t seem to have been implemented well i.e right to equality because a major portion of the Indian women still continues to live under the dominance of men.

The dominance is to the extent where even the length of cloth that a female wraps around her, that whether it should be 3 metres or ‘5 metres’ is decided by the master ‘man’. And this compels me to demand one more fundamental right be scripted in the constitution which should be ‘ right to clothing’.

The right to clothing can solve several queries regarding the amount of cloth required to be draped around a woman’s body. Firstly, the men would be saved from wasting their fuel in deciding the length of clothes. Secondly, the whole lot of time spent in arguing over mini skirts would be saved leaving sufficient time for them to think about something productive. And thirdly, right to clothing would modify the old concept that ‘ the length of the cloth is directly proportional to the safety of woman’.

This mindset has continued to prevail for a long time and the time is ripe now for it to change as it has crippled the confidence of women to stand for themselves and fight for their right. The dominance over anything even if it is related to clothes is wrong. Therefore, the right to clothing would give every woman the nerve to walk with their head held up high without caring about their bare thigh.

Maimuna Shafique

3rd year

Communicative English with Media Studies, Patna Women’s College

  letters, women, women’s rights