“How Ahoo Daryaei Used Her Unclothed Body As A Symbol Of Protest In Iran”
[First published in YouthKiAwaaz]
Ahoo Daryaei, a student at Islamic Azad University in Tehran was pulled up by the moral police for “improper hijab”. She took off her clothes in protest and calmly walked around the campus till she was picked up by the authorities and taken away. The video of her protest went viral, and in a bid to avoid negative publicity the authorities were quick to declare that she suffered from a mental illness.
Many condemned the act without understanding the nature of protest
While many supported her act of protest and hailed her bravery in standing up against an oppressive law, despite being aware of the consequences of doing so, there were many who opposed her act. Many questioned her mental stability and whether they realise it or not, by doing so they ended up tacitly endorsing a fundamentalist regime which sought to discredit her protest in the same manner.
However, the majority of people opposing her are doing so in the name of modesty and societal norms. “If you were asked to cover your head in a Gurdwara or temple, would you take off your clothes”, they ask. “Every country has laws against ‘indecent exposure’”, they say, “nowhere does society permit you to roam around naked.” “Would you roam around naked in a public place and then expect not to get raped”, others ask. “Isn’t it hypocritical of you to call xyz ‘attention seeking’ when she takes off her clothes for a reel, but to support this woman because her politics matches yours”.
While each of these people can be countered individually, what is clear from all of them is that none of them understands either the nature of defiance shown by Ahoo Daryaei, or even what constitutes a protest.
What actually constitutes a protest?
India is the nation of Mahatma Gandhi. Civil disobedience is not unknown to us. We have grown up being taught that when injustice becomes a law, resistance becomes our duty. This resistance can take many forms, and while what Ahoo Daryaei did may seem extreme, it is fundamentally no different from Mahatma Gandhi leading the Dandi March to manufacture salt on the beach to protest against the unjust Salt Law.
In 2004, the Mothers of Manipur were shattered when the bullet ridden body of Manorama Thangjam, allegedly killed by the Indian Army was found in a paddy field. They wanted to protest against the brutal killing, but knew that they had to do something radically different to make themselves heard. “What is the point of wearing clothes when we aren’t treated with any dignity”, they said, and came up with what seemed like the most logical means of protest.
On 15 July 2004, 12 women disrobed at the protest site in the heart of Imphal, and stood there carrying banners with their slogans painted in red. This historic protest was widely reported, and even though most people did not understand what the protest was against, it brought the Manipur Crisis to the forefront.
The use of the unclothed body as a weapon
What Ahoo Daryaei did was no different from what the Mothers of Manipur did twenty years ago. For years, women in Iran have not only been forced to cover their head, they have been at the mercy of the moral police who harass them if even a part of their hair is visible. Pulled up for wearing the hijab “improperly”, in a moment of defiance, she threw off her clothes and used her undressed body as a weapon to protest against the oppressive law. By this act, she reminded the global media about the restrictive laws that the fundamentalist regime in Iran uses to keep its women in check.
In this act of defiance, she displayed the same kind of bravery as the man who stood in front of the advancing tanks at Tiananmen Square. We never heard of him after that, and we do not know what will happen to Ahoo Daryaei. But we do know that both displayed supreme bravery, and both employed a very legitimate means of protest. Mahatma Gandhi is credited with popularising non-violent civil disobedience, and as Indians, we should applaud the bravery of Ahoo Daryaei.
