Coonoor, March 2021: “Beat Your Meat. Not Your Wife.” read a prominent placard at the front of the protest at the Lux Cozy manufacturing unit in the city. Two days ago, over 200 feminists participated in a protest march, followed by four hours of non-violent obstruction of manufacturing, to display their resentment at wife beaters.
“Wife beating is a historical patriarchal wrong in the global society. Domestic abuse starts at home. Redressal need not,” expounded Ms. Sati Savitri (name changed) in front of the gathered populace. “Companies like Lux Cozy that make wife beaters are to blame for propagating such abuse and they should be punished.” The protest ended after some participants began burning wife beaters in the middle of the road and police had to politely ask everyone to disperse for fear of violence.
In a reactionary response, a motley group of a dozen middle aged men prominently wearing wife beaters began protesting in front of the City Hall at midday. When asked about why they were protesting, they failed to form a coherent response. A lack of leadership at the rally was evident. An hour into the unclear protest, two dupattas were burned. When asked about the burning, they said, “well, they did it first.” Police quickly cleared the air and the City Hall steps.
News of the two protests soon became a national talking point. Prominent television news channels held debates on the issue at prime time. Indian National Congress spokespeople blamed the government for the historical wrong and demanded an apology from the Prime Minister. Bharatiya Janata Party spokespeople blamed the previous governments for the historical wrong and demanded that INC issue the apology. The CPI(M) was unavailable for comment citing urgent meetings to formulate solutions to the issue.
A panel of satirists and comics had a less heated debate on YouTube Live and came to the consensus that while the issue of wife beaters was stupid, acquiescing to not calling them wife beaters was sensible. They too held that the name was misleading and even though wife beaters had little to actually do with wife beating, it could confuse some wife beater wearers.
The panel suggests everyone to use the term Baniyans instead. The Baniya community is aggressively confused about the issue and believing that this re-branding might exacerbate caste system wounds, have declared that they might form a protest march this weekend.