Join the new world

The Blank Noise Project in real india by msn india report

It’s the same story every day. You are walking down the road to catch an auto or a bus minding your own business when a group of boys burst out into a loud rendition of a cheesy song, calling out names and passing obscene remarks! The Blank Noise Project is here to lash back at the men who ogle and grope girls in public places.

The Blank Noise Project is a volunteer-led campaign comprising of both men and women. It was initiated by Jasmeen Patheja and a small group of nine, all-girl participants at Bangalore in August 2003. Blank Noise seeks strategies to trigger public dialogue on the issue.

It addresses women's fear-based relationship with their cities via direct street actions and public interventions that ask women to be 'Action Heroes' by being 'idle' in public. Interestingly, 50 % of Blank Noise members are male; they are celebrated as ‘Blank Noise Guys’. Blank Noise works for an attitudinal shift towards 'eve-teasing' and involves the public to take collective responsibility of the issue.

Women volunteers stand on the streets with sign boards ‘Kya Dekh Rahe Hon’ (what are you looking at) printed on them. This puts the men to shame and realize that staring at women is not at all what they should be doing. Sexual harassment ranges from passing obscene remarks to outright groping in public transport.

Blogging is another effective tool that Blank Noise uses as a weapon to curb eve teasing.

The Blank Noise Project is an online public forum that has volunteers in six Indian cities including Delhi and Bangalore. A major notion that it seeks to dispel is that women get harassed because of the clothing they wear. Through street actions and dialogue, Blank Noise hopes to achieve its aims of achieving a safe and free environment for women on the streets, and enable society to become more egalitarian towards women in general.

Jasmeen says, "The threat of being sexually harassed every time I was out of home and then labeling this invasion of my privacy with such an innocuous term as 'eve teasing' made me realize that this is an offence that has often been ignored or trivialized. Moving to a new city at the age of 19 made me feel more vulnerable to the situation where there was no 'home' to run back to. When I would discuss it with my peers, there was a normalcy attached to it – 'yes, it happens every day' or 'it's normal', or complete denial, like asking, 'how come this happens only to you', but I know now that it was never just my problem."

Blank Noise works with media that is both mainstream and alternative, depending on the nature of the project undertaken.
Currently, Blank Noise participants include researchers, college students, journalists, technicians, activists, an architect, and young professionals. There are both men and women, and fall between the age groups of 17- 30 years.

Stand up against eve teasing and spread the word to all the women who suffer at the hands of this male chauvinism.