Sunil Sethi: Miss India and middle-class morality

AL FERSCO

The very rich and the very poor have one thing in common "" when it comes to matters sexual they live by their own rules. They don't care what anyone else thinks because they don't have much to lose. It is really that vast segment in between "" the middle class "" that frames our notions of sexual morality, of what is acceptable and what is beyond the pale.

The sorry saga of Lakshmi Pandit, who recently stepped down as a Miss India runner-up because she was sharing a flat with a man, is a perfect example of the conflicts that confront the urban Indian middle class. It is as good a moment to ask as to who defines prevailing benchmarks of beauty and ambition? What does it cost to succeed in the cut-throat, increasingly consumer-driven world of commercial endorsements and what is the price of failure?

This week Pandit went on record to say that she was not married to Siddhartha Misra and had signed an affidavit to that effect; and that she was the victim of an "innocent process of finding a roof over my head...and that is what he helped me out with".

Loser's spin or credible claim? You'd be surprised at the number of people who buy her story. They include Jyoti Brahmin, a young woman who finds herself a new Miss India runner-up, thanks to Pandit's exit.

Indeed, there seems to be a bit of a sympathy wave for the ousted Miss India. Young women eagerly endorse her difficulties in finding accommodation in big cities. More to the point, what's wrong in sharing flats with companionable men without the necessity of marrying them?

But middle-class India does not think so. Deep down, it is a deeply conservative, straitjacketed place, where beautiful young women, unless married, do not live in with men. To do so is a sign of lax morals and sexual dissolution. It was, in fact, Pandit's decent, upright middle-class neighbours in Malad, and the local police station, that blew the whistle on her and her flat-mate.

The urban Indian middle class, by and large, now believes in educating their daughters. In itself, this is a radical change from middle-class beliefs three generations ago. It also thinks women should work and be self-supporting.

It is sufficiently seduced by the current overdose of fashion and glamour "" the new Page Three society where models rank as the next best thing to movie stars "" to allow their daughters a taste of bright lights and the big city, even compete for the slew of beauty crowns and proliferating catwalk events. But the censure of middle-class morality comes down heavily on the idea of sex without marriage.

By definition middle-class India includes chunks of corporate India "" the FMCGwallahs, who co-opt new customers by feeding the competitive frenzy of contests like Miss India to be able push their sales of cold creams, shampoos, designer jewellery and a plethora of consumer goods and services.

Extravagant sponsorship of fashion, beauty, and retail products from clothing to cell phones to cocktails, bars and restaurants all carry the incipient allure of sex appeal. In current usage the very word "sexy" has the same innocent, fashion-conscious cachet as the word "cool". But sex is another thing altogether.

Mirroring the middle-class hypocrisy of their customers, the FMCG brigade would be dead if they were to advertise Miss India as anything but an unmarried virgin.

If taken to their logical conclusion, the rules for eligibility for the Miss India contest should include virginity tests, of the kind the late Princess Diana had to undergo before marrying the heir to the British throne.

There was a controversy then, the war cry led by feminists and liberals, but it turned out that the majority of Britons did not find the idea so very curious. The public idea of a future queen ""whether Miss India or the Queen of England "" must fit the fairy-tale ideal of beauty as well as purity.

Beauty of course can be perfected "" witness the rigorous regimen of diet, exercise, face jobs, teeth jobs and body sculpting that the contestants are put through. Like lambs to the slaughter, every move of the training programme is recorded and publicised as part of the Miss India promotion.

But now sex has reared its ugly head. The crown turns out to be shop-soiled. But middle-class India will have to learn to grow up. What does it expect in 2004 "" a crown for Miss India or Miss Snow White?