What Monalisa’s Harassment Says About Violation Of NT-DNT Women’s Workspaces
The manner in which the young garland seller from the NT-DNT community was harassed and ultimately forced to flee the Kumbh Mela shows a disregard for their right to dignity, privacy and a safe workplace
This past week, images of Monalisa Bhosale, a striking 16-year-old selling garlands at the Kumbh Mela, took social media by storm. The responses to her appearance varied from effusive admiration to contempt. The media attention, which turned violent at a point, finally cost her her livelihood as a vendor.
What went unnoticed in the commotion was the problematic nature of this fetishisation and what it meant for Monalisa’s agency, her right to privacy and a protected workspace. It also ignored the structural history of oppression associated with her caste community, the highly marginalised nomadic and denotified tribes (NT-DNT) who are also referred to as Vimukta jati to mark their freedom from colonial stigma.
In a video interview, when asked to name her caste by an intrusive interviewer, Monalisa said she is a Banjara, one of the most marginalised NT-DNT social groups. She had traveled with her family from her home in Indore to Prayagraj to sell garlands at the Kumbh – the kind of vending work that women of the NT-DNT community often take up.
An unidentified passerby photographed her at work and posted the image online and it went viral fast. This was then picked up by media houses fuelling the curiosity around her. Soon, large crowds began flocking to her stall, jostling to be photographed with her. Unable to work, and chased by a group of men, she was eventually forced to leave the Kumbh Mela by her father.
Now there are reports that she has been cast in a Hindi film. Other reports talk of modelling assignments. Whatever turn Monalisa’s life takes after this storm, the incident at the Kumba mela raises several questions – about women’s right to privacy, consent, caste based violence and its normalisation, access to justice, and biased narratives about women from the NT-DNT community.
There has been no action against the men who harassed Monalisa. Women street vendors
often face workplace violence, as Behanbox reported in a series of reports. But the precarity of women from the NT-DNT communities has multiple layers of marginalisation because they have hardly any access to justice.
This reporter was interviewing Pardhi women in the Karond settlement in Bhopal when the story broke of Monalisa being forced to abandon her work. Some of the women said that they are related to her and were furious at the harassment she was subjected to.
“Our relatives also run stalls at the Kumbh Mela. Since her photo went viral, she can’t even sell her goods properly. Should she focus on earning a livelihood or dealing with this kind of harassment by men?” asked Khushi, a waste picker originally from Indore and Monalisa’s distant relative. “Hum koi dekhe ki cheez hain kya (are we objects to be gaped at)? We take loans to set up shop at these fairs. Who will repay them if we can’t sell anything?”
When Safety Concerns Limit Mobility
Women from nomadic and denotified tribes have distinct facial features and are often fetishised for their appearance. But there is little regard for their rights as workers or concern for their dignity, as this episode showed. This kind of attention also affects their mobility and economic security, as we have reported before.
Deepa Pawar, a feminist scholar and activist who hails from the NT-DNT community, spoke of the impact of this incident “Young girls in our bastis in Kalyan are now being teased and called ‘Monalisa.’ Women have to deal with comments like: ‘Oh, are you Monalisa’s relative? You look like her’. Now families have to worry about allowing their daughters to step out. The immediate impact of such incidents is a crackdown on the mobility of our women,” said Deepa, founder of the Anubhuti Trust that runs awareness campaigns for migrant NT-DNT women on safety, child protection, sexual health and reproductive rights.
Deepa recalled the impact of a rape case on the NT-DNT community of Badalapur, Ambernath, Kalyan — all peripheral Mumbai suburbs. “When a schoolgirl was raped in Badlapur, a case that drew statewide attention, many girls from our community were pulled out of school by their families because of safety concerns. The Monalisa incident may well lead to more cases of child marriage and young girls being made to drop out of school. It might even discourage families to take young girls of the community with them when they go to sell their products at religious gatherings, a significant source of livelihood for them,” said Deepa.
She pointed to the fact that this vulnerability is further compounded by the apathy of the police and justice system towards the community. This systemic bias was reported by Behanbox last year. Sarita, 25, a cane-cutter from the Gay-Pardhi community, was raped by two policemen while searching for her missing son early last year at Dharashiv (formerly Osmanabad) district in Maharashtra. She was not given the compensation mandated for survivors of sexual violence, nor offered any support. An FIR was registered only after an agitation by activists.
Since the police do not respond swiftly to register cases of violence reported by NT-DNT women, families limit the mobility of women to keep them safe, we learnt. In several cases, Indian courts have cited caste stereotypes about ‘ideal’ behaviour or appearance of victims of sexual violence, as a Behanbox analysis had pointed out. As we had also reported, the community’s women are often accused of “fabricating” cases for financial gains.
Street As A Workplace
For nomadic and denotified tribes, religious fairs and large gatherings like the Kumbh Mela are vital opportunities for seasonal income. Hundreds of families take loans from anywhere between Rs 50,000 to 3,00,000 to purchase low-value merchandise – trinkets, toys, and plastic goods for example – to sell, we learnt in interviews. Then they migrate with their entire family. The women set up tents to sell goods in markets or town/village squares, and also set up tents to live in nearby.
Some families also set up tented stalls where they perform acrobatics. A few beg. These women, for whom the streets and footpaths are a workplace, remain vulnerable at all times. The living tents offer them very little security and women said they have to often deal with strange men barging in. Shelterless women who have to sleep on the footpath told us that they often wake up to find men sleeping uncomfortably close to them.
Deepa Pawar expressed anguish at this attack on the identity of NT-DNT women as workers. “They are known for hard work and skills, and they are strong heads of families. Our identity is being deliberately whitewashed by this whole discussion around Monalisa led by dominant caste Hindu men.”
Lack Of Structures, Systemic Accountability
While thousands of women have been working as street vendors at the Kumbh, there is no information publicly available about government arrangements for their safety. The official Kumbh Mela website does not provide any information on this. There is no resource outlining the steps taken by the Uttar Pradesh government to ensure women’s safety, even though all other details are easily available on the site.
“At events like the Kumbh Mela, organised with public funds, the state and central government have to ensure women’s safety,” said Deepa.
Deepa Pawar also emphasised the need for government-mandated gender audits, child safety checks, and disaster preparedness assessments at large-scale events. More than 30 people died and hundreds were injured in a stampede at the Kumbh on January 29.
Monalisa was chased by a group of men and people barged into her house (paal or makeshift tent) but no FIR has been lodged against the accused for sexual harassment or violation of privacy. The state police did not react in any manner to these incidents, not even a warning was issued to those gathering near her workplace or residence.
According to the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, women workers from the informal/ unorganised sector who are harassed can approach district local committees for redressal. But information about these committees and the process for a filing complaint is not easily available.
“Women from marginalised communities can’t access these avenues easily. They fear missing out on daily wages, they lack the resources to travel and appear before local committees. Women from Vimukta communities don’t go to the police because they are not trusted. Access to justice for these women hardly exists,” said Maheshwari Mawase, a lawyer who works with the Criminal Justice and Police Accountability project.
Even if information about district local committees is publicly available, a major challenge remains—whether migrant women can appear before these committees, especially in jurisdictions where the complaint has been filed.
Women, Agency And Power
Deepa believes that it is doubtful Monalisa has had the time to think through the decisions in her life. “Does she really want to become a film star?” she asked. She also believes that the NT-DNT community does not have the agency to participate in these discussions. “The media reporting in this case is unconstitutional because it violated a person’s right to privacy and the right to work guaranteed by the Indian Constitution,” she said.
Another key concern here is the issue of consent. Even if her permission had been sought before she was photographed, did she have the agency or power to refuse? “What if they don’t take her refusal well and retaliate? These thoughts must have occupied her mind. The pressure to say ‘yes’ to everything is forced upon her,” said Deepa.
Hundreds of Monalisa’s photos are now available on the internet along with AI-generated images. Her family members and the other women in her family are being subject to unwanted attention too.
Within the NT-DNT spectrum, some communities are more marginalised than the others. The Dhangars, Vanjaris too are nomadic tribes but they are relatively more powerful and affluent, with representations in the state and Union legislatures. But Pardhis and Banjaras have no resources to raise their voice against injustice.
An activist from the NT-DNT community who did not wish to be named alleged a campaign to obliterate its identity: “The Hindutvavadi agenda is trying to merge the NT-DNT identity and autonomy using the ‘Samrasata’ strategy wherein tribes are portrayed as a part of a homogenous Hindu identity.”
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