Watermelon sales in Kerala, India, may have sky-rocketed after young women in the area came up with an unconventional way to protest after a recent incident of sexism.
Students gathered outside Farook Training College after an assistant professor at the school made offensive comments about how female students dressed.
According to the Times of India, assistant professor Jouhar Munavvir felt girls were dressing in an “un-Islamic” way. “Though they wear the hijab, they expose some part of their chest defeating the purpose of wearing them,” he said. "They expose, you know, like how we cut a slice of melon to see whether it’s ripe or not.”
Following Munavvir’s speech, which has since gone viral on social media, female students marched to the main gate of Farook College with slices of watermelon, seeking action against the assistant professor.
The protest was held by a cohort of student organisations, who have likened the watermelon protest to the ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign. The Pink Chaddi campaign was created by the 'Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women' in response to the 2009 attack on women in a pub in Mangaluru by right-wing fringe group Sri Ram Sene.
“Teachers should teach by looking at our faces and not our body,” said Suja P, chairperson of the Calicut University students union at the demonstration.
Women also posted photos carrying watermelons on social media in solidarity with the young women. According to news reports, some women also posted bare-breasted photos to Facebook, which have been deleted. Indian TV channel NDTV reportedly spoke to one woman who had her photo removed, 25-year-old Arathy SA.
“I am upset with hypersexualisation of breasts by people. Whether it be professors in college or social media users seeing a model breastfeed or pose for a magazine,” she said.
The principal of Farook College, CA Jawahar, has said it’s unfair to protest over Munavvir’s statement, which was made three months ago in a counselling session outside of the college. “He goes regularly for religious discourses. We have nothing to do with it and no student has filed a complaint in this regard.”
