What’s The Source For Bharat Matrimony’s Alarming Statistic Of Sexual Harassment On Holi?

This year, the Hindu festival of Holi and United Nations-recognised International Women’s Day fell on the same day — 8 March.

It prompted several corporate brands to launch women-themed Holi campaigns or deals, which were quite expected. 

Expectations were also high that certain woke celebrities from the entertainment industry would choose the day to raise alarm on water shortage or safety of stray animals, as has been the trend for several years.

However, probably owing to public backlash over their hypocrisy, they seemed to stay away from adding riders while wishing Holi to their followers yesterday.

For instance, Bollywood actor Kajol, who was massively trolled last year for her ‘save water’ message on Holi as people called out the massive amount of water repeatedly used for rain scenes featuring her, simply posted a ‘Happy Holi’ wish on her Twitter account this time. 

Amid this, Bharat Matrimony, an online matrimony service with several international branches, launched a campaign against sexual harassment on Holi. 

The campaign was met with severe backlash on social media, prompting the brand to pull down its original tweet and re-post it with a softer caption. 

Here is a primer on what unfolded and the veracity of the campaign’s source.

The Campaign Against “Immense Trauma” On Holi  

The verified Twitter account of Bharat Matrimony yesterday posted a video of a woman with a caption saying, “A lot of women have stopped playing Holi due to the trauma they experience through harassment. Watch this video that brings this to life in a hard hitting way.”

The tweet was immediately panned by users on social media who complained that their festival was being maligned as a day of sexual harassment of women. 

The brand pulled down the tweet but soon re-posted the video with a fresh caption, which said, “This Women's Day & Holi, let's celebrate by creating safer and more inclusive spaces for women. It's important to acknowledge the challenges that women face in public spaces and create a society that truly respects their well-being — today & forever.”

The one minute-15 second video goes like this: A woman looks at herself in the mirror even as her face is covered with colours of all shades. After she washes her face, bruises on her face reveal themselves. 

The accompanying message says, “Harassment during Holi leads to immense trauma. Today, a third of women who’ve has faced this trauma, have stopped playing Holi.”

The Source For The Alarming Claims 

One wonders where this alarming statistic comes from, but that’s not tough to find. The brand elaborated this in their press release issued two days ago.

The statistical basis for the campaign, as per creators, is a report by The Times of India saying that one-third of women who faced sexual harassment on Holi stopped playing the festival. 

The press release says, “…the campaign spotlights a disturbing statistic from Times of India – 34% of women who have faced harassment during Holi have stopped playing it”.

The press note quoted Bhavesh Kosambia and Rahul Chandwan, introduced as Content Leads of Wondrlab, which helped create the campaign, saying, “We were shocked to realize that so many women had in fact stopped playing Holi due to this behaviour.”

Readers are requested to remember the phrases “so many women” and “immense trauma” before reading further.

The Number Of Anonymous Women Who We Are Told Have Stopped Playing Holi 

So here’s the truth. The statistic comes from a report published on TimesofIndia.com on 28 March, 2021 titled ‘We asked 111 women how safe they were while playing Holi’.

Swarajya did not find a corresponding report in the print edition of The Times of India.

The report, which has no byline, says:

“We asked 111 women if people have used ‘bura na mano Holi hai’ as an excuse for unsolicited touch”. 

“Majority of them [responses] say they’re never faced harassment and have enjoyed the festival. However, one-third of those who’ve seen the dark shades of Holi now stay away from celebrations.”

Below is the percentage break-up of the figure in the report:

-67 percent said they never faced any sexual harassment on Holi

-21 percent said they faced sexual harassment on Holi once

-12 percent said they faced sexual harassment on Holi multiple times

-34 per cent of those who faced an incident have stopped playing Holi 

So what does these percentages add up to? Read along.

-Number of those who stopped playing Holi due to harassment: 12

Yes, this is the statistic that Bharat Matrimony used for launching a campaign on sexual harassment on Holi and women opting out of the festival.

The Fault With The Statistics 

Besides the glaring revelation that the Bharat Matrimony campaign is based on a highly insignificant statistic (roughly speaking, there are more than 45 crore Hindu girls and women in India), the data in the TOI report is highly obscure.

Who are these 111 women? We do not know. 

Did they give their answers on video or through forms? We do not know. 

How did the newspaper ensure ideological or age diversity in the views? We do not know. 

Were the women — assuming they were women — simply employees at the TOI office? Quite likely. 

Were the women — assuming they were women — part of a Whatsapp group of which the anonymous TOI reporter was part of? Very likely.  

Is it ethical to put out such unverifiable and insignificant statistics to claim a social trend? In an ideal world, it is not, but we know that a lot of such content is now routinely published by legacy media in the online viewership game.

Readers have grown to treat some news reports as serious while many others as flimsy.

The creators of the Holi campaign for Bharat Matrimony should have obviously done better, unless the aim was to grab eyeballs through negative publicity, which cannot be ruled out in these times.

The latter is quite likely, given that the brand went on to add the phrase “immense trauma” to describe the experience of the anonymous women even though the TOI report does not use the term at all.

Are We Saying There Is No Sexual Harassment On Holi?

No, we are not saying that. But making a statement that some men use the excuse of Holi to inappropriately touch women around them is different from making such alarming claims as women facing “immense trauma” on Holi and “so many women” opting out of the festival.

There are many social practices involving touch that lead to uncomfortable situations for women on a daily basis.

These include handshakes at workplaces, male doctors touching women patients, male attendants touching women clients in salons, male tailors touching women customers for measurements and so on.

Statistically, women experience such inappropriate behaviour far more than the sexual harassment on Holi, as Holi is only a day-long festival in a year. Unlike quitting a workplace, quitting Holi revelry comes with no tangible loss.

But have you seen a campaign equating handshakes, medical practice, salon services or tailoring with sexual harassment? No.

That’s because it is understood that those who indulge in inappropriate behaviour with the excuse of shaking hands or medical treatment are perverts, individually, just like the ones indulging in harassment on Holi.

One cannot thus fault Hindus for objecting to campaigns such as the one by Bharat Matrimony for slandering their festivals.

Will Bharat Matrimony or any other brand associate festivals of other religions with negative sentiments based on bad experience of some? 

By now, we know the answer very well.