INTRODUCTION
‘Badan dikha rhi hai, sharam nhi aati?’
(You are showing your body, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?)
Modesty is a virtue for an Indian woman: not just for the woman herself, but for the honour of her entire family[1]. However, it is just one of the aspects necessary for an ‘Ideal’ Indian woman. The “ideal” Indian woman has been meticulously crafted over centuries of mythology, literature, and law, telling women what they should be: chaste, dutiful, self-sacrificing. Sati and Savitri, both figures of Hindu mythology, have received immense appreciation and pride for embodying these virtues. Sati, who would rather die than live after her husband’s death, and Savitri, who fought death itself for her husband, together paint the image of the ideal woman — loyal, pure, and ready to give up everything for duty and love. Even today, these ancient stories quietly define what women should be, most forcefully among the urban, upper-caste, middle-class, where cultural pride and family honour are still forever entwined with the ideal of the “good” woman.
But there’s a fundamental contradiction beneath it all. Women are valued for their strength, provided it serves others. They’re respected for their sacrifices, but not for what they want. And yet, over the centuries, this struggle between victimhood and agency has repeated itself over and over—from the public shame of Draupadi in the Mahabharata to modern tragedies like Nirbhaya in 2012 and the case in Kolkata in 2024. Through the ages, Indian women remain stuck between being symbols of honour and quietened as selves.
To see how profound these patterns are, we must look back to one of the earliest women in Indian mythology who tried to resist: Draupadi. Her story — of honour, shame, and resistance — still resonates with our world today.
IDEAL INDIAN WOMEN
Draupadi from the Mahabharata is a woman fighting valiantly between expectation and rebellion. She is recalled as the obedient wife of the Pandavas, her reputation bound so strongly to theirs that when they lose her in a dice game, nobody questions the action, with one exception, hers. Amid a court dominated by strong men, Draupadi does the impossible: she talks. She insists on knowing how a man who has lost himself can bet his wife. Her public defiance, resisting humiliation and injustice, makes her more than a symbol of purity or sacrifice — it makes her a woman who will not allow herself to be suppressed or erased from the face of the world.[2]
Years later, Mahasweta Devi pushes that spirit of defiance even further in her short story Draupadi. Here, Dopdi Mejhen, a rebel Adivasi, escapes savage state brutality yet spurns the idea of covering herself up after she is raped. Her nudity is no indication of shame but an empowering tool. By remaining exposed and unashamed, Dopdi demolishes the notion that a woman’s value resides in her purity only. Both Draupadi and Dopdi demonstrate that actual resistance is not always heroic or loud — sometimes, it is merely not lowering your head when the world wants you to.
When we consider Sita of the Ramayana or Savitri of the Mahabharata, we’re dealing with women who are practically too good, at least according to the standards set for them in the epics. Sita’s trial by fire, where she proves her purity after being abducted, and Savitri’s dramatic showdown with Yama to save her husband from death, both highlight how these women are celebrated for enduring suffering without a word of complaint. But it’s always the same story: they’re praised for being silent, obedient, and self-sacrificing. Their value is established by how much they’re willing to suffer for others, particularly their husbands, and that paints a very passive portrait of womanhood. These women are not depicted as fully fleshed-out individuals with their wants and decisions. Rather, they are good because they suffer and don’t demand anything in return.
These ancient fables have formed how society feels women should behave, reinforcing the image of a woman as a demure, enduring figure who makes sacrifices for their family. The message is: a woman’s value lies in how much agony she can silently endure. The ideal woman is obedient, modest, and perpetually self-giving, leaving little space for her wants or voice[3]. This image has been so ingrained in culture that it’s almost as if women shouldn’t question their place. They should simply be available to everyone else, holding everything together, never showing that they need anything in return.
Then colonialism arrived, putting another layer on this image. The vision of Bharat Mata — Mother India — arose, making women the country’s moral foundation. Women continued to be required to be chaste, sacrificial, and loyal to the country.[4] Though social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar struggled on behalf of women’s rights, in many instances, they remained engaged in preserving their roles as mothers and wives with a greater dignity. Cut forward to postcolonial India, and authors such as Kamala Das, Ismat Chughtai, and Arundhati Roy began challenging the status quo, presenting women who were actual, real, and more than mere, silent, suffering women. Legal changes such as the Hindu Code Bill were meant to grant women increased rights, yet even those attempted to place women in the category of being pure, obedient, and most of all, silent.[5]
NIRBHAYA AND CONTEMPORARY REPRESENTATIONS
When Nirbhaya happened in 2012, it felt like the whole country woke up to something we had been working hard not to see. The violence wasn’t new — it had always been there — but this time, it broke through the walls we had built around ourselves. Still, even as people protested on the streets, the way Nirbhaya was talked about told us a lot. She had to be “brave,” “innocent,” a “good girl” chasing good dreams.[6] That was what made her story acceptable. And quietly, so many others — Dalit women, sex workers, queer women — went unseen, their pain too complicated, too uncomfortable to fit the story we wanted to tell.
Even the reforms that came later — new laws, new arguments — mostly followed the same old lines. The “perfect victim” was never dismantled. Justice was easier to imagine if the victim fit someone we could more readily relate to, someone who didn’t challenge our image of caste, class, and gender so greatly. The underlying violence-the ordinary, still, structural violence—stayed on, unseen and unspoken. It was as though we were in the mood to fix the surface without ever having any doubt over why the foundation was so torn apart.
However, this narrative is changing in recent times through the media, where an example can be the movie Thappad. These films show the infinitesimal violences, the kind that we co-exist with and forgive daily. But even now, empowerment is often made to look neat and pretty — something strong but never messy, rebellious but still polite. Women are celebrated when they fight back the “right” way. Even after all this time, it feels like we’re still being asked to fit inside a box — just a slightly bigger, shinier one.
CONCLUSION
The notion of the ‘perfect’ Indian woman has evolved through the ages, but old patriarchal strands run deep in it. To this day, whether in myths, films, or law, women are usually rewarded for being able to suffer, to give up, to stay quiet. Strength is glorified — as long as it’s a certain kind, moulded in a particular way.
Perhaps it’s time we quit making women choose between Sita and Draupadi, between victimhood and warrior-hood. Real life is not that neat. Real women bear anger, love, contradictions, dreams, and fears — sometimes all simultaneously. And that is not weakness. That is being human.
Therefore, we need to ask ourselves-
What if women didn’t have to conform to any script whatsoever?
What if they could be loud and soft, angry and kind, rebellious and tired — anything they wanted — and still be whole, still be enough?
Perhaps it’s time to dream about womanhood on women’s terms — not as something to perform, but as a life to be lived, fully and unapologetically.
Author(s) Name: Jyoti Durgani (National Law University and Judicial Academy, Assam)
References:
[1] Sneha Singh| ‘The Ideal Indian Woman: Defined by Hindu Nationalism and Culture’| [2021]| Volume 04/Issue 09| International Journal of Social Science and Human Research| <https://ijsshr.in/v4i9/Doc/15.pdf>
[2] Motswapong Pulane Elizabeth|’Understanding Draupadi as a paragon of gender and resistance’|[2017]|vol.3|Stellenbosch Theological Journal|<https://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2413-94672017000200024#:~:text=Her%20resistance%20lies%20in%20subverting,only%20powerful%20but%20also%20complex.>
[3] Motswapong Pulane Elizabeth|’Understanding Draupadi as a paragon of gender and resistance’|[2017]|vol.3|Stellenbosch Theological Journal|<https://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2413-94672017000200024#:~:text=Her%20resistance%20lies%20in%20subverting,only%20powerful%20but%20also%20complex.>
[4] Samual Stanely and Santosh Kumari| ‘Position of Women in Colonial Era’| [2010] | Vol 1 [2] | International Journal of Educational Research and Technology| <https://soeagra.com/ijert/vol2/14.pdf>
[5] Samual Stanely and Santosh Kumari| ‘Position of Women in Colonial Era’| [2010] | Vol 1 [2] | International Journal of Educational Research and Technology| <https://soeagra.com/ijert/vol2/14.pdf>
[6] Mr. Vijay Yadav| ‘IMPACT OF NIRBHAYA CASE ON INDIA’ | Pramana Research Journal | <https://www.pramanaresearch.org/gallery/prj_r_a_14.pdf>
