It is the system’s way of repressing unacceptable behaviour by creating an inhibition in the mind of the individual practising this behaviour and also of other silent subscribers to such impermissible conduct. A deterrent is a sub-bracket of threat that follows an imposition of punishment. Law of Crimes teaches every law student the importance of a jurisprudential tool called deterrence. Perhaps because at its very core, ‘Sulli Deals’ is actually an ineffective deterrent rooted in perverse animosity. At this juncture, a host of questions arise - is this incident a euphemism for another radicalized rape threat? Is it a simplistic, malevolent form of intimidation or a toxic stew of organized misogyny? To me, it seems ‘Sulli Deals’ is not mutually exclusive of any of the above. On the one hand, we are on the precipice of change for the global feminist movement and, on the other, women are targets of systemic sexualized hatred. Having said that, how does one put into words this feeling of being reduced to one’s biological orientation and the cardinal direction of their prostration? After trying and failing to do so, I instead decided to trace the ontology of ‘Sulli Deals’ to argue why it is less jarring than it ought to be. Putting the word, ‘ sulli’, into perspective, Zehra Kazmi, a PhD scholar and researcher on South Asian Muslim writing at University of St Andrews, Scotland, is of the opinion that “ The use of language has always been gendered, for example property (zameen) is feminine and anger (ghussa) is masculine which is why Sulli Deals is an instance of sexualised bullying.” Kazmi goes on to elaborate that this reduces Muslim women to pieces of meat which ties into how we consume language and images of women. In her groundbreaking work, “The Fetishism of the Woman’s Image”, Mariana Meloni talks about how the female body has been used to excite sexual desire for an exclusively male audience while also allowing for passive voyeurism.

Pared down and put simply, consider this: one minute you are an urban Indian woman worthy of a voice and the next you’re a commodity on sale.

I may choose not to wear my identity (stemming from my caste, class, gender, religion, race) but this intersectional label (of religion and gender) attached to me without my consent and diametrically opposed to my self-interest is bigger than an ethical transgression. The difference between the two statements is one of volition. But what alternative does one have when we are so easily, and quite often, pigeonholed in the name of identity that is both facile and demeaning?

We have been taught to not bring our identity to the playground, to not wear it on our sleeve. And then it dawned on me why talking about identity in our society is seemingly benign but actually extremely dangerous. Naturally, my first reaction was to find out if I’m a deal meant for some random man browsing through my blithely smiling pictures. Psychologists have long argued that personally relevant stimuli can successfully attract our attention owing to their relevance to our lives. Unaware of the fact that ‘ sulli’ is a word with pejorative connotations, I clicked on the link which went on to display a real-life photograph of a Muslim woman. It was an ordinary day when the words, ‘Find your Sulli Deal of the day’, caught my attention on social media. We may contextualize this by considering our domestic socio-political situation. While it is a fact that Muslims form the largest minority in the country, a discourse on the identity of Muslim women in India is not as linear as it might appear. Women, anywhere in the world, are not a homogenous group and India is no exception to this. Neither is it about the struggle to assert religious identity. Let me assert at the very beginning that this essay is not a dialogue on gender identity. This new definition of identity includes the convergence of factors that really make us who we are.

Let us understand this as a gradient of the human rights theory that argues in favour of acknowledging the multiple facets of our identity that come together to form one compound identity. An intersectional identity essentially means our social identities are multi-dimensional, creating a prism of experiences that is the sum of our parts. Identity is a strange word when you think of it in isolation, suspended on a sunbeam bereft of the granular structural differences we grow up with. I wrote a few paragraphs and realized that this would be the first time I would be writing as a Muslim woman. A few weeks ago, I was asked to write on the gendered communal ire faced by Muslim women in light of the ‘Sulli Deals’ incident.

Shared animosity