How would it feel to eat your meals under a blanket?” Singh asked. “While many women are forced to cover up with a sari or dupatta during breastfeeding, some mothers do not as they’re afraid of inconveniencing or suffocating their babies. Helped along by the actions of Dhupia and co., many in the highly conservative country are beginning to question why such a natural practice should invite social opprobrium or shame. “I think I’ve seen more ‘cleavage’ displayed on fashion ramps and in Bollywood movies than from a mother feeding her child.” Exclamations of ‘Are you crazy?!’ and ‘Cover up quick!’ greeted me,” said Kanpur-based model Shanti Singh, who gave birth to twins three months ago.
I began to nurse him in the park and received several glares from older women. The absence of public nursing rooms in a country where women make up 48 per cent of the 1.4 billion population only amplifies their challenges. Yet in India a woman nursing her child in the open will often find herself on the receiving end of nasty comments from passers-by or worse, sexual remarks from men.
In some societies, such images might barely raise an eyebrow. Model and actress Lisa Haydon, too, has uploaded pictures of herself breastfeeding, calling it “a beautiful way to bond and connect with your child”. Other famous names who have taken up the cause include actress Amrita Rao’s husband, radio jockey Anmol, who shared a picture of his wife breastfeeding their son recently. We should be able to feed our baby anywhere, at any given point of time.” In one post, the 41-year-old talks of her experience of being criticised for breastfeeding even though “… the last thing new mothers need is to be questioned, mocked and worst of all trolled. The campaign is aimed at making new mothers feel more at ease about feeding their babies in public, in a land where doing so often invites judgment. That’s because in the world’s second-most populous country, where a record 49 babies are born every minute, breastfeeding in public still has a stigma attached to it.Īs part of her Freedom to Feed campaign, Dhupia – who gave birth to her second baby, a boy, in October – has been posting pictures on Instagram of herself breastfeeding her newborn while sporting a maternity outfit. They’ve been mocked and trolled and told to cover up, but they’re willing to turn a deaf ear to the criticism because there’s a higher reason for what they’re doing.ĭhupia, along with fellow actors and models including Kareena Kapoor, Soha Ali Khan and Gul Panag, belongs to a new breed of celebrity Indian mother that is aiming to change the way their country thinks about breastfeeding. Neha Dhupia is just one of a host of Bollywood actresses who have been causing a stir recently by posting revealing photographs on the internet.
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