Not all unwanted touch looks like sexual harassment. That doesn't make it OK

There is a particular kind of discomfort women know well, but rarely know how to name.A man holds your wrist while talking to you. Someone puts a hand on your back to move you aside. A colleague touches your arm every time he speaks to you. An acquaintance pulls you closer for a photograph even though you instinctively take a step back. There is no threat. No violence. No overtly sexual gestures. And yet, you feel uncomfortable.That uncomfortable grey area is at the heart of the controversy surrounding Telangana Congress MLA Malreddy Ranga Reddy after a video showed him interacting with two female students on a state-run bus. At one point, he is seen holding one student's hand and appearing to pull her closer. She moves away, after which he reaches for her hand again. Ranga Reddy has denied any wrongdoing and said he was interacting with the students with “fatherly affection”.The discomfort is real, but explaining it can be surprisingly difficult. Was it serious enough to object to? Would the other person understand? Would you be accused of overreacting? The larger question goes beyond one video or the intentions attributed to one person. It is about the everyday physical contact that some people consider harmless, even when the person on the receiving end may not welcome it.Why are women so often expected to accommodate it?The touch that is dismissed as ‘nothing’ For Aradhana, who works with an MNC in Mumbai, the issue is the casual physical familiarity that can creep into professional interactions.“I find it uncomfortable when a colleague touches my shoulder or holds my arm to make a point. There have been times when someone could have simply called my name, but instead chose to touch me,” she says.“It might seem like a very small thing to them, but I don't understand why physical contact needs to be the default way to convey anything, especially with someone of the opposite gender. At least there should be permission involved. You should ask whether they are okay with being touched or whether it makes them uncomfortable."The problem is not that every touch is inappropriate. It is the assumption that physical contact is automatically acceptable, without considering whether the other person is comfortable with it.“Sometimes you don't want to turn an ordinary work interaction into an uncomfortable confrontation. You also wonder how the other person will react if you call it out. And sometimes, honestly, the intention may not even be harmful. But I feel like women have been touched inappropriately so many times that they are now wary of everything,” says Aaradhana.That hesitation is part of what keeps these experiences unreported. The incident itself may last a few seconds. The calculation over whether to speak up can last much longer.When a woman moves away, does anyone notice?Samaya, a journalist, says a man might hold a woman's wrist to stop her from leaving, insist that she listen or get her attention. In his mind, it may be an unremarkable way of interrupting a conversation.“The fact that you have to pull your hand away before someone understands that you don't want to be held is what makes it uncomfortable,” is the distinction Samaya's experience raises.But stopping someone physically is not the same as asking them to stop.In public spaces, the problem can take a different form. Women may encounter unwanted contact while navigating crowds, travelling or simply trying to get somewhere. Samaya says she has found herself moving away when someone puts a hand on her back or waist to get past her. In such moments, confronting the person may not feel worth the risk or effort.“Mind you, I don’t mean the sexual kind of touch here!”‘But he didn't mean anything by it’And intent often becomes the defence when a woman objects to unwanted physical contact.He was only being friendly. He was joking. He is like that with everyone. He didn't mean anything by it.These explanations can shut down a conversation before the woman has had a chance to explain what bothered her.Sanjukta, a mother of two, points to the pressure to avoid making an ordinary social interaction awkward, particularly when the person involved is an acquaintance, an older relative or someone considered close to the family.“A woman might simply be saying that a particular gesture made her uncomfortable. Yet people can react as though she has made a much bigger allegation,” she says.Saying that a touch was unwanted is not automatically an accusation of sexual intent. Nor does every uncomfortable interaction amount to sexual harassment or a criminal offence. But the absence of an overtly sexual gesture does not mean a person's boundaries are irrelevant.A hand around the waist may be welcome between two people who are comfortable with each other. The same gesture may feel intrusive when an acquaintance assumes that a photograph gives him permission to pull someone closer.The gesture alone does not tell the whole story. The context, the relationship and whether the contact is welcome all matter.As Sanjukta puts it, “Not every boundary is an accusation. If I don't want to be touched, it doesn't automatically mean I think you're a bad person. It simply means I don't want to be touched at that moment because honestly, I know women who have past traumas associated with sexual violence or abuse and the slightest uncomfortable interaction could trigger those traumas.”Why don't women just say ‘don't touch me’?It is a reasonable question, and one women are often asked. But speaking up is not always as straightforward as it sounds.A woman may worry about embarrassing someone in public, upsetting a senior colleague or creating tension within a family. She may anticipate being called rude, oversensitive or unnecessarily suspicious. If the person is a stranger, she may not know how he will react to being confronted.For some, the expectation to remain polite becomes another obstacle. “We are taught to be polite, and sometimes that politeness comes at the cost of our own comfort,” Aradhana says.Sanjukta describes a similar pressure in social settings, where women can feel responsible for keeping everyone else comfortable. There is also the question of timing. A woman may not immediately know how she feels about an interaction. She may move away instinctively and only later realise how much it bothered her.The point is not to turn every casual interaction into a potential offence. It is to recognise that familiarity does not automatically translate into permission, and the onus is on men to understand this.- Ends