By Sharanya Gopinathan

Would you like to see the true face of Indian evil? Jeans.

Yes, jeans. That humble bit of denim is clearly the worst thing that could have happened to us, because look at all the things it’s been blamed for so far.

The most recent allegation comes from Kerala. Dr Rajith Kumar, a professor from Kallady and a very wise-looking one at that, has spent the last few years taking health awareness classes and camps at different schools, colleges and organisations in the state. At one such counselling session in Kasargod, he claimed to have a “scientific” explanation for the birth of transpeople and autistic children. What is it? Women flouting gender norms so ancient we almost forgot they still exist.

This is how he scientifically explained the birth of autistic and transgender children. “…A woman who dresses up like a man. What will be the character of the child this woman gives birth to? The name of these children is ‘transgender’ or ‘napumsakam’. Hijra. Already, more than 6 lakh transgender people have been born in Kerala.”

He went on to show a picture of a foreign family in which the mother was wearing jeans. “The children born to rebel men and women have this new disease called autism. Do you see that? The mother is wearing jeans and both her children suffer from autism.”

Fucking jeans man.

It isn’t just autism and non-binary gender identities that jeans can spawn, of course. In December 2017, we were told how jeans were responsible for breaking up marriages, when Human Resource and Development Minister Satyapal Singh erroneously announced that no boy would want to marry a girl who arrived at the mandap in jeans.

It gets worse though. Jeans are also deadly rapists, or at least rape-facilitators in the eyes of many a deluded individual. Early this year, in late January, a teacher from Raichur actually said that Jyoti Singh was responsible for her own rape, because she wore jeans and lipstick, neatly reflecting that infamous Bihar village head that decided that wearing jeans was the reason for the high preponderance of rape in India.

And then of course, there was the Kerala pastor who decided that jeans not only send women’s souls straight to hell (and that women who wear jeans should have a rock tied to them before they’re thrown into the ocean), but that they’re also responsible for introducing objectionable and ungodly thoughts into the minds of church-going men.

Thankfully, the Kerala government seems to be as fed up as all of us are with people shitting on jeans, and are apparently considering taking legal action at the professor.