When 23-year-old Muskan Sharma stood up in her black dress and pencil heels, there was no hint of hesitation. Looking straight at the man in front of her, she said firmly, “Sir, you cannot break someone’s passion. What culture are you talking about?”
It was October 3 in Rishikesh. Raghvendra Bhatnagar, president of the Rashtriya Hindu Shakti Sangathan, had stormed into a room where Muskan and other women were rehearsing for the Miss Rishikesh pageant. Objecting to their clothes, he lectured them on “Uttarakhand’s culture” and declared that he wouldn’t let the event take place. “Do it at your homes,” he said in a video that has since gone viral.
What followed next made Muskan an instant hero online. In the clip, she challenges him: “Are you fine with alcohol? There’s a store outside selling cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs—get that closed first.” When Bhatnagar asks her to quiet down, she replies, “Let us do what we want… Who are you to tell us this?”
According to a report in a national daily, he was eventually forced to leave, and rehearsals resumed. The next day, the pageant went on as planned — and Muskan was crowned Miss Rishikesh.
For Muskan, the confrontation was just another battle. “I have always spoken up when I think I’m right,” she says from Delhi, where she now works full-time. “I was drawn to the glamour world since childhood but never had the courage to enter a pageant. I saw this advertisement on Instagram and told myself I’d regret it if I didn’t try before turning 25,” she told a national daily.
Having grown up in Rishikesh and graduated from Dehradun, Muskan said her family’s support has been her biggest strength. “They were proud I stood up for myself — that’s what they taught me,” she told the media.
Muskan still has questions for those who police women’s choices. “What do they mean by ‘revealing’ or ‘exposing’ clothes? Times have changed. Everyone has a right to follow religion and culture in their own way. But first, you need to be human,” she asked while talking to a section of the media.
The newspaper report said that Bhatnagar, when contacted, refused to comment, saying he wouldn’t speak to anyone “who doesn’t know Uttarakhand’s culture”. His outfit, the Rashtriya Hindu Shakti Sangathan, registered in 2017, claims to fight “religious conversions” and backs laws against “love jihad”.
Among those who stood beside Muskan that day was another 23-year-old contestant, who went on to become the second runner-up. “Who made these men the guardians of our honour? Clothes cannot define a woman’s dignity,” she told the media.
She knows what standing her ground means. Her father died when she was three, and she began working at 18 to support her family. “I wanted to enter modelling, but responsibilities held me back,” she said. She first applied for Miss Rishikesh in 2023 but didn’t win. Still, it strengthened her resolve. “People would complain to my mother that I came home late. But people talk anyway. I’ve been stared at even in salwar-kameez. It’s never about the clothes,” she told the media. With her mother’s trust behind her, she now plans to compete in state-level pageants.
The Miss Rishikesh contest has been part of the Lions Club Royal’s Diwali Mela for the past five years. This year’s jury included Uttarakhand State Women’s Commission chairperson Kusum Kandwal, who told the participants, “These girls will make Rishikesh proud. Today, we are witnesses to their performance; tomorrow, the world will be.”
Event organiser Susheel Chhabra was quoted by the media saying, “We have held this pageant for years as part of the Diwali Mela. There has never been such opposition before. Our aim is to provide women a platform to express themselves.”
Despite the disruption, the message from Rishikesh’s young women was clear: no one else will define their dreams or their dignity.
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