In a small village in Bihar, an elderly woman’s arms are covered in blue-green tattoos — lines, dots, suns, and sacred symbols. She calls them godna, a tradition she inherited from her grandmother. Each mark tells a story: of protection, of belonging, of survival. Yet in the cities her grandchildren live in, tattoos carry a different meaning — fashion, freedom, rebellion. Between those arms and these wrists lies a history of gender, class, and selfhood written on skin.
Eg: Godna Style Tattoo
Ink as Inheritance
Across South Asia, tattoos have long been the language of women. From the godna of Bihar and Chhattisgarh to the pacheri tattoos of Maharashtra’s Koli tribes and the intricate markings of Myanmar’s Chin women, body art was once ritual, not rebellion. Women tattooed their faces, arms, and legs as acts of devotion, identity, and even resistance. These were not fashion choices; they were survival codes — symbols of caste, community, and divine protection in a world that gave them little control over their bodies.
Eg: Myanmar Chin Style Tattoos
In patriarchal societies where women’s autonomy was restricted, tattoos became both shield and signature. To mark one’s body was to claim it. For many women, these patterns offered a rare form of self-definition — a visible declaration of “I exist” in ink, when their names and stories were often erased.
The Colonial Erasure of Skin
During colonial rule, British ethnographers dismissed these tattoos as “primitive” or “tribal,” imposing European ideals of beauty and modesty. Women’s tattoo traditions, once sacred, were quietly shamed out of visibility. Skin had to be clean, blank, “civilized.” The colonial gaze turned body art into taboo — a stigma that still shadows modern India’s relationship with tattoos today.
What was once divine became deviant. The act of adorning the body, particularly for women, became something to hide. Yet, as history shows, what gets suppressed often resurfaces — louder, bolder, and more self-aware.
From Ritual to Resistance
In the 1990s and 2000s, as global tattoo culture entered India through MTV, fashion magazines, and diaspora aesthetics, tattoos began to reappear — but this time, as individual expression. The act that was once collective and spiritual became personal and political. Women reclaimed ink not as ornament, but as ownership.
Via: Pinterest
When a woman chooses to tattoo her wrist, spine, or ankle today, she’s doing more than making a style statement — she’s inscribing autonomy. In societies where female bodies are still sites of scrutiny, the decision to decorate one’s own skin is an act of quiet rebellion.
Body Politics in a Modern Context
Yet the politics of visibility remain complicated. A man with a tattoo is edgy; a woman with one is often still judged. For queer, trans, or non-binary individuals, the act of marking the body can carry both liberation and risk. Tattoos become a language of identity — pronouns written in ink, symbols of chosen families, maps of resilience. But they also expose vulnerability, inviting both gaze and judgment.
That’s why temporary tattoos, in their softness, open new possibilities. They allow experimentation without stigma. They let people explore presentation, play with aesthetics, and inhabit new versions of themselves without fear of permanence. They democratize body art, making it accessible to those who’ve been historically excluded from it.
The Feminist Lineage of Ink
The feminist movement in India has long intersected with art — from posters to protest murals. Tattoos extend that lineage into the body itself. To wear art on skin is to declare authorship over it. The message might be subtle — a line drawing, a flower, a phrase — but the meaning is profound: “This body tells my story now.”
At Anomalie Tattoo Co., we see tattoos as part of a longer conversation: between women who once marked their arms in devotion, and those who now wear temporary designs in self-celebration. Between what was erased and what’s being rewritten. Between art that protected and art that expresses.
Adornment as Autonomy
Adornment has always carried politics. In patriarchal systems, what women wear — from clothes to jewellery to tattoos — becomes a site of control. But adornment can also be reclamation. To choose how to decorate your body is to practice agency in its simplest, purest form.
Temporary tattoos, especially, turn that agency into play. They let you shift between softness and statement — today a delicate vine, tomorrow a bold geometric. They allow gender fluidity to live visibly and safely on skin. They celebrate transformation rather than stability, experimentation rather than conformity.
Queer and Collective Futures
The next chapter of tattoo culture in South Asia is being written by collectives — queer tattoo artists, feminist illustrators, non-binary designers who use skin as canvas and protest. Their work moves beyond the binary of masculine/feminine, sacred/secular. It reclaims tattooing as communal again — not tribal, but chosen family. Not inherited, but shared.
These artists aren’t just decorating bodies; they’re rewriting histories. They’re taking the ink once used to mark caste and turning it into celebration. They’re transforming stigma into style, pain into pride.
Reclaiming the Sacred
Perhaps, in the end, the story of tattoos in South Asia isn’t about rebellion at all. It’s about return. To mark your skin is to reconnect with older, wilder ways of belonging — ways that existed before colonial purity and patriarchal shame. It’s to remember that the body was always meant to be adorned, not apologised for.
Closing Thought
Every tattoo — permanent or temporary — is a statement of authorship: this skin belongs to me. In that simple act lies centuries of defiance, beauty, and care. The next time you apply an Anomalie design, think of the women and queer folks who inked before you — those who made their stories visible long before we had the words for freedom.
Because to decorate yourself is not vanity. It’s history, carried gracefully forward.
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