Visitors attending the 26th edition of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, which begins on Saturday in south Mumbai, will encounter a dazzling sight: a four-kilometre-long sari displayed in the courtyard of Elphinstone College, with thousands of signatures, stitched words and an urgent legal demand.
Premiered on Wednesday at the Royal Opera House, Infinite Saree is the latest campaign from the Red Dot Foundation, a UN-accredited non-profit organization that documents and addresses gender-based violence in India. Although the organization has been working in the area of gender-based violence for more than a decade, this campaign took on urgency due to recent events.
“Last year, there was a case where a man sexually assaulted his wife, including forced and unnatural sexual intercourse, which ultimately led to her death. The court acquitted him due to the marital rape exception in Indian law. We knew we had to do something,” said Supreet K Singh, filmmaker, co-founder and CEO of Red Dot Foundation. He was referring to a February 2025 verdict by the Chhattisgarh High Court, which freed a 40-year-old man convicted by a trial court in 2019 of rape and unnatural sexual intercourse with his wife. The woman died a few hours after the alleged assault.
“That’s when the idea of the Infinite Saree took shape. A sari is intimate, familiar and deeply tied to womanhood in this country,” she said, adding that it speaks of strength and resilience, and also what women are quietly expected to wear.
The Infinite Sari on display at the Royal Opera House | express photo
He approached fashion designer Nivedita Saboo. “Together we designed a sari four kilometers long, making it the longest sari in the world, surpassing the previous Guinness World Record of 3.7 kilometers. The idea was for it to be remembered as the longest sari, in the form of a woman’s outfit,” said Singh, for whom the sari is a response to that silence.
“Laws are made behind closed doors, but real change happens when the public is emotionally moved and starts demanding it,” he said. The fabric functions as a public archive. Printed and embroidered are the signatures of the petitioners, along with strong phrases such as “This is not right,” “My rights are human rights,” and “Consent does not end at marriage.”
QR codes embedded in the fabric lead viewers to an online petition that has already gathered more than 5,400 signatures. The goal is to reach 50,000 signatures by the end of March, when Singh plans to take the petition to the judiciary.
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At the opening of the Royal Opera House, where the sari wrapped around the historic building inside and out in a single unbroken stretch, visitors paused to read the embroidered pallu. The intertwined dialogues echoed conversations that many still hesitate to hold out loud.
“One moment that stuck with me was when a trans man’s mother came up to thank me. You could see that she was telling her own untold story. Another was a father who came with his daughters and said, ‘I want the law to see them equally,'” Singh said, adding that these were people from South Bombay – privileged and influential people – who had never spoken about this issue before.
The Kala Ghoda installation, which will be there until February 8, is expected to amplify these encounters. With a footfall of nearly 10 lakh during the festival, organizers hope the sari will reach audiences beyond political circles – students, families, tourists and first-time festival-goers.
QR codes embedded in Infinite Saree help guide viewers to an online petition that has already gathered over 5,400 signatures. The goal is to reach 50,000 signatures by the end of March | Express photo.
“Not everyone feels comfortable lending their voice to issues like marital rape,” Singh acknowledged. “But visibility creates conversation and conversation creates pressure.” The campaign also roped in actor Rahul Bhatt as a brand ambassador. “Having a male campaign ambassador helps bring the other half, the men, into the conversation,” he said, recalling Bhatt’s comments at the inauguration that men often hide behind silence, and that silence needs to change.
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The Red Dot Foundation’s work has long relied on data to drive change. Born out of the 2012 Nirbhaya case, the organization launched Safe City, a platform for anonymous reporting of sexual violence in public spaces, and was formally registered as an NGO in 2014. During the COVID-19 During lockdowns, the foundation expanded its focus on domestic violence, responding to a surge of calls from women trapped in abusive homes.