DNA Column – the Ordeal doesn’t end with Molestation

 Articles, Gender Issues, India, Media, News, Society  9 Responses »
Jul 232012
 

My column in today’s DNA

 

On a slow news day, a girl in Guwahati got molested by a gang of men, who saw nothing wrong in groping, pinching, punching, stripping, feeling up and mauling the victim. In fact, they seemed to take great pleasure in it. A news camera crew captured the act in full gory detail; every nuance of the violence perpetuated on the victim was captured as was every hand movement, every expression; as was the pride and joy shown by the molesters in hearing the helpless girl cry for help. The mob action seemed like a rite of passage – something that got the molesters their official entry into the club of Machismo. They had done it – succeeded in stripping a girl of all her dignity, in public space; in front of cameras and a gawking public. Without censure. Without being stopped. It finally ended half an hour after it started when the police rescued the victim. But, the ordeal did not end with the molestation. The news channel decided to air the tape without masking her face. The footage was uploaded to YouTube and went viral. Mainstream media that had completely ignored theAssamfloods for being unworthy of national airtime went to town with the story.

 

A study conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said that amongst the G20 nations, India, was the hardest country for a woman to live in; worse than Saudi Arabia. In the Danger Poll, also conducted by the same foundation, Indiawas the 4th most dangerous place in the world to be a woman. The first three on that list wereAfghanistan,Somalia andPakistan.India lags behind on every count that matters. It starts with birth. Rather, it starts by terminating birth. The Poll estimated that there are 50 million girls missing because of female foeticide. A 100 million women and girls are trafficked. 44.5% of all women are married off before the age of 18 – it means education comes to a grinding halt, dreams of economic independence remain unfulfilled, and lifelong servitude in a feudal set up beckons. The woman neither knows nor understands rights that she has as an independent citizen of the country. She is relegated to being part of a traditional society – which may have its’ own charms- but has never been woman friendly.

 

Public molestation of a woman is not new. It is to teach her and the men in her family a lesson. ‘Look I am doing this to you and yours – and you are powerless to stop me’. We have grown up hearing about Draupadi and her ordeal. Lost in a game of dice by her husband, dragged out of her chambers by her brother-in law, Dushasan , propositioned in an open court by another brother-in-law Duryodhan, she is told to take off her clothes. When she refuses the ‘vastraharan’ begins. An entire court of ‘Noble’ men stand by and do nothing while a woman is being stripped.. Draupadi was the daughter of a king, wife of another and mother to future kings, dressed modestly and visiting her in-laws. Theoretically it can’t get safer than this, yet none of this prevents her ordeal. It literally takes a deus ex machina to save her. But the story doesn’t end there. Draupadi vows not to tie her hair until it has been washed in the blood of Dushasan. Bhima swears to kill every single Kaurav prince to avenge the assault on Draupadi, to tear open Dushashan’s chest and drink his blood, and to break the thigh of Duryodhan who asked Draupadi to sit on his lap. It takes around fourteen years to fulfil all the vows – but fulfilled they are. Retribution for that act of molestation is bloody, brutal and complete.

 

In a modern world breaking thighs & tearing chests is not allowed nor is personal retribution. So what is the punishment for ‘molestation’? Two years. The men will spend a maximum of two years in prison and probably make bail after a year. The victim on the other hand has been handed a life sentence. What we saw in Guwahati is not new – it is a story mirrored in various cities, towns and villages. It may not happen in front of news cameras but it does happen. And, it happens for only one reason – the perpetuators know they can get away with it .That needs to stop. There needs to be smarter and better policing – surveillance cameras, more manpower on the streets, linked databases.  There need to be time bound trials. Finally, where there is crime, there had better be punishment. Hard jail time. Biting monetary fines. Make the punishment hurt.  Else arm every woman in India with a gun and teach her how to use it.

DNA Column – The Multiple Personality Disorder of the Middle class

 Articles, Gender Issues, Society  4 Responses »
Jun 252012
 

My column in today’s DNA

 

Psychiatry identifies a condition called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), popularly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, in which two or more distinct identities or personalities compete with each other to take charge of the patient’s behaviour. If you were an alien observing the Indian media to observeIndia, you wouldn’t be wrong in assuming that there is a severe case of DID that requires urgent attention and treatment.

Indians especially those of us living in cities and working in relatively high paying jobsseem to suffer from acute multiple personality syndrome when it comes to India and our fellow citizens. There is one personality that sees Indiataking her place at the high table of world powers. There is another personality that thinks that India’s poor are people from another country and another time. There is a third personality that believes that rules should be applied uniformly and the corrupt should be locked up and the keys thrown away. And then to counter that there is a fourth personality that believes that it is completely all right for them to jump the red light and slip the traffic policeman a fifty rupee note along with their licence. There is a fifth personality that will use every contact, every piece of influence in their larger family and friend circle to get their kids into elite schools

and colleges or jobs. And a sixth personality that chaffs at

the concept of reservations. There is another personality that will sit in its comfortable drawing room and talk about how wonderful it is that people from other countries turn up in large numbers to protest against their government or participate in the electoral process, and to counter that is a personality that will send SMS’s or press like buttons in lieu of participation and plan a holiday on election weekend.  And of course there is a personality that moans at the non application of rules and the reign of goonda raj where the rich and powerful reign. And there is another personality that outrages that  officials – especially police officials – applying the rules without prejudice are puritans from another century or the Taliban from another country. All these personalities and opinions reside within a single person. If it was spread across the country you would call it diversity. But, within one person it seems like a serious problem that requires some concerted psychiatric care.

There is nothing that exemplifies this affliction more than the recent fracas in Mumbai over police raids on watering holes, night clubs and bars. At one level you have had the media and citizen groups that have gone hammer and tongs at the system not sending people to prison when laws are violated, at the other there is outrage when these laws are applied to them.

Mumbai has some of the most archaic rules that govern alcohol and nightlife. Everyone needs a permit to drink alcohol – a permit that states that you need alcohol for medicinal reasons; essentially a permit that declares you an alcoholic. This permit requirement goes back to 1949 – the Bombay Prohibition Act – which no one has bothered to repeal .There are three things that policeman can do in a situation like this. One is ignore the law and do nothing. The second is take money and look the other way. The third is doing something about it. There are many who advocate option one. But, the job of the policeman is not to interpret the law – that is the job of courts, nor is it to make the law – that is the role of legislators. The Policeman’s role is to implement the law.

We keep using the West as an example – in the west establishments breaking overcrowding rules will be penalised. Those that serve alcohol without license will be fined. Those that serve the underage alcohol will be shut down. Teenagers caught with traces of narcotics will end up with a jail record. Parents who take their underage kids into night clubs will be prevented from entering the establishment. There is something called the rule of law and it is obeyed. . And when the law is wrong, as in many cases it can be, groups of citizens lobby their elected representatives to change it.  They get involved. There is a conversation, it is a process.

There are just too many laws and rules that govern us, and many of them violate our personal rights and personal space. Those laws need to go. But, we need to be conscious that our rights are in relation to the rights of others, and not absolute in themselves and vice versa.  It is important  that we sit down together and find solutions. Vilifying policemen who carry out the law is not conversation. It is a tantrum of those who ask ‘how dare anyone ask us what we do’, at the same time as raging against those who do the same.

Maharashtra & Female Foeticide

 Articles, Gender Issues, India, Society  3 Responses »
May 102012
 

My column in today’s Lokmat

The biggest open secret inIndia was her disappearing daughters. As prosperity has increased, family size has reduced, and advances in medical techniques have led to families choosing only to have a boy, by terminating pregnancy when a girl child is conceived. The Government has banned sex selection tests through the PNDT Act, but as a people Indians  know how to get around or even break most laws. The very well to do take flights outside India to avail of end to end services that help them break the law, while the not so well to do go to shady fly by night operators and pay a premium to get the same done.   The end result is the same. Selection of boys over girls. Aamir Khan’s show “Satyameva Jayate” did something exceptional for a television show.  It got people across the nation to talk about the issue of female foeticide. The issue for the first time moved away from AC studios and news anchors to home and the neighbourhood.

Over the decades the sex ratio has been falling drastically. In the 1991 census there were 945 girls per 1000 boy in the 0-6 age group. A decade later in 2001, this figure dropped to 927 per 1000 boys. And in 2011, in a more prosperous, more educatedIndiathat figure has fallen even further – there are 914 girls per 1000 boys. What is even more appalling is that in cities likeDelhiand Mumbai the child sex ratio is worse. InDelhiit is 866 girls, Mumbai City 874 girls and Mumbai suburbs 910 girls to a 1000 boys. The rapidly dropping sex ratio on a decadal basis reflects one very stark truth about Indian Society. The girl child is unwanted. And, this holds true across the board, across communities and across socio economic groups. Maharashtrais no different. From an average of 913 girls per 1000 boys in 2001, the child sex ratio inMaharashtrahas dipped to 883. Thirty girls per every 1000 boys are missing.

When the census figure came out last year, the first reaction was disbelief. This cannot be happening inMaharashtra, there must have been a mistake, were the murmurs amongst ordinary citizens. The second reaction was denial – the drop in child sex ratio cannot be done by us, it must be ‘outsiders’. But, the truth is quite different. While cities like Mumbai and Pune that attract immigrants have seen a decline in Child sex ratio, the story is worse in smaller districts across the state. The worst impacted are districts like Beed (a drop from 894 to 801, 91 missing girls), Buldana (a drop from 908 to 842 – 66 missing girls), Washim ( from 918 to 859, 59 missing girls), Hingoli ( 927 to 868, a gap of 59). Everyone of the 35 districts in Maharashtra, barring Chandrapur, Satara, Sangli andKolhapur, saw a decline from the 2001 figures. But all these remained statistics until one event. Last year saw the discovery of female foetuses dumped in drain. That became the tipping point for multi pronged action against those who are adding to the problem of female foeticide.

 

In its attempt to redress the balance and save the girl child the Maharashtra Government has used a plethora of tools – from the legal to the technological, from the social to the financial. At the first level, the Government has strengthened legal and penal action against sonography clinics across the state. Most of us have been seeing and reading about increased action against these clinics, that help detect the sex of the foetus. The State has also gone after mobile sonography units that are mostly used for carrying out sex determination tests that precede female foeticide. The Aamchi Mulgi (our daughter) scheme launched by the CM Prithviraj Chavan set up a special help toll free help line to complain against such actions and offered a financial reward if information can prevent females being killed in the womb.

Also used to curb female foeticide is technology. The silent observer is a tracking device on ultra sound machines that logs activity. The idea behind this is to deter the medical practise from breaking the law and indulging in selective sex abortions. The technology allows recording of every activity done on a sonography machine and be used as evidence if needed. While it is possible to tamper with any technology – the fact remains that  has just become that much more difficult. There will always be people who break the law. There will be always be people who try and get around the system. But, it is important for law abiding citizens to know that the law exists and the State and the system is trying its best to do something about a very serious social issue.

 

The second is unprecedented cross party agreement and cooperation on ending this practise and redressing the gender ratio. We normally focus on isses where politicians are at each others throats to prove a point, but seldom do we see and hear those issues in which they work together for a greater good. Politicians like Sharad .Pawar who has one daughter in an era when large families were the norm, have led the way in showing that families with traditional values need not discriminate against the girl child. The state has brought in celebrities  like Ajay Devgn and Kajol, Sachin & Supriya Pilgaonkar who parents of daughters, to spread the message against female foeticide. Also the State has introduced a number of financial initiatives. But, most of these are for extremely poor families. The issue is not just about poor families, but families across social classes.

The State of Maharashtra, like all other states inIndia, is trying its utmost to save the girl child. But, it is not just about the State. When a person or people decide to break the law, there is very little the State can do, apart from catch them. But, that is too late to save the girl child. For every girl child that is killed there are atleast a dozen or more people involved. The family, doctors, technicians, nurses, support staff. How many people will you put in prison? The change has to come at the individual level. The State can at best be an enabler, but for true gender equality family and society has to try that bit harder.

 

A wife like Sita

 Gender Issues, India, Society  4 Responses »
May 092012
 

When the judge says that a wife should be like Sita you can interpret it in many ways in the context of a modern marriage, and even a modern break up.

  1.  the wife goes with her husband wherever he goes.
  2. The wife gives validation that her character is beyond reproach through a test of fire (agnipariksha)
  3. The wife allows her self to be abandoned by her husband when pregnant
  4. The wife brings up her child/children without child support or family support
  5. The wife leaves the husband, and returns to her maika,  when the husband’s demands get too much to bear.
  6. The man will not look at another woman whether or not his wife is with him.

 

Ram was maryadapurusha, Sita his wife, who matched him in her observance of Dharma. We are mere humans, and flawed at that.  The judge has erred in using this example. It is open for interpretation, ambiguous and unfair on all parties.  Maybe judges should stick to what is slightly more contemporary – Stick to the spirit and letter of the law.

Salute the Men who fought for women’s rights …

 Articles, Gender Issues, India  1 Response »
Apr 022012
 

My column in today’s DNA 

“The intent of matrimony is not for man and wife to be always taken up with each other, but jointly to discharge the duties of civil society, to govern their families with prudence, and educate their children with discretion.” Said an anonymous author in an American Magazine, way back in 1807, exemplifying the almost universally accepted view on marriage. Marriage was for alliances – political and economic, it secured bloodlines, it created economic units, it trained the next generation. All those kinder gentler ‘emotions’ that we talk about today such as love and companionship were not even part of the overall equation. It was also a time when the woman was property, a belonging. She was owned by her parent’s family before marriage and her husband’s family after marriage, decisions made for her by her father, husband, and later, her son or the oldest male relative. Few women in that period were educated, even fewer had control over their lives or destinies. For most, life was to be led in complete and utter obedience to the prevalent system.

 

Indiawas no exception to the miserable state of women. The powers that be, at that time, possibly thought that there was nothing wrong with the way women were treated, it was after all, for their own good. Women could be carried away by enemies, by their own sexuality, by freedom. They needed to be protected from all of it. And that meant locking her up behind closed doors, all her life . And, if she needed to be killed to be protected, so be it. A woman had no status without a man to protect her. Wives, widows, daughters, daughters-in-law, mothers, sister were all treated badly. Some women rose up to be matriarchs but her role was to impose the rigid rules of patriarchy.

 

It took men of exceptional vision and courage to change the status of women inIndia. We rattle off names like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chander Vidyasagar, Jyothirao Phule, Haribilas Sarda, Maharishi Karve, Bhimrao Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru little understanding the public and social pressure, revilement and censure these men had to face to take up the cause of rights for women.

 

Raja Ram Mohan Roy fought to ensure that Sati was banned. He went against the Hindu orthodoxy to fight for the rights of women. He agitated for the women to inherit property. He worked towards education for women. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar  took this one step forward. He worked tirelessly to ensure the rights of widows, including working to get the Widow Remarriage Act, of 1856, passed. Jyotirao Phule too worked in the area of preventing female infanticide, widow remarriage and girls education. Life was further complicated for Jyothirao Phule because he was from theMalicaste and had to combat caste discrimination and strictures to fight for the right of women. Maharsishi Karve, the founder of SNDT university, not just fought women’s rights, the rights of widows – he married one.  Rai Sahab Haribilas Sarda was another champion of women’s rights. He sponsored the bill that outlawed pre pubescent marriages for girls inIndia. The Sarda Act, named in his honour, set the marriageable age of Indian girls – not just Hindu girls – to fourteen. The next major blow against orthodoxy and for the rights of Hindu women was the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. It allowed Hindu women the right to divorce. Championed by Ambedkar and made an election issue by Nehru it was fought tooth and nail by the Hindu Orthodoxy, which lost.

 

For every leap of women’s rights from the time of Raja Ram Mohan Roy – the bogey of destruction of family has been raised. In each case it has been defeated. An institution that stands on the exploitation of one party, will break sooner or later. Women’s rights will not make families weaker, they will make them stronger.

 

Today as women stand on the threshold of yet another leap forward to women’s rights with the proposed amendments to the Hindu Marriage Act, including the right for the woman to claim 50% of ‘joint’ property, as well as faster divorces – it is time that we paid a silent tribute to all the men who over the decades who fought for the rights of women. Without them it would have been impossible to get this far. Finally, is tragic that the rights of women, inIndia, are divided by religion and that Muslim women are deprived of the rights that Hindu women are given by law. It is sad they had no champions to fight for their rights and that successive Indian governments sacrificed the rights of Muslim women in order to woo the orthodoxy for electoral gain.

 

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