…by our esteemed Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has held that unlike the charge of attempt to murder, the Indian Penal Code does not recognise the charge of attempt to rape. Rape is said to have been committed only if a man inserts his sexual organ into the victim. Any other act only qualifies for the offence of outraging a woman or child’s modesty.

How about a failed attempt to blow up Parliament? Would that be terrorism or merely an offence of outraging our nationalistic and patriotic sensibilities. After we can use Freud to justify how the bullet/bomb is akin to a (male) ’sex organ’ and how Parliament is a woman!

or indeed a failed attempt to evade taxes? I can just imagine the defence.

My lord, the IT department caught us before we could commit the crime

Tags: Gender Issues, India, Judiciary, Society

Tellychakkar profiling Parakh Madan - the lead of Star One’s new show Saathi Re

, “I play a girl next door- simple, calm, mature and docile who belongs to a Gujarati family. She’s an ideal take-home bahu who respects her family. She all about what girls should be like.

Take home as opposed to what - the mind boggles at the thought

Technorati Tags: Star One, Saathi Re

Tags: Gender Issues, India, Media, Society

I am ambivalent about the death penalty. I belive that it should exist on the statute books but used very sparingly, by the book, following the rule of law etal. But this is the rational me. When i read articles like this, somehow the rational me takes a back seat and something much more primevial takes over - something that says hang him by the b***s from the nearest tree. And, it is this feeling that scares the hell out of me.
This from today’s ToI:

An adopted girl was repeatedly raped in connivance with her foster parents by one of their relatives in New Bhangala area, police said on Wednesday.

The tenth class student, given for adoption to one Bidhi Singh a few years ago, was found to be pregnant by her father when he visited her recently, they said.

The girl’s father, a resident of Mehtabpur, said in his complaint that on inquiry he found out that Rinku nephew of Bidhi Singh used to rape his daughter, police said.

Police have registered a case.

Let me tell you what will happen. Rinku will marry the victim, to escape prosecution, - rape her every single night for the rest of her life. And the law will say - miya biwi ….. hum kya karen?

And finally, the editors at ToI really need to look at punctuation.

was found to be pregnant by her father when he visited her recently.

is different from

was found to be pregnant, by her father when he visited her recently.

The former implies that he got her pregnant, the latter that he found her pregnant !!

Tags: Discrimination, Gender Issues, India, Society, Women

I think that the Government has hit the nail on the head in asking religious leaders to intercede in stemming female foeticide.

The union ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) has written to Sri Sri Ravishankar, Mata Amritanandmayi, Dinkar, Asaram Bapu and even popular yoga guru Baba Ramdev to spearhead a campaign to save the girl child. The MWCD has also sought help from Radhasoamy Satsang, Nirankari Gurukul and Churches of North and South India. “Since religious gurus have a huge following, a campaign by them will surely help people change their mindset about having daughters,

In a country ruled by various forms of orthodoxy -? and a general dislike of obeying the law, the concept of committing a sin may deter people more than the concept of committing a crime. And it is about time religious leaders looked beyond their religious texts and preached about living life as good citizens - following the rule of law

Technorati Tags: female foeticide, rule of law

Tags: Female Foeticide, Gender Issues, India, Society, Women

Of all the forms of State so far, the modern Republic is the only one based on the consent of civil society. We are all supposedly participants in the state. And we abbrogate a lot of our responsibilities vis-a-vis the society we live in to the state. So for us to continue believing in this institution called the ’state’ we need to see it delivering. Otherwise there is no reason for us to continue consenting to the existence of a monolith. This is not a revolutionary concept or even a treasonous one - it is simply a matter of fact. Those states that haven’t delivered have been washed away by society - just look at whole chunks of Eastern Europe to know what i mean. It is more than the fall of Communism, it represents the failure of the State. Just look at the nationalistic tensions within Russia, or the mutual anihilation tried out by the former citizens of Yogoslavia, or even the more civilized divorce of Czechlovakia. Western European state face tensions internally, but immersing themselves in the Superstate called the EC - has probably helped them maintain their states! I can see a whole lot of turbulence hitting western europe - just look at France, or the UK now. They aren’t really happy states. One of ways that a certain level of faith is maintained in the State, is to ensure that a commonly agreed set of laws are applied equally, and justice is delivered without bias within the State. And, this is where i think that the Indian state is massively screwing up. Society, as a whole, is taking a back seat to a few select power oligarchies - and the sense of failure of the ’state’ is huge. The sense of a few getting away with it on mere legal technicalities is frustrating, to put it mildly. After the Jessica Lall Case where the guilty walked, with Satyendra Dubey’s killers still at large, with Priyadarshini Matoo family still waiting for justice, with Manjunath’s family in the same state, it is common news to see the guilty go scot free. Either because they are never caught or because they get off on techicalities. If you are super rich or super connected you simply hire lawyers who flood the system with paper work and keep pushing the date of trial - till such time witnesses are dead, purchased or scared off. Add to it a whole bunch of Parlimentarians who think that they are above the law - just look at the blatant vioationof the election code by Arjun Singh - with no action being taken as yet - and it is little wonder that there is so little faith in either the system or the state. So, in this scenario, it was rather refreshing to see Salman Khan go to jail. We all know that he won’t serve even a tenth of his sentance. But, it was nice to see justice being delivered for a change. Maybe if the EC spanks Arjun Singh this week - my cup truly will overflow with joy

Technorati Tags: Jessica Lall, Satyendra Dubey, Priyadarshini Matoo, Arjun Singh, Salman Khan

Tags: Discrimination, Gender Issues, India, Judiciary, Society, Women

…. believe it or not, is a Hindi film from the 1960’s (or was it the late 50’s). A channel that i had consulted for had it as part of their library, and that is the first time ever that i had heard of the film. But, obviously for the guys who set the curriculum and write the text books in Rajasthan, the film has some sort of sacred symbolism. This from the ToI

"A donkey is like a housewife. It has to toil all day and, like her, may even have to give up food and water. In fact, the donkey is a shade better, for while the housewife may sometimes complain and walk off to her parents’ home, you’ll never catch the donkey being disloyal to his master,"

Ouch! incidentally Rajasthan ranks 5th in the country in terms of violence against women. Well, maybe to reach the top of the table - they should start such lessons at a slightly lower class! Charu in the mean time has looked at the other side of this kind of socialisation- a skewed (and screwed) male female ratio - caused by female foeticide. With female population in some villages (co-incidentally in the state of Rajasthan) dipping as low as 50% of the male population, families only get their daughters married if her prospective husband has a sister who can marry the son!. And dowry of course is disappearing. I can almost hear a chorus saying - man, this is the ultimate proof of the efficacy of the free market, as supply decreases - value increases!! And, the market? rectifies it self. And, i suppose that too is a point of view. Finally, i guess that in a societyfemale foeticide is the norm and not the exception, and where both urban and rural societies, north and south india are united in their preference not to have a girl child - there needs to be some sort of mass social reformation movement to ensure that balance is restored.

Tags: Diiscrimination, Female Foeticide, Gender Issues, India, Society

The last time I was at Lohegaon - the IAF base - a few of years ago,it was for a project (a show). At that time i interacted with a lot of pilots from the IAF. They seemed to be some of the least sexist people that i have ever met in my professional life. They didn’t seem to make any assumptions of ability based on gender - either that, or they were very good at hiding it. I honestly think that it was the former. One of the people that i met there was a lady who flew transporters. We generally got chatting and i asked her if she could fly fighters. She said that women weren’t allowed to fly fighters. And somehow that statement contradicted all that i had imbibed at the base. I really didn’t see the men there having an issue with women flying fighters. And today that impression is vindicated. Senior members of the Indian Air Force backed the idea? have of women flying fighter planes.

Having imparted training to female pilots for transport aircraft and choppers for 15 years, senior IAF officials and researchers now strongly believe the time has come to open the doors of fighter cockpits to women cadets as they have been consistently performing at par with their male counterparts.

Stories like this give one hope! Well, hats off to the men in the IAF for being gender blind, and may their tribe increase.

Technorati Tags: Indian Air Force

Tags: Gender Issues, India, Indian Air Force, Society

It would be good if all year round was considered to be ’special’ for women. However, while lip service is paid on the 8th of March - this is the reality:

Raising questions about the safety of women even in the high-security Delhi Secretariat, a young woman was allegedly molested near Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s office, the incident resonating in the Vidhan Sabha today and the government ordering an inquiry into the same.The woman, in her twenties, had gone to the Secretariat yesterday seeking the job of a sweeper and was allegedly molested by one Ranvir Singh Negi, a supervisor working with a private agency hired to take care of the sanitation works in the building.

And the day after, this from a report in the DNA;

Shocking it may sound, but the truth is that it’s the educated and the rich who practice female foeticide most. Quoting surveys and studies in this regard, the minister of state for Women and Child Development (WCD) Renuka Chowdhury said: “Contrary to belief, surveys have shown that the practice of female foeticide and sex determination tests is not prevalent in rural areas. Science and technology is being used to kill girl child. Urban areas of Punjab, Haryana, Rajashthan, Gujarat, Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Delhi have shown some shocking sex ratio.”

And, of course there is Jessica Lal who is going to symbolise crimes against women, where the guilty walk. A friend of mine told me about a rally in her memory, and said that a collection was made to put a hit on those who walked free. hmm. happy women’s day!

Tags: Gender Issues, India, Society

The Jessica Lal Case is yet one more where the accused have been given more ‘importance’ than the victim. An excellent panel of defence lawyers managed to get continuance after continuance - and in the 7 odd year that passed memories faded, witnesses recanted, police fudged procedure and the accused walked. Today after almost 2 weeks of public protest and outrage, the Delhi Police has filed an FIR against unnamed persons under:

Section 120 of the Indian Penal Code for criminal conspiracy, for destruction of evidence and tempering with the evidence

My very basic knowledge of law tells me that once a court has aquitted an accused of a particular crime they cannot be arrested for the same crime. If there are any lawyers who know their IPC inside out - do correct me if I wrong. So i guess the ’system’ has decided to charge them with a ‘lesser’ crime. A few days ago? i was talking to a friend? civil vigilantiism? - where ordinary citizens seeing the system stack up against them - take the law into their own hands. A couple of years ago, I had blogged about the Akku Yadav case - where this man who raped & terrorised women was lyched by a mob of victims. How long before some one takes a gun and shoots the guilty dead. And worse, how much longer before someone takes a gun and shoots the wrong person. When the system doens’t deliver this is the Pandora’s box that we open up.

Tags: Gender Issues, India, Justice, Society, Women