Women in Academia are extremely vulnerable

[First published in Women's Web as St Xavier’s University Kolkata Allegedly Slut-Shames Woman Professor Over An Instagram Story]

A 30 year old Associate Professor at a well-known University, according to an FIR filed by her, was forced to resign because the father of one of her students complained that he found his son looking at photographs of her, which according to him were “objectionable” and “bordering on nudity”.

There are two aspects to this case, which are equally disturbing, and which together make me question where we are heading as a society.

When the father of an 18 year old finds his son looking at photographs of a lady in a swimsuit, he can do many things. What this parent does is to dash off a letter to the University which states:

“Recently, I was appalled to find my son looking at some pictures of Prof. [Guha*] where she has posed in a sexually explicit way causing deliberate public exposure. …[this] is utterly shameful for me as a parent, since I have tried to shield my son from this kind of gross indecency and objectification of the female body. It is obscene, vulgar and improper for a 18 year old student to see his professor dressed in scanty clothes exhibiting her body on a public platform.”

First, the photograph was not on a public platform. The photograph had been posted on a private account on Instagram where it was visible for 24 hours to a tightly controlled audience. The only way the son could have accessed the photographs was if he had sent the Professor a ‘follow’ request which she accepted, or by hacking into her account. If the former, he had reached out to her. If the latter, he is guilty of a cyber-crime. In either case, the Professor cannot be blamed for the fact that her student was ogling at her photographs.

Second, the father says that he has “tried to shield my son from this kind of gross indecency and objectification of the female body”. If we accept this statement at face value, then clearly the parent has failed in his stated duty, since the son had voluntarily sought out content that the parent deems objectionable. To shift the blame to the Professor is just an attempt to cover up what by his own admission is inadequate parenting.

Third, are these the only photographs of “scantily clad” women that the student has gawked at? Surely there must be other women who’s photographs have also come under scrutiny- why then single out the Professor? Don’t teachers have the right to living a personal life? As long as they are competent in their job, and adhere to the workplace code of conduct, how does it matter what clothes they wear and what photographs they post on their private Instagram account?

The reaction of the father smacks of a giant failure in parenting. The child is 18 years old, an adult. Ideally, the father should not be micro-policing what he chooses to do in his spare time. However, this is India, where even people much older are made to feel they are answerable to their parents, random family members and the entire neighbourhood!

The father has caught his child doing something he deems objectionable- instead of holding his son accountable, the father shifts the blame to someone who is not even directly involved in the incident. By writing to the University, and having the Professor removed, the father is sending out the message that his child can behave as irresponsibly as he likes, and the father will always be around to clean up the mess.

The attitude displayed by the University is equally wrong. Ideally, when a frivolous complaint like this was registered, the University should have stood by their staff, and told the father in no uncertain terms that the Professor was engaged to teach, and what she did in her personal life was nobody’s business. Even if the University has a code of conduct which does not permit its staff to put up photographs on their private Instagram accounts, knowing that the Professor had joined only two months earlier, the University should have first asked her when the photograph was uploaded before launching an investigation that ended in her dismissal. In this particular case, the photograph was put up on Instagram stories in June 2021, and the Professor joined the University only in August 2021. Since Instagram stories are visible only for 24 hours, at the time of joining, there were no photographs that could be deemed “objectionable” on the Internet, unless the account had been hacked into and photographs downloaded.

By proceeding with an investigation on photographs taken and uploaded before the Professor even joined the University, they have also set a precedent which leaves women vulnerable to blackmail. Now, any acquaintance who has photographs or videos which are even remotely compromising can threaten to use it to against women in similar positions.

The manner in which the investigation was conducted also exposes how vulnerable women are to harassment in the workplace. According to the FIR filed by the Professor, printouts of the photographs which the parent deemed objectionable were circulated among by the committee members, which included two men. When a woman posts a photograph online, particularly if it is in a tightly controlled private group, it does not mean she is giving consent to the photographs being printed and passed around in another setting. By doing so, the University was invading her privacy, and putting her in an extremely vulnerable position. As she says, “It is a mystery to me till date how the university accessed those pictures. I felt so distressed and humiliated at that moment that I couldn’t bear to examine the rest of the pictures. I was in a meeting where my private pictures were being circulated among people unknown to me, without my consent.”

The Professor also mentions in her FIR that she was repeatedly slut shamed by the members of the committee, most of whom were unknown to her. Though she was dressed in a swimsuit, the members of the committee repeatedly referred to them as “nude” photographs. She, a grown woman of 30 with two PhDs from foreign universities was infantized and asked if her parents knew about and approved of the photographs. There is a decorum to be maintained while carrying out investigations, so the dignity of the woman is maintained, but that was clearly not followed by the University.

More than anything else, this incident exposes how vulnerable women in Academia are. Students and researchers have made allegations of sexual harassment against male professors who were in a position of power over them. Yet, years later, despite those allegations not being properly investigated, those professors continue to hold their positions and are treated as respected professionals. Yes, a woman is slut shamed for sharing photographs of herself with a tightly controlled group of people for a 24 hour period, and is forced to resign because someone who shouldn’t even have access to the photographs made a complaint against her.

This case, if not properly investigated and resolved, can have wide reaching implications for Women, particularly Women in Academia, and each of us should be extremely concerned about it, and should keep raising our voice till the Professor gets justice.

Ranveer Singh's photoshoot should be a non-issue

 [First published in Women's Web]

Stop at any roadside dhaba on the highway early in the morning, and you are sure to come across hirsute men clad in nothing more than a hitched-up lungi and a toothbrush going about their daily ablutions with utter nonchalance. If you stumble upon them, you are the one who backs away in agitation or confusion, muttering barely audible apologies. They, in their partial nakedness, are at home in public. You are the one intruding on their territory.

India is a country where the sight of topless men in public and semi public place is normalised. The neighbour who opens the door when you ring the bell to hand over a couriered parcel. The owner of the kinara store taking a quick nap on the floor in the afternoon. The man who after swimming four laps of the pool stretches out on a deck chair with a mug of beer. The friend who casually takes off his wet shirt after getting drenched in the rain, and remains bare-chested for the rest of the trek.

Men do not think twice before taking off their shirts in public places. Women either back off, or studiously ignore it while completing the transaction they have with the men.

In a country like this, the furore over Ranveer Singh’s photoshoot is rather amusing. The presence of a semi naked male body in public places is certainly not new; what people seem to objecting to is the fact that it is a toned body presented in an aesthetically attractive manner, not a flabby, hirsute one!

Aren’t there more important issues to outrage over than a photoshoot?

The people who argue against Ranveer Singh’s photoshoot say that it goes against their cultural ethos and that they are morally offended by it. Without getting into the details of what constitutes or doesn’t constitute “culture”, I wonder why there is not similar outrage when there are crimes against women? One of the people who filed a legal case against the actor for sharing photographs from the photoshoot on his twitter feed says that she does not want her young daughters to see the photographs and be led astray by it.

I wonder if she is equally outraged by the fact that by conservative estimates one in every three girls is sexually abused at home, often by a relative or a close family friend. Apparently the nation wants its young girls to be protected from the sight of the “bum” of a naked man. But the nation doesn’t care that the same young women are forced to fondle the genitalia of their uncles, cousins and neighbours. Parents do not want their daughters to be titillated by the photograph of an actor, but the same parents protect the relatives and friends who impregnate the same daughters.

Social media allows you to control what you see. Accounts with questionable content can be blocked or muted. Settings can be changed to block images which display excessive nudity or explicit violence. It is much easier to protect impressionable girls and young women from accessing inappropriate content, than to protect them from men who sexually abuse them. Yet, it is a photshoot that we outrage over, not child sexual abuse.

Who decides what is morally offensive?

Article 19 of the Constitution of India guarantees freedom of speech and expression to all its citizens, but imposes “reasonable restrictions” on the exercise of the right in the interest of “decency or morality”. Though well meant, this exception is being used to bring in extremely narrow definitions of “decency and morality”, and this is quite a slippery slope to go down. Today, a section of the population decides that a photoshoot by an actor goes against their sense of “decency and morality” and they file a case against him.

What if tomorrow the same people decide that the clothes I wear offend their sense of “decency of morality”. Will the law allow one section of people to dictate how others should dress and how they should conduct themselves? Will tomorrow, a Taliban style ruling be brought which mandates the length of our hemlines and how much cleavage we are permitted to display?

Someone famously said, “your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins”. Similarly, the right to be morally outraged should end where another individual’s personal freedom is impinged. Just as we do not want others to dictate what we wear, we too should not attempt to curtail what someone else wears (or doesn’t wear).

Should children of an impressionable age be subject to such content?
Children are exposed to a lot of violence, including interactive violence from an extremely young age. Many of the TV shows they watch, including Shin Chan, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and even our desi Chota Bheem, encourage bullying and violence. The games they play on laptops, tablets and smart phones, are games that involve shooting, fighting and blowing up people and structures.

Despite putting parental settings in place, from a very young age, children can access that is sexual or violent in nature. The only way to ensure that children are not ‘let astray’ is by giving them a solid moral foundation and spending sufficient time with them to ensure that they are able to put the content they consume in the proper perspective.

Given all the content at their disposal, children of an “impressionable age” are unlikely to even come across Ranveer Singh’s photographs, much less be influenced by it.

To sum up, there are many other issues that could and should occupy our mind space much more than aesthetically shot photographs of an attractive actor.

Can Rapists Be Allowed To Go Free After Marrying The Survivor?

 [No law in the country recognises enabling the rapist to walk free after marrying the survivor. However, in reality, it is something that families and communities often push for. First published in Women's Web]

In the same week where the Delhi High Court on Wednesday, 11 May, saw a split decision on the constitutionality of the marital rape exception, another equally reactionary decision was handed by a divisional bench of the Supreme Court when they set aside the conviction and sentence of a man who had repeatedly raped his 14 year old niece

The facts of the case are simple. The accused, K Dhandapani, enticed his 14 year old niece with the promise of marriage and raped her several times. The family came to know of the offence when the girl became pregnant, and a case was lodged against him under the Protection of Child from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. After trying his case, in 2018, the Sessions Court found him guilty on all three counts, and convicted him and sentenced him to 10 years rigorous imprisonment. The accused appealed to the Madras High Court which upheld the conviction and the sentence in 2019.

The girl gave birth in 2017, before the case came up in court. Despite the pending case against him, he continued to have sexual relations with the girl, and she gave birth to her second child at the age of 17.

K Dhandapani filed an appeal with the Supreme Court stating that he had started a physical relationship with the 14 year old child on promise of marrying her and since he subsequently married her and was taking care of her and their two children, the case should be dismissed.

The counsel appearing for the State in the Supreme Court, argued that since the girl was only 14 years old at the time of the first offence, and since both the children were born before she turned 18, the marriage was not legal, and that it might well have been entered into only for the purpose of escaping punishment. After listening to the testament of the rape survivor where she insisted that she was indeed happily married, Justices L. Nageshwara Rao and B.R. Gavai ruled that the Court cannot “shut its eyes to the ground reality and disturb the happy family”, and therefore set aside the conviction and sentence.

This case sets several dangerous precedents

POCSO Act was brought on to protect minors from a broad range of sexual crimes ranging from penetrative sexual assault to sexual harassment. The accused was convicted on three counts of penetrative sexual assault on a minor- (a) for making her pregnant, (b) for committing the act repeatedly, and (c) for committing it despite being a relative by blood- and given the nature of the crimes should be subject to the strongest punishment. Even in the appeal, the accused admitted his guilt, so there was no basis for dismissing the case.

The accused petitioned that he has subsequently married the girl, and so the case should be dismissed. At the time of pregnancy and delivery, the child was below the age of 18, which is the legal age of consent and marriage. Any marriage that may have taken place then is not legal, and therefore cannot be used to dismiss the order.

However, the most dangerous precedent is of the rapist using the offer of marriage to escape being punished for his crime. Once the court starts accepting this excuse, there is fear of it becoming a norm, and of rape survivors being coerced to marry the rapist in order to avoid the stigma of the rape and subsequent pregnancy.

Every rape survivor is subject to immense physical, mental and psychological trauma, but in a patriarchal society like India, rape is stigmatised to such an extent that the survivor is additionally made to feel that she has “lost her honour” by “allowing herself to be raped”. Playing on this fear of bringing dishonour upon herself and her family, the rapist often offers to marry the survivor, thereby reducing the stigma of pregnancy. The survivor is often coerced by the law enforcement agencies, the larger community and her own family into going through with the marriage, in order to reduce the stigma of pregnancy, even though it is in no way the fault of the survivor.

No law in the country recognises enabling the rapist to walk free after marrying the survivor. However, in reality, it is something that families and communities often push for. Once the match is formalised, the survivor drops the case, thereby enabling the accused and even convicted rapist to evade punishment.

While this takes place informally, by putting aside the conviction and punishment, the division bench of the Supreme Court has set a dangerous precedent which can be used by rapists in future to evade punishment. This will offer greater impetus to the rapists to put pressure on the survivor and her family to “reclaim her lost honour”, by taking up the offer to marry the rapist. While the rape survivor may escape the stigma that clings to her through no fault of hers, she will be forced into a permanent conjugal relationship with the man who caused her immense trauma.

Many individuals and organisations who work with rape survivors have said that it is inhuman and unacceptable to coerce the rape survivor into marrying the perpetrator. They recognise that such marriages may continue to be physically and mentally abusive, and far from getting justice, the survivor may end up in a situation from which there is no escape for them. They have called for strong legislation that declares such marriages illegal- though the rape survivor is free to marry anyone she chooses, her marriage to the rapist cannot be used by him to seek a reduction in punishment.

What can be done to protect the rights of the rape survivor in such cases?

In the absence of adequate legislation, however, communities will continue to believe that by offering to marry the survivor, the rapist is atoning for his mistake, and the survivor will be coerced to accept the offer.

In the short term, it is imperative to define strict processes to track the marriage for a few years to ensure that the marriage was not entered into only to evade punishment. Women’s organizations should be tasked with speaking to the rape survivor to ascertain that she is entering into the marriage through her own will, and not because she is being forced to do so. More importantly, there need to be follow up meetings to monitor her mental and physical well being.

In the long term, what is needed is to provide sufficient financial and emotional support to the rape survivor to ensure her proper rehabilitation and to enable her to live an independent life. This will reduce her economic and emotional dependence on her family and her community, and will empower her to take decisions which are best for herself.

In parallel, law enforcement personnel should be adequately trained, so they recognise that the best interests of the rape survivor can be met, not by marriage to her rapist, but by ensuring timely justice.

Most importantly, there should be a concentrated awareness campaign to shift the blame from the rape survivor to the rapist. As long as the woman continues to be blamed for something that is not her fault, society will continue to consider marriage as a viable option to evade punishment.

‘Keeping Our Daughters Safe Has Become A Herculean Task; It Wasn’t This Bad When We Were Younger!’

 [The focus has to shift to the causes which make it unsafe for woman — the perpetrators and the infrastructure that are the problem. First published in Women’s Web]

“Keeping our daughters safe has become a herculean task. It was not this bad when we were younger.”

This is a statement we hear often- on social media (I have quoted directly from someone who said it on Twitter), on television, and even when people get together and chat at a party or in the office cafeteria.

The statement is wrong on several counts. Let’s break it up-

“Keeping our daughters safe…”

The moment we utter these words, we are focussing on the ‘victim’ of sexual harassment/ abuse. And as long as we continue doing that, we will not find a solution to the problem.

Shouldn’t we move beyond “keeping our daughters safe”, now?

The focus has to shift to the causes which make it unsafe for woman. There can be no solution till we acknowledge the perpetrators, and focus on reforming them so it is safer for women.

This may seem like nit picking but it is not.

If we focus on the victim, we are looking at enabling conditions to keep them safe. That would include telling them what to do, how to dress, where not to go, and when to return home.

But restricting the freedom of women is not the solution.

The world needs to be made safer for women. And to do that, the focus has to shift to the causes which make it unsafe for woman.

We need to create conditions that make it difficult for the perpetrators through awareness, better vigilance, and a more accessible legal system. Till we acknowledge the perpetrators and work on the causes, there can be no long-term solution.

“.. our daughters…”

This is the obvious one.

Do only ‘our’ daughters, ‘our’ sisters, ‘our’ wives, ‘our’ mothers, ‘our’ friends deserve to be safe? Shouldn’t we be concerned about the safety of every woman? Why should there be an ownership or relationship with victims?

This feeling of ‘ownership’ itself is a contributing cause for the lack of safety for women. Since men feel compelled to guard the chastity of ‘their’ women, others have sought to assert their superiority by establishing their dominance over the women.

When we stop looking at women in terms of their relationship, and recognise them as individuals who make up roughly half the population, we will move beyond keeping individuals safe and towards making society safer.

“… herculean task”

Yes, ‘keeping’ women safe is a herculean task- it is attempted by policing women, by curtailing their freedom, by telling her what and how she should do.

But do you remember how Hercules cleaned the Augean Stables?

Hercules didn’t use brooms and shovels to remove the muck. He diverted a river to flow through the stables so all the muck was flushed away. The same solution can be applied here.

Instead of “keeping” women safe, if we focus on creating a safer environment, it would be far more effective.

“It was not this bad when we were younger”

Both statistics and anecdotal data may give the impression that women were safer earlier, but were they really?

Have crimes against women really gone up, or are they being reported more because of greater awareness?

Statistics show that states like Goa and Kerala have a higher incidence of reported crimes against women. What is more likely is that these states have better systems for women to come forward to report a crime, in which case, the growth in reported crimes is welcome.

There is also greater awareness among women about what constitutes sexual harassment/ abuse. Till the #MeToo movement gained momentum a few years back, women ignored a lot of inappropriate behaviour because we lacked the vocabulary to articulate the harassment.

Also, women are going out of the house more, which increases the probability of them being sexually harassed/ abused in public. This gives the impression that women are more unsafe today than earlier.

However, this is not the case.

Women (and children) have always been vulnerable to harassment and abuse. However, when the perpetrators are family or close friends, there is a greater chance of the crimes being ignored.

It is only when the perpetrator is a stranger that families recognise that women are unsafe.

Instead of worrying about “keeping our daughters” safe, we should work on creating a safer environment for women.

This can be done by- generating awareness on appropriate behaviour, incentivising calling out harassment and creating an environment for reporting crime. It cannot be done by locking up “our daughters” and mourning about how the world has become unsafe.

When will the so called 'honour killings' end?

[In a patriarchal society, the purity of caste, class and religion is rigidly maintained by controlling the sexual agency of women. First published in Women's Web.]

Trigger Warning: descriptions of extreme violence

Nagaraju and Syeda Ashrin Sulthana, a newly married couple were traveling on their two wheeler in a Hyderabad suburb when they were forced to pull up. In front of Ashrin’s eyes, the assailants attacked her husband with steel rods. She tried to shield him with her body, but she was pushed aside. She screamed and begged bystanders to intervene, but nobody came to her rescue. The assailants stopped only after Nagaraju was dead.

A dazed Ashrin later named her brother as one of the people who murdered her husband. It was what is called an “honour killing”.

Though we often hear of “honour killings” in India, this gruesome murder sent shockwaves because of the audacity with which it was conducted on the busy streets of a city, in full view of the public. It also shone the spotlight on how dangerous it can be for a couple to marry outside their prescribed faith and/ or community.

The crime can be looked at in multiple ways

Their’s was an interfaith union- Ashrin Sulthana was Muslim, while B. Nagaraju was Hindu. It was also an intercaste union- though Islam doesn’t have a formal caste system, Ashrin was a Syed which is considered one of the ‘highest’ communities, and B. Nagaraju was a Dalit.

In a statement made to the press, Ashrin stated that Nagaraju was willing to convert to Islam to marry her, but her family made it clear that they would not permit them to get married even after conversion. To her family, according to Ashrin, Nagaraju was an unsuitable suitor because he was from a lower caste. This is borne out by some of Nagaraju’s relatives who say that he was willing to convert so he could marry Ashrin, but her family was still not willing to accept the union. Even after the wedding, Ashrin feared for Nagaraju’s life, and her worst fears came true when her family killed him in an extremely gruesome manner.

Women ‘owned by their families and community’?

Regardless of whether Ashrin’s family killed Nagaraju because he belonged to a different religion or because he belonged to a different caste, the root cause of the crime is patriarchy.

It is the belief that the woman is the ‘property’ of the family and the community, and that she somehow brought shame upon them by marrying someone they deem unsuitable. For the family, the only way to restore their “honour” is by eliminating the man who dared make “their” woman fall in love with him.

Honour killings are not unknown in India, nor is it restricted to any one community. Whenever a couple ignores the barriers of caste, class or community and falls in love, they find themselves pitted against the might of their community.

“in every house is a life bomb that can erupt at any time. Do you know who that is? Daughters are the honour of the family and the community, and to protect them is our … duty and … culture.”

This statement was made by a VHP leader as quoted in Kavita Krishnan’s book Fearless Freedom, but it could well have been uttered by Ashrin’s brother, or by the families of the countless other women who fall in love with a man outside their community, and are willing to defy their family to marry him.

In a patriarchal society, the purity of caste, class and religion is rigidly maintained by controlling the sexual agency of women. When a woman chooses to fall in love with someone outside her tightly controlled community, she threatens the established order of things. Her family perceives that their “honour” is challenged when a man who is deemed unsuitable because of birth based limitations succeeds in winning her affection.

Everything is tried to break up a couple like this, including violence

When the family finds out about such a relationship, they exert tremendous emotional and physical pressure on the woman to give up the man she has fallen in love with, and marry someone who they deem suitable. Most women give in to this intimidation or are tortured into submission. It takes extraordinary courage for the women to defy the community and marry the man they love.

Even after the couple has got married, the family feels compelled to restore their lost prestige by breaking up the couple. The family attempts to intimidates the couple through emotional blackmail, or by threatening violence. Often, the family of the woman even file false cases of rape and abduction against the man to coerce him into walking away from the relationship. For instance, while analysing all the cases of sexual assault that came up in the sessions courts in Delhi in 2013, it was found that 40% of cases involved parents filing cases of kidnap and rape against young men who their daughters had eloped with- most of whom were inter- caste or interfaith couples who chose to defy parental opposition to the relationship. The family resorts to honour killings when such intimidation fails.

Nothing can get back the dead – what justice?

Ashrin’s brother and his associates have been arrested for the gruesome murder of Nagaraju, and the police has promised to fast track the case. In this case, since the politicians and civil society have condemned the crime and demanded justice, and the entire crime was caught on video, it is likely that justice will be served. In other cases, however, the perpetrators often get away because with her husband gone, the woman succumbs to grief and emotional pressure and doesn’t push hard enough for conviction.

While Ashrin may get justice, that will not bring Nagaraju back to life. Ashrin will not only live with the guilt that it was her love that got her husband killed, she will have to face a family that will continue to blame her for “bringing dishonour upon them” and indirectly causing the imprisonment of her brother.

It is not enough to merely respond to an honour killing after it has taken place. We need to create and maintain networks that support people who are in inter caste and interfaith relationships. This should include proactively ensuring the safety of such couples, but enabling them to file a formal complaint against families that threaten their safety. If required counselling support should also be provided to the families of such couples to help them accept the relationships.

Most importantly, those of us who believe in the right of young women and men to love without fear should stand up against patriarchy, and against a system that seeks to maintain caste and religious purity by breaking up such unions. Till the larger society starts to accept the agency of women to love who they want, such tragedies will continue to occur.

Who pays the price in the hijab controversy?

[In the ongoing controversy, the hijabis have become the battlefield, and no matter what the outcome, they are the ones who will lose.]

In January, the group of students at a government PU college in Udupi were prevented from attending classes unless they took off their hijabs. The visuals of these young women in full uniform, mask and headscarf sitting on the staircase of the building, studying for their exams captured the imagination of the nation. Almost everyone had an opinion on it, many even had more than one opinion, but you had to admire the almost Gandhian tenacity of the young women who turned up every day, hoping the school administration would relent and let them attend classes with the headscarf as they were used to doing.

There were essentially three positions that people took, depending on whether they were for or against- 

“School uniforms are sacrosanct; there has to be uniformity”.

“The hijab is symbol of oppressive patriarchy and should not be encouraged.”

“The hijab is an act of faith, and the choice of the young women should be respected.”

Each of these positions could be easily countered, because in a situation like this you do not have a single “right answer”. Yes, in a country like India, the uniform is necessary to reduce visible socio-economic differences, but should the uniform be imposed when it goes against personal faith? Yes, the hijab could be something forced on women by a patriarchal society, but can that be counted by forcing a ban or should it be dealt with through empowerment? Yes, the hijab is an act of faith, but the fact that many women do not practice the hijab shows it is not an “essential practice” the way a turban is for Sikhs. 

While people approached the court and debated the nuances of the case, the young women were being denied their right to attend classes- an outcome that nobody would consider desirable no matter which side of the debate they were on.

Fast forward a few weeks. An incident that should have been sorted out without fanfare blew up. Schools and colleges across Karnataka started barring entry to students in a hijab. The video of a principal slamming the college gate shut on a group of burqa clad girls went viral, and the incident was even picked up by the international media. The next day, another group of young women marched to college wearing saffron stoles and demanded their right to come to college wearing kumkum, flowers and sarees. By the end of the week, it had spread across the state. Students trying to go to college in burqas were intimidated by groups of “students” in saffron stoles. 

Meanwhile, pending a decision, the High Court ruled that no religious symbols will be permitted in the classroom, unless expressly allowed by the rules of the institutions. Some schools and colleges took this interim order to the extreme and forced students (and even teachers) to take off the hijab even before entering the school premises. The videos of students and teachers being forced to take off their hijabs in public have gone viral, and they have touched a raw nerve with every woman who empathises with the pain and humiliation they are being put through. The students who insisted on continuing to wear the hijab have been forced to return home. The trouble is starting to spread to other states where educational institutions are unilaterally preventing the entry of students wearing hijabs. How this impasse will eventually be sorted out is anyone’s guess, but no matter what the outcome, it is young women who will suffer.

In this entire controversy, two essential points were overlooked- 

The first incident of turning back students in hijabs took place at a government run PU college. Unlike in private schools which implement the uniform with greater rigour, in the government school system, the prescribed uniform has always been indicative. Anyone who has ever been to a government school knows that while most of the students turn up in the uniform, they also wear anklets, bindis, hijabs, dangling earrings, bright coloured plastic hair clips, fresh flowers, strappy sandals, just about anything. Despite the stated purpose of the uniform being to ensure uniformity, Government schools always teem with diversity and colour. By wearing a headscarf in the same colour as the dupatta of the prescribed uniform, the students of the PU college were in conformance with the spirit of the uniform.

More importantly, the primary objective of an educational institution is to provide an education, and by depriving the young women the right to attend their classes, the school authorities were failing in their duty. With just two months left for the end of the academic year, they should have maintained status quo and if they really wanted to implement the rules differently, they should have done so from the subsequent academic year after giving due notice to the students and their guardians. By forcing the young women to sit outside the class, they were being denied their fundamental right to an education in a government run institution of their choice.

In the entire controversy, it is important to understand where the pushback is coming from, and how it does not serve the objective it purports to serve. 

There are essentially two seemingly progressive arguments being made in favour of disallowing students to wear the hijab in educational institutions.

The first is that educational institutions are secular in nature and should be free from all religious symbolisms and that personal religious markers should not be permitted. This argument is based on the French definition of secularism, or laïcité, which requires an absence of religion in public spaces. In India, however, Secularism has traditionally been meant to indicate that no one religion will be given prominence over the others. If teachers and students can adorn their foreheads with bindis/ pottus/ vibuti/ kumkum and if married teachers can wear mangalsutras, taalis, shakha or any other sign of a married Hindu woman, then why single out the hijab? More importantly, almost every programme starts with the lighting of a lamp, and Saraswati Vandana is sung during assembly- are these not religious in nature? Taken in this cultural context, the call for banning the hijab in classrooms doesn’t make sense.

The second argument is more insidious. It is the liberal narrative that draws a false binary between hijab and kitab. The proponents of this theory state that the hijab is oppressive and forced on girls, and that the only salvation for the girls will be after they cast off the hijab and embrace education. This argument is based on two contradictory statements- that the women is disenfranchised and is forced to wear a hijab, yet, she apparently has sufficient agency to cast off her hijab for the sake of an education. The argument falls under its own weight- if the woman lacks agency, how will she rebel? Isn’t it better to ensure she continues her education and becomes financially and emotionally independent after which she is empowered to make her own choices?

In all this controversy, who loses? The young women who want to study and better their prospects. For many of them, wearing the hijab is an act of faith and/ or a tradition, and the thought of taking it off in public is so inconceivable, that when they are asked to take it off, they prefer to return hone instead. While a few of them might be willing to remove the hijab in the classroom, the entire process is so disconcerting and traumatising that they hesitate go return to school. Given the atmosphere of hate and mistrust that has been built up, many families too might hesitate to let their daughters go to school or college where there is danger of them being subject to humiliation. All that banning the hijab will accomplish is to make it far more difficult for a woman to get an education.

If a hijab ban is enforced, many families will insist on taking their daughters out of school. Some may be home-schooled, or enrolled in minority institutions, but a large number may be forced to drop out of the education system. If minority institutions come up, even families of young women who don’t wear the hijab may be tempted to take them out of “secular institutions” and enrol them in minority institutions where they will not have to be defensive about their religious identity. This will eventually lead to increased ghettoization.

Even if the Court rules that there is no prohibition on religious symbols in public spaces and upholds the fundamental right of education, this controversy has once again exposed the fault lines in the secular fabric of the nation. Parents of young women may still want to take them out of secular institutions and enrol them in minority institutions where they will be shielded from similar attacks in future. This will adversely affect the diversity of classrooms and young people will grow up with a sense of alienation.

In a battle which is supposedly for their “empowerment”, the young women who wear the hijab have become the battlefield, and no matter what the outcome, they are the ones who will pay the price.

Why A Mob Decided That This 20y.o. Woman 'Deserved' To Be Raped And Beaten Up

[In our toxic patriarchal system, men stalk women in the smug knowledge that the woman dare not turn them down. And if do, they are made to pay the price for it. First published in Women's Web.]

Trigger Warning: this has violence against women and sexual violence and may be triggering for survivors.

In a horrific incident that took place in New Delhi on Republic Day, a 20 year old woman was abducted from her home, mercilessly beaten, sexually assaulted, gang raped, and tonsured in front of dozens of witnesses. Her face was then blackened and she was made to wear a garland of chappals before being paraded in public to loud cheers from the entire community.

All of this was captured on several videos which were shared with impunity by the witnesses, who justified the entire incident as 'punishment' against the young woman.

What had she done to deserve such a barbarous attack?

She, a 20 year old married mother living with her husband, had rejected the sexual advances of a 14 year old boy, who took the rejection badly and jumped in front of a train. His family held her responsible for his death by suicide and sought to avenge his death by physically, sexually and emotionally assaulting her in public.

While everybody who participated in the crime- either directly, or by egging on the actual perpetrators, or silently watching it without making any effort to stop the crime- needs to be punished, the incident throws into focus a much greater issue- the subservient state of women in society.

If you look at the incident dispassionately, there was nothing wrong in the behaviour of the woman- all she did was to turn down the advances of a male she deemed was unsuitable. Even if she was single and unattached, and the male was an adult, she was not obliged to accept his advances. In this case, considering the fact that she was married, there was no reason for the male to think she was available or interested, he should have stayed away from her. To complicate it further, he was a minor and well below the age of consent. If anyone was at fault it was the 14 year old who made sexual advances on the woman. If he could not handle rejection, it is certainly not the fault of the woman.

In fact, had the woman reciprocated his advances, his family would have almost certainly disapproved. The woman, being older than him, would have been blamed for "leading him on". Their relationship would have certainly been broken up, and the family would have done all they could to tarnish the reputation of the woman and her family. In all probability had she reciprocated, the family would have meted out exactly the same punishment to the woman as they did now.

However, since the 14 year old died of suicide, the family chose to blame the woman and attempt to achieve closure by taking revenge on her.

No matter what happens, women are always saddled with the blame

In the toxic patriarchal system where they operate, women are denied the agency to turn down the advances of a man for any reason. Men stalk women in the smug knowledge that the woman dare not turn them down. And if do, they are made to pay the price for it.

This is a storyline that plays itself out in different settings. We have grown up on Bollywood movies, where after the heroine turns down the hero, his friends harass her till she agrees to go out with him. Life imitates cinema, and it has often been seen that whenever a man declares his affection, even for a woman he barely knows, she is expected to accept the advances and get into a relationship with him. If she turns him down for any reason, she is often harassed, stalked, and emotionally blackmailed till she gives in.

I personally know of a bright young woman who strode through college and life with a jaunty step, excelling in academics and anything else she set her mind to. She was cheerfully single because she chose to be that way, till the day a classmate she had never even noticed chose to declare his love for her through his friends. Though she turned him quite gently saying she didn't have the mindspace for a romance, he took the rejection personally and his gang made life miserable for her for the rest of the time she was in college. In their patriarchal minds, he was "doing her an honour by bestowing his interest on her, and she had no option but to accept it with gratitude."

Toxic patriarchy - how dare she turn him down?

It is this toxic patriarchy that was exposed by this gruesome incident. How dare the 20 year old woman turn down the advances of someone who was "paying her a compliment" by declaring his affection for her.

That, also, was the reason why there were as many women as men among the perpetrators. They were the women who nourished him, and expected him to repay that in future. In their eyes, he was a poor innocent Raja beta who was "seduced" by the 20 year old married woman who then broke his heart by rejecting him. They wanted revenge, and who better to take their anger out on than the "seductress" who was (according to them) not even worthy of his attention.

All their anger was poured out on the woman, and they were the ones shouting out instructions on how to physically and sexually assault the woman. They were also the ones who took the lead in tonsuring the woman and blacking her face, thereby sealing the physical and sexual violence by making her as physically unattractive as possible.

I am sure the perpetrators will be caught and will stand trial. I hope that many of the bystanders will also be taken into custody and questioned on their role in the incident. I hope the woman gets justice, and her family is eventually able to heal.

But more than anything else, I hope we recognise how toxic the patriarchal society we live in is, and that we start addressing the issue of gender equity at the societal level. I also fervently hope that there are no copy-cat crimes, and women do not have to fear for their life when they turn down unwelcome advances.

Victim blaming follows every MeToo disclosure

 In light of the recent allegations of sexual misconduct by the legendary kathak maestro Pt. Birju Maharaj, a number of people are asking ‘why now?’ Why is the person choosing to make the allegations public after his death when he is no longer around to defend himself? What is to be gained by sullying his reputation when he is no longer in the world? If these allegations were true, why didn’t we hear of it before?

We will not go into the merits of the case, because all we have at this moment are verbal testaments, anecdotal evidence and whispered comments about how it was “common knowledge” in the Indian classical dance fraternity. We will also not get into the fact that others too have written about how the guru-shishya parampara, with its attendant power imbalance has led to a community of silence which enables sexual predators to escape the consequences of their action.

We will, instead focus on the other and more generic aspect of the case- victim blaming. From the time one dancer went public through a series of stories on Instagram, the classic cycle of victim blaming started asserting itself- deny, disbelieve, discredit, disgrace.

Deny:

“Utter rubbish. If that was the case, we would have heard about it. We have all heard stories about Pt. xyz, but never about him.”

When this was countered by people who mentioned that the Delhi based Indian classical dance community was aware of and spoke about his predations, the next phase began.

Disbelieve:

“She’s mistaken. It must have been consensual. Why should someone of his stature indulge in predatory behaviour.”

By this time, other voices, on condition of anonymity started speaking up too, and it emerged that though the maestro had a history of sexual assault and predation, the victims had remained silent because the hadn’t found a safe place where they could speak on record. By this time, the third phase of victim blaming began.

Discredit:

“Why did she wait till after the maestro was gone before speaking of his predatory behaviour? Why did she present a façade of normalcy as long as he was alive? She is doing it for the publicity.”

The answer to this is obvious. The maestro ruled the classical dance form. He could make or break careers. Had she spoken up earlier, her entire career as a kathak performer and instructor could have been ruined. Who would dare take such a great risk? Anyone would wait till she was no longer vulnerable before sharing her story.

Disgrace:

“She shouldn’t have done it. What does she gain by tarnishing his reputation when he is no longer around to defend it. She should have known better.”

This is probably the most insidious part, where the victim is blamed for speaking up. If anyone is guilty, it is the person who abused his power to coerce women (and even young girls) into granting sexual favours. If he didn’t want his reputation to be tarnished, he should not have indulged in predatory behaviour. Yet, he did, and it is the victim who is blamed. And while blaming the victim, people forget that by speaking up, she provided a safe space for other victims to open up too. Victims who had remained silent about their abuse for years (even decades). Victims who pushed aside the memory of his predatory behaviour, yet could never completely overcome the trauma.

Unfortunately, this is not the only time this has happened. Every time a woman speaks up against a person in power, the same Conspiracy of Silence plays out. Friends and acquaintances of the person who has been accused of being a sexual predator close-ranks on him. He is made out to be the ideal friend, colleague, father, and even husband. Stories of his wit and humour, his intelligence and his talent are told as if any of that excuses him from making inappropriate sexual advances against a woman he had power over.

The mainstream media starts questioning the victim and her motives. She is simultaneously painted as a naïve person who misunderstood his intentions, and as the ambitious woman who encouraged him in order to get professional favours.

Everybody chooses to ignore the fact that sexual coercion is not as much about sex, as it is about power. That where there is a disparity in power between the predator and the victim, it is almost impossible for the victim to defend herself.

The people asking, “why now? Why not when it happened?” choose to ignore the fact that it often takes the victim a long time to recognise the abuse and process it. And it takes even longer for her to go public with her accusations. 

Equally important, even after she has decided to go public with the story of her abuse, she is often held back by practical considerations. In the past, whenever a victim has come forward to speak about her abuse, her career has almost always suffered a setback, even if it is proven that she was the victim.

Coming back to specific case, while one can certainly speculate on the motives of the person who spoke up first, the reality is that by speaking, she has drawn attention to how the guru-shishya parampara creates unequal power structures which leave students vulnerable to sexual harassment and abuse. This will, hopefully, generate more conversations, and an effort would be made to make the classical dance community more safe.

Anyone who has been affected by abuse in the Indian classical dance or music space can reach out to here to document abuse and for mental health support.

Feminists could be allies of MRAs

[While MRAs reserve the greatest vitriol for feminists, if they put their prejudice aside, they will realise that feminists will be strong allies.]

 In the social media storm surrounding the ongoing hearings at the Delhi High Court to seek to do away with the exception provided to marital rape under the IPC, the greatest noise has been made by the self-proclaimed MRAs (Men’s Rights Activists).

These men are mostly victims of the misuse of Section 498a of IPC, which was enacted to protect women from harassment from their husbands and their families. Their contention is that just like S/498A has been used to harass men, similarly criminalisation of marital rape too will be misused to “destroy the lives of men”.

MRAs have chosen to direct all their ire against “feminists”, and hold them responsible for the fake cases filed under S/498A, and for the cases that they assume will be filed after marital rape is decriminalised. However, if MRAs step back for a moment, they will realise that their biggest allies in their quest for justice will be feminists.

Before I go further, I will say that the statistics MRAs quote are misleading. They say "majority" of cases filed under S/498a are "fake". What they actually mean is that of the cases filed under S/498A, less than 15% have ended in conviction. That does not, however, mean that 85% of cases are false, because that figure includes cases that are still pending in courts, cases withdrawn under duress, cases which were settled out of court, and even a few cases that were dropped because the victim lost faith in the system and moved on. The number of cases which resulted in a direct acquittal is actually quite low.

More importantly, a very small fraction of women who are victims of harassment actually approach the police, and of them, the police registers an FIR in fewer cases. So to get the percentage of false cases, one will have to compare the number of acquittals to an estimate of the number of women who experience sexual, physical or emotional abuse from their husbands and their families. This figure is sufficiently small to dismiss all the arguments about how the lives of “millions of men” will be destroyed by feminists once marital rape is decriminalised.

Having said all that, S/498A is certainly misused. Even if the number of men who are victims is low, each of them does face mental suffering which cannot be trivialised. However, far from enabling women to file false charges, feminists will actually side with the victim. Feminists, by definition, strive for an equitable world. We side with the victim who is seeking justice. So if a woman files a fake case under S/498A against her partner, our sense of natural justice will make us side with him, as long as we are convinced of his side of the story.

That apart, there are two other very practical reasons why feminists are against "fake cases".

Every time a woman misuses S/498A, it makes it harder for a genuine victim to seek justice. Anyone who has approached the police to register a case under S/498A knows how the police uses one "fake case" they might have handled a few months back to discredit the testimony of all subsequent victims. The victim seeking to file a case against her husband or his family is subject to a barrage of questions, and the police often delays filing the FIR for several weeks, thereby exposing the victim to prospective violence in her marital home. No feminist wants that, so we will provide as much support as we can to ensure that fake cases are weeded out.

Also, whenever there is a case of spousal violence where the aggressor is a woman, it is used as a whip to lash at all feminists. Thousands of women could be subject to domestic violence everyday, but if one woman hits her husband it makes news, and all feminists are expected to take responsibility for it. We, therefore, want to do all we can to keep down the number of fake cases, so we do not have to expend energy explaining that though we are called “feminists”, we are not responsible for the actions of women who are oppressors themselves.

It is to be noted that feminists are often the first to speak up for vulnerable men- male victims of CSA, homosexuals, physically challenged. We will, similarly, speak up for men who are victims of misuse of S/498A, since we side with the victim against injustice.

I wish the Men’s Rights Activists take some time to understand what feminism means, and instead of targeting feminists all the time, try to get us as allies in their quest for justice.

Should the legal age of marriage be raised?

 [On the face of it, Yes. But there are nuances that need to be considered.]

The Union Cabinet has cleared a proposal to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, and will be introducing a Bill seeking the Amendment soon. On the face of it, it seems like a great move, but if you look at the ground reality, is it really such a good idea to raise the age of marriage for women from 18 to 21?

As per current statistics, upto 30% of women in India were married before the age of 18*, despite the fact that the legal age for marriage was set at 18 years in 1978. This conclusively proves that the law alone is not a deterrent against child marriage.

Many of us believe that child marriage is due to lack of awareness about the minimum legal age of marriage. However, the causes are actually much deeper. It is for convivence, out of concern for the safety of the child, or because of societal pressures.

In families/ communities where women are not encouraged to go out to work, there is little to be gained by educating a girl beyond a certain level. Such girls are married off as soon as a suitable groom is found. Typically in these families the search for a groom begins after the girl attains puberty, and she is often married soon after completing her class 10 board exams.

In households where both parents engage in labour, even if the girl is sent to high school, she is forced to stay alone at home for a few hours every day after school. Parents perceive this as a risk, so unless there are safe after school activities, they get the girl married off as soon as possible. Typically, such marriages take place after the girl graduates from the local school, and needs to travel to another village for further studies.

In many communities, traditional livelihoods require a woman to assist her husband in a part of the livelihood process (to give a few examples- toddy tappers need wives to make jaggery, weavers are assisted by their women in the preparatory process, sugarcane harvesting requires a couple to work in tandem). In such communities, girls are necessarily married off early since their economic value is unlocked only after marriage (in some communities which rely on entertainment as a source of income, even girls as young as 14 are married off).

Once a girl attains puberty, her “safety” becomes of prime concern to the family. If the family suspects she may be in a relationship, or that someone “unsuitable” is interested in her, she is typically married off to the first man the family can find. The legal age of marriage then works against her, because she needs to wait to attain that age for fear her parents will have the marriage annulled otherwise, but the family has no such fear.

Though we often think that child marriage is a product of poverty, it is not. Even in “well to do” and “well placed” families if a suitable match is found, the girl is engaged to be married, and the wedding solemnised as soon as she turns 18. If the match is extremely “good”, and if the groom’s family is unwilling to wait, the wedding takes place even before the bride turns 18.

All these factors ensure that the rate of “child marriage” in India is between 27% (UNICEF) to 47% (ICRW), despite the fact that the legal age of marriage was set at 18 more than 2 generations ago.

What, then will happen if the legal age is raised to 21? It will not necessarily delay marriages. All that will happen is that the percentage of women being married before legal age will shoot up, making the woman far more vulnerable than she now is.

Assuming a family allows the girl to study upto Class XII, she will graduate high school at the age of 17/ 18. What after that? Most families do not want their girls to travel long distances either to work or to go to college, so unless there is a college that is perceived as “safe” in the neighbourhood, she will be kept at home for 3 years.

OR, she will be married off. Regardless of what the law says.

If the law refuses to recognise a union conducted before legal age, then the “child-bride” will not have any legal rights in her marital home. She will be far more vulnerable to emotional, physical and sexual abuse than she is now where the law is on her side. In case of pregnancies and unwanted pregnancies, she will be subject to unnecessary harassment, and this could even lead to unsafe abortions.

The law will also work against women who want to marry partners who are deemed “unsuitable” by their families. They will necessarily have to wait till she turns 21 for fear of the family using the law to pull them apart. But if the family suspects such a union, they will get her married before legal age since they do not have any such fear.

What then is the solution?

Education

Awareness

Empowerment

What is needed is to work at the community level to create awareness on why child marriage is not desirable both from the health perspective and from a social perspective.

What is needed is for the community to recognise that a woman is as capable as a man in creating economic value, she will no longer be seen as a burden which is to be set down at the earliest possible.

Once this happens, the age of marriage will go up organically.

I have personally witnessed this in two communities where we worked over a sustained period.

In one rural community, the average age of marriage for girls was 14, which coincided with the end of schooling in the local government school. Once the community realised the value of continuing the education, and began sending them to high school in the nearest town, the number of child marriages dwindled. After graduating from high school, many of the girls who would otherwise have been married at 14 enrolled in technical/ vocational courses, and the community was determined to not get them married till they were economically independent.

The experience in an urban slum community was equally dramatic. Girls were earliest married at the age of 15 or 16, but after a few years of intervention, the average age of marriage shot up to above 20. In that community it is common to see families where the first born girl(s) were child brides, but their younger siblings are in college, and where the mother proudly declare, “we will get our daughter married only when she wants it.”

History has shown that enacting a law alone has not been enough to deter child marriage. What is needed is sustained behaviour change communication at the community level to ensure that the community recognises the value of educating and empowering the girl child.

Lokmanya Tilak exemplifies this contradiction between the legal and the personal. At a time when girls were married before puberty and many died at childbirth when the marriage was consummated, he opposed raising the legal age of marriage to 14. It was his belief that the law should not “meddle” in the personal life of people, and that we should, instead, focus on changing behaviour. He followed up by ensured that his own daughters were not married before the age of 16.

One can challenge Tilak’s position on the grounds that a law was needed to save the lives of the child brides who’s bodies were ravaged by pregnancy and childbirth before they were ready for it. However, that is no longer the case today. While it is desirable for a woman to get married at 21 rather than at 18, the lower age of marriage is not a health risk. Hence, it is better to lead the change from the social perspective.

Before talking of raising the legal age of marriage for girls, let us first ensure that the existing law is implemented.

* this is an approximation. Studies from reputed agencies show the figure as anything between 27% to 47%.

Dear Men

[An Open Letter to Men who don’t like it when women call out men]

Dear Men,

I am tired. Tired, not of what we are subject to everyday, but tired of listening to you calling us “toxic feminists” who keep “cribbing about men”. I am tired of listening to your unsolicited advice about how we should “take care and be responsible” for our own safety. Tired of how our very presence as a “feminist” triggers you.

So let me tell you what it is like to be a woman.

Do you know we never step out of home without something with which to defend ourselves in case we are attacked? It could be pepper spray, a Swizz Army knife, or a key held as a knuckle duster; we are always prepared.

If someone taps on your shoulder, we’ve seen you turn around to with a smile to greet a friend. Never do that to a woman- her nerves are so taut in public spaces, she may just swing around and punch you.

While using public transport, a woman is constantly on guard. If a man is making her feel uncomfortable, she often strikes up a conversation with a random woman so it appears neither is alone and vulnerable. She is also constantly looking out for other women- for that slight change in body language that tells her that the other person is uncomfortable with the attention she is receiving from a man.

Before getting into a cab at night, a woman almost always makes a call to a friend and passes on the license number. Sometimes she even conducts a one-sided conversation so the cab driver doesn’t try any fancy tricks with her.

You might have seen those “independent women” enjoying a night out together. The last thing they tell each other before leaving is not “tonight was fun, we should get together again”, but “message me after you reach home”. None of them relaxes till all the others confirm they reached home safely.

Before using an empty public washroom, a woman checks that the outer door cannot be locked from inside (in case a man traps her in alone with him), that there are no open windows (from which someone can come in) and that the cubicle door bolts securely. If she doesn’t feel safe, she doesn’t use the washroom- she holds it she finds another one.

When she is traveling alone (whether on work or pleasure), a woman checks out reviews from other single women travellers before making hotel reservations. However wonderful the hotel, she doesn’t make bookings unless it is certified “safe” by others of her gender.

Do you know how many otherwise independent women have NEVER dined alone at a restaurant because of how uncomfortable it gets. You know many restaurants have a separate “family room”, ever wondered why?

Do you know women sometimes book two tickets at the theatre only to ensure that someone obnoxious doesn’t sit in the next seat. Do you know how often a woman in the middle seat on the plane has men leaning into her from both sides?

Have you ever wondered why women who are jogging in a slightly deserted park only have their headphones on in one ear?

Do you know almost every woman pushes the desk against the door when she is staying alone in a hotel?

Do you know there isn’t a single woman who doesn’t have an SOS number on speed dial on her phone?

Do you know we have escape plans in place whenever we are alone in an unknown place?

These are just some of the things you do not know, dear Men.

But now that you do know, instead of accusing us of cribbing, do you think you could do something to make things a teeny bit safer for us?

Warm regards,

An Extremely Tired Women

Should the legal age of marriage be raised to 21?

 [On the face of it, Yes. But there are nuances that need to be considered. Published in Women's Web]

The Union Cabinet has cleared a proposal to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, and will be introducing a Bill seeking the Amendment soon. On the face of it, it seems like a great move, but if you look at the ground reality, is it really such a good idea to raise the age of marriage for women from 18 to 21?

As per current statistics, upto 30% of women in India were married before the age of 18*, despite the fact that the legal age for marriage was set at 18 years in 1978. This conclusively proves that the law alone is not a deterrent against child marriage.

Many of us believe that child marriage is due to lack of awareness about the minimum legal age of marriage. However, the causes are actually much deeper. It is for convivence, out of concern for the safety of the child, or because of societal pressures.

In families/ communities where women are not encouraged to go out to work, there is little to be gained by educating a girl beyond a certain level. Such girls are married off as soon as a suitable groom is found. Typically in these families the search for a groom begins after the girl attains puberty, and she is often married soon after completing her class 10 board exams.

In households where both parents engage in labour, even if the girl is sent to high school, she is forced to stay alone at home for a few hours every day after school. Parents perceive this as a risk, so unless there are safe after school activities, they get the girl married off as soon as possible. Typically, such marriages take place after the girl graduates from the local school, and needs to travel to another village for further studies.

In many communities, traditional livelihoods require a woman to assist her husband in a part of the livelihood process (to give a few examples- toddy tappers need wives to make jaggery, weavers are assisted by their women in the preparatory process, sugarcane harvesting requires a couple to work in tandem). In such communities, girls are necessarily married off early since their economic value is unlocked only after marriage (in some communities which rely on entertainment as a source of income, even girls as young as 14 are married off).

Once a girl attains puberty, her “safety” becomes of prime concern to the family. If the family suspects she may be in a relationship, or that someone “unsuitable” is interested in her, she is typically married off to the first man the family can find. The legal age of marriage then works against her, because she needs to wait to attain that age for fear her parents will have the marriage annulled otherwise, but the family has no such fear.

Though we often think that child marriage is a product of poverty, it is not. Even in “well to do” and “well placed” families if a suitable match is found, the girl is engaged to be married, and the wedding solemnised as soon as she turns 18. If the match is extremely “good”, and if the groom’s family is unwilling to wait, the wedding takes place even before the bride turns 18.

All these factors ensure that the rate of “child marriage” in India is between 27% (UNICEF) to 47% (ICRW), despite the fact that the legal age of marriage was set at 18 more than 2 generations ago.

What, then will happen if the legal age is raised to 21? It will not necessarily delay marriages. All that will happen is that the percentage of women being married before legal age will shoot up, making the woman far more vulnerable than she now is.

Assuming a family allows the girl to study upto Class XII, she will graduate high school at the age of 17/ 18. What after that? Most families do not want their girls to travel long distances either to work or to go to college, so unless there is a college that is perceived as “safe” in the neighbourhood, she will be kept at home for 3 years.

OR, she will be married off. Regardless of what the law says.

If the law refuses to recognise a union conducted before legal age, then the “child-bride” will not have any legal rights in her marital home. She will be far more vulnerable to emotional, physical and sexual abuse than she is now where the law is on her side. In case of pregnancies and unwanted pregnancies, she will be subject to unnecessary harassment, and this could even lead to unsafe abortions.

The law will also work against women who want to marry partners who are deemed “unsuitable” by their families. They will necessarily have to wait till she turns 21 for fear of the family using the law to pull them apart. But if the family suspects such a union, they will get her married before legal age since they do not have any such fear.

What then is the solution?

Education

Awareness

Empowerment

What is needed is to work at the community level to create awareness on why child marriage is not desirable both from the health perspective and from a social perspective.

What is needed is for the community to recognise that a woman is as capable as a man in creating economic value, she will no longer be seen as a burden which is to be set down at the earliest possible.

Once this happens, the age of marriage will go up organically.

I have personally witnessed this in two communities where we worked over a sustained period.

In one rural community, the average age of marriage for girls was 14, which coincided with the end of schooling in the local government school. Once the community realised the value of continuing the education, and began sending them to high school in the nearest town, the number of child marriages dwindled. After graduating from high school, many of the girls who would otherwise have been married at 14 enrolled in technical/ vocational courses, and the community was determined to not get them married till they were economically independent.

The experience in an urban slum community was equally dramatic. Girls were earliest married at the age of 15 or 16, but after a few years of intervention, the average age of marriage shot up to above 20. In that community it is common to see families where the first born girl(s) were child brides, but their younger siblings are in college, and where the mother proudly declare, “we will get our daughter married only when she wants it.”

History has shown that enacting a law alone has not been enough to deter child marriage. What is needed is sustained behaviour change communication at the community level to ensure that the community recognises the value of educating and empowering the girl child.

Lokmanya Tilak exemplifies this contradiction between the legal and the personal. At a time when girls were married before puberty and many died at childbirth when the marriage was consummated, he opposed raising the legal age of marriage to 14. It was his belief that the law should not “meddle” in the personal life of people, and that we should, instead, focus on changing behaviour. He followed up by ensured that his own daughters were not married before the age of 16.

One can challenge Tilak’s position on the grounds that a law was needed to save the lives of the child brides who’s bodies were ravaged by pregnancy and childbirth before they were ready for it. However, that is no longer the case today. While it is desirable for a woman to get married at 21 rather than at 18, the lower age of marriage is not a health risk. Hence, it is better to lead the change from the social perspective.

Before talking of raising the legal age of marriage for girls, let us first ensure that the existing law is implemented.

* this is an approximation. Studies from reputed agencies show the figure as anything between 27% to 47%.

Bhagyalakshmi, a Tale

 Her fingers gently trace the curls on her daughter’s head while she suckles noisily. Whatever the tempest raging in her mind, an unerring calm always descends over her when her daughter is latched onto her breast. Her Bhagyalakshmi. Her baby. Her innocent, defenseless baby. Did she even suspect her entire universe was about to collapse around her?

As long as Bhagya’s father was alive, there was hope. He would recover and come home from hospital. She would nurse him back to health. They would move back to the city. She would take up cooking jobs to support themselves. She could even do some embroidery work on the side to earn extra money to send home to the family. They would be happy together. Someday, Bhagya would get a younger brother. They would have his namkaran in the village.

But it hadn’t happened that way. Bhagya’s father didn’t recover. He was in hospital for a month. He was fighting. He seemed to be getting better. They said he would be released in a few days. Then he suddenly got worse. And today, he died. He was gone. Her anchor was gone. She was a widow with a baby girl. She had nowhere to go.

His family blamed her. Blamed her for seducing their son. Blamed her for bringing bad luck on the family. Blamed her for bringing the disease into the family. Blamed her for falling sick. Blamed her for infecting the entire family. Blamed her when people began to die; Sasurji, Devar, Sasuma, Jethani. She blamed herself too. But she hoped they would forgive her.

Now he was gone. What would happen to her?

Her baby opens her eyes and looks at her. She kisses her on the forehead and gently shifts her to the other breast. She latches on and started suckling. Her baby is constantly hungry. Her milk is no longer enough for her. Soon she would be ready for solids. How would she manage? Would things have been better if they had remained in the city. If they hadn’t come back when the cases started rising?

The memories of last year were still fresh. They were living together when Lockdown was announced. He had no money; he used to send all his savings home. They survived on her savings and the goodness of strangers. When lockdown was extended, he wanted to walk back home. But they knew his family would not accept her. He could not leave her behind, so they stayed. They begged their employers for money. Only one Madam obliged. On many days, they went to bed hungry. They didn’t think they would survive, but somehow they did.

They were ready to give up and go back to his village when one house she worked in called her back. She begged them to pay her in advance. They agreed. Gradually, she got a few more jobs. Her husband was not so lucky. He was a driver, but the family he worked for didn’t want him back. He couldn’t find another job. He drove an auto for two hours every day when the owner took a break. Sometimes, he was hired as a driver for half a day. Once, he drove a family to the mountains for a holiday. They had chicken when he returned.

Last year, it had been just the two of them, so they managed somehow. Now, with Bhagya, they knew they could not survive another Lockdown. Already, her husband’s earnings had started to come down. The old lady she had engaged to mind Bhagya while she went to work came down with COVID. Their neighbours were falling sick. They had no choice; they had to return to his village.

She looks down at her sleeping baby. Feels her soft palm pressed against her breast. Her tiny chest rises and falls with every breath. She gently caresses her baby’s fair cheeks; traces the curve of her long eyelashes. Her daughter is prefect in every way but one; she was not a boy.

He hadn’t been able to contain his joy when she told him she was pregnant. “When the child is born, my family will accept you”, he told her. They got married in the temple the very next day. She could not afford a new saree, but she felt like a bride when he draped the red chunni on her. “You look like a Rajput princess”, he told her when she gazed shyly at him from under the chunni. Who knew? Maybe she was a Princess; all they had told her was that she had been abandoned outside a temple. Orphans like her do not have a history.

If he was disappointed not to have a son, he didn’t show it. “She is Bhagyalakshmi. She will bring us luck”, he declared. He got the Punditji to cast her horoscope and sent it home to his family. They hadn’t even acknowledged it, but he continued to send them money every month.

“If I were not an orphan, your family would have accepted me”, I told him often. “They will when they get to know you”, he would assure her. But they hadn’t. And now they never would. She was on her own, with Bhagyalakshmi.

A wave of grief lashed over her. The anguish of losing her husband- the handsome man who had won her heart; the tender lover who encouraged her to move in with him, the kind hearted partner who refused to abandon her, the brave warrior who fought so hard to stay alive. She pushed it aside and surfaced. Now was not the time to wallow in self-pity. She had to think of staying alive and keeping Bhagya alive.

She couldn’t stay here any longer. She would have to return to the city. She was efficient, she was clean, she was honest. People would employ her. But what about Bhagya? Who would look after Bhagya while she was at work? How would a single woman with a child survive on her own in the city? How would she keep Bhagya safe when she grew up?

No, she wouldn’t be able to take Bhagya with her. She would need to secure her future before she left.

She holds her baby close. Then wraps her in her red wedding chunni. She kisses her on the eyes and lays her reverentially in the wooden chest. She places a Mata ki Tasweer and prays to her to watch over her baby. She takes one last look at her beautiful baby, slides the horoscope under her head and closes the lid of the chest.

With the moon as her witness, she will float the chest down the Ganga. When they finally find Bhagyalakshmi, they would know that she is the daughter of a Kshatriya family; she will not be a nameless orphan like her mother.

The next day, when the family wakes up, they will find that she is gone.

______

The next day:

A free pass to harass

 When I was a kid, Holi was fun. We would run around the colony with our pichkaris, ambushing people and squirting coloured water on them. The colours were mostly gulal, which washed off easily.

When we were slightly older, we graduated to chemical colours, which were slightly harder to scrub off. But the fun of emptying buckets of water (or having it emptied on you) made up for the inconvenience.

And then, we entered adolescence.

One of us matured faster than the rest and became object of everyone's passion. To curry favour with his friends, one from our gang invited them over to play Holi in our apartment block.

That year, Holi changed for me.

It was the first time I had someone pull my shirt and shove colour into it. It was the first time someone held me tight by the waist while languidly smearing colour on my arms. It was the first time I was forced to put colour on someone I didn't know.

For the first time, angry tears mixed with soap while I scrubbed off the top layer of epidermis. I felt dirty long after I the last molecule of colour was washed off.

I didn't know it then, but it was the last time I would play Holi.

The next year, I gave the annual exams as an excuse for not playing Holi. It reinforced my reputation as a nerd, but I couldn't care. I did not want to put myself through that experience ever again.

At some stage, the excuse changed from "I have my exams" to "I have sensitive skin". But I could neither bring myself to play Holi, nor to talk about the experience.

Like every other victim of sexual harassment, I made excuses. Maybe I was over reacting. Maybe I misunderstood the signals and unwittingly led them on. Maybe…..

But it is not the victim's fault. Though she blames herself.

Despite having extremely supportive parents, I could never bring myself to report it either. Had he heard, my father would have let those boys have it. My mother would have ensured their mothers punished them.

I would certainly have been believed. Yet, I didn't speak out.

I just stopped playing Holi.

I hid away when people came to call me.

I made excuses to not play.

I never stepped out of home during those days.

I stayed away from public spaces.

And I am not the only one who does so.

Holi does give an opportunity for men to harass women. They hide behind the veil of "social sanction" and "culture", and unleash their sexual frustration on unwilling women.

This is certainly not what the festival was supposed to be. But sadly, that is what it has become.

That which we speak not of

[An occasional series profiling women I know who have risen over challenges to become the inspiring women that they now are. Each of them has lessons for us]

She is a professionally qualified, financially independent woman who got trapped in a physically and mentally abusive relationship. The abuse got worse after she had a child, and she even left the home for a few months and then returned. But when she could take the abuse no longer, she walked out with her 13 month old daughter, and to keep herself and her daughter safe, disappeared from public view.

Even 20 years back, it was not easy to ‘disappear’. She had no social media profile, and didn’t attend functions where there was even the faintest likelihood that mutual friends may be present. She kept a very low profile professionally, even though it had an adverse impact on her career. For seven years, she managed to stay under the radar. Then, after her mother passed away, someone called her pretending to be from her mother’s bank, got her address and outed her. The long distance abuse began again.

Their mutual friends chose not to believe her stories of abuse, because to do so would mean they would have to stake a stand against him. What they did not realize was that by choosing to look away, they were enabling the abuser, which indirectly made them guilty too.

Even worse, she was ostracized by mutual friends, because her presence reminded them that they had chosen silence. For them, it was a choice between what was easy and what was right, and they chose what is easy.

Today, the toddler with whom she fled is a young woman who is ready to take on life in her own terms. She has carved out her own niche professionally. After decades of playing the part of the dignified man in public, her abuser has unraveled in public a few times and people are now seeing through the suave mask he has on. We can say that the story has a positive end.

Why then am I talking about the story today?

I am talking about it, because this forces us to confront our stereotypes. We are quick to typeset victims of domestic abuse as meek women who are emotionally and financially dependent on their partners. But even strong and independent women could be victims, and even for them it is not always easy to walk out of an abusive relationship.

I am talking about it, because when we hear of cases like this, out natural tendency is to look away. We do not want to get involved in matters like this. What we do not realize is that our silence empowers the perpetrator. Knowing he will not be called out, he continues his abusive behavior, and the victim is left without support. It is necessary for each of us to take a stand against domestic violence. Till each of us supporting the victim in public and calling out the perpetrator, this is not going to go away.

And hence we celebrate...

Priya Ramani is someone most women professionals of a certain age can identify with.

What happened with her when a senior journalist took her into his hotel room to conduct an interview was the kind of thing that happened to many of us. It was something that made her deeply uncomfortable, yet she stayed silent because thought she was uncomfortable, he didn’t “do anything”.

Most of us have had similar encounters in our career.

Not an overt demand for sexual favours in return for professional growth (or to avoid potential professional death), but situations where the intent is made quite clear. We were uncomfortable, but we chose silence. And we did so for many reasons.

We chose silence because they system is so clearly stacked against women, that even other well meaning women would have rushed in to assure us that we were imagining things if we spoke about how we were made to feel. We would have been assured that we should move on since nothing really happened.

We genuinely believed that harassment took only certain very well defined forms. That unless there was deliberate touch in inappropriate places or unless a clear cut proposition had been made, it was not harassment. It took multiple POSH trainings before most of us accepted that the perception of the victim was as valid as the intent of the perpetrator. That if something made us uncomfortable, we had the right to speak up against it.

We chose silence because of the people we were up against. The men who made us feel uncomfortable were powerful people who could destroy careers. They were also part of a cabal that would brand you as attention seeking- “he can have anyone, why would he waste his energy on you?” They were men who knew that their network would stand by them, and help them destroy any woman who complained.

We chose silence because we subconsciously knew that if we spoke up, we would be put on trial not the perpetrator. And we were right in that perception. When Priya Ramani spoke up against her perpetrator, MJ Akbar responded by filing a defamation suit against her- he knew (as we did) that he would get away.

So, when MJ Akbar with his 97 lawyers accused Priya Ramani of defamation, we felt for her because we have remained silent because of the same fear. For us, it was not just Priya Ramani who was on trial, all our hopes and fears were too.

And hence, Priya Ramani’s victory feels like a vindication for all of us. It assures us that even if the perpetrator is not punished, he will not get away with attempting to turn the tables on you. It sends a strong message across that intimidation no longer works.

Yes, it is pathetic that we should be happy for winning a case that should never have been filed in the first place. But even this case, we were not sure of winning.

And hence, we celebrate. We all celebrate. It is a moment of validation for us.

I too will be Free

 

How I long to run
into wind, dewy grass
tickling my soles. My kite

trailing behind me. Unsure
of its place. Flailing
but not giving up.

I don’t care much about
the kite. I want to feel the wind
in my hair. The hill

I must climb. The view
from the summit. My town
lying still at my feet. I run

My kite runs with me. Red
like my menstrual blood.
Powerful. It finds a current

and climbs up. Steadily.
Strongly. Purposefully.
It tugs hard.

It rises high. I struggle
to keep up. One day
I too will be Free