How Close are we to a Gender Just Workplace?

 A couple of years back, when I reached office after attending an International Women’s Day event, my team surprised me with a huge bouquet of baby pink roses and a beautiful handmade card inscribed with thoughtful messages. I was thrilled- who wouldn’t be to receive such a token of affection from their team. But after the mandatory photographs were taken, and I sat back with my coffee, the subtle scent of the roses almost seemed to mock me.

Yes, I was leading an entire region. But was the fact that I was the only woman in the regional office really a matter of pride? At the entry level, nearly a third of the staff was female; why then were we so poorly represented at the managerial level?

I thought of the lady who had put in her papers two weeks earlier when her mother fell ill. Her brother couldn’t look after her, so she had to take a break to be a full time caregiver. Neither she nor I knew when she would be back in the formal workforce, and how long she would remain there before another family emergency demanded a sacrifice.

I though of the young lady who had dazzled me during the interview process. I really wanted to recruit her, but she had backed out when informed that she would need to travel for a week at a time once every quarter; she had young children and while she was willing to work long hours and on weekends, she couldn’t travel for more than a day or two at a time.

I thought of the young lady who would hop onto her two-wheeler and zip down district highways to monitor the rural programmes. Her parents worried about her safety and forced her to leave the job she loved and take up one in retail marketing instead.

I had tried really hard to bring more women into the management team, and the sweet smell of roses constantly reminded me of my failure.

But was the lack of gender diversity at my office my failing, or was it symptomatic of a larger problem? The latter, according to all the studies on employment in India. According to the NSS (National Sample Survey), for instance, as of January 2018, 77% of the Indian workforce is male. This figure includes not just formal and full-time employment, but also casual labourers, part time workers, self employed and even those helping in family enterprises with or without a formal contract.

The reason for this gap is simple. In India, housework, child care and elderly care is seen as the sole responsibility of the women, and Indian women put in as much as 3.29 billion hours of unpaid labour everyday. These activities are both unpaid and unrecognised, and after discharging these responsibilities, women simply do not have the time to seek paid employment elsewhere.* While young women certainly have aspirations of working and being financially independent, most women drop out of the formal workforce after they get married either because of societal expectations or because they are just not able to manage to balance full time work with housework and caregiving.

As in the case of my former colleague, elder care is automatically assumed to be the responsibility of the women, and women are forced to sacrifice their careers if either a parent or a parent-in-law falls ill.

Parenthood is the next barrier that working women have to cross. While many women continue to work well into the third trimester of the first pregnancy, in the absence of adequate childcare felicities at the workplace, and given the fact that child-rearing is still considered the prime responsibility of the mother, very few are able to get back to full-time paid employment. Since few workplaces allow flexible working hours, work from home options or part time employment, most women end up taking a career break after they give birth, and this break often ends up being a permanent one.

Women who do re-enter the workplace after childbirth are often forced to compromise on their career progression since they are unable to work long hours and travel extensively. The additional responsibility of child rearing also limits the choices available to women, particularly mothers of younger children.

Workplace safety is another factor that affects women’s participation in the workplace. Women are discouraged from entering many fields, or taking up certain roles that are deemed unsuitable for them. Engineering is one such field. Though almost a third of engineering graduates in India are women, very few take up engineering jobs and many of them drop out because working conditions are not conducive to women. Women are also discouraged from taking up jobs that involve travel, and this pushback comes both from their families and from prospective employers.

Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) is a measure of the number of people who are employed and actively seeking employment. In 2018-19, in urban India, LFPR for men was 73.8%, and for women 21.1%. This implies that four out of every five women are not only not engaged in paid employment, they are not even actively seeking employment.

The situation in my office was not an aberration; it was clearly a reflection of prevailing norms. It is a very small percentage of women who join the formal workplace, and a smaller percentage who continue in the workplace.

One way to increase the gender diversity is for organizations to adopt policies that encourage women to remain in the workplace. This involves setting up childcare facilities in the office premises, offering flexitime, part time and work from home opportunities, and encouraging all employees (not just the women) to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Other measures like period leave, sick leave for illnesses of children will also make it easier to retain women in the workplace.

However, ultimately, it is societal expectations that need to change. Families need to realise that housework, caregiving and childrearing are not gendered roles, and that both partners should participate equally in both. It is only when men start taking on greater responsibility at home that the workforce participation of women will increase and they will be able to achieve their full potential.

In an ideal world, the roses I received on International Women’s Day should be distributed between all the employees, male and female, to celebrate a gender just workplace.

* According to reports, regardless of their professional qualifications and/ or experience, seven out of ten women in India aged between 25 to 35 are engaged solely in full-time unpaid housework, and 66% of an Indian woman’s labour is unpaid.

First published in Women's Web

Is Bismah Maroof Bringing Her Baby To The World Cup Really A Statement Of Gender Empowerment?

 [While praising Bismah Maroof for bringing her baby on tour, gender stereotypes are actually being reinforced. It's assumed that as the mother she is the primary parent, something we never assume for male sportspersons. First published in Women's Web]

Photographs of the Pakistani cricket captain Bismah Maroof arriving in New Zealand for the ICC Women’s World Cup with her six month old baby in her arms went viral on social media. People went crazy hailing it as a “powerful picture”, the “best picture of the day” and “powerful statement”. Some even expressed the desire that it be “normalised in sports”.

While one, without reservation, admires Bismah Maroof’s achievement of getting back to competitive sport so soon after pregnancy and childbirth, is the fact that the cricketer had to take her baby on tour with her really the statement of gender empowerment that it is made out to be?

While praising Bismah Maroof for bringing her baby on tour, gender stereotypes are actually being reinforced. It is being implicitly assumed that mother is the primary parent for a child, and that once she gives birth, anything else that a woman might want to do can only be taken up after fulfilling her role as a mother. This has always been the case at least in the subcontinent, and what she has done is merely in keeping with the old patriarchal traditions.

Playing international cricket, especially as captain is a full-time job. You have to practice for long hours, lead strategy sessions, play matches, give post-match press conferences and provide moral support to the rest of the team. To do all that, and also be a caregiver for a child is to demand too much from anyone. And that is exactly what Bismah Maroof will be forced to do.

In an ideal relationship, parenting will be gender agnostic. It would be a responsibility shared equally by both parents, and at any point, the one who is better placed to be the primary caregiver will take on that responsibility. In such a relationship, either the child would have been left home with the father, or if she is still breastfeeding, the father would accompany the baby, and be accountable for its well being. Here, however, the father is conspicuous by his absence, and it is Bismah Maroof and her mother who are taking on the entire responsibility of caring for the baby in an unknown location.

This is patently unfair on her. It is not the duty of the mother to take sole responsibility for parenting. While biology dictates that pregnancy and childbearing is the sole prerogative of women, child rearing is merely a role thrust on women by society. By expecting the women to be the primary caregiver, the father is effectively being let off the hook, which he should not be. It is his child also.

While praising Bismah Maroof, people are hailing her as someone who “has it all”- a woman who is leading her national cricket team, without compromising on her responsibilities as a mother. But does she really “have it all”? By praising her for being a hands on mother, she has effectively been guilt tripped into taking on much more than her fair share of the burden.

Let us try to gender reversal. Imagine MS Dhoni taking his daughter to a world cup tournament, without the mother of the child accompanying them. Imagine him gently rocking the child to sleep while explaining batting strategies to the team. Imagine him fielding, with half his mind on the child and whether she can wait a little longer to have her meal. Imagine him spending the lunch and tea break coaxing the child to eat something. Imagine him not partying or socialising with his teammates because he needs to give his child a bath, read a bedtime story and put her to bed. Imagine him waking up a couple of times at night because the child was restless, and yet waking up early in the morning to go to the nets for practice.

We struggle to imagine any of this. We know that even if his family accompanies him on tour, it is the mother who looks after the child while the father plays cricket, and all he does is occasionally play with the child and maybe carry her with him while going out for the toss.

Why then do we presume that there is nothing wrong in the mother being the primary caregiver for her child? When no male sportsperson at the international level has ever taken a child with him to a tournament without the presence of the mother, why do we take it for granted that a mother who wants to continue to play cricket will take the child along on tours?

Much has been made of the fact that she has often and publicly thanked her husband and his family for “supporting her ambition” to play cricket for the nation. But what is the nature of “support” that she has really got when neither her husband nor anyone from his family thought it fit to accompany her on tour to look after the child?

This can only be understood as a phenomenon unique to the subcontinent where a woman is conditioned into thinking that the sole responsibility of caregiving vests with her, and she is not supposed to work outside the home. If her husband and his family “allow” her to work outside the home without doing anything to reduce her workload at home, she should remain eternally grateful for the concession. Women in that position do everything it takes to ensure that there is no room for any complaints on the caregiving and housekeeping front, since that is the price that is to be paid for being allowed to work.

Yes, Bismah Maroof is lucky that she was granted maternity leave, and the Board allowed her to bring her mother and daughter along to the tournament.

But that throws up a different question- what if her employer was not supportive? Would her husband and his family have taken on the full burden of caregiving so she could leave the child at home and go on tour?

Most unlikely. In all probability, she would have either delayed having the child, or given up her job. Is this even something a man would consider? Becoming a parent doesn’t disrupt their lives as it does the lives of the women.

While we can, and must, hail Bismah Maroof for bringing her six month old baby on tour, we must also recognise the fact that this incident shines light on the fact that we in the subcontinent have a very long way to go before we achieve gender parity within the family. Child rearing is gender agnostic. Fathers should take on an equal share of parenting.

Social change comes, even if slowly

 When I was expecting my first child, my parents decided they wanted to do a Valaikaapu ceremony to protect me from the evil eye and to ensure the birth of a healthy child. Though I do not believe in rituals, I agreed to let them go ahead with it, because I knew it meant a lot to them, and who doesn’t want to do all they can to ensure a safe pregnancy and a healthy delivery? The only thing I was worried about was with the glass bangles breaking, but after someone assured me that broken bangles don’t bring bad luck, I even started looking forward to it.

The night before, I casually told my mother that I would like our neighbour to be the first to put the bangles on my wrist. I was totally unprepared for the outburst- she was a widow; while she could be on the fringes, she couldn’t participate in the ceremony.

I made it clear that it was not acceptable to me- since the ceremony was to prepare the way for an uneventful childbirth, who better to bless me than a lady who had given birth to three children, and had six grandchildren?

My mother tried hard to dissuade me, but I refused to relent. Our neighbour was then called in, and she appeared even more shocked at the prospect of participating in my Valaikaapu then my mother had been.

I stood firm. If she was not going to put bangles on my wrist and bless the child, I would not go through with the ceremony. She tried telling me that her participation is inauspicious, but I informed her since she had my good at heart, there was no way she could be anything except a blessing. After a lot of arguments, when they realised that I was not going to budge, our neighbour finally relented.

On the day of the Valaikaapu, she wasn’t the first to put the bangles on my wrist- that honour went to an older lady who had not just grandchildren but also a great grandchild- but she did slip a pair of bangles on my wrist and bless me. A couple of months later, when my baby was born, she was one of the first to know, and she celebrated the hardest.

I had not set out to bring about social change- all I wanted was that someone very dear to me be a part of a day celebrating me. But that brief rebellion clearly got people thinking. During Navratri that year, a few people invited the women who had lost their husbands to view the golu and participate in the celebrations. Though they were not given manjal kungumam, they got to wear their silk sarees and sit and chit-chat with the other women.

Over time, in the apartment complex where my mother lived, the participation of widows in social and religious ceremonies got normalised. Nobody battered an eyelid when the groom’s mother draped a bright silk saree and did the aarti to welcome the new bride into her marital home. It was no longer perceived as an act of rebellion when a mother put marutāṇi on her palms and gave her daughter away.

For centuries, women have been conditioned to withdrawing from social life after losing their husband. That attitude has now changed, at least in that small apartment complex, and women continue leading the same life as they did before their official status change from ‘wife’ to ‘widow’.

No, I did not set out to change society, or even a part of it. All I wanted was that someone I cared about be a part of what was an important day for me.

No, she was just not happy when I forced her to participate in the ceremony. Had something gone wrong, I know she would have blamed herself, though in reality it was I that her taken away her choice.

But what did happen was that the traditional way of doing things was questioned, and people gradually decided they wanted to do away with it. That is really the only way to bring about social change- not by forcing big changes, but by gradually chipping away till one day when you realise that without you being aware of it, change has come about.

Book Review: Children of the Hidden Land

 When you think YA, you think of a quick read. The best among them are perceptive, extremely well written, and draw attention to important issues. They linger long after you finish the book, but can normally be read in a couple of sittings. I started reading Mandira Shah's "Children of the Hidden Land" expecting to finish it fast, but after a single chapter, I realised it was a book that needed to be savoured.

In the first few pages, you meet Henthoiba, a tech whizz, who has built a drone that resembles an eagle to be used in wildlife conservation. While doing a test flight, he stumbles upon something so unexpected, he rushes to investigate… and disappears.

The story begins with his best friend April going through the contents of his bag hoping to find a clue that will lead her to him. April, who is from Manipur meets and befriends Shalini, the daughter of an army officer. Despite the ideological difference between the communities they come from, they form an strong partnership and complement the skills of each other as they gradually unravel the clues and make intuitive guesses in their investigation.

The book moves at a fast pace, with the two girls getting out of one situation only to fall into another. You are amazed at the tech skills of the teenagers, and how well they are able to leverage the internet to get what it takes to move ahead.

The book is set in Manipur, a state I know almost nothing about. By the end of the book, I learn a lot about the insurgency, of how the state falls in the route for smuggling drugs, of children kidnapped and trafficked, of how children forced to join the insurgents and the perception of the Indian Army among the locals. You realise how little of the situation in North-East is covered by mainstream media, and you are determined to read more about the place.

Perhaps what I loved about the book was the strong characterisation of the two girls. They come from very different backgrounds, have different attributes and skills, but they are essentially very similar people. Without saying so in as many words, the author draws attention to the intrinsic inequity of life- some people have to struggle to attain even a fraction of what others take as their due.

“Children of the Hidden Land” is a stunning debut, and I look forward to reading more from the author.

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.