2002 के गुजरात दंगों के दौरान गैंगरेप सर्वाइवर बिलकिस बानो को सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने 50 लाख रुपये मुआवज़ा, सरकारी नौकरी और घर दिए जाने का आदेश दिया है। यह फैसला एक मिसाल बन सकता है लेकिन छोड़ जाता है कई सवाल। जब भी बलात्कार शब्द सुनते हैं, तो इतना गुस्सा आता है और मन में आता है कि बलात्कारियों को गोली मार दे लेकिन मार देने और फांसी देने से कई और बातों पर अच्छे से सोचने की ज़रूरत है।
फोटो सोर्स- Getty
क्यों जब 3 मार्च 2002 को दंगाइयों ने बिलकिस बानो के साथ सामूहिक बलात्कार किया तो समाज के लोगों का गुस्सा नहीं फूटा? जवाब नहीं मिलेगा क्योंकि धर्म के नाम पर यह सब काम किए गए। जब दंगे हुए तो भीड़ ने घुसकर बिलकिस के परिवार के लोगों की हत्या कर दी। उनकी 3 साल की बच्ची तक को नहीं छोड़ा और वह चिल्लाती रही कि वह गर्भवती है लेकिन दंगाइयों के सर पर धर्म की पट्टी इस कदर बंधी थी कि लाख खोलने की कोशिश की जाए पर क्या करे उस दिन भी नहीं खुली और आज भी कोई उम्मीद दिखती नहीं है।
बिलकिस बानो की उम्र उस समय 19 साल की थी और भीड़ को लगा वह मर गई हैं लेकिन उन्हें तो संघर्ष की लड़ाई लड़नी थी वो कैसे मर जातीं? उस दिन मरा था वह समाज और उस समाज में रहने वाले उसके धर्म के ठेकेदार, जिन्होंने धर्म की किताब का सहारा लेकर यह तय कर रखा है कि औरतों को कैसे रहना चाहिए।
इन सबके बावजूद बिलकिस बानो ने लड़ाई की शुरुआत की और 4 मार्च 2002 को पंचमहल के लिमखेड़ा पुलिस स्टेशन में अपनी शिकायत दर्ज करायी। इस मामले की शुरुआती जांच अहमदाबाद में शुरू हुई। सीबीआई ने 19 अप्रैल 2004 को अपनी चार्जशीट दाखिल की। इस केस में सुनवाई आगे बढ़ी और 21 जनवरी 2008 को स्पेशल कोर्ट द्वारा 11 लोगों को हत्या और गैंगरेप का दोषी मानते हुए उम्रकैद की सज़ा सुनाई गई। इस मामले में पुलिस और डॉक्टर सहित सात लोगों को छोड़ दिया गया था।
हालांकि मामाल यहां खत्म नहीं हुआ, मई 2017 में बॉम्बे हाई कोर्ट द्वारा एक और फैसला आया, जिसमें बरी हुए सात लोगों को अपना दायित्व ना निभाने और सबूतों से छेड़छाड़ को लेकर दोषी ठहराया गया।
इसके साथ यह बात सामने आई कि एफआईआर में ही आरोपों के साथ छेडछाड़ की गई और मेडिकल रिपोर्ट में अहम ब्यौरे भी छोड़ दिए गए।
कोर्ट में क्रॉस एग्ज़ामिनेशन में उनसे घटिया सवाल किए गए-
उनसे पूछा गया कि सामूहिक बलात्कार के बावजूद उनका गर्भपात क्यों नहीं हुआ?
पड़ोसियों ने रेप क्यों किया?
औरतों से सबसे घटिया सवाल यह भी किया जाता है कि उन्होंने ही कही बलात्कारियों को उकसाया तो नहीं था।
खुलकर अपने नाम और चेहरे के साथ लड़ी लड़ाई
फोटो सोर्स- Getty
इसके अलावा उन्हें समाज के ताने भी सुनने पड़े और करीब 20 बार उन्होंने घर भी बदला। सीबीआई की जांच के अनुसार सामने आया कि गुजरात पुलिस ने तथ्यों के साथ छेड़छाड़ की। इन सबके बावजूद वह कभी शर्म से छुपकर कभी अंधेरे कमरे में नहीं बैठी। अकसर ऐसा होता है कि जिसके साथ रेप हुआ हो उसका चेहरा ढक दिया जाता और नाम भी सामने नहीं आता लेकिन बिलकिस बताती हैं कि वो और उनके पति पर्चे बंटवाते थे कि सभी को उनका नाम लेने की छूट है और चेहरा दिखाने की भी।
सड़क पर हाथ में कैंडल लेकर यह कहना आसान है कि बलात्कारियों को फांसी दो लेकिन वास्तव में अन्याय के लिए लड़ाई लड़ना मुश्किल है। कभी कोई कॉंग्रेसी नेता बलात्कारियों को फांसी देने की मांग करता है, तो कभी कोई भाजपा का नेता लेकिन सच्चाई यही है कि धर्म के जलते कोयले में औरतों को सौंप दिया जाता है और उस पर केवल सियासत का ढोंग रचा जाता है।
क्यों हर दंगों में औरतों के साथ बलात्कार जैसे जघन्य अपराध किए जाते हैं?
आज जब बिलकिस बानो के केस पर सुप्रीम कोर्ट का फैसला आया तो किसी ने नहीं कहा कि बलात्कारियों को फांसी हो जानी चाहिए थी या किसी ने उनके लिए कैंडल लिए मार्च भी नहीं किया, ना ही गुजरात के पूर्व मुख्यमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी ने इस पर कुछ प्रतिक्रिया दी। बिलकिस बानो के संघर्ष की कहानी कोई आम कहानी नहीं है बल्कि उनकी कहानी से समाज के हर व्यक्ति से सवाल पूछा जाना चाहिए कि क्यों हर बार दंगों में औरतों के साथ बलात्कार जैसे जघन्य अपराध किए जाते हैं?
देश में आज़ादी के बाद और उससे पहले जितने भी दंगे हुए उसमें औरतों के साथ बलात्कार किया गया और यह सब हुआ धर्म के नाम पर। बिलकिस बानो यूं तो फैसले से बहुत खुश हैं लेकिन वह कहती हैं कि क्यों न्याय के लिए उनको 17 साल का समय लग गया। इसके अलावा वह उन लोगों को जवाब दे गईं, जो हर बलात्कार का न्याय केवल फांसी से ही चाहते हैं।
उन्होंने कहा कि वह किसी भी आरोपियों के लिए फांसी नहीं चाहती थीं बल्कि न्याय चाहती थीं। वह मुहावज़े में मिले रुपए से सांप्रदायिक आग में झुलसे सर्वाइवर्स के लिए कोष बनाएंगी। उन्हें न्याय तो मिल गया लेकिन गुजरात सरकार, न्यायपालिका और पुलिस की लापरवाही ने उनकी यात्रा को लंबा कर दिया। फांसी की मांग करने वालों को यह भी समझना चाहिए कि रेप सर्वाइवरों को किस भयानक प्रक्रिया से गुज़रना पड़ता है और अगर कुछ वाकई बदलना है तो सामाजिक लड़ाई को आसान करना होगा।
This chant, along with thunderous claps and powerful beats of the drum, defines the energy and the motives of the artists in Delhi University Theatre Circuit (DUTC) who attempt to bring forth all that is wrong with the system. Thus, they form a focal point for political dissent in the campus space.
Theatre And Democracy
Theatre is a collective art form. The script is often not the creation of just one author but a collaborative effort of the team. Each play is formed out of a long process of reading, discussing, improvising, setting up a scene, scripting dialogues, enacting them out, editing, performing and then editing them back, as per reviews of the audiences.
This process supplements for the notion that street theatre stands for democracy. It points out the spirit of the practitioners who perform democratically, listening to and including each and every idea from all the team members.
Of The People, For The People, By The People
Street theatre is not like movies where you go in with popcorn and relax your mind for two hours. It is rather a temporary transformation of your workplace, a street or a public place into an artistic, yet real space.
This consciousness of actors performing in a public space creates a allegorical meaning for the audience where they are forced to look beyond the literal meaning of the play and realise the hidden meaning. The performance occurring in a public space helps in catering to everyone and avoiding marginalisation.
Sudhanva Deshpande in his article aptly says, “Street theatre, in its modern Indian avatar, was born in reaction to the Emergency, as a form of resistance to authoritarianism. Today, as we see unprecedented authoritarianism in our polity, street theatre acquires added edge, because it helps us forge, protect, nurture and push the idea of democracy not as a once-in-five-year ritual of voting, but as a practice on the streets.”
Voices that were raised have been suppressed mercilessly in the last five years. Theatre has been one of the primary outlets for dissent. Students of the Delhi University theatre circuit have fearlessly spoken on issues like Hindutva politics, freedom of speech, farmer issues, biased media and TRPs, feminism, gender equality, acceptance for the LGBTQ community, saffron terror, and Islamophobia.
Against The Forces
Street plays in Delhi University, characterised by left-leaning criticism of right-wing politics began with ‘Welcome To The Machine’ by Ankur, the theatre society of SGTB Khalsa College, which brought out the truth and took names. The play faced a lot of opposition from ABVP leaders who termed it “anti-Hindu” and “anti-national” because according to them, it was against the spirit of democracy. Ironic, right?
The play was served with a ban by the ABVP which was opposed by the theatre circuit. This led to continuous criticism of the ABVP and other groups as there was a continuous assault on the democratic space of the campus.
Students perform a street play. (Photo: ANKUR – The Theatre Society, SGTB Khalsa College/Facebook)
A similar protest was seen in February 2017. Ramjas College witnessed thousands of students protesting against the hooliganism of the ABVP. The protest turned violent, injuring several teachers and students in the process. It was also followed by banning yet another play by Ankur.
A long list of such actions can be prepared in the university space. Funnily, the ABVP also has a long history of such hooliganism and vandalism.
Why Is It A Problem?
Despite what these street plays stand for, they are seen to be elitist and known for only competing in college cultural fests. While some societies still focus on content, others are just attractive in terms of their form, songs, dialogues and the cathartic effect their actors make.
Somewhere down the line, the real artistic and the political meaning of this form of protest is being forgotten and street theatre has now taken an ugly form of bulky percussion, hollow dialogues and jingles that are almost too melodic to be theatre.
It becomes important to remember Safdar Hashmi, a man who in a sense, started it all. While he was all in for the solid content of the plays, he despised those who had no art in them. He would argue that being a political artist meant not only taking good politics to the people, but also good art.
To paraphrase Paulo Freire, theatre doesn’t change the world. Theatre changes people. People change the world.
Street theatre, especially in Delhi University, is one of the most effective ways to create a mass ideology and thus, mobilise people. Theatre artists and societies in that sense can be held responsible for being relevant sources of information.
In Sudhanva Deshpande’s words, “Street theatre helps create pockets of democracy. Spaces where people can come together, enjoy a social and artistic experience unmediated by technology, discuss and argue and even disagree. Without breaking each others’ heads.”
Featured image for representative purpose only.
Featured image source: Arvind Gaur/Facebook.
उस रात मुझे पेट में अजीब सा दर्द उठा, जैसे पेट के अंदर से कोई मांस खींच रहा हो। मैं भाई बहनों में सबसे बड़ी थी और परिवार में माहौल टिपिकल मिडिल क्लास फैमिली वाला था, जो सैनिटरी नैपकिन, गर्भनिरोधक गोलियां और कॉन्डम के विज्ञापन आने पर चैनल बदल देते थे।
ये तो फिर भी बड़ी बातें थी, हमारे टीवी पर हॉलीवुड फिल्में तक बैन थी, फिर चाहे वो ज्युरासिक पार्क ही क्यों ना हो। इन फिल्मों में चुंबन के दृश्य समाज में गंदगी फैलाने वाले कारक माने जाते थे।
खैर, उस रात पर वापस आते हैं जब मेरे पेट में बहुत दर्द हुआ। माहौल बड़ा तंग था तो ना चाहते हुए भी मेरी मां-बाप से दूरियां बढ़ गईं। लिहाज़ा मैंने चुप्पी बरती और दर्द जैसे-तैसे सह लिया। मुझे अंदाज़ा नहीं था कि यह दर्द अगली सुबह मेरे लिए शर्म और डर लेकर आएगा। सुबह मेरे बिस्तर और पैजामे पर लाल धब्बे थे। मैं जैसे डर से पत्थर हो गई, जैसे-तैसे मैंने वह चादर हटाई और बाथरूम की तरफ भागी।
फोटो प्रतीकात्मक है।
वहां देखा तो खून, एक बार को लगा मैं मरने वाली हूं फिर याद आया कि साथ की कई लड़कियों ने बताया था कि ऐसा होता है। मैं नौंवी कक्षा में थी और अगर साथ वाली लड़कियों के साझे किए ज्ञान की कहानी सुनाउं तो किसी ने कहा था,
जब आप कोई गलत काम करते हो तब ऐसा होता है।
एक ने बताया था कि अगर कोई लड़का छू ले तो आप प्रेग्नेंट हो जाती हैं, क्योंकि शादी से पहले यह पाप है और यह अबॉर्शन कहलाता है।
मुझे याद आया कि मैं मोनिटर थी और अक्सर क्लास के लड़के-लड़कियों को कॉपी देते हुए उनके हाथ टच हो जाते था। एक दोस्त ने कहा था,
अब यह शुरू हो गया है तो अब हम कभी मंदिर नहीं जा सकते।
कुछ कहते कि हम बड़ी हो गई हैं।
मेरे दिमाग में वे सारी बातें घूम रही थी। कोई ऐसा नहीं था, जिससे अपना मन हल्का करती। इतने में मां को आभास हो गया और वह बड़ी तमतमाई हुई दिखी। थोड़ी देर बाद वह कपड़ा लेकर आईं और बिना कुछ बोले चली गईं। मुझे वक्त लगा यह समझने में कि उस कपड़े का इस्तेमाल कैसे करना है। यह मेरे पीरियड्स की कहानी थी, जिसे पीरियड्स बोलने का साहस बहुत समय बाद आया।
उस वक्त मैं एक स्टूडेंट थी और पीरियड्स ने मुझसे मेरी पढ़ाई और मेरा कॉन्फिडेंस छीना। लंबा वक्त लगा इसे स्वीकारने में कि यह कोई गलत काम का नतीजा नहीं बल्कि मेरे स्वस्थ होने की निशानी है।
टीचर ने ठीक से नहीं पढ़ाया रिप्रोडक्शन चैप्टर
फोटो प्रतीकात्मक है।
इसी तरह 10वीं में रिप्रोडक्शन चैप्टर ज़रूर था लेकिन टीचर ने कहा था खुद पढ़ लेना। उस चैप्टर को किसी पॉर्न जैसी संज्ञा दे दी गई थी, जिसे खोलना आपकी इज्ज़त पर कलंक लगा सकता है। दरअसल, सेक्स या पीरियड्स जैसे शब्द लोगों को असहज कर देते हैं। यही वजह है कि कच्ची उम्र में लड़के और लड़कियों को मानसिक तनाव हो जाता है, क्योंकि उनके अंदर हो रहे शारीरिक बदलावों पर उन्हें कभी सही जानकारी नहीं मिलती।
एक सवाल आप खुद से पूछे, खासकर लड़कियां,
आप अपने शरीर को कितना जानती हैं?
क्या आप जानती हैं कि आपको पीरियड्स क्यों होते हैं?
यही सवाल लड़कों से भी कि
पीरियड्स क्यों होते हैं?
मैं दावे के साथ कहती हूं कि जिस दिन हम सब समझ जाएंगे कि पीरियड्स क्यों होते हैं और यह कैसे स्वस्थ होने की निशानी है, उस दिन पिता और भाई भी अपने घर की महिलाओं को समझ पाएंगे।
उससे पहले खुद महिलाओं को इसे कबूल करने की ज़रूरत है। इस पर बात करने और अपने पर्सनल हाइजीन की देखरेख की ज़रूरत है, क्योंकि ज़िन्दगी पीरियड्स के खून को देखकर डरने और शर्माने के लिए बिल्कुल नहीं है। ना ही पीरियड्स पर किसी कोने में अकेले दिन रात बिताने की।
आज भी गांव देहात यहां तक की शहरों में भी पीरियड्स आने पर महिला को अलग कर दिया जाता है। पुराने वक्त में यह इसलिए किया जाता था ताकि संयुक्त बड़े परिवार में महिला को खेत खलिहान और चूल्हे से थोड़ा आराम मिले। उस वक्त साफ सफाई और शौचालय जैसी भी व्यवस्था नहीं हुआ करती थी, इसलिए महिला को नहाने और बाकी चीज़ों से दूर रखा जाता था ताकि इंफेक्शन ना हो।
पुराने लोग वैज्ञानिक सोच के थे लेकिन उन्हें फॉलो करने वाले अंधभक्त। आप लोग अंधभक्त ना बने और थोड़ा दिमाग खोलकर सोचे, तो काली पॉलीथीन और अखबार में लिपटे पैड को हटाओ और जानकारी हासिल करो।
सेक्स एजुकेशन के अभाव में हो सकती हैं कई बीमारियां-
जानकारी हासिल करने की फेहरिस्त पर इसे कबूलना भी ज़रूरी है कि दीवारों पर लिखे गुप्त रोग के विज्ञापनों से मुंह फेर के मंद मंद ना हंसे बल्कि इसके प्रति संवेदनशील बने। एचआईवी एड्स जैसी बीमारी होना कोई जुर्म नहीं है, जिसके लिए आप खुद जज बन जाएं और फैसला देते हुए मरीज़ के साथ भेदभाव करें।
एचआईवी एड्स के कई कारण हैं, जिनमें से एक कारण एचआईवी मरीज़ के साथ अन प्रोटेक्टेड सेक्स भी हो सकता है लेकिन सिर्फ यही एक कारण होता है इसे अपने दिमाग से निकालकर दूर फेंकने की ज़रूरत है। सेक्स हमारे जीवन का हिस्सा है, जिससे मुंह मोड़ना खुद के लिए समस्याएं आमंत्रित करने जैसा है।
कई लोग इस विषय पर मनगढ़ंत जानकारियां पाकर कुंठित रहते हैं, तो कई लोग सेक्स एजुकेशन के अभाव में कई बीमारियों की चपेट में आ जाते हैं। ऐसे में यहां सबसे पहली ड्यूटी मां बाप फिर शिक्षकों की होती है कि वो बच्चों से खुलकर बात करें और कॉउंसलिंग करें। हमारा देश युवाओं का देश है लेकिन सेक्शुअल और रिप्रोडक्टिव हेल्थ की दृष्टि से ये भटके युवाओं का भी देश है।
There are 650 districts in India, however, most nonprofits work only in a few districts. Given how large our country is, there are only two types of people that can work towards creating change at scale – the communities that are facing the issues first hand, and the government.
The government has not been able to work on issues related to social justice in the last 60 years. Perhaps they think that this is not important enough, or there is no political will to do it. So, we at Jan Sahas, chose to involve the community.
We realised that if issues around social justice had to be taken to scale, and if we wanted to create a deeper impact, we needed to involve the communities affected. If it didn’t become the community’s own initiative, or if they kept thinking that some civil society organisation or government agency would come and work on their issues, it would never be sustainable.
That’s why in 2001, we started a national campaign named Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan. Centred around the idea of dignity, this campaign was aimed at mobilising Dalit manual scavengers, all of whom were women. We wanted to empower them to move out of this work and enable them to scale up the programme on their own. We thought that working with manual scavengers would be a good entry point to work on ending exclusion.
We talk about people living in dignity, but most of us believe that if we offer wages, we automatically provide dignity. The government also seems to think along the same lines. They offer anywhere between a few thousand rupees to a lakh in the form of various schemes.
But caste-based marginalised communities in our country have faced historical injustice — not just for the last five-six generations, but for the last 2,500 years. Even if they earn money and stop doing caste-based work, social stigma never goes away. Even if the person becomes a collector, or starts an enterprise, the discrimination continues.
If people have to come out of caste-based work, they need three types of rehabilitation:
Economic Or Livelihood Rehabilitation
In the caste-based work of manual scavenging, the biggest issue is that the oppressor or employer provides them with food, clothing, and shelter. In rural India, they get two rotis every day, clothes twice a year — during Holi and Diwali, and the panchayat gives them a place to stay. So, in essence, their basic needs of roti-kapda-makaan are taken care of by the person or the institution that employs them. What this means though is that they are unable to negotiate with their employers.
If you are going to get paid in cash for work, you can negotiate. For instance, if the employer says ‘I will give you INR 20’, you can say, ‘No, I will charge INR 50’. But if your life itself is dependent on what they give you, then you can never negotiate.
Therefore, if we have to start changing the way caste is viewed and reinforced, we have to start with economic rehabilitation. If marginalised caste groups get work which pays them in cash, they can negotiate the terms for their wages, working conditions, dignity and relationships at the workplace.
However, this is only step one. The second and more important one is social rehabilitation.
Social Rehabilitation
The government never thinks about this aspect. Under social rehabilitation, if someone gives up their (caste-based) work, they should be given work that factors in the social aspect as well.
For instance, in 2013, we appealed to several state governments; we said that when you appoint ICDS workers and helpers, positions that do not require an educational background, offer INR 3,000-4,000 monthly salary and where the employee has to be a woman, give priority to the women from the manual scavenging community. These women could prepare the meals provided under the ICDS scheme, and all children regardless of their caste would eat that food.
This process was started in Uttar Pradesh but many powerful groups forced the state to rescind the order; today it is no longer compulsory. In Madhya Pradesh on the other hand, while there was some struggle to start with, it has now been firmly established in many districts.
The discrimination extends across several government schemes. In many villages, where the PMAY is being implemented, Dalit communities are given homes in a separate place. They call it a ‘colony’ and it is commonly understood to be land outside the village. However, all the resources such as electricity, water, anganwadis are available only inside the village.
If you want to stop caste-based practices, you cannot work with the excluded people alone. Other related stakeholders have to be held accountable. Like they say in the gender discourse — if you want to end sexual violence, you have to get the male members of the community involved.
Political Rehabilitation
Being political is not about party politics. It is about the power of representation. If women from excluded communities want to be part of the local panchayat, they should have the space to do so. The problem is, that today, they don’t have this space.
For example, we started a campaign with rape survivors, that they should contest elections for the panchayat. As a result of this campaign, 104 women participated in panchayat elections. Almost 50 percent of them won. Many of them contested on unreserved seats. They fought and they won. The idea was for them to challenge the power structure.
In some places, we had to work with their family members as well, in some, with society at large. When these excluded women gain power, then at some level, the discrimination stops.
It Takes Years To Break Social Barriers, Even Among The Marginalised
Jan Sahas works with manual scavengers, rape survivors and young girls who have been forced into commercial sexual exploitation. One of the biggest challenges we face is that it is very difficult to make these communities come together. Getting ‘outsiders’ to change their social behaviour requires work at a different level. But even within these disadvantaged groups, people follow discrimination and untouchability practices.
For example, in Bhaurasa, a village in Madhya Pradesh, we had women who had managed to stop doing caste-based work. There were 17 women from the Valmiki community, and 10 from the Hela community. Valmiki is a Dalit Hindu community, while Hela is a Muslim community. It took us three years to bring them together in one place for a meeting.
For two and a half years, we conducted meetings with adults in the community to convince them. Despite that, we failed to change their beliefs. But when we started working with the young — using games and activities — it took almost no time.
Photo Courtesy: Jan Sahas
One of the games we played was taking one child from the Valmiki community and the other from the Hela — one a Dalit and the other a non-Dalit. We told them that the Dalit child would become non-Dalit for a day, and vice versa.
We observed a big change in behaviour. The children soon realised that what one was doing with another human being was not based on any rationale. There is no rationale for caste discrimination, and that it didn’t make sense to follow this nonsensical practice.
The activities brought about a change in the children; they then started convincing their families and the families changed because of the children’s intervention.
Communities Can Solve Their Own Problems. All They Need Is Platforms.
Most of us in civil society who work with marginalised communities feel that ‘we are going to give them something’, ‘deliver’ something. In reality, though, no one really is in a position to deliver anything to the community. What do we really know about the communities? How can we assume leadership on their behalf when we don’t know enough?
Consider the Dignity March where 25,000 rape survivors travelled over 10,000 km and spoke openly in public forums about being raped. Jan Sahas might have coordinated the march, but the idea was not ours.
We were conducting a meeting in a village. There were four rape survivors along with their family members. One of the women said that there had been a conviction in her case, while a second woman said that she was still struggling with her case and was facing many problems. The families were fighting among themselves, and demanding answers from us, saying if one woman’s case was solved, why wasn’t there a judgement yet in the second case?
One of the rape survivors told us: “You don’t explain what the problems are; let the woman who got the conviction explain to the others what steps need to be taken and how they can bring their own case to a closure”.
When she started explaining, the idea clicked in our minds; that instead of us doing this work — going to each village and talking to all the families about how to fight their cases — what if 1,000 rape survivors came together in one place and travelled all over the country and explained how to get a conviction to other survivors.
Non-Profits Should Only Play The Role Of Facilitators
We can’t be leaders of the manual scavengers, or rape survivors, or communities who are involved in caste-based commercial sexual exploitation. They are their own leaders because they know what that pain has meant in how they live their lives. We cannot even imagine how much power or courage is required to change this situation.
No one else can do it — no Chief Minister or Prime Minister can work on it as effectively as a rape survivor can work on rape, or manual scavengers can work on their own issues. We need to understand this.
The role of the government or non-profits is limited in this. We can help create appropriate forums for them but it is they who will come up with the strategies. During the march, we observed this very clearly: people who’ve been facing oppression and discrimination were ready to take up the struggle; they were ready to find solutions. What they needed was a platform to talk about their issues.
The current strategies which are made by the government or other institutions rarely involve the affected communities. But no external force can bring about real change in society. Only the community itself can.
Ashif Shaikh: Ashif Shaikh is an Indian social activist, known for his role in Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, a campaign for the eradication of manual scavenging. He is also a co-founder of Jan Sahas, a human rights organisation. Since 2000, Jan Sahas has been working to end caste- and gender-based slavery and violence through the eradication of manual scavenging, caste-based sex work, forced labour, and trafficking. He has won several awards for this work, including the Sadbhavana Award and the Times of India Social Impact Award.
अनेक विविधताओं के साथ भारत, लोकतांत्रिक व्यवस्था पर चलने वाला दुनिया का सबसे बड़ा देश है। शासन की लोकतांत्रिक व्यवस्था का पालन करने वाला सबसे बड़ा देश होने की वजह से इसकी अपनी कुछ कशमकश और उलझने भी हैं। एक ऐसी ही अस्पष्टता तब ज़ाहिर हुई जब इस विविध देश के लोगों को लगा कि रिप्रेज़ेंटेशन ऑफ पीपल्स एक्ट (लोक प्रतिनिधित्व अधिनियम) के एक अधिनियम में कुछ कमियां हैं।
लोक प्रतिनिधित्व अधिनियम वह अधिनियम है जो पहले आम चुनावों के पहले भारतीय प्रोविंशियल पार्लियामेंट के द्वारा 1951 में लागू किया था। लोक प्रतिनिधित्व अधिनियम भारत में चुनाव व्यवहारों को लेकर लागू किया गया था ताकि चुनाव के दौरान असंवैधानिक और गलत व्यवहारों पर रोक लगाई जा सके।
इस अधिनियम के धारा 75A के अनुसार संसद के दोनों सदनों में चुने गये प्रत्याशियों को चुने जाने के 90 दिन के भीतर अपनी संपत्ति का ब्यौरा देना होगा। लेकिन जो खामी है वो यह कि कार्यकाल खत्म होने पर दोबारा ब्यौरा देने का कोई प्रावधान नहीं है। नेताओं द्वारा सत्ता का दुरुपयोग कर अपनी संपत्ति बढ़ाने की बात भारत में किसी से छिपी नहीं है। परिणामस्वरूप देश की तरक्की के लिए करदाताओं के द्वारा दिये गये पैसे का एक बड़ा भाग भ्रष्ट लोगों की जेब भर रहा है।
गौरतलब है कि बहुत सारे नेताओं की संपत्ति में उनके कार्यकाल के दौरान हैरतंगेज़ तौर पर इज़ाफा हुआ। सेन्ट्रल बोर्ड ऑफ डायरेक्ट टैक्सेज़ (सीबीडीटी) की तरफ से सुप्रीम कोर्ट की मांग पर इस मुद्दे को लेकर आंकड़े भी जारी किए गए हैं। सीबीडीटी के मुताबिक 7 लोकसभा सांसदों और 98 विधायकों की संपत्ति में काफी वृद्धि हुई है जिसमें काफी अनियमितताएं पाई गई हैं। इन अनियमितताओं पर रोक लगाने और पारदर्शिता को प्राथमिकता देने के लिए अरुणाचल ईस्ट से एक सांसद होने की हैसियत से मैंने सितंबर 2017 में एक संशोधन बिल संसद के सामने रखा। इस बिल में मैंने सांसदों द्वारा कार्यकाल खत्म होने के 90 दिनों के अंदर अपनी संपत्ति का ब्यौरा देने का प्रस्ताव रखा गया है। यह प्रस्तावना लोक प्रतिनिधित्व अधिनियम 1951 में एक सबसेक्शन 75B(1) के तौर पर शामिल किया जाना चाहिए।
मैंने यह बिल इसलिए पेश किया ताकि चुनाव के बाद हार हो या जीत किसी की संपत्ति के लिए उसे परेशान नहीं किया जाए। अगर सही तरीकों से संपत्ति में वृद्धि हुई है तो फिर सवाल खड़े नहीं किये जा सकते। मैं दो बार विधायक रह चुका हूं जिसमें मंत्री और उप सभापति का पद संभाला और दो बार सांसद के साथ-साथ केंद्रिय मंत्री भी रहा लेकिन मेरी संपत्ति की पुष्टि इंटरनेट पर की जा सकती है। इसलिए यह बिल प्रस्तावित किया गया है ताकि कोई भी गलतफहमी या कोई द्वेष ना रहे किसी के लिए चाहे वो सत्ता में हो या ना हो। हमें राजनीति से उपर उठकर इसका समर्थन करना चाहिए।
इस प्रस्ताव का बहुत विरोध तो नहीं किया गया लेकिन इसे बहुत समर्थन भी नहीं मिला है। मीडिया में कुछ जगह इस प्रस्ताव के फायदे और नुकसान के बारे में खबरें भी छपी लेकिन इसे ज़्यादा महत्व नहीं दिया गया और ठीक से चर्चा होने से पहले ही सारा मामला खत्म कर दिया गया। बहुत सारे लोगों को अभी तक यह भी नहीं पता चल पाया है कि इस संशोधन में क्या-क्या कहा गया है। किसी भी लोकतंत्र के लिए यह अच्छा संकेत नहीं है कि लोग अपने ही कानून को लेकर अनभिज्ञ हैं। इसलिए यह ज़रूरी है कि लोग जाने कि इन संशोधनों को पारित करना क्यों ज़रूरी है और इसका भारतीय राजनीति पर क्या असर पड़ेगा।
इस संशोधन का समर्थन करने की काफी वजहें हैं। अगर यह पारित होता है तो भ्रष्टचार को बढ़ावा देने वाले तरीकों पर लगाम लगाने में मदद मिलेगी साथ ही अज्ञात और गैरकानूनी श्रोतों से संपत्ति बनाने के जुर्म में नेताओं को सज़ा भी दी जा सकेगी। इसके साथ ही वैध श्रोतों से अपनी संपत्ति में इज़ाफा करने वाले नेताओं को किसी भी तरीके से प्रताड़ित करने पर भी रोक लग जाएगी। जनता अपने नेताओं को ज़िम्मेदार ठहरा सकेंगे और सरकार की कार्यशैली में और भी पारदर्शिता आएगी।
सत्ता का दुरुपयोग कर संपत्ति बनाने की प्रथा को खत्म करने के लिए यह निसंदेह एक मज़बूत और प्रभावी तरीका है। भारत के लोग ही सरकार बनाते हैं और इसलिए यह उनका हक है कि वो किसको चुन रहे हैं या भविष्य में किस तरह के लोगों को चुनेंगे। यह बेहद ज़रूरी है कि इस देश के लोग अपने नेताओं को जान पाएं और उन्हें ज़िम्मेदार ठहरा पाएं।
(अभिषेक रंजन, शार्वी सक्सेना और प्रज्ञा तिवारी के इनपुट की मदद से।)
Srinagar, April 1 – The villagers in south Kashmir wait in anticipation for the election campaign to begin. As she walks towards the podium to address a gathering, a young woman beckons her. Ridhwana Sanam steps down the dais and hugs her followed by loud cheers. Then she begins her speech, promising her supporters of addressing their issues if she gets elected.
“The restricted engagements of Kashmiri women in public affairs, class, and caste restrictions have fed into the existing patriarchal practices, reducing the women to the domestic spaces,” she believes.
Ridwana is one among three women candidates out of 104 candidates contesting six-parliamentary constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir. Except for the PDP, the three main parties – National Conference, Congress, and BJP – have not fielded any female candidate in the state despite women contributing over 48% of the electorate. In the absence of women candidates, women’s issues are missing from the agenda of the contestants.
On April 6, the Election Commission of India announced lawyer turned model Sana Dua as its brand ambassador for Jammu and Kashmir. The poll body was happy to select a woman as its mascot to send a larger message to voters of Jammu and Kashmir especially women to exercise their franchise. But the political parties still neglected to field them into the electoral fray in the state. There are 78,50,671 voters in the state, comprising 40,37,993 male and 37,39,951 female. In all election rallies, it is being seen that there is a significant number of women participation. But the low figure has attracted criticism that the major parties have once again missed a chance to redress the gender imbalance.
Ridhwana, a doctor turned politician, who is an Independent candidate says she wants to become a spokesperson of people rather than a politician to highlight people’s issues.
“Voters often complain to me that politicians have a different face and after we cast a vote, their behaviour changes altogether. This is because they don’t think in a long term manner,” she says.
She gives several reasons for the negligible number of women candidates. “Women politicians don’t put in enough effort, to motivate more women to join politics. There is no doubt that women shoulder more responsibilities than men. They can manage their families and also create their space in politics. The society instead of putting them down should support and encourage them to prove their mettle.”
She adds, “I believe in the power of sincere intentions. If people trust my intentions and give me their vote, I will ensure that justice, development and peace is delivered.”
Besides Ridwana, another female candidate is Peoples Democratic Party president and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. She too is contesting from south Kashmir Lok Sabha constituency, where she emerged a winner in 2014 parliamentary polls. She later became the chief minister of the state following her father’s death. She is the most prominent female face of the state. Spanning over four districts – Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian, and Pulwama- the south Kashmir Lok Sabha is going for polls in three phases due to the volatile situation there. The first and second part was held on April 23 and 29 in Anantnag and Kulgam districts. Elections in the third part of the constituency will be held on May 6 in Shopian and Pulwama districts.
We tried to get comments from Mehbooba Mufti for five days to know the reasons why political parties field a negligible number of female candidates.
In 2016, after the death of her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Mehbooba became the first woman chief minister of the state. She is the only dominant woman in the mainstream politics of the state. There are several women politicians like Sakina Yatoo, Asiya Naqash, Safeena Beigh, but are lesser known faces who are in politics because of their political background.
Mehbooba Mufti is the only dominant woman in the mainstream politics of the state.
Meenakshi, who is the Shiv Sena candidate from Udhampur constituency, claimed that the negligible participation of women in polls should not come as a surprise.
“This is mainly due to the patriarchal structure of state politics. There is an unwillingness among political parties to give tickets to women, and less awareness of electoral politics among women and the lack of family support,” she says.
Meenakshi adds that she was reflecting the voices of thousands of women and will ensure that the problems faced by them are highlighted and redressed.
Although, the trend exists everywhere in India that fewer women join politics, but J&K has still the lowest women candidates.
Political expert, Professor Rekha Chowdhary attributes Jammu and Kashmir’s “conservative society and conflict” responsible for fewer women joining politics here. “In Kashmir, even men are reluctant to join the politics because of the situation and can’t move out without security. Most of the homes here have a dominance of men in decision making and women have a lesser role,” she says, adding there are some women in politics because of their political background.
Rekha, however, said youngsters are now floating political parties and many women having joined them. “But overall when comparing with other parts of the country, very few women join the politics in Jammu and Kashmir. Even those women who are in politics do not have a dominant role in the party except in one party here, which is headed by a woman. Some parties don’t trust that female candidates would win in any elections and garner support,” she added.
In the previous Lok Sabha elections, the trend was almost similar when only a few women contested the polls.
In 2014 assembly polls, the National Conference (NC) had fielded five female candidates – two from Kashmir and three from Jammu.
The Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) had given the mandate to three female candidates in the Valley. It had fielded Hina Bhat from Amira Kadal, Neelam Gaash from Zadibal and Daraksha Andrabi from Sonawar constituency.
Khem Lata Wakhloo of Congress contested from Srinagar’s Sonawar constituency while Shameema Raina had been fielded from Zadibal constituency. However, none of the female candidates from the BJP and Congress won the seat.
In 2014 assembly polls, only two candidates made it to the legislative assembly – PDP’s Asiya Naqash and NC’s Shamima Firdous. Later Mehbooba also got elected in by-polls in 2016.
PDP chief spokesperson Rafi Ahmad Mir believes that political parties should encourage women to come into politics. “Women hold top posts in our party. We have fielded our party president, who is a woman, to contest from south Kashmir. Female politicians understand the problem of women in a better way,” he says.
National Conference General Secretary, Ali Mohammad Sagar admitted that political parties shall give the mandate to females. “In last assembly polls, we fielded a lot of female candidates. But in this elections, we wanted to send some top leaders like Farooq Abdullah, retired High Court judge Justice Hasnian Masoodi, and former minister and speaker assembly Mohammad Akbar Lone to parliament to raise Kashmir issues especially defending special status.”
Senior BJP leader Kavindar Gupta said his party does not see any difference between genders. “But sometimes we want to field a candidate who has the strongest chances to win. But our party has always raised the issue of women and tried to address them. At the national level, the BJP has fielded so many female candidates,” Gupta added.
Just yesterday, my friend showed me a video in which a few young girls were demanding a middle-aged woman to apologise to them for her indecent remarks. The woman, pointing at a girl’s attire, allegedly said, “She should be raped on account of her ‘indecent’ clothes as such ‘indecent’ clothing induces men to rape”. Downright disgusting, truly!
But while the comments made by the woman are indeed abysmal, there was so much in this video that kept me perturbed. Firstly, how can a woman say such horrible things to girls who looked her daughter’s age, or to women in general? Secondly, why didn’t she apologise, even when another lady tried to intervene? Thirdly, how should I react to the body-shaming of this middle-aged woman, considering that the other lady said, “The girl has a body to flaunt, you don’t have it.” Towards the end, one of the girls even said to the woman, “You are jealous”. Lastly, I saw people sharing this video in numbers, some saying “Let’s make this woman popular” by which they meant “infamous” and “Let’s give this woman unwanted internet fame” etc.
This isn’t for the first time that a person has been trolled for blatant racist, sexist and prejudiced statements; our lives are now interspersed with such viral content on a very regular basis now. I was immediately reminded of how sometime back a young lady brought forth a list of professors calling them “sexual predators” without providing any legal or proven records. Even though her list had no legal truth in it, yet somehow she was able to arouse a latent feeling of suppression, and legitimise her claim which garnered a huge reach. In a few hours, India’s topmost intellectuals, including the likes of Ashish Nandy and Dipesh Chakraborty were being trolled in the list of sexual predators.
Now, as I tried to piece together these events in the wake of this incident, the picture seems to be larger than it appears. Two things are important to consider here: first is the broader realisation, that our country is witnessing a surge of Populism; second, we are also a nation which is strongly pushing the gender revolution, with women (for example, marital rape) and LGBT+ movements etc.
Those who know a little bit of the history of Populism would see that one of its features is the rise of a popular leader who powerfully assails majority emotions to gain popularity, and on its basis carries out authoritative actions often bypassing the established laws. Modi is that Populist leader, who can decide to demonetise, walk to Pakistan to celebrate birthdays, all by himself.
Now, we must understand that while the distrust with established laws in delivering justice is there, we must greatly be aware that populist reactions are never a guarantee to radical or even significant changes. In the case of Soma Chakraborty, the impulse of women liberation and a populist impulse in the ethos of our country coalesced together.
Even though the young girls had threatened Soma with the police (the established law), they seemed more resolute on putting her on social media (choosing a populist, cyber-shaming alternative). Now the sense is, of course, that injustice was done to these girls, for they were attacked with such abominable words, but what is it that we should call justice in this case?
Normally, justice is understood in the sense of retribution, also called “retributive justice” in which an adequate punishment is given to the offender, which in this case could have resulted in a police case under IPC Section 294– Punishment for obscene acts and words in public, or Section 509– Word, gesture or acts intended to insult the modesty of a woman, as far as my knowledge of IPC is concerned. But, because the case would have involved both the parties in a redressal mechanism, which is super lengthy, we are left with two options.
First, what seems to have happened in this case- trolling a person and cyber-shaming her/him by reaching out to certain numbers who empathise with the predicaments of women and the failure of laws in dealing with them. This might have a larger disciplinary and gender-sensitising effect in building a more gender-sensitive future.
Second, a call for restorative justice- a way of justice in which reconciliation between the offender and the victim becomes possible when the former accedes to apologise, and the latter is willing to accept the same.
But because, as I said, this issue involves the elements of two very powerful waves (Populism and Gender Sensitisation) I fail to understand how can we choose to disparage the body-shaming that Soma was subjected to, in the same video? Is body-shaming in itself not a terrible counter to her sexist outlook? Is body-shaming not as big an issue as a woman’s dignity? Isn’t body-shaming Soma, a reflection of how a woman’s body is expected to be moulded as a marketable and flaunt-able commodity?
Suppose, the girls would have called the police and lodged an FIR against her or had a fine should been levied upon her, wouldn’t that have been a better way of shutting Soma’s sexist outlook up? Can the self-contradictory rationale in the video help us sensitise our gender outlook?
These questions give rise to too many questions in the mind. What exactly determines our judgment of viral content? Can this incident be called a form of cyber-lynching, where solution is sought by bypassing the law and where both the parties escape the procedures of law? Will such viral videos help us become more disciplined and gender-sensitive? Who has the authority to set or prioritise the narratives?
Two nights ago, our Feminist Theory class group on Whatsapp was buzzing – thanks to Shivani Gupta’s Instagram video capturing the aftermath of a middle-aged lady Soma Chakraborty (referred to by the girls as Auntyji in their hashtag #auntyjiapologise), who harassed Shivani at a Delhi restaurant. Shivani was having breakfast with her friends when she was lectured over her short skirt by the aunty, who then asked the men in the restaurant to rape women wearing such clothes.
The viral video probably won’t change either Soma Chakraborty’s mind or the minds of the people who are sympathizing with her.
When Shivani and her friends followed the lady into a store and demanded she apologize lest they upload the CCTV footage of her brandishing rape culture at the restaurant, she unashamedly told them to “go ahead”, while requesting the manager to call the police. When a lady shopping at the store stood up for the girls and shamed Soma Chakraborty for her statement, the latter refused to back down. She even left a “message for India” near the end of the video, reiterating her views on short dresses being an invitation to rapists, and asking the parents of the girls to “control their behaviour, their dresses, and (teach them) tameez se baat karna”.
Shivani Gupta put the 10-minute long confrontation up on her Instagram account, and true to her word, made it go viral in a single evening. Unfortunately, Instagram took it down around midnight, because it violated the community guideline of women-cannot-protest-against-violent-threats-to-their-bodily-autonomy-instead-they-must-be-the-bigger-person-and-tackle-the-larger-issue-by-patiently-having-conversations-with-the-perpetrator-of-said-threat-in-order-to-teach-her-empathy. If only Instagram would give the same treatment to the sexist/racist/casteis/classist/communal content that thrives on the platform. However, that’s another rant altogether.
While the girls were heavily trolled and policed by feminists and non-feminists alike on various social media, they received a truckload of support as well, mostly from other young women for whom rape culture is a daily battle. Personally speaking, I hadn’t seen a video that satisfying in a while. I loved how the girls had the presence of mind to film everything and carefully ensure that Soma Chakraborty repeated her regressive statements on camera, and I was impressed by how coherently both they and the other woman put their points forth in the video. I fist-pumped when the girls asked Ms. Soma whether she thought only girls in short dresses get raped, to which the latter replied, “they (those who rape old women and children) must be psychic” (sic). It was so fulfilling to see her splutter at their ‘badtameezi’ when the girls ironically turned the patriarchal gaze onto her and asked whether the tightness of her kurti was an invitation to some ‘uncle’, thus exposing how offensive she was being. It was empowering to see girls my age being so uninhibitedly angry (of course, that uninhibitedness is a factor of their social privilege as urban, middle-class, educated, English-speaking women), and even receiving support from an older woman on the scene.
Since all us girls on the class group agreed that Soma Chakraborty’s behaviour was hella problematic, we shifted to asking whether the girls’ behaviour was unproblematic; specifically if making the video go viral was a valid move on their part. While the girls’ anger and distress was perfectly warranted, would their public shaming campaign really make a change in the patriarchal mindsets of people in the long run? While the lady and other proponents of rape culture might be intimidated into keeping quiet, they’d remain misogynist and impose those principles in private settings. Perhaps a more efficacious and more feminist solution would’ve been to sit her down and have a patient conversation with her about why her behaviour was harmful, keeping in mind her socialization into the patriarchy of a previous generation.
Image via Getty
Many would watch the video only to sympathize with the ‘poor lady’, and demonize the girls. Just take a look at the comments section of Gupta’s post — there are comments ranging from how the girls should’ve handled the situation in a calm and controlled fashion instead of ‘hounding’ the lady, and how this was just a publicity stunt on the girls’ part. Another thing we talked about on the group was how Ms. Vandana, who came to the girls’ defence at the store, effectively fat-shamed Soma Chakraborty when she said that the reason she couldn’t wear a bikini was because she ‘didn’t have a body to flaunt’.
We talked about how it wasn’t okay that one of the girls held Ms. Soma by the shoulders to usher her out of the store and was immediately rebuffed. We talked about how it was unfair of the girls to mock Ms. Soma’s Bengali accent near the end of the video. However, we agreed that all this was mere nitpicking, and derailed attention from the issue at hand. While these things were problematic, they were political flaws of a different kind, and of a much smaller degree of harm. In no way did they invalidate the girls’ anger, or lessen the immediate harm perpetrated by Soma Chakraborty.
Some of us were still iffy on the appropriateness of public shaming as a feminist tool. Here’s my take on it. Public shaming, while incredibly damaging to the person being shamed, is warranted in this case because these girls were harassed and violently threatened in public, with the lady giving the men in the restaurant the go-ahead to rape women whose dresses expose their thighs. This wasn’t the subtler shit we girls endure on the regular, like an aunty/uncle staring at your legs/cleavage/arms with a sneer or an aunty coming up to you with ‘motherly concern’ and being all “beta, you should cover up na?”. Those are despicable, of course, but this was an actual rape threat, made in public, involving the men in the vicinity. Soma Chakraborty had the gall to repeat said threat on camera, and then refuse to apologize for her words despite being ‘hounded’ by so many ‘angry and loud girls’.
Sure, the viral campaign probably won’t change either Soma Chakraborty’s mind or the minds of the people who sympathized with her when they watched the video. However, I believe that what the girls are doing, through their public shaming of her and rape culture in general, is completely valid. In fact, they’re doing amazing so far, and have put their emotional and physical security on the line in order to expose the painful lived reality that so many women, in India and all over the world, call their own. They helped me realise that as a young woman in India who could potentially be harassed just as violently, I have the right to dhol peetke call it out and demand restitution; instead of ignoring the lady, rolling my eyes and scoffing at her with my girl group, and then going home and censoring my wardrobe for the rest of my life. The girls’ anger and the positive response to their campaign reassured me that, were I similarly harassed, I could use my social privilege to make a scene, and I would be heard and backed by a lot of people, both in real life and on social media.
As for the officious tone-policing and the “these girls should have focused on changing mindsets through rational conversation and not engaged in violence” brigade, I have this to say: If I’m the wronged party, I have no obligation to sit the perpetrator down and patiently teach them empathy through calmly rational conversation. One cannot be coddled into empathy. Sure, Ms. Soma Chakraborty will probably remain a misogynist until she has these conversations with someone. However, having that conversation with her is not something you can ask of the girls who faced an obnoxious intrusion into their peaceful breakfast at the restaurant, and were then harassed and threatened in public by this woman, all thanks to how she took offense to the length of a skirt. Ms. Chakraborty was a public menace that day, and I believe that one of the immediate steps we need to take in combating rape culture is ensuring that people are afraid of saying certain things, because they know they’ll be held accountable for what they say.
Mocking and public shaming would be banned tactics in any feminist world, but a) they hold power in a patriarchal context and b) wielding that power is necessary and warranted in the fight against patriarchal culture. We need to stop symmetrizing the behaviour of the girls on the one hand and Ms. Chakraborty’s on the other with opinions like “but they’re fighting hate with hate” or “they’re part of the problem” or “they should be the bigger person and show her compassion and understanding”. They’re not fighting hate with hate, unless you’re equivocating on the word ‘hate’ to mean both ‘violently threatening someone’s bodily autonomy and integrity’ and ‘standing up for oneself when such violent threats are made to one’s bodily autonomy and integrity’. They are also not obligated to ‘counter hate with love’: what they’re doing is fighting hate with resistance.
Sometimes, we are ungrateful for those who fight for us. Every single generation of feminists and women’s liberation activists has been asked to tamp down their anger, to be kinder, more patient, more polite, more empathic, and more willing to have rational conversations with their oppressors about why they deserve respect. They have all been told to keep expanding their horizons of emotional labour, and that their goals would be more easily achieved if men didn’t think women hated them. Same song, different generation. We must stay loud, angry, and rude. I’m relieved that some of us, thanks to our social privilege and cultural capital, have the means to be furious about this ‘rebel women deserve to get rape’ debacle. Society and our polity must struggle to ensure that context-specific means of feeling anger and protesting against rape culture become accessible to people (especially women) from a variety of less privileged backgrounds.
My name is Rahul Kapoor and I am a social worker, but more importantly I am also your friend. I have been through the same phase of life in which you find yourself today. I have closely observed the declaration of Class XII results every year, the hype around it, and its precise linkage with the high cut-offs of Delhi University, which have become a benchmark against which students across the nation try to judge their results.
Let me begin my message with a congratulatory note for you all. I want to congratulate all those who have secured really good marks and met their expectations through their results, and I also want to equally congratulate all those who could not secure the number of marks and percentage that they would have liked to achieve.
Right now, all you will be shown by the media and the headlines will be the pictures of the toppers – 99.2 %, 99.3 %, 99.4 %, 99.5 %. Yet, when you will scroll through all the newspapers tomorrow and all the news channels today, you will realise that you can identify not more than 100 such students who have been highlighted in the newspapers.
The question is then, “What about the rest of the students?” This year, nearly 13 lakh candidates appeared for the Class XII CBSE exam, and it is pretty obvious that not all of them have above 90%. That means that there is a strong possibility that you are one of the huge chunk of students who do not have above 90%.
You are the ones who have got 50%, 60%, 70%, and 80%, and you are national assets of this country as much as those who have secured 99.99%. Also, you are not alone – there are many more like you sitting in their houses right now and thinking that they are the only ones who have not secured above 90% and that their life is ruined. Trust me, if you had access to the results of all these 13 lakh students, you would not feel as bad as you do right now. The problem is that you are exposed to the results of only those who have topped the examination.
Please understand that 60%, 70%, or 80% might be considered less in a context in which cut-offs of Universities for college admissions go as high as 100%. The media is always ready to highlight the topper who got 99.6%, but these marks are not bad marks, and there is a huge difference between getting less marks than another, and feeling that you have got bad marks. Do not forget that this 60% now makes you eligible for graduation. So how can this be bad? In fact, 60% are first division marks.
You all are unique and have your own worth, irrespective of the marks you get. You may well have got 60% today, but you have the potential to be the top entrepreneur, technician, singer, musician, psychologist, social scientist, mathematician, dancer, sportsperson, and many more great things tomorrow. The need is to recognise that potential, and the importance of today in our quest to become the best we can.
I will tell you, Class XII results are actually a new beginning, even if you have unfortunately not passed this time. This is because this day offers you an opportunity to learn from experience. It gives an opportunity to you to realise your strengths and uniqueness, and also understand your weakness and where you went wrong. What you see today in your CBSE results is the outcome of a process which you have gone through, and during this process you have gained valuable experiences and lessons of life. When you start afresh, you will take this experience forward with you.
Many of you might be expecting 90%, but may have got 60 or 70%. I do not stop you from opting for a recheck and getting that mental satisfaction for yourself, but I would also like to tell you that you are not alone in feeling this way.
Somehow we all, by our very nature of being a human, hope for the best, but there is a difference between hope and expectation. Our expectations can only be based upon a set of logical actions, efforts, and the commitment that we have put in.
This is where these results illuminate many aspects of your personality. You have to assess the gap between your expectations and achievements, because getting 60% is not at all a problem. The problem lies in you getting 60% and expecting 95%. This is where disappointment starts to creep in. It is unfortunately a result of what our competitive society has done to young minds like you.
To draw the best out of all of you, I need these promises from you:
Accept Yourself
Do not remain in a state of denial. Do not fall into the trap of telling yourself that you deserved more marks and got less. Of course you deserve much more in life, but for that you will have to first accept the marks you have got now. After all, you have earned these marks, and acceptance of these marks is a mark of acceptance of the self, the first step towards self-discovery.
Identify The Best In You
We all are unique and worthy beings and we all have strengths. Try to find out what gets you going – be it music, dance, photography, maths, science, psychology, social work, journalism, sports, or any other field which may appeal to you. Always pursue a hobby, and never hesitate in backing what you feel is the best for you. At this stage, many of you will realize that this result which you are mourning does not make much sense, as this score will not take you closer or further from the best you want to become.
Explore The Available Options
Many of you who have got 65 % or above can still get to colleges of Delhi University and other good universities, maybe just not in the courses and colleges of your choice. Let it not be about the college anymore – let it be about you from now on. After all, it is the students of a college who determine what a college will be, and not the college itself. Be the best of what you are and your college will automatically become the best, and will invest in you by all means.
Join the college which your marks make available, be the best version of yourself there, and you will see that very soon it will not matter which college you join, but who you actually are.
There are options like IGNOU and Delhi University’s School of Open Learning. Do not shy away from taking admissions in these if they are all your marks allow. Do not feel embarrassed when others tell you they are in more known colleges. You are not the same as them, and your journey is different from theirs, so it is obvious that your path will also always be different from them.
Start Preparing And Become The Best Version Of Yourself
I want you all to start preparing every single day out to become the best version of yourself. Next time, when you sit for that examination, or perform in that auditorium, or play in the ground, you should be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “Today I am the best version of myself.” No matter what the result is, look yourself in the mirror again and say, “I gave my best.” Trust me, the result of that day will not matter to you anymore. You will still be at peace with yourself. and feel happy and satisfied irrespective of the outcome.
I will end this letter by telling you a bit about my personal self. I am a graduate from a private university in Noida. Like the majority of you, I did not get the marks to enter into the best colleges of Delhi University. I didn’t even know that something like Delhi University exists when I passed my Class XII. But I tried to become the best version of myself in my own college, and the college too reciprocated.
Later, I applied for Masters in Social Work in Delhi University. I had always wanted to work with people and help them and bring change in society. I got through in the very first attempt, and my two years in the college were also phenomenal. Amidst all of this, I did not stop striving to become the best version of myself every single day.
So, it does not matter where you are today. What matters is that you have the potential to reach where you want to reach tomorrow. You just have to recognize that potential and respect it, and be the best that you can be. After that, the results won’t matter, the only thing which will matter is that you gave your best.
You may feel low today. But I believe you can rise and become the best version of yourself and defeat the odds stacked against you. If you do feel stressed, and feel the need for counseling, call the CBSE toll-free helpline 1800-11-8002. The helpline gives psychological counseling post-Class XII Board results. Do not hesitate to call. Sharing with someone who understands relieves a lot of burden sometimes.
This World Press Freedom Day is an apt occasion for us to pay our tributes to Amit Topno, a young journalist from Jharkhand who was shot dead on December 9 last year, by attackers who remain untraced thus far. He was born and brought up in Khunti, the birthplace of the legendary Birsa Munda, and he seems to have imbibed Birsa’s spirit in standing up to oppression and exploitation.
Amit Topno
Whether it be speaking out against organized theft of resources on Adivasi land to cities, or deliberate neglect of Anganwadi centres in tribal districts, or illegal underpayment/wage theft by non-Adivasi rural employers, he was always on hand to expose the myriad injustices being meted out to Adivasis in the forest belt of Jharkhand on a regular basis. He would pull no punches. He was reportedly well known in the local Hindi-language media for his courageous and committed journalism, and has left behind a valuable body of work highlighting violations of Adivasi rights in a sensitive part of the so-called Maoist (“Red”) “corridor“.
He was an important voice in a country where those high and mighty lodged in the insular islands of power arbitrarily decide whether or not the vulnerable and disenfranchised should be allowed to live on their own plots of land. One of Amit’s last projects was to cover the semi-famous Pathalgadi movement, which saw massive mobilization among the Adivasis of Khunti in asserting their rights over their land, water, and environment against the constant depredations of greedy “dikus” (“outsiders”), facilitated by the State and Central governments.
They symbolically suggested that, at least for Adivasis, the Indian Constitution was a dead document. The murder that consumed Amit Topno would seem to confirm that – given the freedom that Article 19(1)(a) supposedly gives to journalists appears, in the current political epoch, to be a dead concept. After all, Amit Topno was an Adivasi journalist.
Gauri Lankesh
Topno’s murder is one of the lesser known sacrifices of journalism to the culture of political violence in India. Gauri Lankesh’s murder in 2017 was one of the most widely covered pieces of news on the subject of violence against journalists in the country. She was killed outside her residence by trained Hindutva thugs for her criticism of Hindutva hate politics in general and the Modi government’s policies in particular. One of the alleged murderers, later arrested, accused her of holding anti-Hindu sentiments.
Rajesh Verma and Israr, journalist and cameraperson respectively, were killed – some allege targeted – while covering the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh; Sandeep Kothari was abducted and killed in 2015 for writing against mining mafia in Madhya Pradesh; Indradev Yadav was murdered in 2016 for refusing to give in to Maoist extortionist demands; Dharmendra Singh was shot dead in 2016 in Sasaram, Bihar, for writing to expose illegal stone mining; Sudip Datta Bhowmik and Santanu Bhowmik were killed in Tripura by a policeman and by a group of militants respectively.
Those who were ‘luckier’, the likes of Kamran Yousuf, a young photojournalist who was arrested and later released for his work in the troubled paradise of Kashmir, have ridiculous charges – like sedition (more on this later) – imposed on them and their journalistic credentials questioned when they probe state atrocities. Or you could be Kishorechandra Wangkhem, who was arrested under the National Security Act – which allows for detention up to a year without trial – apparently for making an anti-Modi comment.
All these journalists were working in small towns or places in India mostly neglected by the Indian metropole, with small media outlets in vernacular languages, meaning that they had the potential to reach and report from the crucial grassroots of Indian democracy. They were low-profile, working with relatively less job security and lesser pay, and therefore some of the most vulnerable journalists in India. In the age of technology and with rising literacy levels (albeit extremely slowly), ever more people in the country are becoming consumers of news and understanding the impact of events on their lives.
This has given rise to a competitive media environment where many journalists work overtime and not infrequently on risky subjects. Others, like Topno, come from backgrounds where they have had firsthand experience of oppression, and are determined to see justice done to their communities and those like them. Sometimes that takes them into ‘forbidden’ territories, where powerful political and corporate interests are in play, and their adventure ends in tragedy.
Shujaat Bukhari
Although journalists working in the English-language media or national level Hindi-language media typically have a higher profile, even they have not been exempted from attacks in recent times. Shujaat Bukhari, a highly respected journalist and editor who had been covering Kashmir for decades, was shot dead in broad daylight last year. It has become increasingly common for journalists to get death threats and doxxed now, as in the case of Ravish Kumar.
Investigative journalists like Rana Ayyub, who apart from building the case for the Modi-led Gujarat government’s alleged complicity in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in the State in her book, comes in for a special brand of hatred for being a no-nonsense Muslim woman journalist. She has got several death/rape threats, has been attacked by Hindutva trolls on social media for being Muslim, branded a prostitute and has had a doctored pornographic video circulated in her name. Things have been so serious that the UN human rights officials decided to get involved, urging India’s government to provide her protection, a request that appears to have fallen on deaf ears. Rana isn’t feeling any safer.
Rana Ayyub
No journalist who chooses to do her job can in the current environment. This space isn’t enough to mention each of the scores of cases where the freedom of Indian journalists to express themselves has been curtailed by the executive or the judiciary, but this small effort is to emphasize the extent to which the fourth estate in India is threatened. Considering all this, there would seem to be more sacrifices like that of Lankesh in the offing.
The latest rankings of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an international media freedom watchdog, have placed India at 140 (among 180 countries) on the World Press Freedom Index in 2019, 2 places lower than where it was the previous year. India has slid down the table continuously since 2016. The report of RSF on India is worth quoting in full here, as it summarizes well the state of media freedom in the country:
“Violence against journalists – including police violence, attacks by Maoist fighters, and reprisals by criminal groups or corrupt politicians – is one of the most striking characteristics of the current state of press freedom in India. At least six Indian journalists were killed in connection with their work in 2018. A number of doubts surround a seventh case. These murders highlighted the many dangers Indian journalists face, especially those working for non-English-language media outlets in rural areas. Attacks against journalists by supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi increased in the run-up to general elections in the spring of 2019. Those who espouse Hindutva, the ideology that gave rise to Hindu nationalism, are trying to purge all manifestations of “anti-national” thought from the national debate.
The coordinated hate campaigns waged on social networks against journalists who dare to speak or write about subjects that aggravate Hindutva followers are alarming and include calls for the journalists concerned to be murdered. The campaigns are particularly virulent when the targets are women. The emergence of a #MeToo movement in the media in 2018 has lifted the veil on many cases of harassment and sexual assault to which women reporters have been subjected. Criminal prosecutions are meanwhile often used to gag journalists critical of the authorities, with some prosecutors invoking Section 124a of the penal code, under which “sedition” is punishable by life imprisonment. The mere threat of such a prosecution encourages self-censorship. Finally, coverage of regions that the authorities regard as sensitive, such as Kashmir, continues to be very difficult. Foreign reporters are barred from Kashmir and the Internet is often disconnected there. When not detained, Kashmiri journalists working for local media outlets are often the targets of violence by paramilitaries acting with the central government’s tacit consent.”
The ‘sedition’ law, Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code is a colonial era law which was used as an aggressive clampdown measure by the British government against any dissent from Indians, and has been used repeatedly by governments in independent India to silence dissenters and journalists who expose abuses of power. In addition to this, the now illegal Section 66A of the Information Technology Act of 2000, continues to be used by law enforcement agencies to harass dissenting voices or amateur/netizen journalists on social media.
This leads to a lot of people keeping mum for fear of being persecuted. In 2016, Community to Protect Journalists, another NGO tracking performance of countries on press freedom and journalist rights, put India at 13th on the Global Impunity Index, which was around the time India’s rankings on the RSF Index also started seeing a steady decline. India happened to be one of only 3 countries – the others being Syria and South Sudan, both nations torn by civil strife – to not submit themselves to UNESCO’s impunity accountability mechanism, which requests information on the status of investigations into killed journalists for the U.N. agency’s biennial report on journalist safety.
The growing trend of corporate and political ownership of media (especially broadcast media) houses has meant that powerful and moneyed interests have been pipping public interest with alarming regularity. Politically opinionated hacks now operate as “journalists” on bespoke “news” channels, amid a surfeit of “breaking news”, performative slanging matches, obscene cacophony, and wall-to-wall boondoggle.
Big money, “24X7” news is less about holding power to account and informing a democracy than settling political scores, grabbing eyeballs and manipulation of the audience’s emotions. Corporatization of the media has led to a serious erosion of the institution of the media itself. The triple-headed spectre of fake news, clickbait journalism and dedicated misinformation campaigns has further queered the pitch for traditional, reliable print and broadcast media.
One would be foolish to think that it was much better for Indian journalists in some past halcyon period. Covering elections in troubled regions, for example, has almost always been a very risky affair, especially till the 1980s, as this story highlights. Fear and venality of lesser people have more often than not been weaponized by the rich and powerful to subvert and corrupt India’s democracy.
The Windhoek Declaration, which was a precursor to the UN announcing May 3 as World Press Freedom Day in 1993 and was endorsed by the UNESCO in 1991, stressed on the importance of the press being “independent, pluralistic and free”. By an independent press, it meant “independent from governmental, political or economic control or from control of materials and infrastructure essential for the production and dissemination of newspapers, magazines, and periodicals”. By a pluralistic press, it meant “end of monopolies of any kind and the existence of the greatest possible number of newspapers, magazines, and periodicals reflecting the widest possible range of opinion within the community”. By that definition, our press is definitely not independent, and it is “pluralistic” only in a regressive, even destructive, sense.
Some sections of the media have been in cahoots with the politically powerful, giving rise to such unique scandals such as paid news. Crony capitalism has been allowed to subordinate ethical values that inform the discipline of journalism to narrow political interests, thus cheapening journalism itself. Two keywords of good governance, “transparency” and “accountability”, have always sounded good on paper, but authorities have almost always religiously avoided submitting themselves to those lofty standards of probity. Courageous journalism over the years has ensured that sanctimonious political bosses are reminded that in a democracy they ought to practise the principles they declaim with aplomb from their bully pulpits to the supposedly ignorant hordes. Often this has come at great personal costs to journalists, as has been demonstrated earlier.
How has the political class responded to the plight of journalists and of journalism itself? Aside from cases where there is proactive censoring of the media and punishing of journalists by governments on the flimsiest of pretexts, politicians on the Opposition have only performatively protested excesses and censorship against journalists or certain media houses. There has, however, been a welcome change in the manifestos of certainOpposition parties this election season, where pressing issues like journalist safety, cross-media monopolization by corporate houses, fake news and paid news etc have been given a mention and sought to be redressed.
However, these are a) contingent upon the electoral victory of the concerned parties, b)”just promises” at this stage. But at least it’s a start. The fact that Opposition parties have concerned themselves with issues like press freedom and journalist safety means they have acquired critical political gravity, and have realized the value of an independent press in a functioning democracy. If they win, it’s critically important that the promises, like most pre-poll promises, are not broken. Moreover, the citizenry needs to engage more critically with information, learn to fact-check and tell false information from real, and generally be more vocal in their support of good journalism.
Citizens need to make use of the power that social media endows them with to not only support and promote press freedom, but also serve as complements to professional journalists to the extent possible. We need to follow as many vernacular media journalists as possible on social media or otherwise, and extend visible support to their work, because these journalists provide vital links to the lowest rungs of India’s democracy and are the ones most at risk.
We must collectively put pressure on our governments to ensure protection to all journalists, and to pass laws to ensure mandatory public disclosure of ownership of media and conflict of interest details in a bid to secure independence of the media. All of us need to channel our inner Amit Topnos and defend the real ones outside of us. It will be difficult to sustain our beloved democracy, already under vicious attack from malicious forces within and without, otherwise.
How often are you given validation just because of your gender? Paying at restaurants? Giving birth to a child? My personal favourite would be taking one’s existence in their hands and making it their business. Or, in simpler terms, Sati. You will be amazed at how little we think of a woman in relation to a man. It’s a gut-wrenching allowance given to nobody but everybody assumes that they own her body. By everybody here I mean to say the “men”. We give the power and alibi to them every single day.
India is the land of traditional values and norms, and is a deep-rooted patriarchal society, where even in this highly competitive, modernized 21st century world, a woman’s identity is linked to her husband’s. Though the “Sati” custom is prohibited, the remnants are still seen. Widowhood, in such a society, takes its worst shape.
In many families, the loss of the breadwinner is entangled with many other social implications. Widows in India, and many other countries across the globe, are often considered to be cursed; they are thrown out by their families fearing that they might spread their “bad luck”. Statistics show that there are 5.6 crore widows in the country, which is really bizarre considering the fact that India is in the top 10 countries having more men than women. In other words, India stands at the 192 position amongst 201 nations in terms of sex ratio.
Image for representation only. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
I never knew or thought of the pain of widowed women until my father passed away. My once sanguine and loquacious mother became a different person altogether. Not because she wanted that, but because people started ignoring her. Her attempt to optimism was met with stony silences and piercing looks. The people whom she thought would stand by her slowly left her fearing that support will be expected from them. They failed to realize that she just needed validation, that she was still a human and not defined by someone else.
Then came a wedding in the family. according to the custom of our community, my mother should originally have had a major role in the rituals. But since she was a widow, she wasn’t expected to perform the same. What happened was unanticipated—she was not invited to the wedding, not even notified. Yet, us, her kids were invited and even asked to join the wedding shopping. Did they really think that we would join them? This was the last nail on the coffin!
She became dejected and no amount of motivation could help her come back to the jovial person she was. She distanced herself from everyone. People frowned upon her minimalistic yet new attire, citing that widows shouldn’t wear new clothes. She had to forgo her love for bright colours and started wearing the sober ones more. Her imprudent colleagues complained about their widowed mothers and mother in laws, wanting to go out for movies; and they succeeded. My mother never went out with us on long drives, let alone movies.
But what society couldn’t kill was the unflinching spirit of my mother. Like a slap on the face for every person who tried to belittle her, she rose like a Phoenix from the flames.
One day, she called me up and said that she was no longer going to take a backseat, that she was ready to fight against all odds till the end. She stays alone in big megalopolis outside India. She bought a car with her own hard earned money and steers it through the bustling streets with great ease. Yet there are days when she speaks to no one, when she just wants to be alone, when she breaks down completely, bewildered, and not knowing what to do next. But she never gives up. Once she asked me a heart-rending question that still reverberates in my ears. “Will I be asked to stay away from your wedding?“. That moment I realized the amount of hurt and pain she goes through everyday.
That’s when I understood the enormity of the plight of widowed women. There are many cases where they are ostracized by their families and society. Many find refuge in pilgrimage cities like Vrindavan. The young widows are left alone to fend for their children, while many elderly widows are either left in old age homes or simply asked to leave their homes, ending up as beggars.
An ironical fact is that widowers never face such discrimination. Why such double standards? Because of gender differences? Even popular media romanticizes this notion of widows spending the rest of their lives in the memory of their deceased spouses. But why does no one contemplate about their life after that?
These women need emotional support to come back to their normal selves. They need the right kind of encouragement and support system to help them get back on their feet. In India, many families don’t allow their daughters and daughters-in-law to work. But once their husbands die, they are expected to support their family. In fact, a job, as an engagement, would take off their mind from the pain. It’s high time that India sees these women as one among them and elevate their status in society.
I stand for the rights of these women who are deemed a level lower than other people. In a country, where studies have shown that women outlive men, society must come to terms with this fact and treat widows with more respect. For me, my mother is my superhero and my inspiration. I would never want her beautiful smile to be wiped out from her face.
Arundhati Roy is hoping the BJP government will lose the upcoming general elections, but knows that the influence of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will continue to stay, even if that happens.
“What is happening now is very dangerous and I do hope that in these elections, the government changes, but the fact remains that the RSS will remain, the corporate media that has promoted it will remain, the institutions that have been penetrated will continue to be compromised. So, even if the government falls, we are by no means out of danger,” Roy told Youth Ki Awaaz. She was speaking during the release of her book, The Doctor and The Saint.
Stating that the present government was ‘fascist’, she said the only difference between Modi government and Hitler’s rule was that the latter had at least revived Germany’s economy.
“The big difference between what happened prior to World War II and now is, Hitler actually revived a broken economy in a way that gave him a great deal of appeal among young people, whereas here, they (the BJP) have managed to break the economy,” she said.
In a freewheeling conversation, Roy spoke to Youth Ki Awaaz about what she makes of Right wing’s appropriation of Gandhi as a symbol, India’s shrinking space of dissent and the culture of censorship that has gripped the nation.
On The Modi Led BJP Government’s Brand Of Politics
I think this sort of configuration was coming since 1925 when the RSS was formed. This government’s programme of communalism, of divisiveness, of hatred is not accidental. In fact, one of the very interesting things is that between the 19th and 20th centuries, when there was a reformist movement that was based on ‘trying to bring Dalits into the Hindu fold’, the movement of cow protection, nagari pracharak and ghar wapsi all used to function from the same office.
It’s got very deep political roots. What is happening now is very dangerous and I do hope that in these elections, the government changes. The fact remains, though, that (even if they lose), the RSS will remain, the corporate media that has promoted it will remain, the institutions that have been penetrated will continue to be compromised. So, even if the government falls, we are by no means out of danger.
On Right Wing’s Appropriation Of Gandhi As A Symbol
While there was a huge divergence on Gandhi’s position on communalism, on the issue of Hindu and Muslims, on the issue of caste there was a great convergence. There isn’t that much daylight between their positions, so I would not say the Right wing appropriated Gandhi, because I think they always made a place for him.
On Fascism: The Difference Between Hitler’s Germany And Modi’s India
Their (BJP’s) ideology is surely fascist. Whether they have managed to get a grip on this country is a different matter. Don’t forget, though, Fascism came to power in a democratic country, in a democratic election in Germany. The big difference between what happened prior to World War II and now is that Hitler actually revived a broken economy in a way that gave him a great deal of appeal among young people, whereas here, they have managed to break the economy. That’s a very, very big difference.
On The Growing Culture Of Censorship And Violence In India
In India, earlier, films were refused a censor certificate or certain books were banned. Now you are down to writers and journalists being assasinated, theatres being burnt, filmmakers being threatened and (while all this happens), the government just sort of stands aside and from the rhythm of its breathing makes mobs feel protected.
On Caste
I think debate is so real, so urgent and so important for us to understand right now – in a deep way, and not in a posturing sort of way because it really strikes at the heart of Indian society. I believe that caste is the engine that runs Indian society. And its remarkable that other kinds of discrimination like apartheid, racism and sexism are debated all the time, all over the world and not just in India. But caste, the only time Indians try to deal with it is during the elections.
Caste has been made out to be something eastern, and esoteric; something conflated with yoga and Gandhi and the Beatles and the hippies. So, the absolutely unacceptable cruel hierarchy is sort of erased. It’s what I call the ‘the problem of unseeing’.
On India’s Deteriorating Media Landscape
We have been building up towards a situation where when you look at the structure of ownership in media, there is a massive conflict of interest. You have Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance more or less owning and controlling shares in 24 hour news channels. You have a conflict of interest in the way that its run. That has to end.
If you have a weapon’s dealer running a TV company, of course, they are going to want a war. And it’s far too dangerous. We (India and Pakistan) have become the first two nuclear powers in history to bomb each other. You just can’t have TV anchors sitting in studios and saying we don’t want condemnation, we want blood. It’s far too dangerous. Instead of condemning these individual points of insanity, we really have to look at how the media is structured.
There is space, but it depends on who is doing it. So, it’s all a very high stakes game. A person unprotected in a small town in India can’t say what I can say, or a Muslim, can’t say what I can say. But, on the other hand, in my case, there’s so much light on what I say – there’s bullying, there’s trolling. So, that’s the other side.
I won’t say the space has been completely forfeited, but I will say that I am pretty impressed by the way people have been standing up. That’s the only way to do it. To just, force them to return that space to us.
(The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity)
I saw the viral video of six young women confronting a middle-aged woman for slut-shaming them. Shivani Gupta, one of the young women who were at the receiving end, wrote on Facebook, that the older woman asked men at a restaurant to rape her as she was ‘inviting it with her short skirt’.
At the end of the viral video, the older woman looked at the camera and asked the parents of the country to ‘control the girls’. She also asked parents to control what girls wear and asked them to teach their daughters to talk with respect. She clearly looked both, angry, and unapologetic about her words.
When another woman confronted her, asking how she can have such thoughts and opinions despite having a daughter herself, the woman in question replied by saying, “Women should dress properly to avoid rape”. One of the girls present made an important argument by stating:
“Women who wear burqas, suits, sarees get raped. Older women and children get raped. Why? Because of their clothes? Men rape 2-year-old girls, why? Because of what they were wearing?”
In a massive WTF moment, the older woman replied, “Such men are psychic”. The video went viral and plenty of netizens extended their support to the young women, while many condemned them for subjecting the older one to a mob attack and cyber-bullying her. In what can be best described as painful irony or rather hypocrisy, many netizens showered rape threats and vile abusive comments on the older woman’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
Eventually, the woman issued an apology. I don’t know if she said it because she finally understood the implications of the rape culture she tried to perpetuate, or if she was just removing herself from the equation following the viral video in which she refused to apologise.
Either way, I ended up reflecting on the general viewpoint of this country with relation to rape and a woman’s clothing. The Thomas Reuters Foundation released a report last year (vehemently rejected by ultra-nationalists of course) which claimed that India is the most dangerous country in the world for women.
India is a land of many cultures. This doesn’t just involve women wearing sleeveless tops/dresses or short skirts, but highly conservative cultures with conservative dressing styles as well. Plenty of women wear sarees, long skirts, kurtas, burqa/pardah or ghoonghat. The number of rape victims and survivors include women from rural areas and conservative cultures.
Slut-shaming and victim blaming are not new in Indian society. In my opinion, the intense scrutiny and harassment that rape survivors have to endure at the hands of religious fundamentalists, conservatives, and misogynists play a role in making rape such a heinous crime and one of the biggest fears for women.
History shows that sex is used by men as a method to control women.Men who fought wars and won, often raped women in the lands that they conquered. In such cases, the penis replaced the knife as a weapon of war and violence.
It was alleged that Bhanwari Devi was raped by upper caste men as punishment for stopping child marriage. Reports also suggest that young Asifa was raped to scare the Bakarwal Muslim community away. I remember a piece of news involving a Khap Panchayat ordering12 men to rape a woman as punishment.
So, it is no surprise that the same power structure is used to control what women wear and when they go out and who they go out with. Even today, women undergo a 6 pm curfew. Women face stricter hostel rules than men. Girls are married off and chastised due to such belief systems.
Are Clothes Responsible For Rape?
Just like one of the women in the video said, children,babies,older women, women from conservative cultures also get raped. As a matter of fact, in a majority of rape cases, thesurvivor/victim was known to the perpetrator.
When I faced verbal harassment for the first time, I was eleven years old and was wearing a churidar. The men who harassed me were in their 20’s and they didn’t bat an eyelid at the fact that I was a minor. On the other hand, plenty of women wear sleeveless clothes and short skirts, yet men are seen on their best behaviour around them. Is it because they know that rape is a crime punishable even with a death sentence (IPC Sec 376E and new POCSO act)?
Men who feel entitled are often fed by the notion that they get to do whatever they want and girls ask for it. Remember Mukesh Singh’s interview?
Nirbhaya’s rapist believed that it was the girl’s fault for roaming around at night and he was a man who was given the death sentence. Also, one of the rapists saw his mother being assaulted by his father. According toa woman who interviewed a 100 rapists, rapists come from the same place where men are taught wrong ideas about masculinity and women are taught to be submissive. Most of the men don’t even know what consent is.
Which brings us to the older woman in the video who represented the patriarchy that perpetuates the notion that girls should be controlled and if they aren’t then they “deserve” to be raped. Sexual assault usually follows aggression and anger. Also, I feel that every time someone tries to spread education about consent or tries to shift the onus from the survivor to the perpetrator, people fueled by malevolent misogyny and fundamentalism drag us 10 steps back.
Victim Blaming And Slut Shaming Are A Part Of Our Culture
Personally, as much as I laud the girls for exposing the woman, I find the whole reaction by the public hypocritical. The older woman has now been subjected to rape threats, probably by the same set of people will shame a girl for stepping out after 6 pm and for wearing what she likes.
When I was in college, I studied with girls from highly conservative backgrounds. I have heard them make really ludicrous comments on women who wear ‘modern’ clothing. In one incident, a teacher, during an interactive session, said, “films depict women showing off their cleavages and belly buttons. Men who see it, crave sex and attack other women.”
When Shivani Gupta shared the video, plenty of men and women in the comments section supported the older woman’s point of view. Which brings us to the fundamental problem, what is our definition of rape?
Religious fundamentalist and conservative society have defined rape as an act of aggression committed by lascivious men against women who are vulnerable, a.k.a, women who don’t have anyone to protect them, women who wear a certain attire, women who don’t conform to strict rules. I am mentioning lascivious men because for some, as much as society wants women to be “pure” and perfect until married, they see sex as a basic necessity for men and that they will crave it no matter what.
I had a WTF moment during an orientation, where a priest taught us that women should stay safe to avoid rape because men can’t control their lust and that women are superior because they can.To make things worse, no one challenged him. Neither men nor women in the audience. I can only assume that the ‘not-all-men’ brigade probably remained silent because the priests wouldn’t use the term “feminist” to describe himself. To them, all that mattered was his lessons to women on how they should be safe from rape, i.e how their autonomy will be controlled in the name of safety.
I had a debate online with a man who insisted that rape happens because it is part of nature and women can only prevent it by doing what they can to be safe.
Anyway, as mentioned before this view on rape is taking us on a dangerous path. Rape is any form of sexual activity where one or neither party consented to the act. If a husband forces himself on his wife, it is rape. If a boyfriend does that, it is rape. If a man forces himself on a woman who didn’t give a verbal yes, it is rape. Same is the case if the roles are reversed.
Rape is a violation of an individual’s bodily integrity and autonomy and it need not always be a violent act committed by a stranger. So, every time, a woman is told that she will be raped, it is indirectly implied that men will rape no matter what and this (temporarily) erases the fact that it is a crime where power structure plays a crucial role. A daughter is raped because a son commits the crime. That is where the onus should be.
It is similar to what is mentioned in the movie ‘Pink’, we need to save the boys so that girls don’t need saving. That’s where the older woman failed. She asked seven men to rape other women or gave them the idea that girls should be punished for not following a particular dress code.
We can do better. We should upgrade our thinking and not remain chained by age-old beliefs that throw women’s rights under the bus.
The Indian constitution drafted women’s rights, it is up to the people to ensure that these rights are implemented.
I really wish I didn’t have to write this. Unfortunately, there is no other way to get this message out.
Over the last two-three years, I’ve read countless accounts of people speaking up against my campus on such forums. Frankly, over the last few years, word of mouth which was once your strength has irreversibly turned against your institute due to your own actions. Since publicity and reputation (your own) are all you care about (never mind even if it involves illicit ways), this is the best way to get to you. I am one of the insignificant students your campus has managed to tame for four years. I shall remain anonymous since you and your management believes they can arbitrarily destroy careers and take action without any accountability, I really don’t wish to put my certificate under threat after my four years of madness ended this summer.
Truth be told, I really don’t want to hate your campus. In the four years I’ve spent here I’ve seen the capabilities of the students and the faculties here. Alas, you wish to clip their wings and keep them submissive more than anything else. I’m one of those women students who have been ‘shown their place’ in your campus. Four to five years ago I was naive enough to believe truth and independence is the forte of the girls of my generation. However, too bad, when institutions that act the way that they do, I’ve accepted my fate. I’m one of those who your administration wants to ‘control,’ and make sure I remain ‘protected and pure,’ as if I’m incapable of making my own choices, and act on primal animal-like instincts.
At dusk, when campuses across India come to life, suddenly my existence becomes a threat for the thousands of guards who act upon your orders. As if some crime, my presence outside the walled enclaves of my hostel is met with stares, frowns, blabber and condescension. Above all, parts of my own campus become inaccessible to me. Anywhere where students may sit is either barbed, fenced or guards are placed to whistle and shove them around. Barricades are put up to herd me, and make sure I stay away from any intimacy with the opposite sex even if that means men with no form of decency whistling and shouting at me to go back (of course taking a gender segregated path).
You seem to have confused rights and safety with patronage and surveillance. I’m told for my own safety, I must not walk to the library or back after my curfew, or walk out in certain clothing or with someone, or take leave to attend an event, etc. You may see concern in this, but the country along with me, sees objectification.
Concern would’ve been you putting forth a redressal system for complaints (which are mostly against your very employees) rather than clipping my wings. During cultural fests, I see your paranoia when what should be a neutral space and a neutral route in the campus, is ghettoised, and instead I’m transported as if on some jungle safari. Moreover, the ridiculous emails you send me, I must tell, if a tenth of the efforts and cash that is burnt on keeping me in check would be utilised for something useful, I see how the capabilities that I mention would’ve realised.
The quality of the teaching faculty is on going downhill. Not really anyone’s fault when your intake rises exponentially so much so basic facilities like water in hostels become an issue, you need teachers however poor they may be at their job to fill up. FFCS works on the premise that all faculty teaching the courses would be if not equally, at least nearly as competent as each other. On the other hand, your fake and inflated placement records, if I’ve worked hard for four years, the university has no right to restrict me from multiple placement offers. Your cap on number of offers is used as classic game theory to reduce to highest possible package to students, meanwhile again the university PAT forbids anyone from taking up further education once a placement offer is handed. Your management doesn’t know where to stop.
My exiting the walled hostel is left to the choice of a supervisor at the block. Instead of keeping up, every few days the norms of modesty just get a tad bit higher. On weekends, a simple outing meant for me often a good address by the warden. Trust me, I don’t know about where you take inspiration from, but I’ve never been so morally policed or seen such extended gender segregation even during my school days or at concerts/shows.
Another thing I wish to ask you is, are you woefully unaware about your own institution? Or is it that every time you speak to the press or tweet, your statements come out exactly opposite to how things actually work in your campus? I’ve seen students fail in subjects suspiciously after they question your authorities, I’ve seen students being threatened to submit letters of their termination for slightest of questioning, or the censorship on views reaching where they should. Not to mention the wonderful way you treat my gender – seriously, a cooking fest was all you could think of last year during Women’s Day? What do the ‘You Go Girl’ poster and countless patronising interviews signify? Hypocrisy? Or apathy to how your officials run the institution? The meme pages on social media and stand up comedians have the last laugh.
I’m told it wasn’t always so. Despite everything, there was once a time when the institute was still stuck in the past but was making efforts to modernise. Our seniors told us that. We believed them. However, I’m sad to say the tables have turned now. You know very well, the reputation of your institute was built on word of mouth. Today the same word of mouth has turned against it. This is an institute growing more and more insecure and more fit for the past century than the present day by day. Everywhere I’m mocked by parents and students alike, because of the regressive rules that you set up and inevitably pop up in mainstream and social media.
As I read in another article about your campus, except your home base in Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, students have started ditching the campus in large numbers. It is not really surprising. They often end up taking up newer but more liberal campuses. Because, let’s face it, as much as you would hate it, in India, students and guardians alike have been caught in a spell of liberalism. The Kerala HC judgement on hostel curfews, Pinjra Tod’s successes up north, to LGBTQ rights, adultery laws, to parents themselves facilitating their children to come out of the closet.
Parents today want their children to be safe, but respect the fact that their children turn into adults one day and can make their own choices. A few stray cases don’t really warrant the systems in place. Trust often begets responsibility and an absence of trust leads to everything you fear. Over the years, countless of my juniors have given up the campus for newer and more liberal ones (the IITs, satellite campuses of BITS, Manipal, Ashoka, state varsities, etc.) even if that meant taking 5 year integrated courses or a lesser sought branch elsewhere,paying a fortune or in some cases giving up engineering altogether.
They’ve moved to campuses where administrators believe the campus belongs to the students, instead of being ‘owned’ by a family or ‘run’ by a select few.
Here’s a challenge, advertise your hostel and campus norms before the counseling process and be assured that the number of aspirants (which has already dropped by a third), shall drop more. I’ve seen parents (because you really don’t care about students), sit during the counseling and scratch their heads at archaic laws advertised with pride (few who had the financial capabilities even dropped out letting go of the non-refundable charges). The actions of your wardens who’ve taken moral policing (slammed by the Kerala HC for another college) to new heights bewilders me, when often our parents too find themselves clueless about their children missing out on competitions, interviews or unable to leave for holidays and outings they’ve approved of, etc. This is not the hallmark of an institute that claims to be progressive or compete at global standards. Let alone global, your archaic rules aren’t even fit and are laughed at outside your home turf of Katpadi and Vellore.
VIT’s Chancellor G. Viswanathan as reported in the media. (Photo provided by author)
If you wish to cater to the prejudices back home, stop marketing the campus the way you do. Your countless Tamil conclaves don’t really matter when your actions lead to thousands carry an opinionated view of your culture when they go back home.
As I said, the capabilities of the campus are beyond the skies if let free. However, right now, it seems students comment that they achieve laurels despite the bureaucracy of your institute rather than with the support of it. The natural line of progression is that students gradually start liking their campus over the years. What I see in VIT, is exactly the opposite. Freshers remain excited at first seeing the huge campus, gradually when admission season departs they feel a bit puzzled when their friends attend fresher and instead they are bombarded with handshake emails.
Gradually, the real picture is revealed and the waiting starts for the day they’ll be free again. The word of mouth wards off future aspirants and warn their parents of the dictatorial attitudes and muffling of voices and opportunities.
I leave it up to you how you take this letter. I am thankful for this experience. You’ve shown me how big money, corruption, double speak, hypocrisy and sexism in our country is something we’ll have to fight for several more years to come. I can’t tweet tagging you for obvious reasons, but I hope you finally look outside the bubble.
Wishing you luck,
15XXXXXXX
Featured image for representative purpose only.
Featured image source: VIT Chennai/Website; Arijit Sen/Hindustan Times via Getty Images.
“Do you think she dialed 100 just for fun?”, shouted my Investigating Officer(IO).
It was a Saturday morning when I woke up to receive a call from her. I was tired after a whole week of talking to the lawyers, police and my parents.
IO: “Good morning madam.”
Me: “Good morning.”
I thought that I would be asked to share some more mundane details about the night the incident happened. Or the police would want more information about the harasser. But to my surprise, the IO had called to say that they had identified the car and the harasser.
She said, “is it possible for you to come to the police station? The ACP would also like to meet you with regards to your complaint against the three male constables who were on duty that night”.
We were seated in the SHO office at the police station and this man was now trembling. All he could utter was, “please let me go…I have a wife and a six-month-old daughter”.
On April 20, 2019, I was followed and eve-teased by this man. I dialed 100 after which three male police officers called me but did nothing to help. I had barely managed to reach home. Standing in my balcony, making incessant calls to the police, I realized how vulnerable my life was. Even more vulnerable were the lives of other women who might be getting harassed at that moment and would be hoping that dialing 100 would save them.
The next morning I woke up differently. I knew I had to do something about the inefficiency of the police. Knowing that I would be asked to narrate the entire incident once again, I mustered the courage and reached the police station to file an FIR. The FIR was filed, the case was registered and I was assigned a woman sub-inspector (IO) who would look into my case.
When I first met my investigating officer amidst the humdrum of Saket District Court, I wondered if she would even follow through my case. My friends and family were humming the old narrative-“You must Thank God that you are safe. This country is like this. It is not worth your time. This is going to take a few years. It’s going to be a tedious process. Police are the worst in such matters”.
But to my surprise and to the surprise of everyone else, my IO had identified the guy within a week’s time. I was thrilled and scared at the same time. I did not want to meet the man as I was not yet prepared for the traumatic memories the meeting would bring out. I was pursuing this case out of anger. A deep sense of rage against the perpetrator’s audacity to eve-tease and follow me and well-managed anger against a system which lets these perpetrators do so.
A week later, I was at the police station to identify him and the car. In the SHO’s office, absorbed in all the paperwork, my IO prepared the documents which needed my signatures. Meanwhile, the SHO extended his apology for the male constable’s behavior and was eager to flaunt his female investigating officer’s hard work.
There is no denying that the police is exposed to a high degree of human apathy because they are faced with brutal crimes on a daily basis. They do not get enough leaves and work under strict deadlines. They are also the most undervalued and overworked as a result of witnessing the underbelly of society and the dark side of human nature every single day. But looking at my IO, I witnessed a completely different narrative.
Standing in front of me was a woman, who knew what she had signed up for. She seemed to have refused to let a perpetrator slip by because of system failure. She was standing tall with her undeterred spirit to crush any force that will attempt to commit crimes like sexual harassment or eve teasing. The perpetrator was identified and arrested. He gave lame responses when he was asked why he did what he did upon which the IO yelled at him.
The SHO, ACP told me that there is nothing to worry now as I signed the papers which reiterated that I had identified the car and the perpetrator. But when my IO told me that there is nothing to worry, it took a weight off my shoulders. I knew that I no longer have to carry the scene by myself.
I also realized that I am not just made out of flesh and bones. I felt independent as a woman. I went back home knowing that there is a woman who is dutiful and responsive towards her job and would do anything to make sure that my safety is ensured. She affirmed my faith in a system that is broken.
Anger propelled me to take action against my perpetrator. Today he knows that it is not alright to harass a woman because there are more and more women who are occupying positions of power. Unless there are more women holding important positions in the system, we cannot expect gender equality. Research conducted internationally clearly demonstrates that female police officers often respond more effectively to incidents of violence against women.
When I was leaving from the police station, I had one last chat with my IO where I told her how scared I was because people had told me the repercussions of filing an FIR. They would threaten you to take your complaint back. They may harass you again. It will take a long time before he is arrested. He will get out on bail and would follow you again. At which, she said “I know what you feel and I have seen many such cases. He will not dare to do this again. In case this happens once again and at any point in time, you feel that you are being followed just give me a call”.
When she said those words I experienced something which was not at all similar to when I heard those words from the male police officers. I felt certain of my safety. I knew that I matter and nothing can happen to me under her supervision and that was guaranteed.
One woman’s stance powers another woman’s stance. Knowing that there is another woman out there who is of my age, looks like me, who is dutiful in her job, I can rest assured of my safety. My safety will not be ascertained when I will become somebody’s daughter, sister, girlfriend or a wife. That is what women’s empowerment means.
We do not need men to support us and rescue us from men themselves. All we need is more headstrong, dutiful, standing their ground, doing their job and inspiring women like me, to lead a life that does not feel like it means nothing. Every woman’s power becomes every other woman’s power and in this so-called, careless man’s world, we need more empathetic, judicious women officers to restore a sense of balance and to let righteousness prevail.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recently released its annual report for 2019 on the state of religious freedom in countries across the world. The Commission is “an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) that monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad.” It “uses international standards to monitor religious freedom violations globally, and makes policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress.” It defines religious freedom as “an expansive right that includes the freedoms of thought, conscience, expression, association, and assembly.”
Its annual reports categorise countries under two specific heads. Under Tier 1 come “countries of particular concern” (CPC), which are those“that commit systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom”; under Tier 2 come “countries in which religious freedom conditions do not rise to the statutory level that would mandate a CPC designation but require close monitoring due to the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by governments.” There are some other countries which are monitored too but don’t come under either category. Additionally, there are non-state entities like the ISIS which are also seen as “entities of particular concern”.
For representation only.
The 2019 report of the USCIRF puts India in Tier 2 category, observing that “religious freedom has come under attack in recent years with the growth of exclusionary extremist narratives—including, at times, the government’s allowance and encouragement of mob violence against religious minorities—that have facilitated an egregious and ongoing campaign of violence, intimidation, and harassment against non-Hindu and lower-caste Hindu minorities.” It laments that “the Indian government repeatedly has denied USCIRF access to India.”
Interestingly, the International Religious Freedom Act, which created the USCIRF, has been used once to ban India’s current Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Of course, once he became Prime Minister, the ban was lifted because India is strategically important to the US, and it’s impossible to work with India if you ban its directly elected Prime Minister. Exactly why India has been unwilling to work with USCIRF, though, is open to conjecture.
Also, the IRFA provides the US Secretary of State (essentially the US President) with a “range of policy options” which can include “sanctions” on CPCs, but which are “not automatically imposed” upon USCIRF’s recommendation. This leaves a lot of room for discretion in executive action, and no CPC has faced any sanction based on these recommendations, apart from Eritrea in the past.
Saudi Arabia and China, two of the worst and most consistent violators of religious freedom, and indeed human rights have not come under sanctions as CPCs. In terms of realpolitik, it makes sense for the US not to irk one of its biggest defence purchasers and its most important ally in the Arab world, or its most important trade partner (which it has engaged in petulant trade wars with very recently).
One is left to wonder whether the USCIRF is even relevant to US foreign policy. If not, what’s the purpose of it continuing as an advisory body? US foreign policy has been interventionist and neo-imperialist since the end of WWII, and it has involved itself in numerous bloody wars, starting from the still officially ongoing Korean War, to the ongoing troubles in Afghanistan, to its interventions in Iraq, to its blatant support for the continued pummeling of Yemenis by the Saudi bloc, and each such adventure has been a disaster both in the short-term and long-term.
If nothing else, surely its consistent support to Zionists in US and Israel over the decades – exhibited most brazenly in its withdrawal from UNESCO recently due to its apparent “anti-Israel bias” – despite evidence that the latter has continued to violate the rights of Palestinians, demonstrates that the US is anything but a neutral and objective arbiter of international morality and legality. And it’s certainly not a competent or committed enforcer of universal human rights.
So why has the language in the reports of USCIRF over the years suggested that it represented a party that was one? What moral authority does the State Department of a country that imposed a travel ban on citizens of Muslim-majority countries (none of whom have ever threatened American lives or property) have to lecture the world about the plight of Muslims, say, in India under Hindutva or in totalitarian China? What, indeed, to think of a Secretary of State who, not too long ago, was himself making Islamophobic comments to his fan base? Do hypocrisies even register in this age of ‘alternative facts‘?
The strange thing about all this is that the USCIRF is in and of itself a noble project. With the right kind of diplomatic tools and moral compass in the White House, its rigorously compiled and factually robust reports on the state of religious freedom in countries could provide direction to a foreign policy committed to achieving international religious justice. But the country must first ensure that it practices what it seeks to preach.
Since 9/11, life has become more difficult for Muslim Americans. They have been put under surveillance and tortured under the notorious PATRIOT Act, and have been subjected to violence and assault by fellow Americans and which peaked after the election of the current President and also to discrimination and microaggressions, despite being proud Americans.
Recently, an Iraq War veteran shouted “Thank you, Jesus” after driving his car over the members of a (presumably Hindu) Indian-American family thinking they were Muslims, leading to three people, including one child, being critically injured. This is probably the result of years of racial profiling of Muslims under the assumption that they were guilty until proven innocent. The loud racist, Islamophobic rhetoric emanating from the mouth and tweets of the current occupant of the White House and those in his administration must cease immediately. If American institutions have any credibility, Congress for one must be able to put fetters on hate speech that ends up hurting real people. Until and unless American society reflects the ideals of racial and religious harmony it espouses in its international postures, honest and potentially fruitful endeavours like the USCIRF will only end up seeming like a case of throwing stones from a glass house.
Nevertheless, USCIRF’s observations, at least on India, are not to be brushed aside. In fact, it only adds to a long list of complaints about the conduct of the Indian state against its religious minorities, especially in the last half decade or so. The government has been trying to enforce its own “Muslim ban” through the deliberately divisive Citizenship Amendment Bill, which seeks to fast-track citizenship to all religious minorities from neighbouring countries except Muslims of any denomination.
The shameful conduct of the government when the Rohingya refugees were faced with existential crisis under what the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has described as “ethnic cleansing” by the Myanmar military has given India a bad name internationally. India has grown more visibly supportive of Israel since the latter is now an important arms exporter, and consequently its support for the Palestinian cause has sounded more feeble and less sincere. So even if we disregarded USCIRF’s report, India has not covered itself in glory with its international stance towards persecuted Muslims. But then, it is not possible to ignore the USCIRF report, even though it only, scarily, confirms to many of us what we already know.
भारत में महिलाओं के प्रजनन संबंधी अधिकार केवल जैविक संबंधी जागरूकता या शिक्षा की कमी से नहीं जूझ रहे हैं। यह कई स्तरों पर कई सवालों से टकराते हैं, जिससे आधी आबादी सबसे अधिक प्रभावित हो रही है।
क्या प्रजनन संबंधी अधिकारों का मतलब सिर्फ प्रजनन यानी बच्चे पैदा करने का अधिकार है? या फिर यह मुद्दा औरतों के प्रजनन संबंधी आज़ादी के इर्द-गिर्द खड़े अनेक अधिकारों से जुड़ा है।
जातीय और वर्गीय भेदभाव से घिरा है प्रजनन संबंधी अधिकार
फोटो प्रतीकात्मक है। सोर्स- Getty
प्रसव के दौरान अस्पतालों में महिलाओं के अनुभव को जानने समझने के लिए अपने इलाके के अस्पताल के दौरे ने इस तथ्य को सतह पर लाने का काम किया कि भारत में प्रजनन संबंधी अधिकार के मामले में महिलाओं के अनुभव जातीय और वर्गीय आधार पर एक ही तरह के नहीं हैं। भारतीय महिलाओं के प्रजनन संबंधी अधिकारों के लिए संघर्ष प्रजनन संबंधी स्वतंत्रता के साथ-साथ सामाजिक, आर्थिक और राजनीतिक अधिकारों के अखाड़ों के इतर जातीय कारणों से भी जुड़ा हुआ है। जो विषमताओं और विरोधाभासों के मद्देनज़र “आयुष्मान भारत” स्वाथ्य योजनाओं वाले देश में महिलाओं के प्रजनन संबंधी अधिकारों की दिशा में नई तस्वीर प्रस्तुत करता है।
भारत में माताओं और नवजात शिशुओं के लिए स्वास्थ्य सुविधाएं किसी भी आबादी के लिए आधारभूत स्तर पर प्रदान की गई हैं, जो आर्थिक और जातीय विषमता के कारण जातीय और वर्गीय समाज तक पहुंचते-पहुंचते दम तोड़ देती है। तमाम कल्याणकारी योजनओं का लाभ आधी आबादी के वंचित समाज को नहीं मिल पाता है।
सामाजिक और आर्थिक विषमता को कम करने के लिए आर्थिक और कल्याणकारी व्यवस्था के आमूल रूप से पुनर्गठन की स्पष्ट तौर पर आवश्यकता है, क्योंकि माताओं और नवजात शिशुओं तक स्वास्थ्य अधिकार पहुंचाने में जाति और वर्ग आधारित भेदभाव एक नई समस्या के रूप में मौजूद है जिसकी पहचान की जानी चाहिए।
वंचित महिलाओं तक स्वास्थ्य सेवाओं के अधिकार का सवाल सबसे पहले इस प्रश्न को सतह पर लाने की कोशिश करता है कि “जाति और स्वास्थ्य” के बारे में हम कितना कुछ जानते हैं। जातियों के बीच स्वास्थ्यगत विषमता को कम करने के लिए प्रयास बदस्तूर जारी है।
क्या बताते हैं आंकड़ें?
एनएफएचएस के अपवाद अध्यन को छोड़कर, जातियों के बीच स्वास्थ्य विषमताओं के बारे में अध्ययनों की कमी है। एनएफएचएस के 2005-06 के आंकड़ें बताते हैं कि भारत में अनुसूचित जातियों, जनजातियों और अन्य वंचित समुदाय के लोगों में नवजात, नवजात बाद और शिशु मृत्यु दर में बड़ी खाई है। इनके अनुसार राष्ट्रीय मृत्यु दर अनुसूचित जाति में 46.6, अनुसूचित जनजातियों में 39.9 है, नवजात शिशु मृत्यु दर 20.1 और 22.3, शिशु मृत्युदर 66.4 और 35.8 है। (सोर्स-1)
इस रिपोर्ट ने इसके कारण के रूप में निरक्षरता दर और वर्ग आधारित एवं लिंग आधारित असमानताओं को ज़िम्मेदार पाया।
जातीय आधार पर होने वाले भेदभाव के उदाहरण
वंचित महिलाएं सरकारी अस्पतालों में अपने अनुभवों के बारे में बताती हैं कि उनके साथ आर्थिक असमानता के कारण पक्षपात, कर्मचारियों द्वारा गैर-ज़िम्मेदार व्यवहार किया जाता है। अस्पताल के कर्मचारी हमारी नहीं सुनते हैं, जिसके कारण प्रसव के लिए हम घर को अधिक प्राथमिकता देते हैं।
कुछ महिलाओं की आपबीती के अनुसार स्वास्थ्यकर्मियों के बीच निरंतरता और संवाद के अभाव गुणवत्ता और जवाबदेही को प्रभावित करते हैं। प्रसव के समय डॉक्टर कुछ क्षणों में चले जाते हैं, तब नर्सिंग कर्मचारियों से भय भी लगता है। कुछ महिलाएं अपने अनुभवों को साझा करते हुए बताती हैं कि उच्च जातियों की महिलाओं के साथ स्वास्थकर्मियों का व्यवहार सम्मान का होता है। प्रसव पीड़ा के दौरान स्वास्थ्यकर्मियों से वांछित सहयोग ना मिलना गर्भवती महिलाओं को परेशान करता है।
एक महिला ने नाम नहीं बताने की शर्त पर बताया,
जब प्रसव किया जा रहा था, तो डॉक्टर बिल्कुल भी चौकन्ने नहीं थे। जब बच्चा बाहर आया तो उन्होंने बच्चे को पकड़ा तक नहीं। तेज़ दर्द से निपटने के लिए कोई दवा नहीं दी। अगली सुबह अस्पताल में कोई डॉक्टर मिलने तक नहीं आए। मुझे इससे तकलीफ हुई।
गर्भवती महिलाओं से ठीक से बात ना करना और ध्यान ना देना तो आम बात है। एक महिला ने अपने अनुभव साझा करते हुए बताया कि उसको बहनजी (नर्स) ने जांच के दौरान कहा कि वो प्रसव कराएगी लेकिन मुझे चेताया कि जब दर्द बढ़े तो मैं चीखूं नहीं। मैंने यह बात अपने पति को बताई तो उन्होंने अस्पताल बदल लिया।
आर्थिक स्थिति जातिगत बाधाएं तोड़ देती हैं
फोटो प्रतीकात्मक है। सोर्स- Getty
जबकि यही जातिगत स्थिति अच्छे रहन-सहन, शिक्षा और पहनने-ओढ़ने के कारण बदल भी जाते हैं। मसलन गर्भवती महिला अगर रहन-सहन, पहनने-ओढ़ने और बातचीत करने में वंचित होते हुए एक अलग वर्गीय सांचे का निमार्ण कर पाती है तो अस्पताल के सदस्यों का पूरा व्यवहार बदल ही नहीं जाता संरचनागत बाधाएं भी ज़िम्मेवार नहीं बनती हैं।
कुछ महिलाओं ने अपने अनुभव में यह ज़िक्र किया कि उनको अस्पतालों में स्वास्थ्यकर्मियों के व्यवहार के बारे में पूर्व से जानकारी थी। मैं स्वयं शिक्षित हूं और सरकार से मिलने वाले अधिकारों के विषय में जानकारी रखती हूं। जांच के दौरान से प्रसव तक मैंने अपने वर्गीय श्रेष्ठता को बनाए रखा, जो भाषा के आधार पर, बातचीत के आधार पर कई बार आपके हाव-भाव से भी दिखने लगती है तो मुझे सकारात्मक सहयोग देखने को मिला।
यह सही है कि हमारे देश में प्रजनन संबंधी जैविक जानकारियों का अभाव किसी भी महिलाओं के स्वास्थ्य को प्रभावित करता है और इस विषय में पर्याप्त जागरूता ज़रूरी है। परंतु इसके साथ-साथ सरकारी योजनाओं में मातृत्व अधिकारों के लिए पात्रता के लिए बनाई गई बीपीएल या जाति के पैमाने पर ज़ोर देने के बाद भी स्थितियों में बदलाव नहीं होने के कारणों की पड़ताल भी ज़रूरी है।
मातृत्व लाभ के मामलों में कड़ाई से कार्यावन्य नहीं होने के कारण वंचित समाज की महिलाएं प्रभावित हो रही हैं। वह भी केवल इसलिए क्योंकि स्वास्थ्यकर्मियों को ट्रेंनिग देने के दौरान पूर्वाग्रही सोच के दमन की कोशिश नहीं की गई है।
महिलाओं की लिए स्वास्थ्य सेवाओं में गुणवता में सुधार के लिए यह ज़रूरी है कि सामाजिक और आर्थिक वर्गों के आधार पर समानता और न्यायपूर्ण महौल का निमार्ण किया जाए। अगर हमें मृत्यु दर और बीमारियों का बोझ कम करना है तो सामाजिक-आर्थिक विषमता की दिशा में स्वास्थ्य सेवाओं का पुर्नगठन करना ही होगा।
So, “Bharat Bhagya Vidhata”, the destiny writers of the biggest democracy in the world, the people of India, are once again standing at the crossroads of destiny, about to record their joint decision, seemingly oblivious and confused about the disputes that need solutions. What is the actual dichotomy of politics in India since the time of Independence?
The people of India are encumbered with a responsibility to choose, and their choice will not only change the direction India is moving in but will also alter the fate of the subcontinent, possibly the world itself.
The world is currently living only on palliatives, having experienced successive socio-economic shocks of various intensities, rampant violence, and impending environmental cataclysm. A significant economic slowdown is imminent, trade wars are escalating, and cold war which was once thought to be resolved forever has risen from the dust, more dangerous and more bloodthirsty; ready to flare up into a full-blown world war just any moment. The only difference is that this time war will be utterly devastating with nuclear weapons proliferated into the hands of many decision-makers around the world.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have both pulled out from the treaty banning test and deployment of nuclear arsenal and missiles, which was signed between the US and the erstwhile USSR just before its disintegration.
Who will win a nuclear war? No one! Innocent civilians from both sides will be simply annihilated, as the leaders and the super rich will go into safe hiding! It will be the mass-murder of humanity. The doctrine of deterrence which is said to have saved the world so far from this pathetic fate is (best known by its acronym) MAD—Mutual Assured Destruction.
India too is a nuclear power, and so are its two contiguous neighbours who have a track record of bitter relations with us. A nuclear war here will definitely be much more devastating in our country due to a higher population density than in the USA or Russia.
Europe is witnessing mass political unrest manifested, for example, in the Yellow Vest protests and BREXIT. The Middle East is sizzling hot under its religious and racist conflict in the face of all US-led NATO interventions; in the Pacific, North Korea remains as recalcitrantas ever, and in Latin America, Venezuela is being militarily backed by Russia. As per some reports, Russian nuclear-capable warplanes have been deployed in that country, and the USA is well within their striking range.
Intolerance and terrorism have reached unprecedented scales, and innocent citizens are dying in terror attacks throughout the world.
The root of all wars lies in economic relations, and the mother of all conflicts is poverty, the faulty distribution of resources among humans. In Emmon’s words, as per the World Bank, about 2.8 billion people, or half of the world population lived, on $2 a day or less, and that this number, versus the relatively tiny number of people on the peak of the wealth pyramid, represented “what is potentially the most explosive socio-economic challenge facing the world.”
According to a UNDP report “the richest 20 percent of the world’s population receives 82.7 percent of the world income, the second richest 20 percent receive 11.7 percent, and the remaining 60 percent received 5.6 percent, with just 1.4 percent of the world income accruing to the poorest 20 percent.”
This report pertained to 1992, and the gap between the rich and the poor only widened further by 2015. Treanor reported that only 1% of the world population controlled 50% of the wealth, and the other 99% had only access to the remaining 50%. The position has been no different in India, as is evident from a large number of farmers’ suicides, deteriorating macroeconomic indices, and increasing unemployment.
In recent years, there have been claims of unprecedented GDP growth in the country. Some experts have challenged the method of calculation that has been adopted. However, even if we accept that the figures are a hundred percent correct, this cannot become a solace in itself until it results in employment-generation and all-around improvement in the livelihood of ordinary citizens.
Growth and development are not synonyms. Every single incidence of growth should not be mistaken for healthy development. Cancer, for example, is ‘growth’, but is unhealthy and can in no way be called development. Obesity is ‘growth’, but it is a problem in itself. Growth to be healthy, and worthy of being called development, even if it is a bit slow, must be proportionate in all the organs of the system. Thus, it is hard to get swayed by the slogans of the high growth rate alone.
How The British Contributed To India’s Poverty-Stricken State
Poverty and destitution at the mass level were unknown to India until the British East India Company, the original corporate raiders, entered the scene. In her book, “Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II”, Madhusree Mukerjee writes:
“In late 1665, traveling eastward from the Mughal court in Delhi, physician François Bernier arrived in Bengal to find a vast, populous delta, its myriad channels lined with vibrant towns and cities interspersed with fields of rice, sugar, corn, vegetables, mustard, and sesame.”
A painted depiction of a Mughal court in session. Image source: Wikimedia Commons.
Bernier declared it “the finest and most fruitful country in the world.” He wrote further about the food of the common inhabitants that “The three or four sorts of vegetables which, together with rice and butter, form the chief food of the common people, are purchased for the merest trifle,” and that “Bengale abounds with every necessary of life.” Foreign merchants—the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese, and the British—worked the wholesale markets, offering to buy produce in exchange for silver, since they had practically no merchandise which the locals would need to buy from them. A major city in the north, Lahore was superior to many European cities of those days in size, civic amenities, and volume of trade.
Once the Company, through its Machiavellian machinations, succeeded in coercing the Mughal King at Delhi to cede Diwani rights to them, they changed the basic structure of tax collection in kind as a proportion of the produce, to a fixed amount accepted as ‘rent’ only in the form of silver coins, irrespective of the level of production. As a result, during collection time, the farmers had “uncommon plenty” of grain, which they could neither retain for their future consumption nor pay towards the liquidation of revenue demands. Purchasing power was needed to be supplied to intermediaries for making speculative purchases of the produce at throwaway prices, which the farmer could pay into the treasury to save his land, life, and honour.
In this scenario, Warren Hastings, the governor of Bengal, proposed the ‘General Bank of Bengal and Bahar’, “to remedy the situation arising from the contraction of the currency in circulation at the time of the collection of revenues”, as a palliative. The RBI history book referred here, quotes a minute from the extract of the proceedings of the Council of Revenue held at Fort William, on April 13, 1773, containing the ‘Plan’ for the establishment of the ‘General Bank in Bengal and Bahar’ as under:
“[T]he great complaints which are made from all the northern districts of the two provinces, of the inability of the Farmers to pay their rents, on account of the uncommon plenty and cheapness of grain, are primarily owing to the great drains, which have been made of the current coin in the districts by the collections.”
The result was a spell of successive artificially engineered famines in which at least 22.9 million Indians died, even if we reckon the figures of famine deaths between 1857 and 1947 only. And, lo, poverty was bestowed upon India!
John Maynard Keynes. Image source: Wikimedia Commons.
Once the British Crown took over the administration of India, they started tweaking with the currency and monetary system of India to facilitate them in looting the country subtly under the direct advice and supervision of John Maynard Keynes, through a system of flexible money supply, “elastic” at the discretion of the government, to meet its perceived “requirement of the public” at its sweet will.
As the international economic and trade tussles slowly progressed to the advent of the Second World War, Keynes strongly advocated the establishment of a separate Central Banking Institution, so that “elastic” money supply could be stretched to meet perceived “requirement of public [read – the government],” through promissory paper currency and bank balances, without its inflationary impact being felt in England. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) came into existence after a long-drawn tug of war on its control between the Indian elected government of the time and the Crown, which of course was settled in favour of the latter.
In the words of Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, “It was British financial wizardry which deflected Indian attempts to win a real measure of autonomy in this sphere. Britain was forced to set up a central bank, known as the reserve bank of India, in 1934. But it was to be under London’s and not New Delhi’s ultimate jurisdiction.” It played its role as a mechanism to transfer Indian wealth to Britain until 1947.
The 1857 Indian War of Independence, which the British called the ‘Sepoy Mutiny’, shook the Crown badly, and they consciously decided to divide Indians into mutually hostile subgroups looking at each other as devils and each separately looking at the Britishers as the benefactors and protectors. As a result, when they decided to leave the country where they thought they had nothing more to loot, they left it fragmented into two political and three geographical splinters.
The Express Tribune reported on April 05, 2015 that “During the horrific period of partition in 1947, an American documentary photographer, Margaret Bourke-White, captured some of the crucial moments of that time that sum up what partition was like and how it affected millions of lives. … ‘The street was short and narrow. Lying like the garbage across the street and in its open gutters were bodies of the dead,’ writes Bourke-White’s biographer Vicki Goldberg of this scene.”
The foremost challenge for the Indian government immediately after Independence was to avert the recurrence of famine deaths, that too in the face of layoffs from the army and due to the closure of industries which supplied for the Second World War. In addition, there was the refugee problem, loss of wheat producing land to West Pakistan and rice and jute producing tracts to the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), in a backdrop of communal mistrust between the two primary components of the population, and treacherous warmongering by two of the contiguous neighbours. In retrospect, an Indian cannot help but feel proud that the country overcame all these problems, despite a slow GDP growth due to inherited infrastructural bottlenecks, and a population boom, made marvellous strides in education, medicine, and science and technology including space technology and atomic technology.
It emerged as a world-class leader in political ideology, especially through the Non-Alignment Movement, a move disdained by western powers led by the USA. We also, to our pride, succeeded in liberating Bangladesh from Pakistan’s racial oppression and were able to shoulder the burden of thousands of refugees and thousands of Pakistani POWs (prisoners of war) despite our extremely limited resources.
After Independence, to direct the flow of bank-created money to these developmental needs, the RBI was nationalized, to the chagrin of many business interests in the country itself.
Indian currency, some of which is no longer being minted, let alone circulated! Image Source: YouTube.
The rift or conflict in the orientation of the ruling leaders of the nation emerged for the first time in the open when the Government of India, through the Banking Laws (Amendment) Act, 1968, “provided ‘for the extension of social control over banks,’ in part by laying down that fifty-one percent of a bank’s directors should come from agriculture, the rural economy, and small-scale industry. The government might acquire a bank, after consultation with the Reserve Bank of India.”
Later, through an ordinance called the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings Ordinance, 1969), the Government nationalized the 14 largest commercial banks with effect from midnight on 19th July 1969.
These banks contained 85% of bank deposits in the country. Even Jayaprakash Narayan described the step as a “masterstroke of political sagacity.” Jay Dubashi wrote in India Today, on May 15, 1980, that in the view of Atal Bihari Bajpai “it would teach the Birlas and Tatas a lesson.” Within two weeks of the issue of the ordinance, the Parliament passed the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Bill, which received the presidential approval on August 9, 1969.
Mukund Sathe describes the dichotomy that became evident with this step in these words “In May 1967, the Congress Working Committee adopted a radical Ten-Point Programme which included social control of banks, nationalisation of general insurance, [the] abolition of princely privileges, etc. making it a left-wing [party]. However, the Congress right, Syndicate opposed it.”
The divide became more pronounced and open when Indira Gandhi took away the finance portfolio from Morarji Desai, as he, according to her, was too conservative in implementing her radical financial reforms. Later, the Syndicate expelled Indira Gandhi from the Congress Party for alleged indiscipline committed by her in not supporting their candidate for the post of the President of India, for which they had aligned with Jana Sangh (the precursor of BJP) and the Swatantra Party, which had the support of traders, industrialists, and erstwhile princes.
The Congress party did split up, “with IndiraGandhi,” writes Sathe, “setting up a rival organization, which came to be known as Congress (R) – R for Requisitionists. The Syndicate-dominated Congress came to be known as Congress (0) – 0 for Organization. In the final countdown, 220 of the party’s Lok Sabha MPs went with Indira Gandhi and 68 with the Syndicate. In the All India Congress Committee too, 446 of its 705 members walked over to Indira’s side. Indira Gandhi won 1971 elections with 2/3rd Majority.”
What followed was the Jaya Prakash (or JP, as he was called) movement in which he, in a way, stole the storm brewed by the ABVP (the student wing of the Jana Sangh) and the implementation of the Emergency. JP was able to bring elements as diverse as the Hindutva preaching Jana Sangh, the Islamist Jamaat e Islami, the elements of Syndicate, and the Swatantra Party; some looking extreme right, others extreme left, some advocating capitalistic market control of the economy, and others preaching Marxism, in a hotchpotch called Janata Party.
The party succeeded and formed a government under Morarji Desai, who became distinguished for being the only Indian to win Pakistan’s highest civil honor, the Nishan-e-Pakistan. He also won India’s highest civil honor, the Bharat Ratna, and later for fighting an unsuccessful lawsuit in a US court against Seymour Hersh when the latter alleged in his book, “The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House,” that Morarji Desai was a CIA agent (Morarji Desai, Plaintiff-appellant, v. Seymour Hersh, Defendant-appellee, 954 F.2d 1408 (7th Cir. 1992), 1992).
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, best known for her decision to impose Emergency in the country in the mid ’70s. Image source: Wikimedia Commons.
The conglomerate eventually broke on the question of dual membership of some of the leaders in the Janata Party and RSS, simultaneously. Indira Gandhi again strode to power on the slogan “Vote for the Government which works.” She again nationalised six more banks in the second go.
It is also really enlightening to go through the news report of the debate in the Parliament on the Bank Nationalization Bill, published on July 29, 1969 in the Madras (Chennai) edition of the Indian Express which says that “As expected, Jana Sangh and Swatantra members severely attacked the measure,” because “the shareholders who used to get 22% return on paid-up capital would now be given ‘bits of paper called bonds’ which would bring them interest at [four and a half] percent.”
The same newspaper reported on November 13, 1969 that “Mr. Balraj Madhook, Jana Sangh MP, said the CWC’s action ‘was a good thing’ for ‘it should pave the way for polarisation and the emergence of two evenly balanced major political forces in the country’.”
The actual dichotomy in Indian politics, it would have been evident by now, is the social control of the monetary system vs its commercial control mainly by the capitalist shareholders of the banks, and the abolition of special privilege (the ‘privy purse’) to the families of the rulers of the erstwhile princely states vs its maintenance.
Should the monetary resources of the nation flow to serve the underprivileged masses, or to serve the commercial interests of the corporate houses, hoping to create employment and eradicate poverty through the so-called trickle-down effect? Communal divide and fear psychosis have only been created, in the footsteps of the British rulers, as a smokescreen so that you do not have time to know, think, and debate over the real issue. I need not tell you where the bank money has gone in the last four or five years, and what has happened to employment generation. You know it only too well.
Thus, you must press the button on the EVM, and that you must, depending on your well-thought decision, based on the actual polarization as rightly pointed out by Mr. Balraj Madhook in Nov 1969. If, and only if you think that the monetary resources should be channelled to big capitalists because that will result in a high growth rate and will result in employment generation for the masses through the so-called trickle-down effect, go for BJP. Else, if you think that the monetary resources should be strongly harnessed to serve the masses directly on priority as Mrs. Indira Gandhi did, till she laid down her life, fighting against religious bigotry, you should vote for the Congress, albeit with one rider: you must keep them if elected, on their toes to pursue this goal doggedly with courage and strength.
India is home to 56 million people with mental health issues. Image via Getty
Scott Hamilton was completely wrong when he said that the only disability in life is a bad attitude. India is home to 56 million people with mental health issues. So going by Scott Hamilton’s logic, these 56 million people have a bad attitude and conclusively, their bad attitude is the reason for their exclusion, seclusion and sufferings. But that is where the difference between the ideal and the real lies. These 56 million people do not have a bad attitude, on the contrary, they are subjected to the bad attitudes of other able bodied people who look down upon them as second class citizens for the reason that they are different. Their impairment becomes a disability when it intermingles with the negative societal perceptions.
The discourse surrounding abilities and disabilities has lately shifted from the medical model towards the social model which tries to locate limitations and disabilities in the environment, rather than locating them in the person who has some disability. The idea behind this shift was to build an inclusive and accommodative society. But this shift in the discourse has been misinterpreted by many people. The social model of disability has been attacked and threatened by the capitalistic ideas of the survival of the fittest. But the advocates of this Darwinian Theory fail to realise that particularly in the Indian context, our constitutional morality obligates us to be accommodative and inclusive so as to make everyone fit for survival and even more so fit for a dignified survival.
But on the contrary, the National Law School of India University, Bangalore has recently devised a new strategy to “accommodate” and “safeguard” the interests of the people with mental health issues. Here are certain steps that they follow:
They identify the people who have mental health issues and the people who have suicidal tendencies.
They deny them access to hostel.
They ask them to stay on campus with their guardians. Or they ask them to stay off campus.
Now if we look at the situation normatively, we can conclude that denying access to the hostels amounts to denying access to education and indirect expulsion. For how many of the parents/guardians can afford to renounce their respective lives to come and stay with their children on campus? For how many people with mental health issues can afford an accommodation outside the college in case they are denied the access to the hostels? For how can people with mental health issues stay off campus all by themselves? It is not ideal for the bastion of equality and inclusivity to perpetrate and perpetuate discrimination on the grounds of disability. It is hard to imagine the plight of a student with mental health issues who is burdened with academic pressure, stringent attendance rules, lack of medical assistance and administrative apathy.
This administrative apathy and the dismissive attitude of the student body has already taken three lives in the past. It was believed that Kanishk Bharati’s death will make the administration and the student body a bit more aware and sensitive. But, it has sadly triggered a knee-jerk reaction wherein the administration is willing to evade all its responsibility when it comes to people with mental health issues. The very fact that they have been repeatedly asking the people with MHIs to leave the hostels and stay off campus makes it clear that they are not much concerned with the safety and well-being of the people with MHIs and are rather more concerned with the reputation of the college.
The situation becomes even worse due to the fact that there is a non-availability of counsellors and mental health professionals throughout the day and the mechanisms to deal with mental health issues are extremely weak and meek. The college administration is trying to get rid of all the students who have mental health issues. Lack of funds has been cited as the reason for their inability to provide better healthcare facilities. But the matter of concern here is that no one knows about the “funds” that the administration talks about and the way these funds are being used or misused – as there is no mechanism to conduct any financial audit to address the issues of lack of accountability and transparency.
It is hard to imagine the plight of a student with mental health issues who is burdened with academic pressure, stringent attendance rules, lack of medical assistance and administrative apathy. Image via Getty
The underlining question here is that is it fair, just and reasonable to exclude and seclude someone on the ground of having mental health issues? Isn’t this act morally and legally unacceptable? Section 19 of the Mental Healthcare Act 2017 reads as follows: “Every person with mental illness shall have a right to live in, be part of and not be segregated from society.” The strategy of throwing out the people with mental health issues evolved by the administration of National Law School of India University in the pretext of safeguarding the interests of the people with mental health issues is clearly in contravention with the law and is a manifestation of the ableism and the bad attitude that is directed towards the people with mental health issues throughout the country.
At this juncture, it is necessary to change the system as throwing the people with certain limitations out of this system is not the ideal plan of action. The college authorities ought to identify the problems and rectify them as people with mental health issues do not deserve expulsion and repulsion for their disability. It is high time we realized that certain people cannot be subjected to social sanction and culpability just for being different. It is high time we realized that it is not them who need to renounce their bad attitudes and that it is indispensable for us to renounce our bad attitudes which manifests ableism in all walks of life and turns a mere impairment into a disability.
Inclusivity is a fancy word and an ideology which is a key aspect of secular spaces.
In India, a country that boasts of its secular nature, inclusivity is envisioned in many circles, especially the academic ones. However, the biggest challenge with inclusivity is welcoming heterogeneity, which is evidently not everyone’s cup of tea. In a recent incident in Mangaluru, this essence of heterogeneity was crushed at St. Agnes College.
Fathima Fazeela, who completed her first pre-university college (PUC) from the said institute, was denied admission to the second year on account of wearing the hijab. The college is adamant with their clothing rules, which they claim are to maintain order and discipline, discouraging the wearing of the hijab.
Fathima has been issued a transfer certificate for the same, but without being given a reason in writing. She
claims that she was not made aware of any such rule before the admissions. However, in her first year, she was constantly warned to remove the hijab, which she ardently did not do. Now being denied admission in the second year, she has also filed a complaint with the district administration.
Although this incident is disturbing, it is not surprising given the college had seen a range of protests last year by Muslim students on campus who had agitated against the college’s rule of disallowing the hijab. The college had then issued a clarification that wearing the hijab was not allowed only inside the classrooms, whereas wearing it outside the class was not a problem.
Having gone through a series of threads on this incident, I am still trying to figure out the logical link between education and clothing. The informal justifications that were given by the college look consistently unconvincing, as the college administration has also denied issuing any statement in writing. Another argument, which surfaces in the issue, is that of Fathima’s non-compliance with the college rules.
But then, the debate turns into one that’s based on the nature of such rules. Fathima, an adult, must not be restricted from practising her right to wear anything she wants to. It is her informed choice of wearing the hijab and functioning in public spaces in her own country.
Photo: Kunal Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images.
St. Agnes’ College is evidently struggling with its principles of inclusivity. After such an incident, the larger picture encompasses two scenarios. Firstly, such a tussle is an outright disruption of a person’s freedom of clothing and consequently, it infringes upon their right to choose. Secondly, if such college rules exist, where learning is mixed with clothing, the education of women comes under threat. This is because of the fact that we cannot ignore the cultural and religious customs, which have certain ways of making women carry their attire.
Whether these ways are right or wrong is another debate altogether, but if academic spaces start filtering students on the basis of these archaic measures, I am afraid that women will never even have a chance to evaluate their traditions and cultures.
Education is the foremost platform for exposure and learning. It must be accessible to each and every person, regardless of their gender, culture and religion. It is the academic spaces of a country on which one can rely most for the upliftment of the citizens. With this case coming into the limelight, it is important for our institutions to rethink their policies and figure out what makes them implement such illogical and dehumanizing rules.
Featured image for representative purpose only.
Featured image source: Waseem Andrabi/Hindustan Times via Getty Images.
