By Sreeparna Chattopadhyay

ROMAN POLANSKI is a free man. The Swiss government refused to extradite him to the US. Does a crime committed by an Oscar winning director cease to be a crime? Should Roman Polanski be treated any differently because he is the director of The Pianist? Does the fact that he raped and sodomized a thirteen-year-old girl more than thirty-three years ago diminish the magnitude of the crime or its impact on the victim? The girl, little more than a child at the time met Polanski during a Vogue photo shoot in Los Angeles, California. He drugged as well as plied her with alcohol before he assaulted her in a hot tub in 1977. The charges against him were very serious including assault on a child under the age of 14 with under Californian law at that time, statutory rape. According to some newspaper sources his victim Samantha Gailey’s lawyer made a plea bargain with him so that she could preserve the anonymity of her client. He pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor (a much lesser charge than his original offences) and spent a mere forty-two days in prison before he fled first to London (his home at that time) and then to France, his adoptive home.

Since then he has had an outstanding warrant against him in the US. However, there wasn’t an international manhunt for Polanski and his crime faded from public memory until a year ago when the US reissued a warrant and placed him under house arrest when he visited Switzerland to collect a lifetime achievement award. The actions by the American government may have had more to do with Swiss unwillingness to release information related to some of those at the helm of the Wall Street meltdown, than with their innate sense of justice.

Since his house arrest, the rich and the famous have rallied to his defence. His supporters include directors such as Martin Scorcese and Woody Allen and also French philosopher and intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy as well as many public figures in his adoptive country France. This I find less surprising. After all many of these are men with very flexible morals in their private lives.

What I find surprising are editorials such as this one by a female commentator in the ultra respected British newspaper Guardian. Agnes Poirier characterized attempts to arrest Polanski as ‘prurient hounding’. According to her

Finally, what was also most disturbing in the whole affair was the prurient voyeurism of Polanski’s detractors, indulging in the very details of his alleged crimes. Reactions to the case disturbingly revealed rampant moral McCarthyism. Anyone defending the film-maker was immediately accused of making an apology for rape. The end of the affair should hopefully bring back sense to those who had lost it for nine months.

Poirier does have a small point, in that in the retelling of the details of the crime we become unwitting (or sometimes deliberate) voyeurs and end up inflicting symbolic violence on the victim. In this instance however the crime deserves to be revisited, not least because Polanski’s actions are indefensible.

Perhaps attempts to re-arrest him are not true to the letter of the law as far as legal technicalities are concerned; after all he spent 42 days in prison as part of his plea bargain. But does the punishment fit the crime? A mere 42 days for this level of sexual violence on a defenceless child? If Polanski had been an ordinary citizen and not a talented director with many tragedies of his own (he is a Holocaust survivor and his eight months pregnant wife Sharon Tate was stabbed to death by a psychopath in 1969), he wouldn’t be the darling of the European media. He is talented, good-looking and tragic and that makes him interesting and allows commentators like Poirier to be dismissive of his detractors.

According to a documentary Wanted and Desired made in 2008 with Polanski as the primary subject, his victim does not want to see him in prison. That may well be the case and legally there may not be any recourse. But isn’t the job of commentators and journalists who have the ability to sway public opinion to be blind to personalities when crimes of this nature are concerned? When did talent and private tragedy, not to mention wealth and fame become reasons to not mete out punishments, especially for crimes as serious as this one? Why does the European media allow itself to become seduced by the cult and enigma of Polanski and not for one moment think of the drugged, traumatised and torn body of a thirteen year old Samantha whose trust in adults was probably destroyed for the rest of her life? I cannot help but see in my mind’s eye the Lolitalizing of young female children is what allows the likes of Poirier to defend the likes of Polanski. As a feminist and a woman I am utterly disappointed and disillusioned that Polanski walks free today.

***

Sreeparna Ghosh (nee Chattopadhyay) grew up in Bombay but now lives in Norwich, UK. She trained as a social scientist and is currently a University Survey Officer for the University of East Anglia. She enjoys cooking, reading, writing and taking long walks in the countryside.

INDIA HAS NO

The 1999 Supreme Court case of Sakshi v Union of India was the first legal attempt to challenge inadequacies of the provisions in the IPC to make CSA an offence. The petitioner urged the Court to alter the definition of sexual intercourse to include all kinds of sexual penetration into any type of orifice of the body, not just peno-vaginal penetration. The 2004 judgment in this case admitted that there is wide prevalence of CSA, but did not alter the definition of ‘rape’. “An exercise to alter the definition of rape… by a process of judicial interpretation is bound to result in a good deal of chaos and confusion and will not be in the interest of society at large…,” the Court said. In response the Law Commission of India published its 172^nd report which recommended that the offence of ‘rape’ be substituted by ‘sexual assault’, which would make it gender-neutral and bring into its fold a range of sexual offences beyond forced peno-vaginal penetration.

Thus we have the CLA, coming over half a decade after the judgment, although CSA has been given an infantile short shrift. In the CLA, ‘rape’ has been redefined as ‘sexual assault’ and includes penetration of any orifice on a woman’s body by any part of the man’s body or any other object. Consent remains the guiding factor to decide what qualifies as sexual assault.  The age of consent is fixed at 18 years. However, “when penetration is carried out for proper hygienic or medical purposes” it is not sexual assault – thus it allows for gross misuse as defense for medical personnel who can be perpetrators of CSA.

The CLA has a separate section (376C) on “sexual abuse of minors”. Unlike the section on sexual assault this section is gender neutral and lists a range of penetrations into any of the child’s bodily orifices by a man or a woman to constitute CSA. However, this section deems consent completely irrelevant. The problem with such a provision is that it could actually lead to criminalising consensual sexual acts between young people: if a 17-year-old girl has consensual sex with another boy of the same age, the boy is considered to have committed CSA. There could also be a situation where both can be perpetrators and victims at the same time. Children’s experiences of mutual sexual exploration or experimentation can potentially turn criminal under this provision. The IPC stipulates the age of criminal responsibility at 7 years. It’s paradoxical that by virtue of this law minors are capable of scheming and executing a crime at 7 years, but not capable of consenting to sex with someone of the same age till they are 18! The importance of protecting children from sexual abuse cannot be denied, however to criminalize expression of sexuality is a warped expression of conservative morality.

Unfortunately, CSA has also been understood only as penetrative sex in this section. The fact that CSA can take forms where contact or touch is not required (exposing or made to expose genitalia, showing pornography etc.) or where there is no penetration falls outside of the ambit of this section. Non-penetrative and non-touch CSA gets covered under Secs. 354 and 509 of the IPC (outraging the modesty of a woman, which only includes the girl child), though these sections remain woefully steeped in the discourse of female honour. Ideally, it should be included in a graded fashion under the sexual assault section in the CLA. The CLA also does not include incest and the processes of grooming that precede sexual contact in any case of CSA. The tokenistic insertion of this provision in the CLA does great disservice to the demand of child rights groups and the Sakshi petition for a separate and dedicated criminal law on CSA. Though the CLA gives considerable attention to punitive measures by increasing punishments and creating new crimes, a glaring omission is the absence of any provision for children with disabilities whose vulnerability to sexual abuse may be higher compared to other children.

In a state of legislative overdrive, even if the CLA amends the IPC it would mean little for victim-survivors of CSA and the amendments certainly cannot substitute the immediate need for a separate legislation on CSA.

(This piece was originally published in the New Indian Express, Chennai recently)

Mothers Sing a Lullaby
(after the 1994 Rwandan genocide)

Mothers sing a lullaby
As the dark descends on trees
Shutting out shadows.
The sensuous voices swish and swirl
Around shrubs and overgrown grass
Hiding mountains of decapitated dead
And the glint of machetes
That slashed shrieking throats.

In these camps without happiness
Mothers maintain the melody of life
Capturing wistful wind
To sing strength into the souls of children
Who have never known
The taste of morning porridge
Or heard the chirrup of crickets in the evenings.

Mothers sing a lullaby
For the staring faces
Who cringe at the sound of footsteps
Whose playmates are grinning skeletons.

Mothers become a lullaby
Silencing the sirens of sorrow
Restoring compassion to the nation.

***

My Mother in Three Photographs

Her face looks out
flawless
her sexuality electric
in a mini dress and sheer satin stockings
the girls of the 1960s
beautiful beyond belief.
She is looking through the camera
like her space is here and beyond
enchanting and enchanted
by the times when dreams of freedom were young
the fortunes of Uganda
hot and sizzling.

My mother in the 1970s
More sombre but her skin
Still flawless
The abrasive years gentle on her youth.
Her body wrapped in a long nylon dress
stopping her ankles and
full sleeves touching her wrists
hooded sorrow in her posture
the flowing dress
is not because
she is a widow (which is by government action)
but it is a government decree.
Her magnificence and elegance
Seem to support the given name of the dress
Amin nvaako.

My mother in the 1990s
neat short hair
luring in its intricate curls.
She wears a busuuti
a sign of the times
a return home, a finding of
uncertain peace
a maturing of a woman and nation
an endorsement of a recognition of the troubles
she has weathered
a sitting down to count her losses and blessings
and a hand over of the future.

P.S. Amin Nvaako means Amin let me be or Amin leave me alone

***
Susan Nalugwa Kiguli is a Ugandan poet and academic. She holds a PhD in English from The University of Leeds sponsored by the prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literature, Makerere University, Uganda, and has served as the chairperson of FEMRITE, Uganda Women Writers’ Association. She is published widely in national and international anthologies and journals.

IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY devoured every one of the three books in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, you have at least heard of it: the story of the girl with the dragon tattoo who plays with fire or kicks the hornet’s nest. She is Lisbeth Salander, abused child, accused adult and unlikely crusader along with Mikael Blomkvist of the magazine, Millennium.

Over three books, the story is one of a giant cover-up to protect a secret organisation within Swedish intelligence. It is about the blind eye that is turned upon a mafia dealing in, among other things, human trafficking; the involvement of those in power and the denial of a woman’s human rights just so that a long-forgotten secret can remain buried. The sub-text of the series – made clear through telling epigraphs to each section – is of violent crimes committed against women in the name of national security or in the interests of keeping up appearances. It is a tale in which the silence surrounding the crimes makes society complicit in them.

The Millennium Trilogy is fiction. There are protagonists whose lives align with the investigations they conduct with varying degrees of commitment and interest. They can stand against the State because it is in their interest to have the truth brought out into the light and written about. And because it is fiction, people will listen and are capable of examining their society afresh in light of the new facts they are shown. Justice is possible in crime fiction as it is often not in real life.

Consider now a story closer to home: Two women leave one morning and do not return. The older of the two is marr

ied to the brother of the younger. Because they live in a place where it is not safe to be out after dark, the man – husband of one and brother of another – calls up a search party to look for them. With the police, they search every place theyknow to until well after midnight but they don’t find the two women. The police promise to resume early in the morning. At 5.30 the family begins to search again and, an hour later, are joined by the police. Almost immediately,a policeman finds the bodies of the two women in a shallow naala – one woman’s body has drifted further downstream

, but they are both there. The naala is in a well-guarded area, surrounded by manned and alert checkposts of various kinds. Nobody saw these women pass the previous day, and yet there their bodies are this morning, in a place the search party had checked earlier.

The police do what they do well: ruin the scene of crime by fishing the bodies out before photographing them as found, without cordoning the place off or collecting evidence from the surrounding area. The bodies are sent for two kinds of post-mortem: in one, a lung flotation test shows that death was not caused by drowning; the other post-mortem shows injuries and contusions to the faces; it also includes vaginal swabs that could have shown that the women had been raped.

Why the doubt? Either they had been raped or they had not. Surely forensic science has advanced even in India to prove rape without the shadow of a doubt?

In the days and months that follow, the doctors who did the post-mortem are either discredited or go back on their earlier testimonies; witnesses who say they heard women shouting from inside an army vehicle retract their statements. The family and elders of the place form an association to protest the course of the investigation.

Policemen are suspended; there are commissions and investigating teams; bails are applied for and granted; the bodies of the women are buried, exhumed months later and buried again. There is a lot of press, a lot of uproar. There are bandhs. Finally the investigation is handed over to the CBI.

Yes, this is Shopian. On the 14th of December the CBI filed its report in the J&K High Court, and not surprisingly, it said the women drowned to death in the naala they were found in. If their report contains answers to all the questions that people have been asking since May this year, we do not know it.

Independently of the CBI, in the knowledge that its report will say what it does, a group of women called the Independent Women’s Initiative for Justice went to Shopian to talk to the people concerned and came back with their own report, which they released days before the CBI report came out. Download the full report from here.

I was sent the report by a friend, with whom I was discussing this a few days ago, after reading a news report in the Hindu. He said, “There was a word used to sum it up: impunity. It’s not in the article.”

No, it’s not a word newspapers use, but it is one we are getting used to inferring in the context of any conflict.

In the first book of the Millennium Trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Blomkvist explains to Salander why Harriet Vanger ran away to Australia. Salander is angry and says, “If she had done something in 1966, Martin Vanger couldn’t have kept killing and raping for thirty-seven years.”

Among all the other troubles that have beset Kashmir for the last two decades, the ones that are least spoken about are the ones that the women have to bear: a proxy war that is fought through them and their bodies and the consequent loss of their liberty, their right to education, work and free movement when and where they please; their right, in fact, to a life lived without fear.

Inaction allows criminals to continue committing crimes with impunity: we know this; but we accept it more readily in fiction than in real life. This could be because in fiction we know someone else will take up the mantle of crusader on our behalf and justice will be done. Outside the pages of a book, it is never clear how an individual is to proceed and what, if anything, the outcome of any action will be.

Shopian is not Mangalore – we can achieve nothing, especially not ridicule, by sending anyone pink chaddis. What it could be is a test of our empathy and imagination, our ability to see ourselves in the women of Shopian and take action upon it because to remain silent would be to allow more such crimes to take place.

***

Sridala Swami’s poetry has appeared in various journals including Chandrabhaga, The Little Magazine, New Quest, Wasafiri, Asian Cha and the Creative Writing Issue of The South Asian Review (28:3, 2007). Her work also features in The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets (ed. Jeet Thayil, UK: Bloodaxe, 2008) and in Not A Muse Anthology (ed. Katie Rogers and Viki Holmes, Hong Kong: Haven Books, 2009). Her first collection of poems, A Reluctant Survivor, published by The Sahitya Akademi in June 2007 and reprinted in 2008, was short-listed for The Shakti Bhatt First Book Award in 2008. She has written three books for very young children, which were published by Pratham in 2009. Swami’s photographs, Posting the Light: Dispatches from Hamburg, was exhibited at Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad, in November 2009. She lives in Hyderabad, India. She blogs at Spaniard in the Works.

EARLIER THIS MONTH, the ‘Staying Alive: Third Monitoring and Evaluation Report 09’ on the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (PWDVA) was released in Delhi. The report tracks the implementation of the Act for the third year in a row and has become a way to document jurisprudential development of the law and create a monitoring system. Findings are shared at a national conference annually at which civil society organisations can question state officials and examine progress. This has inadvertently come to operate as a social audit. The naming and shaming as well as applauding and deriding of state departments in a public forum fosters accountability and drives state governments to take necessary action. For example, this year, Minister for Law and Justice M. Veerappa Moily recognised the need for fast-track courts to deal with cases of violence against women, easy availability of free legal aid and prioritisation of women’s cases in courts.

This annual report is authored by Lawyers Collective – Women’s Rights Initiative (LWCRI) and the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) in collaboration with the National Commission for Women (NCW) and supported by the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women. Three states were studied this year: Delhi, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. A survey conducted in Delhi and Rajasthan with police and protection officers (POs) assessed their knowledge of the law, the practices they followed and attitudes towards the PWDVA and women. Data was gathered from the judiciary and women who had used the law were contacted to understand their experiences and expectations.

Questions centered around some of the key provisions of the PWDVA such as: categories of women the law protects (i.e. the applicant), who can the woman file the case against (i.e. the respondent), what acts qualify as domestic violence, what is the objective of counseling under the PWDVA, and the right to residence. For attitudinal assessment, several questions and statements were posed to gauge their attitude and gender bias, such as “Domestic Violence is a family affair”; “Women before filing a complaint of domestic violence should consider how that would affect their children”; “Women deserve to be beaten in certain situations”.

This assessment police exposed possible barriers or facilitators in women’s access to the law. It also tried to evaluate if the law is serving its normative function by transforming societal norms and internalising the unacceptability of violence against women in the private sphere.

The PWDVA in many ways is a path-breaking law, not merely because it is an independent civil law that identifies violence against women in the shared household as ‘domestic violence’, but also because it provides women the right to reside in the shared household and protects women in non-matrimonial relationships. The right to reside in the shared household irrespective of any right, title or interest in the property safeguards women from dispossession. It also challenges the moral assumptions infused in other Indian laws by protecting women in non-marital relationships. The law provides protection, maintenance, residence, compensation and custody orders to the woman who has so far been relegated to the status of a ‘mistress’ with little or no rights, without passing judgment or denying her merely because she falls outside the ‘morally acceptable’ institution of marriage. The PWDVA also goes beyond marital relationships. It protects mothers, sisters, daughters, widows and women who are in relationships in the nature of marriage. The objective of recognising relationships in the nature of marriage was to offer protection to women whose ‘marriages’ are not valid in law or fail to meet the requirements of a legally valid marriage.

The study captured the knowledge and acceptability of some of these key provisions. For instance, a certain percentage of POs in Delhi and Rajasthan felt that women in live-in-relationships, bigamous and fraudulent marriages should not be provided protection under the Act. When their knowledge on what acts come under the definition of domestic violence was tested, they recognised most acts of physical, verbal, emotional and economic violence but there was ambiguity surrounding forced sex in marital relationships.

The report also examined how well participants understand the objective and spirit of the legislation by asking questions about the motive of counseling. The purpose of counseling under the Act is to build the confidence of the woman and counsel the man to stop violence, as opposed to the common, incorrect perception of ‘saving families’. It was found that some percentage of the police in Delhi and Rajasthan saw counseling as a way of striking a compromise between couples. This perception trivialises the severity of domestic violence and reestablishes the need for training and sensitisation of key contact agencies such as the POs and the police. The orders from Gujarat show that in many cases, parties have reached a ‘compromise’ or ‘settled the matter’. Whether this settling happened with the consent of the woman or because she was pressurised ‘to save the family’ is not known.

Similarly, the recognition of sexual abuse as domestic violence in relationships, especially in marriages, still needs to gain acceptance. Sex as a conjugal right of the man is a widely accepted patriarchal view. The study revealed that knowledge on the subject was low among participants and sexual abuse was alleged in few orders. The inclusion of sexual abuse in the Act which includes sex without consent is a breakthrough in Indian law. (Indian law did not recognise marital rape.)

This study will hopefully become an effective model to ensure implementation of the law and determine what areas need attention in sensitisation programs. Regular audit of the law and state functionaries influence states to adopt novel methods for better implementation and promote transparency and accountability through public forums.

Please refer to the report for a detailed discussion on the data gathered this year.

***

Sonal Makhija is a Bangalore-based lawyer and legal consultant. Her areas of interest are gender, human rights and anthropology of law.

The Indian parliament recently showed intense activity to promote women’s representation in decision-making bodies. Some months back, a bill was passed that reserves a staggering 50% of seats for women on the panchayat level. Currently under review and soon to be debated in the Lok Sabha is the Women’s Reservation Bill that promises 33% of seats in Parliament to women.

To give an international comparison: the current German Parliament has 32.1 % women in Parliament (1980: a mere 9 %). In Germany, a legal quota system does not exist. However, parties have internally introduced certain reservation systems for women (Green Party: 50 %, Socialist Party 40% etc.). Women however are still largely underrepresented in top ministries as well as top commercial jobs.

Therefore, I am surprised to notice that this new law that bears the potential of helping women into important positions within a culture that sees their role largely within the domain of household and family, does not get a lot of coverage in media and discussion forums. The exchanges that do take place are dominated by male politicians such as Lalu Prasad and Jaswant Singh (both of whom, fortunately, now have other problems to deal with). A somehow lukewarm statement came from the young MP Agatha Sangma: “Social and economic empowerment of women is “much more important” than the women’s reservation bill, which will only give political empowerment” (Indian Express, August 8, 2009).

In my opinion, the quota system in itself is certainly not enough to overcome a deeply chauvinistic tradition but it certainly is an important tool for Indian women towards getting more power. The current female MPs do not seem to be of the opinion that women’s empowerment is a big issue. They refrain from challenging old role models and belief systems about what women can and should do in Indian society. The Pink Chaddhi Campaign and the protests around Valentine’s Day were a rare example of women standing up for their rights as a group and a power to be reckoned with.

However, as long as women see themselves primarily as daughters, sisters and wives, they will lack the strength needed to facilitate changes in society. Lukewarm youngsters like Miss Sangma are a good example of such self-restricting behaviour.

So, I wonder where the women activists have gone since February 2009. Lauded in the West as a big step forward, the President Ms. Patil, is not an example of a modern woman. India clearly is not ready for women in leadership positions to challenge old habits of men head-on. Maybe the soon-to-be-founded Green Party of India will change that? In Germany, it was the Green Party that managed to empower women and got them important ministerial positions long before the Conservative Party was even dreaming about it.

The debate on the Women’s Reservation Bill now rages around how many of such seats should be reserved for scheduled tribes etc. Some are suggesting that more seats should be made available to provide for the “female seats”. All these arguments lead away from the topic: Indian women need a larger representation and a say in the decision-making process. They need to be educated and understand themselves as independent female members of society, not an extension of some household or other social group.

I remember a friend of mine, a single mom from Mumbai, cursing loudly while driving past a Manu temple that for her embodied all that was wrong with Indian society. Left alone by her husband, living on the fringe of society (even though we’re talking Middle Class here), has provided her with an intense resentment against any kind of chauvinism. That’s the type of strength needed to uproot deep-seated prejudices in men and women and create a society of real equal possibilities. It’s a long way, but the debate on the Women’s Reservation Bill should be reclaimed by the people whom it is all about: women.

***

Martin Lehmann-Waldau is a foreign journalist working on women’s issues across Asia.

As the day of voting for the Assembly elections approaches, the political parties have been making their achievements and plans known to the voters of Maharashtra through their manifestos. With a lot at stake for the political parties in the fray, they are leaving no stone unturned to convince the electorate that it is their party alone who has the best intentions at heart for every section of society in Maharashtra.

The manifestos of the Congress Party-Nationalist Congress Party and the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party do state the intentions of the parties to promote the cause of the Girl Child. They have promised to “invest” a certain amount in a fixed deposit for every female child born in Maharashtra, and Rs. 1.25 lakh and Rs. 1 lakh, has been promised by each party respectively, once the girl becomes a major. The parties have also promised free education for girls until graduation level.

The considerations given to the Girl Child are a positive step forward in securing the rightful place of a girl in society. What about the female child that does not even get a chance to be born or the girl child that does not get a chance to survive past the age of six because she is denied her right to nutrition, health and education? Who will speak up for her? She also has the right to be heard.

Census 2001 threw up a startling revelation – it showed an alarmingly skewed Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) at the national level and in the state of Maharashtra, with Mumbai being one of the biggest offenders. In 2001 there were 927 girls for every 1000 boys in India within the age group of 0–6 and 917 girls for every 1000 boys in Maharashtra. In Mumbai there were 898 girls for every 1000 boys!

An analysis of the SRB data since 2001 to 2007 has been conducted by D. K. Mangal of UNFPA for Maharashtra based on the data published by the Office of the Registrar General of India. The report stated that the SRB in 2006 in India was 901 girls per 1000 boys, 871 girls for every 1000 boys in Maharashtra and 736 girls per 1000 boys in Mumbai. If Census 2001 threw up startling revelations, the data of 2006 shows that those in authority have done nothing to arrest the decreasing sex ratio in our country, state or city!

One of the main reasons for these shocking figures is the availability of technology to determine sex of the child before birth. The proliferation of Ultrasound Clinics and their misuse for determining the sex of the foetus has led to large scale elimination of the girl child. There is a clear co-relation between the number of clinics and the declining sex ratio in the offending Cities and States.

This is happening despite rising prosperity, despite the spread of education and despite a comprehensive law against sex selection. If the leaders of our state are seriously concerned in bringing about gender equality through the projects for the Girl Child they have mentioned in their manifestos, we ask them to start at the very beginning – give HER THE RIGHT TO BE BORN. 27 Lac crimes take place under the PCPNDT Act every year, 10 Lac pre-birth eliminations and the number of convictions – below 100!

For the effective implementation of The Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, it is time that the political parties give this commitment to the following action points:

1. Reconstitute the Advisory Boards as per the Law with representation of committed social activists and civil society representatives
2. Conduct social audit of documents received from sonography clinics between 2003-2008
3. Publish on appropriate websites data of USG machines sold by companies
4. Institute a special fast track court for PCPNDT cases at State level
5. Appoint a special prosecutor at state level
6. It is mandatory under Sec 23 of PCPNDT Act to prosecute the clinics found guilty of violating the law. It should be ensured that all such clinics are prosecuted as per the Law.
7. Demand for adequate financial and budgetary allocations for the implementation of the PCPNDT Act.

So far, there has been no political will to enforce the law due to the politician-doctor nexus. Let us hope that the new MLAs tackle this problem with seriousness, sincerity and vigour; and to begin with stop interfering in the strict implementation of the PCPNDT Act.

***

This is posted as a special contribution based on an email from Deborah Herbert. From time to time, we will feature such notices and announcements aimed at creating awareness on important issues.

Population First is an NGO focusing on the serious population and health issues facing India, looking at these from the perspective of women’s rights and social development. Laadli is a Girl Child Campaign initiated by Population First, supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), among others. ‘Celebrate her life’, the campaign theme, encapsulates the wider concern of the falling sex ratio, which is violence against women in general. Gender-based violence begins in the womb itself, leading to the elimination of the female foetus.

Population First wishes to highlight the lack of political will in strictly implementing The Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, and asks the political parties to give their commitment to tackle the problem of the decreasing sex ratio in Maharashtra.

The two may be seemingly unrelated but they point to a constant struggle to assert our right to self-expression and fundamental choices. And remind us that it’s far from over. Self-determination, for the most part, is still sitting pretty in a the latter half of a dictionary.

If JRD Tata, Zubin Mehta or the boy who lives down my lane chooses to enter into matrimony with a woman not Zoroastrian* by birth, a Parsi priest will bless his wedding, his children will be accepted as members of the faith, and he can continue to stroll into fire temples and partake of every ceremony he has witnessed since birth. If Mehr Jesia, Pheroza Godrej or I choose to enter into matrimony with a man not Zoroastrian by birth (and there is no other kind, as far as the community’s beliefs are concerned), Parsi priests are debarred from performing our nuptial ceremonies, our children aren’t considered part of the community or religion, and we can never visit a fire temple or participate in religious rituals again.

If we attempt differently, the uproar would make the Taliban seem like pussycats. Our otherwise charitable-to-a-fault community strips us of our religion, ethnic identity and ostracizes us socially, choosing to explain away this acute discrimination through one of the following:

1. The social argument: patriarchy prevails, therefore the man’s bloodline is carried forth.

2. The religious argument: our religion says so, because the man provides the crucial seed.

3. The legal argument: the Davar-Beaman judgement of 1908, frequently cited as the what-can-we-do shoulder shrug, even as one admits it’s so unfair.

In the recent case of Farzin Batlivala, the child who died of starvation, the community swooped in and made amends once the father was proven to be Parsi/Zoroastrian. Had the mother been the Parsi parent, what then? These laws are written into the workings of the myriad charitable trusts that support the community’s own. Except, its own must necessarily have a Zoroastrian father. Mothers are of no consequence because ‘parjaat’ (the community’s colloquial term for non-Zoroastrian) fathers dilute ethnic identity and pollute the gene pool. (All you non-Zoroastrian men, I’d be hugely offended if I were you!)

It is particularly tragic because socio-cultural teachings are still predominantly imparted by the female parent. So we grow up seeing children of mixed marriages with non-Zoroastrian mothers labeled “certified” Zoroastrians, initiated into a religion they have minimal information about, and yet others who pray in rapid-fire Avestan and cook a mean dhansak, only to hang around the community’s periphery, unable to enter because their Zoroastrian parent is female.

For all our freedoms and liberal upbringing, we are rejected on the basis of our gender when we make this most personal and fundamental decision. For all its veneer of sophistication, my community presents me with only a Hobson’s choice. And patriarchy, alive and kicking, aims another blow at my savagely foaming mouth.

*The terms ‘Parsi’ and ‘Zoroastrian’ have been used interchangeably, as is common usage among the community. A large majority of Parsis do not differentiate between their religion and ethnic identity and view them as one and the same. Zoroastrian Iranis do, however, also come under the Zoroastrian umbrella in India and are granted the same rights and privileges as Parsis.

THE PRINT MEDIA has, on many occasions, been a good friend to the women’s movement. By giving space to gender issues, specifically those related to violence against women, it has played a role in the popularizing of a feminist politics. Many sections of the media continue to be at least liberal and sympathetic to the cause of gender equality. What then permits the kind of sensationalist reporting that not just undermines all those progressive values but actually violates, in spirit if not in letter, the law? Does the logic of the market and the imperative to titillate override all ethical and professional norms?

The Mumbai Mirror has been particularly reprehensible and unethical in making public the contents of the entire FIR in the case of the rape of an international student of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai this month violating her right to anonymity and dignity. Such reportage is clearly counterproductive and sends a strong negative message to the survivors of sexual assault. In the future, many would hesitate to come out and complain, for fear of being torn to shreds by the media and in some ways facing a second assault at the hands of the sensation seeking media. Nor despite demands from women’s groups has The Mumbai Mirror adequately apologized for their irresponsible journalism. Apart from a token and wholly inadequate apology for offending their readers’ sentiments, the paper has failed to even acknowledge that it has erred terribly.

Nor have most other papers been very careful in whom they quote or the facts they print without verification. The Times of India, on the first day, chose to put in its headlines, on page 1, “US student raped by batchmates in Mumbai”, despite the fact that later in its report it mentions the police said that they were Tata Institute of Social Sciences students but this was denied by TISS. Interestingly, none of the other English language papers seem to have had access to this police source, as all of them reported that they were students of other colleges. While the TOI corrected its statement the next day, many people still believe that the criminals were students of TISS. This irresponsible, if not malicious reporting has attempted to tarnish the reputation of not just an institution, but also of hundreds of students who study there.

The press has not balked at giving prominent space to the comments made by the accused who seek to slander the survivor or to the parents of the accused who can only moan that their ‘golden boys’ can do no wrong. Oddly enough one of the first comments made by the papers about the accused were that they were all from “good families”, whatever that means, demonstrating not just a lack of ethics but also a lack of journalistic accuracy. The mud slinging has begun and the press shows no signs of exercising restraint in their printing of slanderous comments by the accused questioning the morality of the young woman. ‘Blaming the victim’ is a common social response to violence against women, and the media on its part is doing little to prevent this from happening. If the media continues to report in this vein it could well bias the trial against the young woman seeking justice.

Meanwhile women’s hostels in the city are seeking to tighten rules for their residents and restrict them further. The International Students Hostel, where many of the accused resided, has closed their mess to women without offering any explanations. Some hostels have informed women students that they will have to leave immediately after exams. These repercussions of assault then are already being felt by women whose access to the city is further restricted. Yet one has not seen a single journalistic piece of reporting that focuses on this. In their reportage thus far the media have shown not just a lack of responsibility but also a lack of insight.

What we need now is a reportage that will focus on the larger picture, one that will be able to contextualise this one woman’s quest for justice within the larger question of women’s right to have fun with being constantly threatened with violence and then blamed for it.

Protests and debates on the issue:

Women’s groups and students have protested and demonstrated outside the Mumbai Mirror offices.

Only one newspaper, The Hindu, saw fit to cover this. There has also been some comment generated on the subject and a debate on the loss of ethics of the media is ongoing.

And a blog has been started to debate the issue.

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Shilpa Phadke is a sociologist, researcher and pedagogue. Anjali Monteiro and KP Jayasankar are documentary film makers and academics; they teach and research in the area of media and cultural studies.