But not here. Ultra Violet has a new home on the web. Do check out the site and give us your comments on the new look and feel. Oh, and please change your bookmarks to ultraviolet.in and tell your friends.

As promised, there have been some changes. For starters, UV is now an independent entity and no longer part of Hengasara Hakkina Sangha (HHS). There are also other changes in terms of focus, content and mood. For more on the new UV, click here.

To know more about HHS, you can visit their website.

After a week or so, this domain will redirect to ultraviolet.in.

Thank you and see y’all at the new place.

Things have been slow here at UV and there’s a good reason for it. There are lots of changes on the anvil in terms of thrust and design and we’re taking this month off to implement these. New, (improved) programming will resume next month. Watch this space.

Until then, browse the archives, comment on old posts if you feel like, and write in if you want to contribute to the new edition.

Take care.

Shilpa Phadke, Anjali Monteiro and K P Jayasankar ask why the reportage of the recent sexual assault of a young woman plumbs new depths in insensitive, unethical and sleazy journalism.

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.

***

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.

THE PEOPLE’S Union for Civil Liberties, Karnataka (PUCL-K), has put together a very comprehensive report on Cultural Policing in Dakshin Kannada. The fact-finding team (which included our contributor Usha BN) traveled to Mangalore and conducted extensive interviews with key groups, activists, academics and the police. The report provides interesting background information on Dakshin Kannada as a region, looks at the current climate of fear and lawlessness, and examines the multiple factors involved in this. It points out some very interesting things — the intersection of communalisation and criminalisation, cultural policing as ’social apartheid’ and the role of the media, police, civil society. Read / download the entire report for free. Please spread the word widely as well by pasting extracts on your blogs or websites if possible.

Excerpts:

As one observer, who has been covering the events in Dakshina Kannada, put it, “Today saffron is the colour of power. You just walk around with a big red tilak and see how people treat you. Right from the shop keeper to the bus conductor to the policeman, everybody gives you respect. Without the tilak you are nothing, with the tilak you become a power structure.” Munir Kattipalya of the DYFI echoes this sentiment when he says, “This district is not only communalized but also progressively criminalized.”

What is indicated by such statements is that there is a strong link between communalization and criminalization. It is precisely because the state has chosen not to act when criminal activities are perpetrated under the garb of religion that criminal elements now feel that they have the sanction to perpetrate violence and Cultural Policing in Dakshina Kannada other forms of intimidation by using the garb of religion. This possibly explains the proliferation of vigilante groups in Dakshina Kannada.

And:

Cultural policing in turn leads to forms of ‘social apartheid.’ By ‘social apartheid,’ what we mean is a policing of community boundaries through laying down what manners of dress and what manners of expression are appropriate for each selfenclosed community. The conventional understanding of apartheid as it was practiced in South Africa refers to a structure of segregation of the people of South Africa through law. By social apartheid, we mean a practice of segregating communities on the basis of religion and gender by self-styled vigilante groups as well as prescribing appropriate behaviour and conduct for the separate communities. Social apartheid is successful only because it has the implicit support of the state, and hence enjoys immunity for its patently lawless actions. It is important to stress that social apartheid is not just about segregating communities but it is equally concerned about the culture, dress, and deportment of individuals within the community.

WHERE EVERY FAMILY wants a hundred sons, but not even one daughter, where infant girls are killed using many ingenious methods, or even simpler, not allowed to be born, in such a land, what is the future of womankind?

Manjula Padmanabhan’s recently published novel, Escape is the dystopian vision of such a society where the no-girls policy has been taken to its  extreme; for now, it is not only individual families that conspire to kill women, it is the government itself that has officially outlawed and exterminated women. 

In this “world” (a country masquerading as the whole world, even as the rest of the world ostracises it for its crimes), a coup by clone technology wielding generals has eliminated the ‘need’ for women, since they see women primarily as ‘breeders’, and weak breeders at that, who cannot compete with the perfection of clone technology. What then is the fate of the lone girl who has survived in this world, not knowing even that she is to become a woman?

Escape is the story of this lone girl, Meiji, and what is remarkable is that it traces two journeys at once. Meiji must set out on a perilous journey with Youngest, the youngest of the three uncles who have raised her, if she is to have any chance of survival. At the same time, on the cusp of adolescence, she must also understand what a woman is, in the absence of any other living specimens to guide or even assure her that to be woman is to be normal. For, in this world, man has become default and woman is a relic of a past world, a species of monster that needs to be made extinct. In some ways, this inner journey of Meiji’s, with its confusion and bitterness, is more exciting than the physical journey through the wasteland, which never comes close to being really threatening. The inner journey on the other hand is perilous, for, having only vaguely heard of women (and their attendant evils), Meiji comes dangerously close to self-loathing on realising that she is the last of a tribe that has been exterminated.

Yesterday you told me that when I finish growing up completely, I’ll be a monster,” she said. “And now you’re telling me that I’m the only one left in our world?

When it is hard for her to even visualize a world where women were human beings, she must make another leap to come to terms with the changes happening in her own body  and understand that womanhood brings with it some unique abilities.

Youngest has a journey of his own to make, both as Meiji’s escort and protector, and towards understanding and controlling his own sexual impulses. Some scenes are not easy to stomach — instinctively, I cringed at the description of sexual attraction that Youngest feels towards Meiji even as he fights it. Yet, in a world that has killed women, Youngest is one small symbol of hope — of a man who can not only lust, but also feel, love and remember. When he recalls the cousin whom he loved,

She was everything to me. Mother, sister, wife, lover — everything mixed up together. It used to be considered shameful and indecent to have thoughts like that for family members but the time for shame was over…Our time together was beyond imagining. We didn’t hide it from the others. It was too pure, too beautiful, to be snuffed out.

There is no easy closure to this journey, but inspite of leaving us with no answers, Escape is a very worthwhile read both for its many layered story and for the way it has integrated a question that all of us who see India’s declining sex ratios must ask.

Details:

Publisher: Picador India

Price: Rs. 295

AT THE PRESCHOOL that I run (where I also teach), there’s a certain action song we sing that goes like this:

Cook like mummy,

Yum, yum, yum, (repeat thrice)

Let’s have fun together!

Drive like daddy,

Knit like grandma,

Cough like grandpa….

…and by the time we come to “Be like teacher, Shh, shh, shh!” I’m ready to pop a vein.

Since school is located in an affluent Gujarati-dominated neighborhood with a disproportionate share of stay-at-home-mothers (SAHMs) and business-absorbed fathers, the children exposed to these stereotypical gender roles do, in all likelihood, go home to the same images where they get reinforced. [Note: I do not mean to tar all SAHMs or business-owner fathers with the same brush. The point is specific to my experiences at my preschool.] And then I’m met with wide-eyed disbelief when I tell them that girls are pilots too.

So what do I undertake to combat the pigeon holes? A little juvenile song reversal (“Drive like mummy” can be a thought, to begin with right?), some questioning on how many daddies cook (one excited little arm waves at me from among a sea of puzzled heads) and, my trump card: presenting to them a real, live girl pilot in uniform! (Okay, so my life may seem a tad dull to the rest of you, but hey, when work-related travel involves busing to the zoo, I’ll take whatever excitement I get, thank you.)

I observe them at play, loath to interfere, making sure both genders have gender-neutral and –specific toys within easy reach, and then watch a little resignedly as most girls twiddle spoons in tea cups while the boys use balls as missiles. I wince when I watch a parent absently hand out a stuffed animal or doll to their daughter and darts to their son. And then wonder: how much of this is physiological and how much is so ingrained that we’re unable to separate our socialization from the hard-wiring of our brains?

Is it okay to let them believe only grandmothers have the right to a kitchen because that’s what they’ll likely see anyway or is at least a minimum level of exposure on available options necessary? I tend to veer toward the latter choice in the hope that a little boy or girl may someday remember that gender roles and boundaries may exist, but if personal happiness lies in ignoring them, then so be it.

Sleep wherever is most convenient for you.
Whoever and whatever is left in the morning,
take home. Be kind. All the world is yours for
the taking, long as you know that your little heart is
theirs for the breaking. Leave lipstick on their
china and on your letters. Make sure they know
that you’re a mariposa, blue as copper sulphate,
or blue as the sea, blue as a baby stilled too soon,
darling wench, and you never really intend to leave.
Set love free like a boat with neither oars nor anchors.
Trust it. Don’t trust yourself. Accept every familiar
that comes, even if one happens to be a goat. Forgive
less of people. Remember that things come in triptychs.
Be magnificent, like Coatlicue. You only owe it to me,
but break a mirror now and then, if you can afford it.
Kiss as much as you want to, and as few. Be difficult.
It will make you more desirable. If it will help you to
let him go, cut off your hands. They will grow back.
You don’t need them. You don’t need him. The older
you grow, the more you will amputate. Dance on stumps
if you have to, but don’t stop. Wear one item of red
every Wednesday and when death comes for you,
you will go as his bride. Burn every bridge you ever
built, and build as many as you possibly can. The one
that takes you home will be the last one standing.
Sing over the bones. Go slow.
Don’t forget me.

—

SOME OF YOU have asked how you can help in the campaign against the attacks on women in Mangalore and Bangalore. Running a poster campaign in your neighborhood, college or office is a quick and easy way.  Here are some posters I’ve received from different organizations. Click on the download link to get a large-size version which you can print out. Make copies and put them up wherever you can. These are from Maraa. I think its very cool that they’re creating material in different languages.

Download

Download

Download

Download

Download

And here’s an e-poster from the people at Pink Chaddi Campaign. Send to everyone.

Saturday, 7th March 2009, 3.30 pm – 4.30 pm
Meet Director General of Police for Karnataka, Ajay Kumar Singh: A crowd will gather outside the DGP’s office while a delegation goes to in to present him with a memorandum. More details at Bangalore Aware.

Sunday, 8th March 2009, 6 pm onwards
Take Back the Night Walk: The main event will bring people together in different locations across the city between 6 pm and 9 pm. All groups will meet at Majestic at 9 pm where there will be a small performance and much boisterousness. More details at Blank Noise Project.

By Maraa

Seven attacks in the last ten days! In response to the recent attacks against women in the city of Bangalore, many individuals and organisations have come together to form FEARLESS KARNATAKA or Nirbhaya Karnataka to reclaim public spaces and promote safety for all.

In the wake of a series of attacks in Mangalore (the latest one was reported on February 24, 2009), women have been targeted in the name of morality, culture and “public decency”. In Bangalore, the reasons for the attacks have been on similar lines — during the attacks, the girls were insulted for wearing jeans, sleeveless shirts and speaking English. We believe that the attacks in Bangalore then are a continuation of those that took place in Mangalore and coastal Karnataka regions even though the identity of the attackers (and the organizations they belong to) could have differed.

In an attempt to fight against the climate of fear, the collective would like to announce the following activities:

1. A protest march to the office of Dr. Ajai Kumar Singh, DG & IGP, on March 7, 2009
2. A `Take Back the Night’ campaign on March 8, 2009
3. A poster campaign asking bystanders who witness attacks on women to act

There are several other efforts including signature campaigns, art
exhibitions, etc which are happening simultaneously.

There is some handy info like basic legal information and precautions to be taken etc available on baware.in. Spread the word.

Maraa is part of this campaign too and these are the few things we are doing:

* making radio spots for FM channels
* making posters
* street theatre
* making short videos
* website support — updating blog, audio clips etc.
* photography

These things have to happen fast, in large numbers and in a short time. We need many hands and ideas to implement this.

Where do you fit in? How can you help?

* Participate and get others involved in the ‘Take Back The Night’ Campaign on March 8th at Majestic (call us for more details)
* Know your facts, read press reports everyday
* Come to maraa from 2nd-7th at 4:00pm to work on above. We really need more hands in all areas.
* Create a buzz about this around your neighbourhood, office communities, corporate offices, colleges, schools, apartment complexes etc

If you want to express and respond in any other way about the current  situation, please let us know how you can fit into the larger framework.

If you can translate this information in any language please do — try
to make it as local as possible. ALL communication and publicity material can be in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and the rest. This is crucial, since there is very little work done in this area.

Any financial contribution will be useful.

Please try and feed into, connect and link up with the same campaign and initiatives that have already begun. Localise it as much as possible. Even if you are not from Bangalore, feel free to share your expression. Maraa will try and present it at events and gatherings around us.

Mmany of us have known Bangalore differently from what it has become now. Let’s reclaim our space in it.

Feel free to call any of us for more info:
Ekta – 9880755875,
Deepak – 9343763497,
Pallavi – 9886928582,
Nagaraj – 9902535473 (Nagaraj is working on translating most material to Kannada; more hands are needed)

Team Maraa
080-4148-8264