On February 18, the body of 15-year old Scarlett Keeling, a British national, was found on a Goan beach. Police initially chalked up her death to drowning after consuming too much alcohol, despite evidence of severe bruising and rape. But investigations and post-mortem investigations revealed contradictory facts, as did eyewitness accounts by people who had seen the girl during her final hours. Scarlett had been in India with her mother Fiona MacKeown, MacKeown’s boyfriend, and her siblings. They were frequent visitors, and on this instance were on a six-month-long trip.

Allegations were quickly leveled against MacKeown for her negligence of Scarlett. The moral higher ground was quickly swamped by those chastising her for her irresponsible behaviour. One whiff of scandal led to another, and details about MacKeown’s private life were dug up. Scarlett’s diary entries were exposed in the media. The bottomline message was that somehow, by choosing to lead lifestyles that included partying, sex and substances, they had asked for the tragedy that befell them. Terms like “alleged murder” were popular, as though it could have been anything else, until today’s gruesome revelation: Scarlett was murdered by having her head held underwater for between five and ten minutes. She asphyxiated to death.

It is alarming to watch the cruelty of the media – from possibly every newspaper in the country to even NDTV’s usually fairly progressive We The People to the blogosphere – and what can be gauged of common opinion by it. Despite the horrifying brutality inflicted on a person who by Indian standards was still a child, and the overwhelming confusion and despair her loved ones are no doubt experiencing, the attacks made against the victim and the family censure them with only superficial demonstrations of sympathy. Political officials in Goa are calling for the revoking of MacKeown’s visa and a ban on her entering the country again, blaming her for maligning the image of the state. She has since gone into hiding, fearing for her life from both the drug mafia and state officials whom she has linked to them.

Scarlett’s boyfriend, an Indian citizen named Julio Lobo, has been taken for medical tests to see if he is “sexually active”. A DNA test of substances found on or in the victim’s body would not be unreasonable, but pray tell, what does his being or not being sexually active reveal about the horrific tragedy? Is it necessary, given that in her diary, Scarlett had written not only that she had sex with him, but that she felt he used her for it? Is there a test that proves sexual activity in males? Or is this like one of those repressed, backward ideas about broken hymens and being able to pee in a straight line? That this person’s private life is being pried into in a manner that is unlikely to shed any light on the senselessness of the incident is nothing more than one of the many ways in which the blame is being pinned on “the wanton Western way”. The boyfriend, we are to assume, has sinned by his affinity to this lifestyle of debauchery, which – we are also to assume – is imported to India by the likes of the Keeling family. But even that doesn’t quite crack it: Lobo is being tested not because of his character – but because of what the conclusiveness of science is meant to tell us about hers.

Lobo, in turn, has retaliated by attacking MacKeown because she had been aware of Scarlett’s lifestyle (but she says Scarlett was neither a binge drinker not drug abuser, to her knowledge). This, too, is reprehensible. At 25 years old, a decade older than Scarlett, his relationship with her could amount to statutory rape. Clearly, prior to the murder, MacKeown’s liberal parenting style benefited him. His attempt to deflect attention from his actual law-breaking by ganging up against the bereaved mother with the rest of the patriarchy squad is sickening.

In other words, the condemning of the murdered girl, her family, her friends, their lifestyles and their choices is a typical misogynist response – the wicked woman gets her dues. And this time, there are not one but two “wicked women”: Fiona MacKeown, mother of not just the victim, but of several more children of “varying paternity”, and Scarlett herself. That the women in question happen to be from the West (that corrupter of our chaste and virtuous ways of life!) is icing on the cake.

Rape, murder, the works – apparently, under the right (or wrong) circumstances, they can all be justified.

Make no mistake. What we see in the media today is not an enquiry into a crime. It is slut-shaming, plain and simple. The nation is not in shock because a 15 year old has been so brutally treated. Those are not the sounds of protest and outrage; they are the sounds of many hands rubbing in glee, so thrilled to be vindicated of their position that women who break the rules deserve what’s coming to them, and what’s coming to them is exactly what happened to Scarlett Keeling.

But what happened to Scarlett Keeling has nothing to do with if she had sex, if she did drugs, if she drank. What happened to Scarlett Keeling has nothing to do with why her mother so frequently chose to travel to India or lived a bohemian, unconventional lifestyle. What happened to Scarlett Keeling has only one reason: some places in the world are not safe for women, not because of culture or tradition, but because of an absence of respect for them as individuals. India is one of them. India killed Scarlett Keeling – and every day, kills many less sensationalized individuals. That Fiona MacKeown has seen this is not delusion on her part.

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]]> http://ultraviolet.in/2008/03/24/the-shaming-of-scarlett-keeling/feed/ 40 http://ultraviolet.in/2007/09/10/the-long-journey-moving-from-morality-to-justice/ http://ultraviolet.in/2007/09/10/the-long-journey-moving-from-morality-to-justice/#comments Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:28:10 +0000 Payal Saksena http://youngfeminists.wordpress.com/2007/09/10/the-long-journey-moving-from-morality-to-justice/ From ancient Hindu myths to the Bollywood masala movies, justice has always meant the triumph of ‘good’ over ‘evil’. The multi-talented ‘hero’ wins over the ever-scheming and notorious ‘villain’. Perhaps, the concept of poetic justice has been transferred from ancient epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata to give the masses their money’s worth of entertainment. But what exactly does justice mean in our real lives? Is it what the dictionary generally defines as that which is morally right or fair? And how does one define morals or morality in the first place?

The dilemma begins here and sees no end. An individual’s morality controls their understanding and, hence, their life and the way they perceive family, marriage and community. As a lawyer, I’ve had women clients, who after facing violence and abuse, had no idea of what justice meant to them. Their notion of justice ranged from ‘punishing the perpetrator’ to ’saving a violent marriage’ to managing ‘a dignified and safe exit from a violent domestic relationship’. In these women’s lives, morality was largely based on their particular perceptions of marriage, family relationships and their roles within the family. Their concept of justice also varied accordingly.

More disturbingly, justice through legal means was a scary and alien idea to them. Is it because access to law within our system is difficult and problematic, marred with corruption and prolonged delay? Or is it because law, in its content and procedure, fails to understand women’s issues and experiences?

The law’s approach to women’s issues is probably most obvious when we look at laws relating to sexual offences. For example, in the Indian law on sexual assault, the issue of morality is related to chastity, and the importance accorded it often assumes illogical proportions. Chastity is usually understood as ‘purity’ or virginity. The judiciary has had a history of advocating and upholding this sexually conservative morality. The notion of being chaste and sexually conservative is the yardstick while dealing with sexual violence. Judgments are based on notions of the ‘good non-resistant woman’. Notions of ‘good’ woman, ‘good’ wife and ‘good’ daughter affect popular understanding of crimes against women. Subsequently, there is also a parallel image of the ‘bad woman’. Naturally, a woman who faces violence does not want to talk about it. She would rather not risk the latter label.

Law is not the only way in which we can understand the role of morality in our lives — religion, education, customs are also important areas — but it has been an important influence on the issue of morality. Another issue is that in India, laws are mainly protectionist. They seek to protect a woman from abuse and violence — and usually only a ‘good’ woman is deserving of such protection. Offences like sexual assault, adultery and marital rape are coloured with assumptions on behavior and conduct. For example, behaving in a culturally ‘provocative’ manner or dressing in ‘non-Indian’ or ‘western’ attire is considered an invitation to sexual assault. Similarly, sexual intercourse in marriage cannot be rape since it is a legitimate and ’sacred’ conjugal right of a spouse and outside the scope of criminal law. A wife is presumed to have given consent to her husband for sexual intercourse and, therefore, there cannot be a situation where that consent can be revoked.

Against the backdrop of such legal realities, where is the space to uphold what is ‘fair and right’ against what is ‘unfair and wrong’? How do we decide what justice we want for women and whether what we get is a correct understanding of justice?

There has been a constant tussle on this issue between feminists and law-makers. One the one hand, the legislature is keen to frame laws which help women only when they are ‘good victims’ and on the other hand, feminists demand legal reforms which negate notions of sexual morality, discard concepts of modesty and chastity, and in so doing, redefine justice.

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