Veteran CPIML leader Comrade Srilata Swaminathan passed away in Udaipur (Rajasthan) in the early morning of February 5. She was 74. Comrade Srilata had suffered a brain stroke on  the night of January 28 and was rushed to a hospital in Udaipur where she breathed her last following a cardiac arrest.

Comrade Srilata was born in Chennai on April 29, 1944. After finishing college she came to Delhi and joined the National School of Drama and subsequently went to London to pursue her interests in theatre. But back in Delhi in 1972, her life took a decisive turn. She joined the CPIML and began organizing farm workers in Mehrauli region of Delhi. She also worked among hotel workers in Delhi. During the Emergency she was imprisoned in Tihar jail for a period of ten months following which she was interned in Chennai. For Comrade Srilata this only meant an opportunity to plunge back into trade union work among Port and Dock workers.

After the Emergency was lifted in 1977, Srilata returned to Delhi and shifted base to Rajasthan in 1978 to start working among Adivasis, women and various sections of working people from rural bonded labour and displaced people to trade unions in the mining sector and various industries. For a woman with an elite background and upbringing to adopt rural Rajasthan as her area of Marxist activism was a bold decision that typically reflected Srilata's revolutionary zeal and political courage. Till her last breath she worked to strengthen the revolutionary Left movement and spread and defend progressive ideas and values against the deeply entrenched feudal-patriarchal forces and communal-mafia nexus in Rajasthan.

Following the early 1970s setback to the CPIML, Comrade Srilata worked for some time with Comrade Kanu Sanyal, but the rise of the IPF in Bihar attracted her attention and following the highly inspiring Delhi rally of the IPF in October 1990, Comrade Srilata joined the CPIML along with Comrade Mahendra Chaudhary, her husband and comrade-in-arms, and hundreds of other comrades. She was elected President of the All India Progressive Women's Association in the mid 1990s. At the Varanasi Congress of the CPIML in October 1997, she was elected a member of the Central Committee, a responsibility she continued to discharge till she had to be relieved on health grounds at the Ranchi Congress in April 2013. She was also a Vice-President of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions.

Comrade Srilata was a remarkably versatile activist with great creative energy, infinite enthusiasm and strong political will. She withstood every adversity in life with characteristic resilience and powerful sense of humour. When her deteriorating health stopped her from attending the AIPWA National Conference in Patna in November 2016, she composed and sang a song for the delegates and sent the audio clip to the conference. With her wide-ranging concerns and activism, Comrade Srilata was a natural bridge between the CPIML and various streams of progressive democratic ideas and action. She had high respect for all struggles of the people for a progressive cause and had great hopes from the CPIML-led struggles in Bihar and Jharkhand. She had deep empathy for the people and felt deeply for all her fellow comrades working on various fronts.

Comrade Srilata's illustrious legacy will continue to inspire us to carry forward the struggles of the oppressed people for dignity, democracy and social emancipation.

Red Salute to Comrade Srilata Swaminathan!

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Recently, Muslim bigots viciously trolled Indian cricketer Mohammad Shami for posting a photograph of his family – his wife Hasin Jahan, they said, wore un-Islamic clothes. The trolls – Taliban style – demanded to regulate what ‘their’ women should be allowed to wear, and sought to shame Shami for failing to discipline his wife’s clothing and make her wear a hijab like Irfan Pathan’s wife.
 
‘Are you a Muslim?’ ‘Aren’t you ashamed at your wife’s exposed neck?’ ‘Your wife is very cute but better not keep her in western clothes’ – were some of the milder comments.
 
One said “We hate you shami. .. apni aurat ki izzat ki nilami mat karo Bhai…" (Don’t auction off the honour of your woman), another told Shami “This beauty private property of u..dear …not showing 4 others…"  
 
The moral police clearly felt no hesitation in declaring that Hasin Jahan was her husband Shami’s ‘private property’; and that they, as self-proclaimed custodians of Islam, had a right to dictate how Muslim women chose to dress.  
 
The trolls were outnumbered however by saner democratic voices who expressed contempt for the moral police and support for the right of women to dress exactly as they wish without being judged and shamed and controlled by others.
 
On previous occasions, I have noticed that some Muslim men who would appreciate my social media posts against communalism, would get indignant at posts of mine directed at patriarchal dress codes – even those imposed by Hindutva brigades. They would post comments justifying moral policing and telling me that women’s revealing clothes made them unsafe.
 
I would ask them: “You are able to recognize that it is fascist to tell Muslims they are asking to be beaten and attacked if they eat beef or wear a skull cap and beard. How come you can’t recognize that it’s just as oppressive to tell women they are asking to be raped if they wear a dress of their choice?”    
 
In the context of the Shami trolling episode, I wrote a piece on the patriarchal codes that are shared across religious, social and political lines. In that piece, I shared an anecdote where Dalit young men were very conscious and aware of the ways in which dominant castes do not “let them dress in modern clothes, use bikes or play loud music or move freely on the main streets and public spaces of the village or town.” But the same young men found it entirely natural on their own part to prevent young Dalit women from dressing in modern clothes, moving freely with head uncovered in public spaces and so on!  
 
In that piece I also shared how even on the Left, there are deep-seated patriarchal prejudices and suspicions about women’s freedom and autonomy. In the last paragraph, I also asked the Hindutva trolls to recognize their own mirror image when they looked into the eyes of the Muslim fanatic trolls.
 
In the responses to that piece I noticed there were several who demanded to know why mention Hindutva moral police at all in the context of an incident involving the Muslim moral police?
 
By doing so, they alleged, I as a ‘commie feminist’ was being soft on the Muslim fanatic patriarchs. In reply, I would ask, don’t we ‘commie feminists’ routinely compare the Hindutva moral police (when they impose dress codes etc) to the Taliban?
 
To take just one instance, here is a statement  issued by my organisation AIPWA on the February 2009 Mangalore pub attack, referring to the Sri Ram Sene, Bajrang Dal and similar outfits as the “saffron Taliban.”
 
By making that comparison with the Muslim fanatic Taliban, were we being ‘soft on the Hindutva moral police’?!
 
Not at all: rather, our statement sought to underline that the patriarchal assault on women’s freedom and autonomy is what needs to be recognized and resisted – whether it is by the Taliban in relatively remote Afghanistan, the saffron brigades in India, or even the so-called ‘secular’ party leaders who condemned ‘pub culture’ instead of condemning the attacks on women.           
 
The problem with patriarchy is that we can often see and recognize it only in ‘others’ – in our own homes, communities, cultures, it looks ‘normal.’ But the most crucial anti-patriarchal struggles have to be waged in the comfortable spaces – in our own homes, communities, and cultures. One useful test to apply to ourselves when condemning attacks by those of ‘other’ communities on the rights of women, is to ask ourselves if we would condemn identical attacks by those of our own community?
 
This is not whataboutery. If we have not yet recognized or resisted patriarchy and sexism by ‘our own,’ it does mean we must not condemn the same by ‘others.’ But recognizing it in others can help us recognize and resist it in ourselves. That is why, even in articles condemning the patriarchal remarks or ideologies of Sangh leaders or Muslim fanatic trolls, I as a Leftist often make it a point to reflect also on how similar patriarchal tendencies are seen even on the Left.
 
The Hindutva trolls, not long ago, viciously trolled Tina Dabi for having become engaged to a Kashmiri Muslim colleague Athar Aamir-ul Shafi Khan. The All India Hindu Mahasabha even thought it was entitled to write a letter to Tina Dabi’s father saying, "This decision of your family will promote love jihad and thus the wedding should not take place at any cost.” In writing that letter, the Hindu Mahasabha displayed the exact same mentality that the Muslim fanatics trolling Shami did.
 
The Hindu Mahasabha treated Tina Dabi – an independent adult woman – as the property of her father; they declared that her choice (of life partner) shamed her father and her faith; and asked her father to protect Hindu honour by preventing her from exercising her choice.
 
Likewise, the Muslim fanatics treated Hasin Jahan – an independent adult woman – as the property of her husband; declared that her choice (of dress) shamed her husband and her faith; and asked her husband to protect Muslim honour by preventing her from exercising her choice. Making this comparison and recognizing the family resemblance between Muslim and Hindu patriarchies is important because doing so clarifies the issue.
 
The comparison makes it clear that the issue is not Hindu vs Muslim but that of women’s freedom vs patriarchy.
 
  
 

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The inaction of the police and university authorities is baffling.

It has been more than two weeks since a student – Najeeb Ahmed – disappeared from the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University in the national capital, following a brutal thrashing and threats at the hands of a group of students belonging to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. The thrashing followed an altercation between Ahmed and an ABVP member, and was witnessed by many including by a hostel warden.

I say it again. A student vanished from a campus in Delhi after a thrashing by members of an organisation linked with the ruling party. This fact in itself is ominous and disturbing. But the response of authorities and media to it is even more ominous and disturbing.

Surely the JNU administration ought at least to initiate action against those who were seen beating up Ahmed? But it has not.

Surely the JNU administration should publicly issue a personal appeal to the missing student, assuring him of safety and due process? Instead its initial response echoed the ABVP narrative and referred to Ahmed as “the accused” in the initial altercation. In its latest bulletin, it has dropped the word “accused”. But this bulletin mentioned only the initial brawl and the allegation that Ahmed slapped a student. The bulletin omits even to acknowledge the severe thrashing of Ahmed by ABVP members in the presence of a warden and many others.

Surely the Delhi Police should have interrogated the students who were witnessed beating up Ahmed before he disappeared (many of these are named in the FIR) and checked the records of their calls and messages?
Surely Ahmed’s disappearance should have been a leading human interest story on all news channels, giving voice to Ahmed’s distraught family and asking hard questions about facts that the JNU administration and Delhi Police are seeking to play down or hide? Barring a few exceptions, the electronic media has ignored the story.
 

Some questions

A meeting of the warden committee of the concerned hostel on October 16 has recognised that Ahmed was subjected to a brutal assault on October 14 by a group including students as well as outsiders. The questions begging to be asked are:

• Why, even after an official body of JNU like the warden committee has taken note of the violence, is the JNU vice chancellor and administration silent on it?
• Why did the JNU administration not file a missing person complaint with the Delhi Police immediately after Ahmed disappeared?

It would seem that the impulse to shield the assailants weighs more heavily with the JNU administration than the responsibility to find a student who went missing after violence. The uncertainty and anxiety suffered by Ahmed’s mother and sister can only be imagined. Naturally, they would expect no stone to be left unturned to find the student. But certain stones are being left resolutely unturned: the university and police are united in their “no questions asked” policy towards the persons who beat up Ahmed the night before his disappearance.

Meanwhile, cynically, a toxic narrative is being crafted on social media and some sections of print media about Ahmed’s disappearance, building an image of him as a dangerous criminal on the run rather than a victim of violence whose disappearance is a cause for profound concern. Dainik Jagran carried a story suggesting mendaciously that JNU activists Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya (who had been charged with sedition in February) have had a hand in hiding Ahmed.
 

Double standards

This same JNU administration has been extraordinarily quick in initiating enquiries and action against student activists over democratic protests, which are a long-cherished tradition of the JNU student movement.

Take the case of Rama Naga, whom many outside JNU also have come to recognise as the quiet, good-humoured young man who, as the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union General Secretary, led the Stand With JNU protests. In July, he was informed by the JNU administration that there was a complaint against him received on May 7, accusing him of “blaring loud music” at the Administration Building on May 1. On September 27, Rama again received a show cause notice from the proctor’s office about the same event, accusing him of organising an event by the Ska Vengers and World Sound Power at which “blaring loud music” had been played. Rama replied, informing the proctor that on May Day, he had been on a hunger strike at the Administrative Building against the punishments meted out to JNU students without due process for the February 9 event. It was not Ska Vengers and World Sound Power, but another band, Delhi Sultanate, that had voluntarily come to show their solidarity on May Day.

He pointed out that ABVP also had had a hunger strike at the same site, where it had a permanent sound system installed and had blared loud songs night and day. How was it that their sound system playing for days on end had not disturbed residents but May Day music played for a few hours had?

Rama received no response, just a summary punishment. On October 21, an office order from the Proctor’s Office declared that an enquiry had found Rama guilty of “organising Ska Vengers and World Sound Power”, and “blaring loud music at night”. The order declared: “This act of Rama Naga is serious in nature, unbecoming of a student of JNU and calls for a strict disciplinary action against him.” However “keeping his career prospects in mind, the Vice Chancellor has taken a somewhat lenient view of the matter”, and so Rama was asked to pay a hefty fine of Rs 5,000, and “warned to be careful and not to get involved in such incidents in future” else “a more stringent disciplinary action will be taken against him”.

The enquiry failed even to get the name of the band right. Farcically, by repeatedly referring to the band as Ska Vengers and World Sound Power, it let slip that its conclusions were pre-scripted.
 

Effigy burning

On October 4, the JNU administration handed out show cause notices to Rama Naga and three other students – Abdul Matin, Manikanta and Praveen – for “effigy burning of Gujarat Government and Gaurakshaks”.
More recently, on October 12, the JNU vice chancellor tweeted about another effigy burning, this time of the prime minister.

This vice chancellor who tweeted promising investigation of an effigy burning of the prime minister, this administration that has imposed hefty fines on students for playing music for a couple of hours on May Day, which has initiated disciplinary action when students burn effigies of gau rakshaks or the Gujarat government, has failed to hand out a single show cause notice or initiate an enquiry or disciplinary action into students who introduced outside elements into a hostel to publicly beat up a student – even after the victim of the beating then disappeared.

The conclusion is inescapable. The JNU administration is making it its job to discipline and punish democratic protests by student activists against BJP governments at the Centre or states or Sangh outfits, while looking the other way even when ABVP members indulge in group violence with dangerous consequences.
 

ABVP is emboldened

Emboldened by a sense of impunity, ABVP action on campuses is growing.

In July, an activist of the All India Students Association at Deshbandhu College in Delhi University, Abhinav Kumar was beaten up by ABVP members so hard that he lost hearing in one ear. Police refused to file an FIR. Later that month, ABVP activists badly beat up a Sikh student at Hyderabad Central University, mistaking him for a Kashmiri student.

In 2015, two activists of Pinjra Tod – a Delhi University-based feminist collective that challenges sexist rules in women’s hostels – got calls from an ABVP member, threatening them with sexual abuse and violence for pasting posters on top of older ABVP posters on DU’s Wall Of Democracy.

More recently, a Night March organised by Pinjra Tod to assert the right of women students to be out on the city streets at night, was attacked by ABVP leaders including former Delhi University Students Union President Satender Awana. Taunting the activists as women of loose morals, they brandished a Rs 100 note to suggest that the activists are sexually available for money.

On October 27, I myself witnessed another such assault by the ABVP, led by no less than the DUSU president at a public meeting organised by AISA on The Idea of a University – a meeting held to demand justice for Najeeb Ahmed and think about the values for which a university should stand.

Surprisingly, the meeting ended on a note of hope – coming from the young woman who had been punched by the ABVP leader. In a five-minute speech to the students who were protesting the police-protected disruption of the event by the ABVP, Kawalpreet Kaur reminded us that the university belonged to everyone – including to those who attacked the public meeting. She expressed the hope that the day would surely come when universities would not be places where hate and violence could make a Ahmed disappear; universities would be places where love would flourish and the free exchange of ideas would thrive.

It is difficult to nourish hope when a student has been missing from a university campus for so long. Najeeb Ahmed’s fellow students did not celebrate Diwali on Sunday – instead, they held a Light of Hope vigil for their friend. Hope lies, perhaps, in raging with all one’s might against the dying light.

Kawalpreet Kaur after being punched in the face.

Kavita Krishnan is Secretary, All India Progressive Women’s Association, a Polit Bureau member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) and former joint secretary of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union.

This article was first published on Scroll.in

The post Strange silences, skewed concerns: The heartbreaking disappearance of JNU student Najeeb Ahmed appeared first on SabrangIndia.

पीएम नरेंद्र मोदी ने भाजपा के कोझिकोड सम्मेलन में जब भारतीय जनसंघ के अध्यक्ष रहे दीनदयाल के लेख का हवाला देकर मुसलमानों को अपनाने और उनके परिष्कार की अपील की तो यह समझना जरूरी है कि संघ और भाजपा के इस विचार पुरुष के इस मत के मायने क्या थे। दीनदयाल के जिस विचार का मोदी ने हवाला दिया है उसका सीधा मतलब यह निकलता है कि मुस्लिमों को हिंदू बनाओ। पाकिस्तान को खत्म कर दो और एक अखंड हिंदू भारत की स्थापना में लग जाओ।

दीनदयाल के लिए हिंदू राष्ट्रवाद ही भारतीय राष्ट्रवाद है। भारतीय संस्कृति का मतलब सिर्फ हिंदू संस्कृति है। मुस्लिम या तो हिंदू बन जाएं या भारत छोड़ दें।

उन मीडिया घरानों को शर्म आनी चाहिए जिन्होंने मोदी के इस बयान की तह में जाने की बजाय तथ्यों  तोड़-मरोड़ कर बनाई गई सुर्खियां पेश की। उन्होंने यह प्रचार करना शुरू कर दिया कि मुस्लिमों को अपनाने की अपील कर मोदी ने यह दिखा दिया कि बीजेपी एक राष्ट्रीय पार्टी के रूप में तेजी से परिपक्व होती जा रही है।

“अखंड भारत के मार्ग में सबसे बड़ी बाधा मुसलिम संप्रदाय की पृथकतावादी एवं अराष्ट्रीय मनोवृत्ति रही है। पाकिस्तान की सृष्टि उस मनोवृत्ति की विजय है। अखंड भारत के संबंध में शंकाशील यह मानकर चलते हैं कि मुसलमान अपनी नीति में परिवर्तन नहीं करेगा। यदि उनकी धारणा सत्य है तो फिर भारत में चार करोड़ मुसलमानों को बनाए रखना राष्ट्रहित के लिए बड़ा संकट होगा। क्या कोई कांग्रेसी यह कहेगा कि मुसलमानों को भारत से खदेड़ दिया जाए? यदि नहीं तो उन्हें भारतीय जीवन के साथ समरस करना होगा। यदि भौगोलिक दृष्टि से खंडित भारत में यह अनुभूति संभव है तो शेष भू-भाग को मिलते देर नहीं लगेगी।…

“किंतु मुसलमानों को भारतीय बनाने के अलावा हमें अपनी तीस साल पुरानी नीति बदलनी पड़ेगी। कांग्रेस ने हिंदू मुसलिम एक्य के प्रयत्न गलत आधार पर किए।…

“यदि हम एकता चाहते हैं तो भारतीय राष्ट्रीयता जो हिंदू राष्ट्रीयता है तथा भारतीय संस्कृति जो हिंदू संस्कृति है उसका दर्शन करें।.. – – दीनदयाल उपाध्याय
(पांचजन्य, अगस्त 24, 1953)

The post मुस्लिमों पर मोदी के बयान के मायने appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The following quotes from Deen Dayal Upadhyaya make it clear Modi means, as Deen Dayal did did, Hinduise Muslims, annihilate Pakistan, create an Undivided Hindu India.

For Deen Dayal Indian nationalism is nothing but Hindu nationalism, and Indian culture, Hindu culture, and Muslims must either become Hindu or be evicted.

Shame on those media houses which, instead of tracing this trail, made adulatory headlines out of Modi's so called Muslim outreach and announced that BJP is at last maturing as a national party!

“अखंड भारत के मार्ग में सबसे बड़ी बाधा मुसलिम संप्रदाय की पृथकतावादी एवं अराष्ट्रीय मनोवृत्ति रही है। पाकिस्तान की सृष्टि उस मनोवृत्ति की विजय है। अखंड भारत के संबंध में शंकाशील यह मानकर चलते हैं कि मुसलमान अपनी नीति में परिवर्तन नहीं करेगा। यदि उनकी धारणा सत्य है तो फिर भारत में चार करोड़ मुसलमानों को बनाए रखना राष्ट्रहित के लिए बड़ा संकट होगा। क्या कोई कांग्रेसी यह कहेगा कि मुसलमानों को भारत से खदेड़ दिया जाए? यदि नहीं तो उन्हें भारतीय जीवन के साथ समरस करना होगा। यदि भौगोलिक दृष्टि से खंडित भारत में यह अनुभूति संभव है तो शेष भू-भाग को मिलते देर नहीं लगेगी।…

“किंतु मुसलमानों को भारतीय बनाने के अलावा हमें अपनी तीस साल पुरानी नीति बदलनी पड़ेगी। कांग्रेस ने हिंदू मुसलिम एक्य के प्रयत्न गलत आधार पर किए।…

“यदि हम एकता चाहते हैं तो भारतीय राष्ट्रीयता जो हिंदू राष्ट्रीयता है तथा भारतीय संस्कृति जो हिंदू संस्कृति है उसका दर्शन करें।.. – – दीनदयाल उपाध्याय
(पांचजन्य, अगस्त 24, 1953) 

Deen Dayal Upadhyay, in the Panchjanya dated August 24, 1953 wrote a piece on Undivided India.
 
There, Deen Dayal declared that
 "The separatist and anti-national attitude of the Muslim community is the greatest obstruction to Akhand Bharat. The creation of Pakistan is the triumph of this attitude. Those who have doubts about Akhand Bharat feel that the Muslim will not change his policy. If this is so, then the continuance of six crore Muslims in India would be highly detrimental to the interest of India. Would any Congressman say that Muslims should be driven out of India ? If not, then they will have to be assimilated into the national life of this country. If this assimilation is possible (of Muslims) within geographically divided India then it wont take long for the rest of the geographical territory to assimilate with India. But apart from making Muslims Indian, we must also change the 30-year old policy of Hindu Muslim unity, which Congress adopted on a wrong basis…. If we want unity, we must display Indian nationalism which is Hindu nationalism, and Indian culture which is Hindu culture. We must adopt it as our guiding principle."

The post This is What Modi Meant When he Spoke About Muslims appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Can an academic department not perform and discuss a play by a world-renowned writer, whom even Modi and Shah claimed to mourn on her death not long ago?!

Is it even possible to discuss Draupadi as a play without talking about the context of systematic custodial atrocities against Adivasi women in India?!

The post Latest Sanghi Attack on University: Mahasweta Devi Play branded ‘Sedition’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The mother (C) of an Indian girl who was raped and set on fire cries out during her daughter's funeral in Greater Noida near the Indian capital New Delhi on March 9, 2016. Image: AFP

In countless instances of popular Indian cinema, stalking is valorised as a macho and successful romance strategy. It isn’t just popular culture – the ‘system’ itself – including police and courts – is complicit in seeking ways of rehabilitating sexual violence as romance, love or even marriage.
 
This complicity is most clearly reflected in the phenomenon of ‘compromises’ brokered by police and even courts in rape and sexual violence cases all over the country. This phenomenon persists in spite of repeated Supreme Court judgements (Hindu, Indian Express) reminding that sexual violence crimes in India’s criminal justice system are generally non-compoundable and therefore not open to out of court settlements or compromises.     
 
It is significant that a closer look at the two recent instances of women being stabbed to death by stalkers in Inderpuri and Burari in Delhi reveal a history of ‘compromises’ brokered by the police.   
 
In the Burari case, "Karuna, who was working as a teacher, had filed a complaint against Surender five months ago but the police say that the families had submitted letters of a ‘compromise’, and no action was taken."
 
In the Inderpuri case, "Two days before this gruesome crime, 28-year-old Laxmi was stabbed to death by her stalker in West Delhi's Inderpuri area. Twenty-six-year-old Sanjay Kumar had allegedly harassed Laxmi for the past six years, despite repeated complaints filed by Laxmi and her husband, Manoj.

After Laxmi's complaint, Sanjay was arrested on charges of stalking but was released on bail. Laxmi's family says that even though they had complained earlier, no action was taken because Sanjay's family gave a written undertaking that he would stop."
 
What was the basis on which Sanjay, the accused in the Burari case, secured bail? Was the ‘written undertaking’ by his family of his good conduct a factor that the court considered? Bail is a right and should be the norm – but one of the strongest bases for refusing bail is when the accused is in a position to influence the investigation by intimidating the victim or witnesses, or in a position to harm the victim or witnesses.
 
Cases in India drag on for years because we lack enough courts and judges – the delay deters victim-survivors from complaining, increases the pressure on victims and the chances of a ‘compromise’, and also puts victim-survivors in danger of their lives. In stalking cases, should there not be any protocol for monitoring the case if the accused is out on bail – to check if he is again harassing the victim, if he is maintaining distance from her or not?
 
Unfortunately, much of the media coverage in the Delhi stabbing cases has avoided any discussion of chronic ‘compromises’ brokered/legitimised by police, and their role in making these killings possible. The PTI story on the Inderpuri case referred to the stalker as a ‘lover’. TV channels aired CCTV footage of the Burari stabbing repeatedly, focusing mainly on the ‘insensitivity’ of people watching who did not intervene to ‘save’ the victim.
 
Social media mirrored the same tendency – there was very little reflection on our tendency as a society to see stalking as ‘romance’ and broker compromises in stalking and sexual violence cases; only an easy self-righteousness about passive bystanders watching the stabbing without heroic intervention.
 
How many of us would know how to intervene to disarm a man armed with a knife, and attempt to do so when a murder is being committed? The question to ask – and as far as I know no journalist has yet asked or tried to answer – would be: did any of the eyewitnesses call the police, which as responsible citizens they could and should have done? Did the police respond, and how soon?        
 
In India, consensual elopements, especially inter-caste or same gotra or same-sex relationships, are reported by women’s parents as ‘abduction/rape’. Meanwhile, cases where the woman herself has complained of rape and expressed abhorrence for her assailant are sought to be ‘settled’ by marrying the victim off to the rapist!
 
Rape is seen as harm against the victim’s marriageability, so the fact that the victim-survivor is offered and often accepted by courts as grounds for ‘compromise’ or leniency towards the rape convict!
 
Why are there no public campaigns by governments on sexual violence that make it clear that consensual elopements are not rape; that rape is a harm against women’s bodily integrity and autonomy and not against her virginity or marriageability; that stalking is not ‘love’; that rape or stalking or any other form of sexual violence cannot be settled by ‘compromises’ whether these are brokered by khaps, families, cops or courts?
 
In Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party complains, as its predecessor did, that it does not have jurisdiction over the Delhi police. But surely the Delhi government has a duty to run public campaigns against rape culture? Surely the Delhi government has a duty to monitor implementation of the laws against sexual and gender violence, and can be much more proactive in offering institutional support to survivors of sexual violence, thereby helping them resist pressure to ‘compromise’ and file complaints against police if they collude in attempts at ‘compromise’?
 
Instead, from the AAP government also, we are getting more of the same patriarchal posturing – calls by ministers for public hanging of rapists, or rhetoric against the Delhi police on ‘women’s safety,’ with no action to actually change the patriarchal matrix in which crimes against women play out and justice is ‘compromised.’         
 
(Kavita Krishnan is secretary, All India Progressive Women’s Association). 
 

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Image credit:  Danish Ismail/Reuters

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In workplaces today, we can see how capitalists in collusion with the State to extract as much surplus value as possible from the labourer – not only by pushing wages down but by pushing productivity up. The latter is done, in part, by denying workers the time to sit for a few minutes, to use the toilet, have a cup of tea or a meal, exchange a friendly word with a colleague, change a sanitary pad, breastfeed a baby or attend to a child. At the same time, the State’s own ‘welfare’ provisions (which should be called ‘social wages’ rather than ‘welfare’, since they enable social reproduction) are drastically being shrunk and slashed.         
 
Maternity Entitlements and Childcare Provisions in India
 A recent Convention in Delhi, organised by the Right to Food Campaign in conjunction with many women’s groups, unions and organisations, highlighted the demand for universal maternity entitlements and childcare provisions.
 
In India, 90% of women are engaged in informal or the unorganised sector. They do not get maternity leave, nor wage compensation during pregnancy and after childbirth; instead they can be thrown out of work for getting pregnant. The principal employers and contractors all shrug off any responsibility for maternity and childcare provisions. Even in the organised sector, the Maternity Benefits Act, like labour laws in general, is rampantly violated.
 
The fact that workers, especially in the unorganised sector and especially women, are not allowed to avail their right to organise and form Unions, also contributes to a situation where labour laws and maternity entitlements laws are violated.
 
The National Food Security Act 2013 was a significant breakthrough, since it entitled all pregnant and lactating women to a maternity entitlement of at least Rs 6000 per child birth. This amount is far from enough, and does not take wages, minimum wages or inflation rates into consideration, but it is nevertheless an achievement. But how far has this entitlement been implemented in the past two and a half years?
 
The NFSA maternity entitlement is provided through the Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY). But the latter has undermined the universal nature of the entitlement. It is provided in just 53 districts, only to mothers above the age of 19 and for two live births – and also expects women to fulfil a range of conditionalities such as health check-ups, immunisation etc on their own responsibility in order to avail of the entitlement. This means that the State sits in judgement on women; and restricts the entitlement to ‘deserving’ mothers, blaming mothers for teenage marriages and pregnancies and for violating the neo-Malthusian ‘two-child’ norm. Perhaps most perverse is the manner in which mothers are blamed for not getting health check-ups and immunisation done or for failing to breastfeed babies – callously refusing to recognise the lack of basic healthcare provisions in vast tracts of India, and work conditions and chronic malnutrition that make breastfeeding difficult.         
 
Nine labour laws including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act mandate crèches at the workplace – but like other labour laws, these are routinely violated. 
 
Voices of Mothers and Fathers
At a Jan Sunvai (Public Hearing) session at the Convention, we heard more than 25 women and some men from all over India speak of their lives as mothers and fathers. The picture that emerged was alarming.   
 
Sunita Bharti, a garment worker in Delhi and a migrant from Bihar, spoke of how she lost her job during pregnancy because the resulting anaemia and weakness made it difficult for her to walk for half an hour to work from home. She is a contract worker, and the contractor provided no maternity leave or entitlements. When her son was a year and a half, Sunita resumed work, but had to leave her baby at home to be cared for by her 12-year-old daughter who, as a result, quit school. At work, a room is designated as a ‘creche’ as required by labour laws, but is usually kept locked – and is opened only when buyers visit the premises.    
 
Activists from Jharkhand presented case studies of women from Jharkhand, many of whom had been denied maternity entitlements because they had delivered at home; difficult forest terrain had prevented them from being able to reach a hospital for the delivery. One Adivasi woman, Monica Dung Dung, risked her own life and her baby’s, travelling to a hospital without cutting the umbilical cord, hoping that this would persuade them to register it as an institutional delivery. But they refused – and as a result she could not avail of the entitlement.  
 
Babita, a sanitation supervisor in JNU, spoke of how she was kicked out of her job by the contractor when she returned after her delivery, and remained out of work for some 8 months till JNU students and the AICCTU affiliated General Kamgar Union held a Ghera Dalo Dera Dalo protest, occupying the ad block night and day for weeks to force JNU to reinstate her in the same position. They tried to demote her but could not, under pressure from the agitation. Sonia, another worker at JNU, said she took leave to deliver her baby girl, and wasn't kicked out, but wasn't given wage compensation or ESI benefits either.
 
Babita asked, 'Don't the poor have a right to deliver babies? Why won’t JNU compensate me for the eight months I was forced to take a break in service after having a baby? There are 300 contract workers in JNU, yet no creche facilities for them, nor nursing breaks. I think every woman is a worker and should get maternity entitlements and every parent should get child care and creche facilities at the workplace.' (An aside – JNU is the University that the Hindutva right wing has branded as a ‘den of sex racket and sedition’. Babita and Sonia clearly saw the JNU students in a very different light – as allies in the struggle for dignity as workers and as women.)   

It was painful to hear Himesh Bhai Vankar, a worker from Gujarat, speak of his wife’s death after childbirth and his struggles to bring up his daughter Shreya alone. HimeshBhai and his late wife Gangaben both suffered disabilities thanks to kyphoscoliosis. During her pregnancy, Gangaben was never warned of the dangers of this condition. After delivering a baby and being discharged from hospital, Gangaben fell grievously ill. When she returned to the hospital, a cotton pad that had been left in the uterine lining was removed – but she died of the resulting infection. Subsequently, the Government and the various health agencies did not want to admit to medical negligence, and instead blamed her death on the kyphoscoliosis, alleging falsely that she had gone ahead with the pregnancy against medical advice.
 
The baby Shreya is malnourished and the natural weaning process is yet to happen even though she is two years old. One member of the Jan Sunvai panel asked HimeshBhai if he could possibly find enough time to personally feed the baby and try to wean her. His answer reflected such helplessness and anguish that it was painful to witness. He travelled a couple of hours each day to his workplace where he is a tailor; his mother, brother and brother’s wife all have to go to work as well. “If I don’t get any help from the Government, how will Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (the Modi Government’s call to save and educate daughters) become a reality,” he asked with tears in his eyes.           
 
Paternalism and Public Shaming of Women
At the Convention, the paternalism of the state and statutory institutions stuck out like a sore thumb. The current Chairperson of the NCPCR (National Commission for Protection of Child Rights), instead of speaking of what her institution plans to do to enforce maternity and childcare provisions, delivered a lecture on how women must help themselves and not expect the Government to solve their problems. From the floor, however, her speech was met with vigorous slogans by participants, saying ‘We women are struggling for our rights, NCPCR we expect support from you!’
 
When Neelam, a woman worker, came to give her testimony about being denied maternity entitlements in her first two pregnancies, the representative of the National Commission For Women (NCW) interrupted to ask her if she was now pregnant with a third child. When Neelam said yes, the NCW representative (to the visible discomfort of other members of the Jan Sunvai panel) began to administer a prolonged public shaming and admonishment: “You belong to a women’s organisation, don’t you know better than to keep having babies, don’t you know there should be a gap of at least three years between babies?” The lively participants challenged this attitude from the floor though, with activists urging her to remember that she was there to give a hearing to the women and tell them what the NCW planned to do, not give the women a scolding.  
 
These episodes actually gave us a glimpse of the sheer humiliation and denial of basic human dignity to which women are subjected daily – not only at home and at work, but at the hands of hospitals, doctors, and a range of State institutions. Women are humiliated and shamed in patriarchal society for being barren or choosing not to bear children and for bearing girl children. And State institutions that supposedly work for women’s welfare also humiliate women in their turn; routinely deeming them ‘ineligible’ and ‘unfit’ for the entitlements they demand.       
  
The Central Government, the ruling party and its camp followers use the slogan of ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ (victory to Mother India) to intimidate Indian citizens into ‘proving’ patriotism by performing ‘worship’ for the ‘Nation’ imagined as a Hindu goddess. But the Government and the ruling party is least bothered about rights of ‘Bharat ki Matayen’ (mothers of India), ‘Bharat ki mahilayen’ (women of India)  to life, to dignity, to control over their reproduction and their bodies, to food, maternity entitlements and childcare.       
 
(The author is Secretary, All India Progressive Women’s Association) 
 

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