Recent months have laid bare a chilling pattern of brutal rapes and assaults across Rajasthan, each incident a stark testament to a deeply entrenched societal malaise.

From the unimaginable violation of a female patient within the sterile confines of an ICU in Alwar, subjected to rape by hospital staff while undergoing treatment, to parallel and equally horrific occurrences echoing from Bikaner, Barmer, and Tonk even in the state capital, Jaipur.

Alwar: Female patient raped inside hospital ICU, fearing Job losses staff, asked for forgiveness

On June 4, 2025, in a deeply disturbing incident, a female patient in the ICU of ESIC Medical College Hospital in Alwar’s MIA area was allegedly raped by a nursing staff member. The incident occurred around 1:30 AM on June 4, 2025. The 32-year-old victim, who had been admitted on June 2 for a tubal operation and moved to the ICU on June 4, recounted the horrifying ordeal to her husband the following day after regaining consciousness.

According to Police, the victim’s husband filed a report stating that a guard had asked him to leave the room around 11 p.m. on June 4, after which the nursing staffer entered. The victim’s husband further detailed that his wife was not fully conscious or able to move, preventing her from resisting the assault by the nursing staff member, who had drawn a curtain around her. The rapist reportedly told her he was a doctor performing an operation.

Accused confessed to the crime in front of doctor

On June 6, the accused nursing staff member, identified as Subhash Gathala from Sikar, confessed to the crime in front of Dr. Deepika. ESIC Medical College Dean Aseem Das confirmed that a case has been registered, and an administrative inquiry team has been formed. The victim’s family registered a complaint at MIA Police Station, and police are investigating.

Alarmingly, hospital staff allegedly attempted to cover up the incident, telling the victim’s husband to “forgive him, or others will lose their jobs.” The husband, however, insisted on going directly to the police. A critical security lapse was also uncovered: the ICU, a highly sensitive area, had no CCTV cameras, as Hindi newspaper Dainik Bhaskar reported

The hospital guard admitted that while shifts change and staff are present, there are no cameras. Police investigation revealed that Gathala, originally posted elsewhere, was temporarily stationed in Alwar on a “diversion.” Police have registered a case and are investigating the matter, taking statements from both the hospital administration and the victim.

State Congress leaders and LoP criticised BJP-ruled state government

Following these alarming incidents, former Chief Minister and prominent Congress leader Ashok Gehlot sharply criticised the BJP-ruled state government.

He took to his social media handle, X, to express his dismay, stating, “During the tenure of the Congress government, the health model of Rajasthan became a topic of discussion in the country and the world, but the BJP government has ruined it. The incidents of rape of a female patient in the ICU of a hospital in Alwar and the incidents of misbehaviour and assault by a doctor on a Dalit Congress leader in a government hospital in Pali are examples of this. The people of the state are regretting that more than half of the tenure of such an inefficient government is still left. How bad will be the condition of the state in this time.”

कांग्रेस सरकार के कार्यकाल में राजस्थान का हेल्थ मॉडल देश-दुनिया में चर्चा का विषय बना था परन्तु भाजपा सरकार ने इसे बर्बाद कर दिया है।

अलवर में अस्पताल के आईसीयू में महिला रोगी से रेप की घटना तथा पाली के सरकारी अस्पताल में कांग्रेस की दलित नेता के साथ डॉक्टर द्वारा बदसलूकी एवं…

— Ashok Gehlot (@ashokgehlot51) June 7, 2025

Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee President Govind Singh Dotasra also targeted the government, posting on social media that “the entire Rajasthan is ashamed by the atrocity committed by the nursing staff against a woman admitted in the ICU of a medical college in Alwar. This incident, which crosses all limits of barbarism, is a blot on humanity.”

He urged the Chief Minister to “wake up from deep sleep and see that every day in the state, innocent little girls are being raped, and the dignity of women is being torn apart. Under your misgovernance, cases of atrocities against minors have increased by over 18% from 2023 till now. It is shameful that everyone from ministers to the Chief Minister is intoxicated with power. There is no such thing as women’s safety, sensitivity, or good governance left. The situation is getting worse, but there is no one to see or listen.”

अलवर में मेडिकल कॉलेज के ICU में भर्ती महिला के साथ नर्सिंग स्टाफ द्वारा की गई दरिंदगी से पूरा राजस्थान शर्मसार है। हैवानियत की सारी हदें पार करने वाली यह घटना मानवता पर कलंक है।

मुख्यमंत्री जी, गहरी नींद से जागिए और देखिए प्रदेश में हर दिन छोटी-छोटी मासूम बच्चियों से बलात्कार… pic.twitter.com/y9hZoyPJYG

— Govind Singh Dotasra (@GovindDotasra) June 7, 2025

Adding his voice to the growing condemnation, Leader of Opposition Tikaram Juli took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his outrage. He wrote that “the heinous incident of rape of a victim woman by nursing staff in the ICU of ESIC Medical College in Alwar has shaken the entire state.”

हाल-ए-राजस्थान | अस्पताल में महिला से दरिंदगी | अलवर में मानवता शर्मसार

अलवर के ESIC मेडिकल कॉलेज की ICU में भर्ती एक पीड़ित महिला के साथ नर्सिंग स्टाफ द्वारा बलात्कार जैसी घिनौनी घटना ने पूरे प्रदेश को झकझोर कर रख दिया है।

यह प्रदेश की शासन व्यवस्था की विफलता है, जहां पीड़िता…

— Tika Ram Jully (@TikaRamJullyINC) June 6, 2025

Governance failure: safety compromised in sanctuaries

Juli further asserted that this incident signifies “a failure of the state’s governance system, where the victim is unsafe even in a place considered most secure.” He emphasised that “such an inhuman act occurring to a woman in a hospital’s ICU is not just an attack on a single woman, but an assault on the soul of the entire society.”

#WATCH | Alwar, Rajasthan: On alleged rape incident in ESIC Medical College, LoP Tikaram Jully says, “This proves that cases like rape under the rule of Bhartiya Janata Party are also suppressed. They remain unresolved, and if any grievant reaches out to the higher authorities… pic.twitter.com/IdmXwGOp7l

— ANI MP/CG/Rajasthan (@ANI_MP_CG_RJ) June 7, 2025

Bikaner: two minor girls raped by self-proclaimed temple priest, govt demolished illegal encroachments of accused

On June 3, 2025, a shocking incident reported in Bikaner district where two minor girls, aged eight and nine, were sexually assaulted by a self-proclaimed temple priest. The girls had visited a temple near their grandparents’ house when the accused, later identified as Shri Bhagwan, lured them with Prasad and promises of new sandals before committing the heinous act. Upon their return, the terrified girls revealed the ordeal to their family, disclosing how the perpetrator had threatened them with a fodder-cutting sickle, warning them of dire consequences if they spoke out.

Accused’s criminal history and demolition of illegal encroachments

The investigation quickly unearthed the shocking antecedents of the 50-year-old accused, Shri Bhagwan. It was discovered that he was a convicted murderer, having served a 20-year prison sentence for the 1993 murder of five people during a robbery in Bidasar. Despite being sentenced to death by lower courts, his sentence was commuted to 20 years by the Supreme Court, leading to his release in 2013, as reported Dainik Bhaskar

Following his recent arrest for the rape incident, authorities moved swiftly to demolish his illegal ashram in Surjansar village. This structure, built on government land, also housed a temple where he reportedly practiced tantric rituals.

Illegal activities and reclamation of land

The demolition drive, led by Sub-Divisional Officer and Tehsildar of area, revealed further illegalities. Opium and cannabis plants were discovered on the premises, indicating cultivation of narcotics. Additionally, Shri Bhagwan was found to be involved in illegal water siphoning and electricity theft. The operation successfully reclaimed approximately 50 bigha of encroached pasture land, returning it to the Gram Panchayat, as reported

The accused, who had misled villagers under the guise of spiritual healing, was also found to be in possession of weapons, highlighting the extent of his criminal enterprise.

Tonk: minor Dalit girl found after sexual assault

Another case of gang rape has surfaced from a village in the Pachewar police station area of Tonk district, Rajasthan. After the brutal assault, the perpetrators allegedly tied the minor Dalit girl’s hands and feet and abandoned her by the roadside. The victim was discovered unconscious on the night of February 28, prompting a police investigation, as NDTV Rajasthan reported

Authorities have since registered a case under the POCSO Act against four young men. It’s alleged that a neighbouring woman assisted the accused in their heinous crime. Police sources indicate that one of the suspects is from the victim’s village, while the other three reside in Kurad village.

FIR registered against four accused

Malpura DSP Ashish Prajapat confirmed that the victim provided a named complaint against four individuals, also accusing a neighbouring woman of aiding them. The police are actively investigating the matter. According to the victim’s statement to the police, around midnight on February 28, as she stepped out of her house for a short while, three or four individuals abducted her after covering her mouth.

The accused then took her to a shed behind a neighbour’s house where the gang rape occurred. When the minor screamed for help, the neighbouring woman allegedly came out but ignored her pleas and went back inside, emboldening the attackers, as reported

They subsequently tied the girl’s hands, feet, and mouth before leaving her near her home. Police have taken cognizance of the case and initiated investigation.

Barmer: a 31-year-old woman allegedly end her life by suicide after being blackmailed with rape threats and obscene videos

A distressing incident has come to light in Barmer’s Girab police station area, where a 31-year-old woman, a mother of three, tragically ended her life by suicide on June 10, 2025. The woman was found hanged at her home, and initial reports suggest she was driven to this extreme step after allegedly being blackmailed with threats of rape and the circulation of obscene videos.

According to police, the woman was reportedly lured, raped, and filmed by a man from her village, identified as Sumar Khan (name changed). He allegedly continued to exploit and threaten her, with the latest pressure on Tuesday causing her immense distress. The woman’s uncle has since filed a formal complaint against the accused. While the family asserts that the husband had reported the matter to the police in September 2024, claiming no action was taken, police officials state they have no record of such a report. A thorough investigation into the matter is now underway, and the woman’s body has been sent for post-mortem, as per a report in the Times of India.

NCW demands immediate action, takes suo moto cognizance

The National Commission for Women (NCW) has taken suo moto cognizance of this grave Barmer suicide case. On Monday, the NCW chairperson, Vijaya Rahatkar, took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce that she has written to the Rajasthan Director General of Police, urging immediate intervention and a swift inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the woman’s death.

The National Commission for Women has taken Suo Moto cognizance of a deeply disturbing case from Barmer, Rajasthan, where a 31-year-old woman allegedly died by suicide after being blackmailed with rape threats and obscene videos.

Hon’ble Chairperson Smt. Vijaya Rahatkar has…

— NCW (@NCWIndia) June 16, 2025

Jaipur: 21-year-old woman gang-raped in Sanganer

This incident, occurring in March, adds to the disturbing pattern of such crimes. On the evening of Holi (March 14) in Jaipur’s Sanganer area, a 21-year-old married woman was allegedly gang-raped in a secluded farmland. The victim, who had recently moved to Jaipur, had reportedly left her home after a domestic dispute. She was accosted by two youths on a motorcycle who forcibly dragged her into a field and gang-raped her. A third person, who arrived later, fled, as reported

As per the Times of India, the survivor promptly lodged an FIR under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Sections 70 (gang rape) and 126 (wrongful restraint) at Sanganer Sadar police station. Medical examinations confirmed injuries. Police swiftly arrested Puran Yadav (22) and Himanshu Choudhary (19), and a 17-year-old boy was also detained. The investigation is ongoing.

Moreover, Rajasthan is facing an escalating crisis of gender-based violence, making women’s safety a critical concern. Recent months have revealed a chilling pattern of rapes across the state, defying belief. From an unimaginable assault on a patient inside an Alwar ICU to minor girls targeted in Bikaner and Tonk, and a tragic suicide in Barmer linked to blackmail, the scale of the problem is alarming. Even Jaipur has witnessed multiple incidents, including a gang rape.

These pervasive crimes, occurring in seemingly secure places like hospitals and homes, highlight a profound societal and governance failure, demanding immediate and decisive action to protect women and ensure safe public spaces.

Related:

A Pattern of Impunity? This report details horrific crimes against Dalits in UP, Rajasthan, MP and beyond

Statewide Attacks: Caste fury unleashes brute violence against Dalit students

Tribal women paraded, assaulted; nationwide outrage follows

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Almost four in ten women who commit suicide are from India: 71.2% of women who commit suicide were under the group 15- 39 age group between 1990- 2016, according to the findings published in a paper titled ‘ Gender Differentials and state variations in suicide deaths in India: the Global Burden of Disease Study 1990-2016′ which appeared in The Lancet Public Health ( www.msn.org). The study found that India’ s contribution to global suicide deaths increased from 25.3 percent in 1990 to 36.6 percent in 2016 among women. The suicide rate in India is 15 per one lakh for women, double that of the global rate of suicide of women in 2016, which is seven percent. ( September 13, 2018, news18.com). Suicide rate of men was 24% when compared to women suicide rate of 37%. The report said that 63% of all suicide deaths reported in India were under the age group 15-39. Suicide ranked first in India as the cause of death compared to its third rank globally in this age group it said.

There was an increase of 40 percent in the number of suicide deaths between 1990- 2016 with an estimated 2,30,314 in 2016 indicating that ‘ disproportionately high suicide deaths in India are a public health crisis’ according to the lead author of the study Professor Rakhi Dandona from Public Health Foundation of India.

‘Having said that the suicide death rate (SDR) has reduced by 15 percent from 1990 to 2016’ , she saud. The study found wide variations in suicide death rates in India across the states in India.

Reasons for suicide deaths
One of the reason may be related to women unable to adjust after marriage. Married women accounted for high proportion of suicide deaths in India , the study stated. The Indian marriage system is less protective against suicide for women.

Many women face arranged and early marriage, young motherhood, low social status, domestic violence and almost total economic dependence.

The prevalence of child marriage is highest in Scheduled Tribes (15 percent) followed by Scheduled Castes (13 percent) according to a report released by National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). According to the report, this phenomenon is evident among the top 10 states with the highest prevalence of child marriage. (Source NewsD, Sept 13, 2018, www.kracktivist.org). Though there are indications that child marriages are decreasing, they are still very much prevalent in rural areas . Hence, the rate of suicides may be high in lower strata of society including OBCs and Dalits due to problems associated with early marriage and forced marriage.

Pressure from family members of husbands specially relating to dowry may also have impact on women committing suicide. Due to modern trends of luxurious life style, the women are being harassed to get ornaments or lands or money in the shape of dowry. As asking for dowry openly is illegal, husbands and in- laws are adopting other ways to get their demands met. Helpless women are, thus, forced to take extreme steps unable to force their parents for fulfilling economic demands.

Failures in education, employment and love affairs too have a role in suicide deaths in modern times.

Besides, personal and health reasons are also reasons in increase of deaths by suicide in women.

Grave concern
The situation is serious and warrants urgent action. As Dandona said, ‘ the trends in SDRs in women in this study suggest the need to further assess the complex relationships between gender and suicidal behaviour to facilitate Women- specific suicide prevention strategies. Present system of patriarchy is mostly contributing to women suicide death rates. Empowerment programs should be implemented with greater urgency

The writer from anywhere and everywhere is concerned with rising inequality and values SAHIR LUDHYANVI lyric greatly

” Aurat ney janam diya mardon ko
Mardon ney usey bazaar diya… ”
( Woman has given birth to men
But men gave her the marketplace…).

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org
 

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Among men, progressive attitudes on women and their sexual rights in a marriage fell from 70.3% in 2005-06 to 63% in 2015-16. Among women, these grew by less than 1% in the decade to 2015-16–from 67.5% in 2005-06 to 68.4% now.
 
Currently, about one in six women (16.9%) believe a wife is not justified in refusing sex with her husband even if he has a sexually transmitted disease, or if he has multiple sex partners, or if she is tired or not in the mood. Less than one in six men (14.7%) shared the same view, the data showed.
 
Further questions to men on women’s sexual rights in a marriage revealed nearly one in 10 (9.2%) believe that men can force themselves on their wives while 8.9% felt that a wife’s refusal justified extra-marital sex.
 
In India, sexual violence against women is most often committed by individuals with whom they have an intimate relationship, NFHS-4 data showed. Among ‘ever married’ women–those between 15-49 years of age who have been married at least once, even if they are currently single–who have ever experienced sexual violence, 83% report their current husband and 9%, a former husband, as perpetrators.
 
The control women get to exercise during sexual intercourse is not only an indicator of their empowerment but also holds important implications for demographic and health outcomes, the NFHS report noted. It also measures women’s acceptance of the norm that socialises them into believing that they cannot refuse their husband sex for any reason, the report explained.
 
Sexual disease, adultery, exhaustion can’t be reasons to deny husband sex
 
For the second part of our analysis, we have focused on the proportion of women (16.9%) and men (14.7%) surveyed who said wives should not refuse their husbands sex even if he has an STD, has multiple sex partners or is feeling tired/ not in the mood.
 
Over the decade to 2015-16, the percentage of women (aged 15-49 years) who felt wives cannot refuse to have sex with their husbands rose by nearly 4 percentage points from 13.1% in 2005-06 to 16.9%. The percentage of men who felt this way rose by nearly 6 percentage points.
 

Source: National Family Health Surveys 2015-16 & 2005-06
 
Younger women were more likely to disagree with a wife’s right to refuse her husband sex, the data showed. The largest percentage of women who felt this way (22.3%) were between 15 and 19 years of age.
 
Among women who believed that wives could withhold sex, most were in the age groups of 25-29 years (71.3%) and 20-24 years (70.9%). Never-married women were most likely to hold the  opposite view, in 2015-16. This was the case in 2005-06 too. More women in nuclear families (15.4%) shared regressive views compared to those in non-nuclear household structures (13.7%).
 
Uneducated women (17.2%), and those who belonged to the lowest wealth stratum (15.8%) constitute the highest percentage of women likely to hold regressive views on gender parity in marital sex.
 
Among men, those belonging to the youngest age group of 15-19 years (19.3%), uneducated (17.2%), never-married (17%), hailing from nuclear family structures (15.4%), and those belonging to the lowest group on the wealth index held the highest shares of this attitude towards consent and safe sex.
 
Over the decade to 2006-16, attitudes about women’s sexual rights in marriage among never-married men (17%) and currently married men (13.1%) declined by nearly 6 percentage points (from 11.1% and 7.8% respectively).
 
Sikhs, Jains hold most positive attitudes to sexual consent in marriage
 
Christian (21.3%) and Hindu (17.2%) women had highest proportions of respondents who felt a woman is not justified for refusing her husband sex for the three reasons, NFHS data showed, reporting not much difference from 2005-06. Meanwhile, Sikh (91.7%) and Jain (80.2%) women held the most positive attitudes about women’s sexual consent, the data showed.
 
Similarly, among men, Christians (16.5%) and Hindus (15%) had highest percentages disagreeing with women’s rights to refuse sex with her husband. In 2005-06, the largest groups to hold such views were Christian (12.4%) and Muslim (10.9%) men.
 

Source: National Family Health Surveys 2015-16 & 2005-06
 
Fewer urban men now have progressive views on marital sex
 
While men and women in urban and rural areas held largely similar views on consent and safe sex in 2015-16, a faster, greater decline in attitudes was found among men in urban areas. In 2015-16, the percentage of urban Indian men who believe women are not justified in refusing their husband sex was 7.2 percentage points higher than in 2005-06. In rural areas, men holding such views grew by 5 percentage points.
 

Source: National Family Health Surveys 2015-16 & 2005-06
 
The percentage of women (12.1%) in urban areas who disagreed with women’s rights to deny sex on these grounds, grew by 5.1 percentage points from 2005-06, compared to a 3 percentage point-growth in rural areas.
 
More men now believe wives should be punished for refusing sex
 
The NFHS surveys also include additional questions posed to men to assess gender egalitarian attitudes. To understand environment of consent or the lack of it, men were asked: If a woman refuses to have sex with her husband, does he have the right to 1) get angry and reprimand her; 2) refuse her financial support; 3) force himself on her; and 4) have extra-marital sex.
 
While 77.6% men felt a wife’s refusal to have sex did not justify opting for any of the four responses, the percentage of men who do agree with all four has risen by 3.7 percentage points from 1.1% in 2005-06 to 4.8% in 2015-16.
 
More than a fifth of men (17.6%) said women refusing sex on the three grounds mentioned earlier justified anger and reprimand. Further, 9.2% agreed men can force themselves on their wives while 8.9% felt it justified extra-marital sex, as we said. About 10.5% agreed that if wives did not consent to sex for the three mentioned reasons, they would withdraw financial support.  
 
Men in the second-highest stratum (or fourth quintile) of the wealth index–there are five equal strata called quintiles, depending on ownership of consumer goods–held the highest share of those who justified all four responses. This is a departure from other parameters on sexual consent where those belonging to the lowest quintile held the highest share in negative attitudes. A decade ago, men belonging to the third quintile of the wealth index were most (1.4%) to hold this view.
 

Source: National Family Health Surveys 2015-16 & 2005-06
 
Currently married men held the largest share (5.1%) among those who felt they had the right to be angry and reprimand (18%), withdraw financial support (10.7%), use force for sex (9.4%), or have sex with another woman (8.9%) if a wife refused.
 
Men in 25-29 age group more in favour of controlling behaviour
 
Across parameters, most men who agreed with all four behaviours were in the age groups of 40-49, 30-39 and 20-24. The highest percentage of men who agreed to the use of force with a wife even if she doesn’t want to were in the age group of 25-29 years (5.6%).
 
More men in urban than rural areas agreed with the four behaviours but the margin between the two groups is small. Men in nuclear family settings also supported this behaviour more than those in joint family structures.
 
Muslim (5.1%), Sikh (5.1%), and Hindu (4.9%) men agreed the most to all four behaviours. In 2005-06, Sikh (3.2%) and Jain (1.3%) men held the largest percentages in this regard.
 
More Muslim (10%) and Hindu (9.2%) men were in favour of forced sex when the wife was unwilling. They also agreed the most, 11.8% and 10.5% respectively, with the action of withdrawing financial support to wives if they did not consent to sex.
 
While Christian men were the largest group still reporting unchanging attitudes towards women’s consent and safe sex in marriage, as we said, after Jains (1.3%), they were the least to agree (3.3%) that acting out in all four behaviours is justified.
 
Still, Christian men formed the highest group (11.4%) agreeing that men can have sex with another woman if the wife refuses to on the three reasons, followed by Muslims (9.3%).
 
Level of schooling had little effect on men’s attitudes. Men with 8-9 years of schooling held the lowest share of men (3.9%) with all four attitudes.

Source: National Family Health Surveys 2015-16 & 2005-06
 
(Saldanha is an assistant editor with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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The World Health Organization (WHO) defines intimate partner violence as “… any behaviour within an intimate relationship that causes physical, psychological or sexual harm to those in the relationship, including acts of physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviors.” This is the most common form of violence faced by women worldwide. According to a 2013 study titled The Global Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women by K.M Devries, 30 per cent of women globally aged 15 and older have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence.

The study includes data on a variety of parameters and ranks countries based on how well or poorly women are treated there. India ranks 131, which may be higher than perceived arch rival Pakistan’s lowly 150^th rank, but is way lower than Ghana, Tunisia and Uganda… even Iran scored higher at 116^th!

But it doesn’t stop at just domestic abuse. India’s record is marred by poor scores on several other key parameters. The average Indian girl gets 5 years of schooling, while the average Iranian girl gets 8. India also scores poorly on the financial inclusion front with a meagre 43 per cent which pales in comparison to even Iran where the corresponding figure is 87 per cent. Women’s share of seats in the Indian Parliament is at an abysmal 12 per cent, well below even Nepal that has 30 per cent. At 81 per cent, Nepal also trumps India’s 29 per cent in women’s employment figures.

The post India’s daughters: Battered, Unlettered and Penniless appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Hence, while the UN might be ‘committed to addressing violence against women in all its forms’ as he claimed, and the UN might have launched a range of initiatives over the past twenty years, including awarding $129 million to 463 civil society initiatives in 139 countries and territories through the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against women, his own article acknowledges that ‘Attacks on women are common to developed and developing countries. Despite attempts to cover them up, they are a daily reality for many women and girls around the world.’

And, without realizing it, the Secretary-General effectively nominated (by omission) why so little progress has been made on this vital issue: ‘As Prime Minister of Portugal, one of my most difficult battles was to win recognition that family violence and especially against women was a serious issue’. The omission here is appalling and yet few reading the line will be able to identify it.

While I want to acknowledge the commitment of those within and outside the UN who work on this critical issue, it is simply the case that if we do not understand the cause of violence against women then any ‘strategy’ to address the problem must fail, as the record in recent decades (since the issue gained a significant profile in response to feminist agitation) demonstrates.

In fact, of course, if we do not understand the fundamental cause of violence, then attempts to address it in any context must either fail outright or meet with only limited success.

So what is the cause of violence, including violence against women?

Perpetrators of violence learn their craft in childhood. If you inflict violence on a child, they learn to inflict violence on others. The terrorist suffered violence as a child. The political leader who wages war suffered violence as a child. The man who inflicts violence on women suffered violence as a child. The corporate executive who exploits working class people and/or those who live in Africa, Asia or Central/South America suffered violence as a child. The racist or religious bigot suffered violence as a child. The individual who perpetrates violence in the home, in the schoolyard or on the street suffered violence as a child.

If we want to end violence against women then we must finally end our longest and greatest war: the adult war on children. And here is an additional incentive: if we do not tackle the fundamental cause of violence, then our combined and unrelenting efforts to tackle all of its other symptoms must ultimately fail. And extinction at our own hand is inevitable.

How can I claim that violence against children is the fundamental cause of all other violence? Consider this. There is universal acceptance that behaviour is shaped by childhood experience. If it was not, we would not put such effort into education and other efforts to socialize children to fit into society. And this is why many psychologists have argued that exposure to war toys and violent video games shapes attitudes and behaviours in relation to violence.

But it is far more complex than this and, strange though it may seem, it is not just the ‘visible’ violence (such as hitting, screaming at and sexually abusing) that we normally label ‘violence’ that causes the main damage, although this is extremely damaging. The largest component of damage arises from the ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that we adults unconsciously inflict on children during the ordinary course of the day. Tragically, the bulk of this violence occurs in the family home and at school. See ‘Why Violence?’ http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’. http://anitamckone.wordpress.com/articles-2/fearless-and-fearful-psychology/

So what is ‘invisible’ violence? It is the ‘little things’ we do every day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to themselves thus destroying their internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what they want (or ignore them when they do), the child develops communication and behavioural dysfunctionalities as they keep trying to meet their own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, they are genetically programmed to do).

When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine their sense of Self-worth and teach them to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.

The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout their childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, mothers, fathers, teachers and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioural responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioural outcomes actually occur.

For example, by ignoring a child when they express their feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when they express their feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing their feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing their feelings (e.g. by screaming at them when they cry or get angry), and/or by violently controlling a behaviour that is generated by their feelings (e.g. by hitting them, restraining them or locking them into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings.

However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing their awareness of their feelings (rather than being allowed to have their feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed their awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for nature because the individual will now easily suppress their awareness of the feelings that would tell them how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and they will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviours, including some that are violent towards themselves, others and/or the Earth.

From the above, it should also now be apparent that punishment should never be used. ‘Punishment’, of course, is one of the words we use to obscure our awareness of the fact that we are using violence. Violence, even when we label it ‘punishment’, scares children and adults alike and cannot elicit a functional behavioural response. See ‘Punishment is Violent and Counterproductive’. https://feelingsfirstblog.wordpress.com/punishment/

If someone behaves dysfunctionally, they need to be listened to, deeply, so that they can start to become consciously aware of the feelings (which will always include fear and, often, terror) that drove the dysfunctional behaviour in the first place. They then need to feel and express these feelings (including any anger) in a safe way. Only then will behavioural change in the direction of functionality be possible. See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’. https://feelingsfirstblog.wordpress.com/nisteling/

‘But these adult behaviours you have described don’t seem that bad. Can the outcome be as disastrous as you claim?’ you might ask. The problem is that there are hundreds of these ‘ordinary’, everyday behaviours that destroy the Selfhood of the child. It is ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and most children simply do not survive as Self-aware individuals. And why do we do this? We do it so that each child will fit into our model of ‘the perfect citizen’: that is, obedient and hardworking student, reliable and pliant employee/soldier, and submissive law-abiding citizen.

Moreover, once we destroy the Selfhood of a child, it has many flow-on effects. For example, once you terrorise a child into accepting certain information about themself, other people or the state of the world, the child becomes unconsciously fearful of dealing with new information, especially if this information is contradictory to what they have been terrorized into believing. As a result, the child will unconsciously dismiss new information out of hand.

In short, the child has been terrorized in such a way that they are no longer capable of learning (or their learning capacity is seriously diminished by excluding any information that is not a simple extension of what they already ‘know’). If you imagine any of the bigots you know, you are imagining someone who is utterly terrified. But it’s not just the bigots; virtually all people are affected in this manner making them incapable of responding adequately to new (or even important) information. This is one explanation why some people are ‘climate deniers’ and most others do nothing in response to the climate catastrophe.
Of course, each person’s experience of violence during childhood is unique and this is why each perpetrator becomes violent in their own particular combination of ways. This explains, for example, why the violence of some men against women manifests as sexual violence, including rape.

So what is happening psychologically for the rapist when they commit the act of rape? In essence, they are projecting the (unconsciously suppressed) feelings of their own victimhood onto their rape victim. That is, their fear, self-hatred and powerlessness, for example, are projected onto the victim so that they can gain temporary relief from these feelings. Their fear, temporarily, is more deeply suppressed. Their self-hatred is projected as hatred of their victim. Their powerlessness is temporarily relieved by a sense of being in control, which they were never allowed to be, and feel, as a child. And similarly with their other suppressed feelings. For example, a rapist might blame their victim for their dress: a sure sign that the rapist was endlessly, and unjustly, blamed as a child and is (unconsciously) angry about that.

The central point in understanding violence is that it is psychological in origin and hence any effective response must enable both the perpetrator’s and the victim’s suppressed feelings (which will include enormous fear about, and rage at, the violence they have suffered) to be safely expressed. For an explanation of what is required, see ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’. https://feelingsfirstblog.wordpress.com/nisteling/

Unfortunately, this nisteling cannot be provided by a psychiatrist or psychologist whose training is based on a delusionary understanding of how the human mind functions. See ‘Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry’. http://old.warisacrime.org/content/defeating-violence-psychiatry Nisteling will enable those who have suffered from trauma to heal fully and completely, but it will take time.

So if we want to end violence against women, we must tackle the fundamental cause. Primarily, this means giving everyone, child and adult alike, all of the space they need to feel, deeply, what they want to do and to then let them do it (or to have the feelings they naturally have if they are prevented from doing so). See ‘Putting Feelings First’. https://feelingsfirstblog.wordpress.com/putting-feelings-first/ In the short term, this will have some dysfunctional outcomes. But it will lead to an infinitely better overall outcome than the system of emotional suppression, control and punishment which has generated the incredibly violent world in which we now find ourselves.

This all sounds pretty unpalatable doesn’t it? So each of us has a choice. We can suppress our awareness of what is unpalatable, as we have been terrorized into doing as a child, or we can feel the various feelings that we have in response to this information and then ponder ways forward.
If feelings are felt and expressed then our responses can be shaped by the conscious and integrated functioning of thoughts and feelings, as evolution intended, and we can plan intelligently. The alternative is to have our unconscious fear controlling our thinking and deluding us that we are acting rationally.
It is time to end the adult war on children so that all of the other violence that emerges from this cause can end too.

So what do we do?

Well, if you are willing, you can make the commitment outlined in ‘My Promise to Children’. https://feelingsfirstblog.wordpress.com/my-promise-to-children/ If you need to do some healing of your own to be able to nurture children in this way, then consider the information provided in the article ‘Putting Feelings First’. https://feelingsfirstblog.wordpress.com/putting-feelings-first/

You might also deeply consider, and act in response to, the extraordinary damage inflicted on children by sending them to school. See ‘Do We Want School or Education?’ https://nonviolentstrategy.wordpress.com/strategywheel/constructive-program/school-or-education/

Why are these so important? Because if you want a boy (or girl) who is nonviolent, truthful, compassionate, considerate, patient, thoughtful, respectful, generous, loving of themselves and others, trustworthy, honest, dignified, determined, courageous and powerful, then the boy (or girl) must be treated with – and experience – nonviolence, truth, compassion, consideration, patience, thoughtfulness, respect, generosity, love, trust, honesty, dignity, determination, courage and power.

So each one of us has an important choice. We can acknowledge the painful truth that we inflict enormous violence on our children (which then manifests in all directions) and respond powerfully to that truth. Or we can keep deluding ourselves and continue to observe, powerlessly, as the violence in our world proliferates until human beings are extinct.

In addition to addressing this violence, you are also welcome to consider participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’ http://tinyurl.com/flametree which maps out a fifteen-year strategy for creating a peaceful, just and sustainable world community so that everyone has an ecologically viable planet on which to live. And, if you like, you can join the worldwide movement to end all violence by signing online ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’. http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com

In essence, if you want a man who doesn’t inflict violence on women, then his mother and father should not inflict (visible, invisible and utterly invisible) violence on him as a boy.

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

Courtesy: NewAgeIslam
 

The post Violence against Women: Why the UN Secretary-General Got it Wrong appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: Manoj Thalayambalath / Mathrubhumi

But now an even more atrocious incident has been reported. Here is the link.

This is about the illegal arrest and detention of a woman who tried to leave her home seeking domestic labour to escape her alcoholic and abusive husband. Twenty-eight-year-old Nisha left her two young sons at her husband’s home unable to bear his violence, seeking work in Aluva first and then accepting work at Chennai. On Nov 3, the husband, Ramesh, reported her missing to the police. The police apparently tracked her using her mobile number,arrested her from the railway station, and slapped a case on her using the Juvenile Justice Act. She was produced in court last Saturday and remanded to custody.

It seems to me that the Kerala police are happily advancing the assault on women facing domestic violence already underway in the Hadiya case. If the CPM alpha male intellectuals were keen to uphold the father’s rights, the police are enthusiastic to uphold the rights of the abusive husband. In both cases, the woman is imprisoned with her words treated with utter disregard.

I want to ask all the senior and respected women IPS officers in Kerala — B Sandhya, R Sreelekha, and others — is this the culture of your force? Are they bound by oath to the Indian Constitution and the laws of democratic society, or are they minions of petty patriarchs? Is a legislation like the Juvenile Justice Act meant to be used against women trying to survive in the face of domestic abuse? Does the father have no responsibility at all in the care of young children? There is widespread concern that the Kerala police has acted nearly like the arm of Hindutva forces in the ‘protection’ they are offering Hadiya in her home, colluding with her father to expose her to Hindutva agents. In this case too they are acting on the bidding of the father, against the mother who tried to escape his violence. So are we back to a brutal patriarchy in which fathers/husbands have no obligations to care for and foster their daughters/wives and respect their equal rights, but may exercise brutal control over them and subject them to violence with the complicity of the law? What does that imply for you, respected women IPS officers? It is clear that for all the ‘gender sensitisation’ programmes that the Kerala police may have undertaken, they still feel nothing for a woman struggling against domestic violence; they know nothing of the everyday trauma she goes through.

Please stop boasting about the Janamaitri community policing from now at least. My maitri to janam is limited to whatever a social science researcher can acquire during fieldwork, but I have seen how the Juvenile Justice Act is often used against impoverished women in the poorest localities of Thiruvananthapuram, often by hostile relatives. But even in cases in which mothers have indeed been violent to their children, I have wondered, seeing them helpless and despondent in custody: how come it is the poorest, socially the most disadvantaged women, themselves subject to horrid violence on a daily basis often by their husbands and juggling many kinds of work to keep the hearth warm, who get punished, and not, say, middle-class school teachers who have no qualms about subjecting children to the most humiliating violence?

Indeed, the police’s mechanical use of the Juvenile Justice Act in this case is parallel to the Women’s Commission Chairperson M C Josephine’s mechanical implementation of the Kerala State Women’s Commission’s powers in the Hadiya case. In both, apparent faithfulness to the letter is actually a cover for violating the democratising spirit of the law; indeed in both, these instruments are used against women who need help, not for them.

But even more appalling is the language used by the reporter. Indeed, shame on you all, editors of the Mathrubhumi! Is this your level of education really? Your reporter clearly hasn’t even heard of the term ‘domestic violence’ and so uses the regressive and apolitical term ‘family quarrel’ which hides the power equations so well! Your reporter does not know anything about how laws ostensibly to protect women and children could well be used against them! The whole tone of the report casts the woman as somehow trying to abscond after committing a crime and ‘getting caught’ by the police. This points to the deep erosion of democratisation of public language in Kerala — terms like ‘domestic violence’ were not born in the language by themselves, they were hard-fought-for by the women’s movement. To erase them  thus shows how low journalism has fallen in Kerala.

I believe that this is actually part of a much larger process of  the destruction of the language and convictions build into public life by feminists in Kerala. The honeymoon, persisting from the mid 1990s, is over. Today, the CPM-acolyte-cum-journalist-led gaslighting especially on Facebook, (led by some of their female supporters, actually) needs careful analysis, which I hope to do someday. It is important to call their tactics just that — gaslighting — which is a powerful form of emotional abuse.

Their primary tactic was to divide subtly – establish that sexual violence in the actress attack case involving the actor Dileep was somehow more vital and  demanding punitive state action,  in comparison with the domestic violence in Hadiya’s imprisonment. As in effective gaslighting, this was done carefully, with the women among them taking the lead, and claiming to be fair and concerned about domestic violence even while arguing that it was something that could be easily resolved through ‘care for the family’. Outright lies and misrepresentation of the history of the Hadiya case were spread repeatedly and determinedly in precisely the way effective gaslighters operate, combined with trivialisation and meme-making trolling tactics of others who tried to present more empirically-rigorous versions of the event. The effort to make the latter feel that they were against social freedom was forceful. Then, on Facebook,  with  the MeToo campaign sweeping in, domestic violence disappeared deep in the horizon, so did the prospect of dealing with sexual violence at work as an institutionally-resolvable harassment-at-workplace issue. With the feminist response to sexual harassment reduced to essentially list-making, generating outrage seems to be synonymous with the delivery of justice, and ironically enough, the potential for sensationalising sexual harassment seems to have multiplied manifold.

Therefore the sleazy solar scam report seems to be generating heavy-duty outrage among the CPM-leaning acolytes, and Saritha Nair’s woes seem to attract sympathy and admiration among them. Indeed there is every reason for us to think of building due process in a way that would make it possible for us to take Saritha Nair’s complaints as sexual harassment at workplace, given that it happened while she was at work. Not that I sympathise with her, nor is she a naive victim. But if she seeks justice, then it should be through pursuing her complaints as harassment at workplace, and not through lending her talents to the sensationalising, outrage-building industry. In the present however,  the former may not be even possible, though, since the CPM seems to be waiting to squeeze out the juiciest from the massive outrage-cum-titillation potential.

Destroying the gains of feminist struggles in Kerala by trivialising and belittling democratising ideas and language for short-term gains (for example, to beat down Islamicists) will inevitably boomerang on all of us one day. One bright young progressivist activist, prominent on Facebook, asked me privately why ‘my standards’ are falling. He could not produce any concrete evidence for a fall in the empirical and logical strength of my arguments. My concern with the disparaging of domestic violence by his ilk, my refusal to sympathise with their inability to stomach the fact that many of them may indeed have participated in different degrees in partner-abuse, was what he perceived as a ‘fall in standards’.

This young man ought to take a look at the standards his peers are pushing in people’s faces before judging me. He ought to wonder why it is so acceptable to protest sexual  violence while domestic violence seems to have become incomprehensible to the judiciary, the police, and smart and mobile young men like him. Why those who were enthusiastic about Metoo were outraged by the farthest suggestion of a domestic abuser list.

And therefore, I prefer to write about the lone struggle of a woman trying to escape of a violent alcoholic husband, and how the LDF government’s police is viciously destroying her life. The gaslighting has still not worked on me despite all the vicious memes; the epithets of ‘Sudapini’ (which I think is Basheerian-cute), and ‘cheergirl’ have not bothered me. I have still not lost the ability to critique Islamicism, and more importantly, am still able to see that you are gaslighters, not intellectuals.

Courtesy: Kafila.online
 

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Such is the nature of fascism. It revels in a complete loss of reference, and in the process imposes a compulsory solidarity on those choosing to be on the wrong side of history. We bore our burdens with our allies who were forged out of a coincidence of struggles. Desperation killed nuance, because our immediate contexts were continually rife with the threats of injury. Some of us were maimed, some punished, some frightened and some silenced. But, all of us – each one of us – have been listed out in some registry somewhere for charges we do not know, for crimes we haven’t been tried for, for hearings that never will happen, for disobediences we were compelled into and for a nation which outlaws all difference. We are forever in trial, a Kafkaesque one, which is in our wait for a verdict that will never come.

And while we sit huddled together outside the great structures that promise the ‘due process’ of law, we will have squabbled each other into a great many executions. The most tragic of those deaths will have been of the idea of justice. The courtroom will have become the morgue, as it replaces the memory of a Surekha Bhotmange and a Bhanwari Devi with that of a Bilkis or an Afzal or a Junaid. But, there is an other collateral that will come to haunt us through history. And that will be the burden of our differences. We will have been reduced to identicality, by the weight of those structures that consigned us to a trial in the first place.

Institutions and Historical Privilege
The university is no exception to those structures, though it peddles itself as one. Histories of injustice are internal to the functioning of any ‘corporation’, be it the nation or the educational institution. There is no manual of ‘correctness’ that grades our resistance to it, while ironically our participation within those histories – of behaviour in classrooms or interviews or parties – are forever the object of graded violence. The charge of democracy is about a relentless working at these spaces, to make visible the outsides of freedom that gird the insides of an institution. It is perhaps about creating with one’s voices and tears the fear of an em-bodied imagination that the powerful might be forced to live by. But, where does that imagination receive body from? Are policy-instruments, regulatory guidelines, elected bodies, fair trials, considered verdicts and deterrence norms – in short, ‘due process’ – enough to ensure justice? Perhaps, not alone – as these times have repeatedly proven. Perhaps, we need to create networks of constant vigilance over these ‘processes’ to prevent those minor lapses and major elisions that compound history. What then are these networks of vigilance – social media vanguardism, third-party confidantism or more?

In all the mayhem that ‘The List’ of celebrity ‘sexual offenders’ has generated on social media, we stand the risk – by the very writing of our most intimate dissensions – of being clubbed into one camp or the other. We write in fear of being boxed into binaries, much like lists are prone to do in their unquestionable preference for neat categories. The savarna left-liberal versus the Dalit vanguard, the ‘due process’ feminist versus the public trial feminist, the ‘established’ women’s rights activist versus the younger ‘inexperienced’ social media crusader, the legal constitutionalist versus the instant justice-seeker, the loyal rape-apologists of Brahmin predator-friends versus the third-party witnesses to lived sexual violence, the abettor-beneficiaries of institutionalised patriarchal privilege versus the self-proclaimed moral conscience-bearers. And this is where we lose sight of the structures that not only empower us into positions of relative privilege, but into networks of complicity with powerlessness.

We speak here not to accuse or excuse, but to evolve a critique of our own convictions and to test them against a culture of impunity that indeed installs male privilege as the fulcrum of all institutional spaces. We write to say that – yes, we are disarmed by the naming of some of our closest associates beside those who we know are hardened assaulters, but we do not wish to bail out any on the force of our recommendations or testimonials. We also do not want to dare any of our male colleagues – savarna or Dalit – to proclaim their innocence through ‘little’ social media acts of moral self-righteousness, nor do we want the feminist in us to not face up to the inefficacy of institutional infrastructures of redressal. It is true that ‘due processes’ have failed time and again to ensure a climate of ‘bekhauf azaadi’ for the women of those very institutions that have taught them the value of it, in slogans and struggles and classroom lectures. But, must the answer therefore lie in informal archives of secret charges that only fly in the face of our collective angers, or must they translate into movements for stronger and better-represented punitive mechanisms to hold those powerful men accountable for their acts? At a time when Vice-Chancellors and university administrations are trying their best to destabilise mechanisms of sexual justice – by subjecting women students who demand the right to dignity to either police batons or puppet committees – does an extra-juridical championing of justice help our cause?

As the list swells into a public databank that testifies to the magnitude of sexual violence on ‘safe’ campuses, one wonders why most of these names belong to institutions where the recourse to ‘due process’ has been eminently available and possible. It follows, as many have argued, that such processes often turn out to be biased and do not inspire confidence in the fairness of proceedings or the certainty of punishment for the accused-but-powerful. Indeed, this is the historical-structural index of male privilege that institutional procedures are susceptible to. But, problematically enough, doesn’t such a catalogue then restrict the struggle against gender injustice to a certain enlightened minority of victims – while at the same time ignoring the role that hard-earned structural mechanisms have played in sensitising these women to their sexual rights? Does the ethics of procedure – for all the vitriol that has already been directed against its effectiveness – really prove all that redundant in working towards a ‘consciousness’ of violence?

Consciousness: Too Little and Too Less?
This of course explains why almost all of the academic ‘offenders’ on Raya Sarkar’s list appear to belong to the better-known elite metropolitan institutions/universities. But, would that also push us a step further to ask why women students from non-elite lesser-known/unknown provincial institutions (or, mofussil spaces) cannot muster courage enough to even participate in such anonymous social media campaigns? Why don’t routine offenders from BHU or a Patna University or a Magadh University – or any of the new central or state universities, for that matter! – feature on the dreaded list? How are the invisible laboratories of Hindutva invasion somehow immune to our registers of sexual crime? Does it mean that these spaces are relatively freer of gendered violence, or that there are no ‘due processes’ to be sought? The answer currently rests in the realm of the unsaid.

And so, while there are everyday instances of assault by not just Brahmin/ Bhumihar/ Rajput/ Yadav/ Kurmi/ Koeri/ Dosadh/…male teachers (and yes, by actively patriarchal female teachers too!), but also by Deans of Students’ Welfare and Proctors who head student councils or enquiry committees, there is none to bring them to book. Or, even to organise the survivors – because, obviously, they don’t make news enough. Does anybody care about the failure of ‘due process’ in these spaces (or about the puppet bodies manned by assaulter administrative heads, in paper-abidance of UGC guidelines), or care to work within these non-celebrity spaces to bring in even a cognitive perception of gender-justice? Would those of us speaking out on ‘behalf’ of vulnerable women care to engage with structures that compound vulnerability on a daily basis, outside of our own privileged spaces? If first-person information were to be the only authentic sources, these are campuses where women are regularly slut-shamed for as much as not carrying a dupatta. But, that doesn’t count as sexual harassment, does it? Male invigilators during examination routines use their surveillance prerogative to ask women students to fold up salwaars to see what’s written on their legs, while boys are ordered to unbutton their shirts to prevent criminal propensities of cheating. DSWs clad in their inner garments traipse around during class hours, while university events offer unguarded opportunities for molesting women students and more. Women’s hostels are raided by male teachers at any time of the day and without notice, and students are unabashedly interrogated for their personal relationships or sexual choices. Those staying in the library till late at night are warned about their izzat, and made to swear discipline by their womanly sanskaar.

Understanding Harassment
But of course we would have no register of such incidents. Not only because there is no ‘due process’, but because these charades have become so normalised in their unchallenged repeatability that students don’t even recognise them as sexually violative. Let alone having the institutions or the language to register sexual abuse, what does one do when harassment is not even recognised as such? And this is where the struggle for gender-justice becomes an arduous process of not just numbering cases of complaint, but of counselling women students about the substantive meaning and import of harassment. And then, getting them to speak about their experiences, making them see the toxicity of it and deal with the trauma, find language, negotiate with peer-groups (often in the absence of ‘student councils’ and teacher associations!) and then demand ‘due process’. Naming offenders would have been easy vengeance in these cases, but never a guarantor of any attainable trace of justice. Because informal campaigns carry insurmountable risks to the complainant’s mental and physical health, and can only reproduce injustice within classrooms and hostels and homes. Incidentally, many early-career/‘contractual’ academics do also engage in this labour of sustained mobilisation, at the possible cost of their jobs and ‘reputation’. Procedure, therefore, is not something worthy of being abandoned for its failures – when having it could itself be a privilege. Protecting the integrity of such procedures is the difficult task of feminism; delegitimizing them through vigilante models and methods will cost a lot of us all the labour that we have been risking for years.

It is exactly here that Raya Sarkar’s list seems disingenuous – because in its deliberate non-naming of the specific instances of offence, it works with some definition of harassment that forecloses all possibilities of conversation. The demand for an exact citation of charges levelled against each entry on the list is, principally, not a demand for ‘evidence’ or the disclosure of identities of the complainants. We do recognise the crucial confidentiality-clause that harassment proceedings are ethically bound by, and hence the popular presumption of victim-blaming in such a context is misplaced here. What a generic nature of charges might have still done is contour the idea of sexual justice as moored in certain forms of hard-won consensus over our bodies, choices, desires and consent. Such a process of arriving at a consensus is consciously shunned in the current campaign – insofar as ‘sexual offence’ is made into a self-explanatory category lodged in mysterious archives of individual understanding. Earnest conversations around what constitutes ‘sexual abuse’ within unequal relationships of power are crucial in prying open the blindness induced by millennial histories of male privilege.

Victims over Survivors: The List to Come?
Raya hopes the list will equip future students with a crucial forecautioning, that would help them negotiate their professional relations with the listed professors – “I took this opportunity to create a list to warn students using firsthand accounts from survivors. The list is primarily for students to be wary of their professors, because in my opinion, knowing how college administrations function, harassers will continue to hold their positions of power.” (https://www.buzzfeed.com/karthikshankar/why-i-published-a-list-of-sexual-predators-in-academia?bffbdialogue&utm_term=.jmXLKrJ9k#.eq2kLZYVl) Even as this is meant to arm the student, it carries an implicit exhortative admonishment – one that drives the onus of keeping herself safe from potential victimage back upon her. An empowering of the student is thus already always undercut by a ‘burden of responsibility’ that she must carry – and one that dangerously opens an experimental trial-and-error space for the sexual offender through its refractory focus. This is the classic inversion of the template of gender justice that could again mobilize discourses of blame and shame against the complainant, without actually ensuring the harasser’s accountability. A list such as this is protectionist in its impulse, much like lists of dos and don’ts, drawn by keepers and custodians of women’s safety, slyly placing the burden of the experience of sexual harassment upon the student. This also proclaims and reserves the future as a site of perpetual victimhood, wherein students will always need warning lists and where the exercising of caution will be an act in itself, one that could easily be scuttled out of the economy of redressal and justice.

Further, within the list’s purported arming of future students there is no attempt made to ensure justice for the current survivor, beyond a public naming of her perpetrator. Its mode of anonymity and the deferred disclosure of details, foreclose in the present the possibility of redressal and accountability beyond the singular act and event of naming. The list might ‘save’ future students, but the question of justice for present survivors is collaterally deferred into the future. And yet, justice for the survivor is also about her own survival with dignity and her right of redressal in the present, one that must not be elided in an instrumentalizing of her experience for the continuing mission of aggregative listings in all futures to come. An iconizing of her role, an exaltation that props her as the poster-girl of vigilantism cannot ever be a compensatory overture for the materiality of her harassment and its lived horrors.

A Practice of Justice
Only acknowledging predatory sexual behaviour without attempting to bring it to justice, in effect, makes peace with the actual fact of male privilege in academia. In withholding details of the cases reported to the list, the materiality of the experience of sexual predatoriness is passed over, and its prevented outing cancels it as a measure and means to draft a strong policy against all that constitutes sexual harassment. In turn this could offer easy evasions to the actual predators on the list who could decry it for its lack of transparency even while hiding behind it. Since the details are missing for framing charges, the structural embeddedness of male privilege in academia would suffer no damage.

A serial list of offenders (without intending to provoke discussions around the terms of ‘harassment’) only serves to disguise the structural as individual acts of moral turpitude, and thus goes on to displace cultures of sexist prejudice onto nameable targets of knee-jerk resentment. Not only that, a timely debate on the material forms and expressions of harassment would have enabled the bulk of women within the university sector to measure their experiences against paradigms of justice that are most often imaginatively distant. In fact, all those survivors who have been cognitively damaged against a minimal apprehension of violence might emerge with the tools for an affective identification of victimhood, in the process. Isn’t the task of gender justice an equal commitment to the training of such radically other imaginations and forging of alliances beyond immediate equivalence(s) of identity? Don’t we realise that the vast majority of women with structural access to higher education will neither get a chance to enrol under the listed celebrity offenders nor in their respective elite institutions – and so, a list like this alienates more than it builds bridges? Raya’s claim to “save more victims from being harassed” is hinged on an indifference to those women who will neither know who these men are nor what harassment means. And unfortunately, that is where all numerical odds are stacked.

Where does this leave us and where do we go from here? It needs acknowledging that, despite the obvious problems of a list crowd-sourced by proxy and circulated without any actionable representation of cases, we are confronted by a moment of tremendous political urgency. It calls on us to earnestly take stock of institutions that we believed to be invested with our passionately transformative energies. We may allow this moment to spend its rage in social media circles and gather the dust of a damning distrust between those that sit on selection committees and those that queue up grade-sheets of ‘honour’. Or, we may try tapping into the realm of the cathartic, and unstitch the agonies that dress up everyday masculinity. The #metoo moment enabled an owning up to the trauma of experience – which may only be sustained and negotiated in a movement across college campuses for coalitions of collective trust. The transformative agenda lies precisely in this gap between the moment and the possible movement. And that gap is occupied by the painful ‘work’ of rallying for and building structures that recognise the sexual as the most intimately essential coordinate of justice.

This passage cannot be exhausted or even short-circuited by lists – strategically positioned between censure and defense, or neat self-separations between caste and gender privilege. We have to walk out into the sun, and see the university take shape outside its own insides, take the cause to schools along with the mandatory sex education classes, and alert young students to the nature of harassment and their rights therein. Debating and evolving guidelines continually through close understandings of cases that play out materially on our campuses, we have to ensure powerful mechanisms of redressal. We have to play the guards to the sealed GSCASH offices or those non-existent ones, bring back XV(D) in place of the weak and politically questionable ICC in colleges. It’s time now to reclaim our sensitization from the settled dust of collusion that we are all guilty of breathing into.
 

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This manner of naming can delegitimize the long struggle against sexual harassment, and make our task as feminists more difficult.

We appeal to those who are behind this initiative to withdraw it, and if they wish to pursue complaints, to follow due process, and to be assured that they will be supported by the larger feminist community in their fight for justice.

Ayesha Kidwai
Brinda Bose
Janaki Abraham
Janaki Nair
Kavita Krishnan
Madhu Mehra
Nandini Rao
Nivedita Menon
Pratiksha Baxi
Ranjani Mazumdar
Sabeena Gadihoke
Shikha Jhingan
Shohini Ghosh
Vrinda Grover
 

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Leveraging Our Laws: A Comparative Account and Conscious Effort to Strengthen Various Personal Laws in India

India – a kaleidoscope of cultures, has always been immensely diverse in thought as well as in action. People of different religions reside in India in harmony as also in disharmony. Some are the original inhabitants such as the Hindus; some, who sought refuge such as the Parsis and Jews; others, the foreign rulers such as the Muslims and Christians. Nonetheless, they all continue to thrive together as rightful citizens of India.

In secular India, all citizens are governed by uniform criminal and contractual laws. However, their family laws are different. Each community has its own personal law governing marriage, divorce, adoption, custody, inheritance and more. Which community a person belongs to, is generally decided by his/her birth or conversion. Thus, Hindus are governed by the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955; Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956; Hindu Succession Act, 1956. The Parsi community is governed by Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936. The Muslims follow the uncodified Shariah Law, the Shariah Application Act, 1937, Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939, Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Divorce Act, 1986. The Christians are governed by Indian Christian Marriages Act, 1872, Divorce Act, 1869. This multiplicity of laws does to a large extent uphold and honour the fundamental right of citizens to practice and profess their religion but at the same time, it also causes inconvenience and upheaval in the delivery of justice. Thus, we aren’t left with much of a choice.  Either we choose our religious preferences or simply follow the egalitarian secular laws on matrimonial issues, namely the Special Marriage Act, 1954.

Not recently, but ever since A44 has been a part of the Constitution of India, deliberations have taken place to decide the possibility of implementing a Uniform Civil Code in India. The current stir relating to the feasibility and applicability of the UCC (as popularly abbreviated) seems unnecessary to me. The need of the hour is to strengthen the currently prevailing laws, to rid the existing laws of the sting of discrimination and not to enforce homogeneity on the heterogenous Indian diaspora.

The prime factors driving this debate are – a secular republic needs a common law for all citizens rather than differentiated rules based on religious practices and gender justice – against discrimination of women. In my opinion, both these factors are flimsy and unconvincing. It is important to highlight the fact that personal laws of all communities in India, not just one, are discriminatory in one way or another. This is due to the inherent structure of patriarchy which exists in our society. In fact, this structure pervades all others and has its clutches shackling Indian society since times immemorial. The power dynamics in this country are so skewed that the enforcement of a uniform civil code will do only little to alleviate the anomaly. The underlying principle should be that constitutional law should supersede religious law in a secular republic. However, many practices governed by religious traditions are at odds with the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Indian Constitution. The remedy to this would be to identify the vitiating factors in each community’s personal laws, amend and align them with the Constitutional principles.

Often, when we talk of archaic personal laws, the first thing that comes to mind is the matter of ‘Triple Talaq’ and the discriminatory Muslim personal laws. Well, there’s much more to it than that. Let us take a holistic look at the personal laws of the religious communities in India and explore areas for improvement,without politicising issues, to bring about a fair and just judicial system for every citizen of India.

To begin with the Christian community in India, which is governed by Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872 and Divorce Act, 1869. Matters relating to succession are governed by the Indian Succession Act, 1925. The laws for dissolution of marriage under Indian Divorce Act, 1869 severely discriminate against women. S.10 of the Divorce Act, 1869 provides for dissolution by husband on the ground of adultery by wife only. On the other hand, a wife can seek divorce on the grounds of conversion of husband to another religion and marriage with another woman; or incestuous adultery, or bigamy with adultery, or marriage with another woman with adultery, or rape, sodomy or bestiality, or of adultery coupled with desertion, without reasonable excuse, for two years or upwards.

Thus, for a Christian man to seek divorce, one fault ground is enough whereas a Christian woman has to prove multiple fault grounds. This provision forces a Christian woman to live in a marriage which is painful, unhappy, devastated, broken – as has also been laid down in the case of Ammim v. Union of India. In this case, the Kerala High Court said that this provision violates Article 21 and 14 of the Constitution of India. A bigger problem is the tussle between the Roman Catholic Church in India and the Formal Courts, it is to be noted that marriages annulled in the ecclesiastical courts/ churches are not valid in the eyes of law in India. At the same time, a marriage dissolved by a decree of court is not accepted by the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, Christians seeking to dissolve/ annul their marriage must seek a decree of Nullity from the Church as well as the Court of law. The Indian Divorce Act, 1869 states that after a decree of divorce has been provided by the District Court, a special bench of the High Court must confirm the divorce, this provision makes the process of seeking divorce lengthy, tiresome, tedious and increases matters before courts, thus burdening them further. Several efforts have been made by Christian Groups to identify, alter and amend these shortcomings in the law. Their efforts have paid off with the recommendationsof 164^th  Law Commission of India Report in 1998. Thus, came into force, the Indian Divorce (Amendment) Act, 2001, which to a large extent has cured the law of the anomalies. Thus, a conscious effort to create awareness within the religious community, logically persuade everyone to arrive at a consensus and drive a social change is the way to go to strengthen our laws.

Next, we must discuss the restrictive laws of the Parsi community. Neither Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936 nor the Amendment Act, 1988 provide for adoption of children. The community does not recognise adoption as a means of child bearing. This is a very inequitable practice, both for the parents and the child. Every couple must have the right to bear a child. If biologically this is not possible, the couple must have the option to adopt a child.Further, the Act provides for the establishment of Parsi Matrimonial Courts with an appellate jurisdiction to the High Court. With an already established, secular redressal system in place, the provision for special Parsi Marriage Matrimonial Court, is unnecessary and defeats the purpose of the formal courts of law. Besides these flaws, there are also progressive provisions in the Act such as, on dissolution of marriage, either spouse can claim maintenance from the other, both pendentelite and permanent. The custody of children upon dissolution of marriage can be given to either of the spouses or any 3^rd party keeping in mind the best interest of the child. Either parent can be the guardian of the child without restriction, unlike the practice in Muslim Law. Finally, the event of conversion to another religion by one of the parties to the marriage, does not make the marriage null and void, unlike the practice in Hindu Law.

Speaking of Hindu Law, it is imperative to put the spotlight on the anomalies in the law governing the majority of the population in India. Besides the Hindus, the Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists, all fall within the ambit of this law. To begin with, the practice of marriage which is a sacrament under this law is grounded on the derogatory belief and practice of “Kanyadan”, a bride is considered as the property of her father which is donated to the groom upon marriage. The concept of Restitution of Conjugal Rights as practiced by the colonial powers was first introduced to Indian society by Hindu law and is still a part of it. This practice is considered to be in violation of A21 of the Constitution of India as it forces sexual cohabitation on spouses not desiring to live together. In T. Sareeta v. Venkatasubaiah, this provision was stated as unconstitutional. Such archaic provisions which are still part of our laws must be abrogated. Though the Muslims are accused of being polygamous, it’s not them alone, the practice continues among Hindu men also. Research has it, bigamy is also prevalent among Hindus, perhaps in numbers larger than those of Muslims.  A Hindu woman who seeks divorce or demands maintenance on grounds that her husband has contracted a bigamous marriage must prove that he has married again. To add to the torment, marriages under the Hindu Marriage Act are not automatically registered hence it is hard to prove the existence of the marriage. The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 makes provision for a Hindu Undivided Family to deliberately ensure that property remains with the male line of descent. A son gets a share equal to that of his father whereas, a daughter only gets a share in her father’s share. Worst still, she cannot reside in the family home unless she is single or divorced, and cannot claim her share of property as long as the men of the family continue to live in it. Also, a Hindu woman has no right to her matrimonial home, unless she can prove that it was purchased with her earnings. Thus, whether in their natal home or in their matrimonial home, Hindu women can never find comfort or security. Every day is a struggle and the laws provide little or no help what so ever. We must understand that women are equal partners in the marriage, and their contribution has to be recognised with an equal division of matrimonial property. Maintenance is the right of every woman and must not be mistaken for compensation.The Hindu Matrimonial law enumerates an extremely long drawn procedure for dissolution of marriage which does not relieve the spouse from the marriage but creates further adversity. Such hardship desists many, especially women from filing for divorce, despite facing violence and abuse.

For reasons unknown, adoption laws in all religious communities are either absent or discriminatory. Hindu, the only community to recognise adoption, also discriminates as to who can adopt. While any major, Hindu male of a sound mind may adopt a child (boy/girl), a Hindu woman has more prerequisites to fulfil. Along with being a major, Hindu female, of sound mind, she must also be unmarried or if married, whose marriage has been dissolved or whose husband is dead or has completely and finally renounced the world or has ceased to be a Hindu or has been declared by a court of competent jurisdiction to be of unsound mind. To put it in simple words, a Hindu woman can adopt a child only if her husband ceases to exist in the eyes of law. What is this, if not discrimination against the one who is to nurture and protect the child?

Having known the harsh realities about each of the religious community’s laws, we certainly can deduce that Muslim personal law is not the only demon we need to deal with.Yes, the Muslim personal law does also have unconstitutional elements which need to be repealed and major efforts have already ensued in that direction. To name the obvious, practices of Triple Talaq, Nikah Halala, Polygamy need to be banned. This is primarily because these practices are extra judicial, ultra vires to the law and against the basic principles of our Constitution. The Five Judge Constitutional Bench has recently heard several cases in this regard and the nation keenly awaits its verdict. Some of the less criticised yet alarming issues are of Muta Marriage or temporary marriage, no maintenance, guardianship. Muslim uncodified law gives a Muslim man the option to marry as many times as he wants, to women belonging to a Qitabi religion for as long as he wants. The only prerequisite is that the duration of the marriage must be predetermined. Laws for maintenance of a Muslim woman are quite skewed. The latest judgement in this regard is Danial Latifi&Anr vs Union Of India on 28 September, 2001. However, the provision of reasonable amount of maintenance to be provided to a divorced Muslim woman beyond the period of Idda is neither accepted in theory nor in practice. Worst still, the position of a woman in Muslim law is so poor that the father is recognized as sole guardian of the child’s person and property and after him his relatives. Mother is not recognized as a guardian, natural or otherwise even after the death of the father. Efforts must be made to straighten out these irregularities as well.

To conclude, establishing a common code for all citizens rather than rules based on religious practices, may pose a problem for the Indian democracy. The Uniform Civil Code may itself be ‘unconstitutional’ by restricting religious freedom.  Yet, the cornerstone should be that every citizen of India is protected by the constitutional laws and none is denied justice.The need of the hour is to amend and update existing personal laws to ensure equality and gender justice especially in aspects such as marriage, dissolution, adoption, succession and maintenance.  To quote B. R. Ambedkar “I like the religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity”. Taking from this, let the supreme religion guiding our thoughts, actions and laws be that of humanity.Let us try to align the personal laws in a manner in which they fall within and in line with the Constitutional law, in the true spirit of India being a secular republic.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

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People stage a demonstration against molestation of women in Bengaluru. Of the 4,241 complaints of molestation filed between 2006 and 2016 in Bengaluru, the conviction rate was 0.37% (16 cases).
 
The number of complaints under under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code (assault to outrage the modesty of a woman) rose from 150 in 2006 to 776 in 2016. Experts say this could be because of an increase in the number of incidents as well as greater willingness on the part of women to register complaints.
 
The data were compiled by Bengaluru Commissioner of Police for the Karnataka Legislature Committee on Prevention of Violence and Sexual Abuse of Women and Children. This data project could serve as a template for how police in India’s burgeoning cities can make sense of their crime data in public interest.
 
Section 354 includes sexual harassment (354A), use of criminal force with intent to disrobe (354B), voyeurism (354C) and stalking (354D). The data obtained from the Bengaluru commissionerate group these offences under ‘molestation’.
 
Bengaluru–India’s IT capital–entered 2017 with reports of mass molestation of women in the city’s bustling MG Road and Brigade Road areas despite deployment of thousands of police personnel. The reports came as a shock to Bengaluru residents and for people across the country who believed the city to be safe for women.
 
Bengaluru’s conviction rate for molestation is indicative of the larger problem nationwide. “Few women who survive sexual assault have a pathway to justice and recovery from their horror,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, an advocacy, in a statement issued after the Supreme Court upheld on May 4, 2017, the death sentence to four men who were part of the gang that raped in 2012 a Delhi physiotherapy student now known as Nirbhaya.
 
‘A stranger tried to kiss me in front of dozens of people! No one came to my help’
 
Kavya S, 24, was on her way to work when a stranger attacked her in public. “It was around 8:30 am in broad daylight, I was walking to work in Kormangala when a stranger grabbed me and tried to kiss me in front of dozens of people! No one came to my help but when I screamed and kicked him, they yelled at me and asked me to leave him,” she recounted.
 
Kavya immediately filed a complaint with the local police under Section 354, but did not pursue the case once she shifted her residence. “Police officials were very cooperative,” she recalled, “but I couldn’t follow up on the case as I had to shift my house and job.”
 
Cases such as Kavya’s are increasingly common, although Bengaluru police say they are working to improve the law and order situation for women. “We have identified areas that are hotspots for crimes against women and launched 51 Pink Hoysalas (mobile units) that are dedicated to women. We have also launched an app called ‘Suraksha’ last week (April second week). Anyone can inform us if they are in danger and we would reach the spot in 10 minutes,” S Ravi, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime), told IndiaSpend.
 
4,241 cases reported, 53% pending trial, 12% acquittals, 0.37% convictions
 
Bengaluru’s criminal justice system is marred by delays, as with the rest of India’s (discussed here, here and here). Of the 4,241 molestation cases reported, 2,248 (53%) are pending trial, according to data from the Bengaluru City Police Commissionerate.
 
Among the cases tried, there have been 523 acquittals (12%) and 16 convictions (0.37%)–even as the police consider 97% of cases to be “true” after investigation. A decade earlier, the figure for “true” cases was 84%, indicating more open-mindedness in dealing with women’s complaints as well as better effort on the police’s part to investigate.
 
However, lawyers and activists believe the large proportion of acquittals are due to shoddy investigation. “In most crime against women cases, especially the molestation cases, the accused get acquitted or the cases are kept pending for years,” Pramila Nesargi, a noted lawyer and a well-known women’s rights activist, said. “The main reason for all these is the reluctance of police in getting proper evidence.” She said the government needs to appoint well-trained investigative officers.
 
Source: Bengaluru City Police Commissionerate
Note: Figures are for cases under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code. Totals may not tally as some cases may be under investigation.
 
The government needs to think from women’s perspective, Rani Shetty, coordinator of Vanitha Sahayavani, a government agency that provides rescue and support services for women in distress, and operates from the office of the Commissioner of Police, told IndiaSpend. “I have met many victims of molestation whose cases have been pending for years. The legal system needs to be strong, there should be fast-track judgment for any cases related to women,” she said.
 
As per law, the police have to file a chargesheet within 90 days of a crime being reported. “[I]n most cases, they fail to do so, and this in turn affects the court proceedings,” Ugrappa VS, a member of the Karnataka Legislative Council and chairperson of the expert committee to prevent crimes against women and children, told IndiaSpend.
 
At the same time, public prosecutors, who are responsible for presenting the case in court, are overworked. “The main reason for cases pending for years is because public prosecutors are given too many cases,” public prosecutor SN Hiremane, who has been in the field for over 20 years, said. “I myself have 450 molestation cases pending so far.”    
 
Judicial delays, which make it easy for the accused to get bail, can be extremely dangerous for victims of sexual assault. In one case, a grade IX student was molested by her 25-year-old neighbour. Her family filed a Section 354 case at the Peenya police station and the accused was arrested immediately. On his release on bail within four months, he kidnapped the girl and raped her. He is back in jail now.
 
“What happened to me shouldn’t happen to any girl. He has to be punished,” the girl told IndiaSpend.
 
“If the police had taken strict action on his first crime, they could have prevented the second incident. Now he is in jail but he might do the same thing when he comes out,” her father said.
 
The city’s burgeoning population, with a massive influx of immigrants, could be one of the factors behind molestation cases such as the one that took place on New Year’s eve, former Lokayukta Justice (Retd) N Santosh Hegde said speaking at a private college in the city in March 2017. The 2011 census had pegged Bangalore city’s population at 84.4 lakh. By 2016, it had risen to more than 1.15 crore.
 
“They come alone. They stay alone. And the manly desire is always there,” he said at the discussion about immigrants, adding that the benefit of anonymity in an overcrowded city apparently emboldens them to pursue their pervert desires. He also cited a lack of morals as one of the reasons.
 
She said cases of sexual violence against women have their root in the society’s mindset towards gender and it depends on how boys and girls are raised in home and school, Monisha Srichand, noted psychologist and Director of TalkItOver Counselling Services, explained.
 
“From childhood, boys are taught they are better, superior to girls, while the latter are seen as sex objects. They see it all around them in the media, movies… There’s a lot of gender inequality and as men see women walking around freely, being independent, working outside the house, being out late, they subconsciously want to assert their power over her,” she added.
 
(Mani is a Bengaluru-based independent journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)
 
Courtesy: India Spend

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