I can only say: I am tired. I am hoarse of writing about the emerging order in which coercion, not consent, becomes the state’s instrument of producing subordination, about the emerging security state overshadowing the welfarist state, about the inadequacies of the rhetoric of Malayali cosmopolitanism in the wake of resurgent caste-community power, about the deterioration of early twentieth century caste-community organizations into caste-corporates managing community assets for the community elite, about the persistent efforts of the state to push the dalit people into a state of abjection.

Am I surprised by this ‘division of labour’ between the NSS and the RSS? No! I have written about it in the wake of the Hadiya case – of how the NSS and SNDP manage economic interests of the twentieth century new elite (by this term I mean caste-communities which managed to secure their interests in twentieth century Kerala, and this includes certain elite sections of the Ezhavas, who were an avarna jati in the traditional order), while they outsource the business of keeping people, especially young people, in submission to family and community to the RSS. Am I surprised that Ananthu A R was dubbed Maoist and carted off? No, not at all.  Did I not write about how young people siding with justice were attacked precisely this way? And now, according to the police authorities’ logic, the best minds in Kerala’s civil society – BRP Bhaskar, K Satchidanandan, B Rajeevan, T T Sreekumar – the list is long – are all Maoist by implication as they protest the police’s vile attacks on the dalit activists at Vadayambady and horror of horrors, even side with the transgender people who the Kochi police consider fair game! We meet bizarre representatives of the state:  District Collectors hallucinate that they live in the Raja of Kochi’s — the Ponnutampuran’s — times before Indian independence and protect Brahmanadharmam the Raja upheld; police chiefs who coolly state that their job is to protect the respectability of the genteel middle class and not the rights of all; left political leaders who kiss the feet of NRI capital and remain permanently indebted to them; and of course, the slimy intellectuals of the CPM who run with the hares and hunt with the hounds.

Much has been written on the Vadayambady struggle, and indeed we need to keep the issue from being despatched to darkness, which was what the craven mainstream media would happily do. I however, want to think about the future. For that is where hope lies, and it is important to break free from the fossilizing stare the state now holds us in, preventing us from thinking of how to survive, stay alive, be human — in other words, how to craft a politics adequate to today’s challenges.

And therefore I want to think of feminism in Kerala, post-Hadiya’s struggle, post-Vadayambady. Both events reveal to us some of the challenges that we can no more deny – I mean, no one who has any political spine left can deny: one, that the new elite caste-communities of the twentieth century (the SNDP, NSS, the Syrian Christian community organizations) are ready and eager to outsource the business of policing community boundaries, and the violence that it entails, to the RSS/other Hindutva organizations; two,  the mainstream left is very much part of this game and will not seriously interfere – unless the anti-caste struggle seems to be winning, at which point they may enter and carry off the honours.

But more importantly, the time has come when we need to realize that all of us who are opposed to caste and patriarchy, and to the gross inequalities of resources and power wrought by our late twentieth-century integration into the globalized world economy (and these cannot really be understood apart of each other) need to work on our differences and come together. I do believe that treating our differences as insurmountable and irreconcilable is not just childish and petulant, but also outright dangerous now. Now, whatever we may think about our differences, all of us, humanist and anti-humanist, are ‘Maoists’ and/or ISIS supporters in the eyes of the security-obsessed, Hindutva-inflected state, as many statements by the police now state quite baldly. We, then, need to rethink politics in ways that will help us work together, and this is my way of contributing to it.Though I say ‘ feminism after Hadiya’s struggle’, I want to highlight not just the learning from that specific struggle but from the entire set of resistances in recent times.
So how do we rethink feminism?

————————————–

Here are a few thoughts:

1. Get the fuck out. Refuse to reproduce our communities of birth if they are involved in reviving caste power and in alliance with the Sanghis.

To start from Hadiya, I want to say that it is she, more than anyone else, allowed us to see the crucial importance of destroying sajateeya marriage – marriage between members of the same caste—among the powerful new elite caste-communities in contemporary Kerala.

We need to carefully think of endogamy as it exists across the savarna/new elite- oppressed community divide – of its functions, form, impacts and consequences for us. I think savarna/new elite feminists  ought to break endogamy totally – and that ought to be one of the pillars of the feminism practised by feminists born in the savarna/new elite communities. By now, I am tired of the empty evocations of intersectionality and the self-restraining practiced by savarna feminists whose main mode of engagement with non-savarna politics seems to be through a careful avoidance of engagement and passive agreement – functioning as the Facebook-likes-providing brigade. Which is really easy, because your lack of engagement gets read as support, and of course, you don’t really need to think of your ‘own work’ in smashing the caste-patriarchy-class nexus. Those times, I feel are over. If savarna-born women are serious about feminism, they better start doing their own work: and I say, the most important task they need to take on is the breaking down of sajateeya marriage, and indeed, even marrying between the savarna/new elite communities. For this is the bolster that holds up these dominant communities now. Indeed, the massive violence against young women of these communities who choose to marry Muslims shows that the bolster is under strain, and that is generating great insecurities.

Put differently, I am saying that fighting for equal rights within savarna/ new elite communities might lighten patriarchy there but does not remove the caste privilege savarna/new elite- born women enjoy over their avarna sisters. So getting the fuck out may be necessary – and if we choose partners from our own castes, engage in radical self-critical concrete proposals on how to exit the community altogether. I mean, I think savarna feminists should not contribute to the reproduction of their regressive communities in any way, implicit or explicit.

Exiting through marriage – exogamy — is one way this may be done, but also maybe through conversion, coming out as queer, building queer families – we need to think more. Maybe we should think of marriage and relationship sites which will help people connect beyond their communities of birth! However, for avarna, muslim, and christian communities in India now endogamy may hold different  significance and so the thrust could be on democratising marital relationships fully as a condition for continuing endogamy.

So while the goal to democratising marital relationships remains important for all women, savarna/new elite-born women ought to strive beyond it by actually breaking the endogamy imposed by their communities.

—————————————-
2. Learn a lesson from the struggles of the transgender communities
The transgender community in Kerala has made an active bid to enter the social and political mainstream, and this has now brought them much visibility here. But what has been truly moving and humbling for us has been the stern refusal of leading voices in the community to condemn those among them who may be relying on sex work for a living.  In their responses to the accusations raised by the Kerala police, these voices have stressed over and over that the transgender community, in order to be a truly empowered constituent of the mainstream, may need not just resources and government support, but also time – and convivial friendship – from others. They have asserted the right of members to form alternate families, and have refused to judge each other with patriarchal standards

This is a lesson that feminism in Kerala has taken too long to learn. To build a strong alternate community, one needs to first stop moralizing and refuse patriarchal explanations for our failures and success. We need to take seriously other women when they speak about state violence, especially when they belong to groups the state actively demonises. We saw the regrettable reluctance among leading feminists to listen to sex workers around a decade back; in Hadiya’s struggle, too many feminists were ready to dismiss Hadiya without even listening to her; too many sniggered, telling her to be grateful to the Indian Constitution, at a time when we were appalled by the Supreme Court’s treatment of her. This cannot build a feminist community, whatever else it may lead to. And sucking up to the social right-wing, or to the NIA, for that matter, is not going to save anyone from the heavy hand of Brahmanical dandaneethi that will surely fall on all women, and goody-goody feminists (except those who as clever as Madhu Kishwar) are not exempted.

——————————–

1. Accept that support for women’s labour struggles are not what feminists offer ‘for poor women’ but actually central to building feminist solidarity itself.

It is time that we began to take head-on the reality of the  oppressive relations that exist between savarna/new elite women and avarna women – that the genteel domesticity and mobility of the former are dependent on the later. Instead of focusing on how the order of caste permits men to oppress women, we need to focus on how it permits women to oppress other women. This demands that we focus on domestic labour especially, and all forms of women’s undervalued labour in the productive and other sectors historically, and the manner in which it shapes the relations between women and divides them. The struggle for justice and fair wages and practices, and rights and voice for domestic workers then needs to become central to all feminist politics. But we also need to develop radical theorising around domestic labour and emancipatory politics around paid domestic work. By the latter, one means going beyond the discussion of fair wages, but of building feminist work relationships between employers and employees, that does not reduce it to merely an exchange within the capitalist circuit – and indeed, builds solidarity in the full realization that the domestic worker’s struggle is not merely hers but integral to all anti-patriarchal struggles. And this needs to be extended to the struggles by all women workers — whether they work at home, in the municipality, hospital, or tea garden.

——————————-

1. Feminism needs to take sides unambiguously in the politics around bodies.

In Kerala now, the young are fighting for their bodies – for the right to dress their bodies as they deem fit, to define their sexuality, to free their bodies from being turned into instruments of reproduction of caste-communities and families, to resist the reduction of their bodies into labour power saleable in the global job market. Feminism cannot dither anymore in its decades-old habit of being wary of demands for sexual liberation, for in these times, that just cannot be feminism anymore. Feminism needs to be shameless, totally shameless, in insisting that sexual rights, inequalities, issues, and injustices have to be public concerns, and take an unambiguous position on this vis-à-vis the social right-wing. It cannot afford to be queasy about discussing questions of dangers and pleasures in sex, as well as rights and violations in intimate relationships.  Any talk of gender that refuses to do so, one may say, is immediately complicit with the massive apparatus that runs the length and breadth of the state, extending from the patriarchal family, through schools, tuition centres, coaching camps and so on, to technical institutes, finishing schools etc. into which our young people are being sucked in and turned, quite violently these days, into docile labour for the global labour market.
——————————
 

1. Embrace, yet know the limits, of cyberfeminism.

For some time now, cyberspace is where feminism – arguably, third-wave feminism in Kerala — has found voice[s] and presence[s].  This is an exciting moment of defiance by Malayali women, who have, by default, all been made into ‘feminists’ there. Surely, it is not just the insecurity of the misogynist majority that is responsible for this, but also the very structure of the social media. In Kerala, judging from the past, it is women who have written autobiographies, or engaged in some kind of active self-construction, who have faced the offline equivalent of trolling here, from the 1930s at least. Kamala Surayya is a well-known example, but there are many others too.

The patriarchal unconscious here gets stirred up when a woman reveals that she does indeed possess a ‘private’, as opposed to just the domestic – and finds resources from it to construct herself. This ‘private’ exists by implication and signs of its presence provoke a great deal of patriarchal anxiety, especially of a sexual sort, since the ‘private’ is associated with the sexual. So, then, this chain of associations means that every woman who engages in self-construction is by default overstepping the family’s and community’s construction of her, and this means that she does indeed possess a ‘private’, which by association, is sexual – therefore, the woman who engages in self-construction is by implication likely to engage also in sexual transgression. And worse, any woman revealing herself in an autobiography or self-construction is also revealing her ‘private’, which indicates her propensity to be sexually transgressive – and is therefore ‘asking for it’.

Now, consider the enormous proportions of this ‘problem’ for patriarchal authorities in the time of the Internet: thousands of women are engaged in self-construction, of various degrees, through the social media and other cyber spaces. Indeed, each woman, however demure she may appear, is constructing a persona for herself in cyberspace, however minimally. That means that to the patriarchal unconscious, all these women are revealing their ‘privates’ and hence their tendency towards sexual transgression, and therefore pose a veritable tsunami that must be immediately put down. No doubt then, that the attacks on assertive women in cyberspace, especially sexually-coloured threats, have been particularly intense. But what is truly interesting is the way in which most of these women have refused to be cowed down and continue to take and guard spaces online.

Yet we need to ask ourselves the question if the very structure of the social media has also not worked to individualize resistance intensely, and indeed, cultivate the individual through what is often outright narcissism. Feminists need to see that cyberfeminism is not merely talking feminism in cyberspace, or using cyberspaces to feminist ends. Indeed, cyberfeminism is already distinct in that it did not share the positions of the early techno-enthusiasts uncritically; and now we need to also recast it in ways that allow it to shape empathetic communities and mutual learning. And this is not unique to Kerala; this has been widely discussed in the literature on third-wave feminism elsewhere too.

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I stop here, hoping to spark off a conversation.These are of course only a beginning – however shaky, one must begin somewhere, and beginnings are always risky. To me this is important precisely because I want to break the petrifying stare of the state, and fly off into the world of possibility. That is perhaps the only way to survive the state’s relentless draining of the energy of resistance.

Courtesy: kafila.online
 
 

The post Malayali Feminism 2018: In the Light of Vadayambady and Hadiya’s Struggle appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image: Indian Express

I can hardly describe the joy and relief I felt reading your piece on the Hadiya case in the Hindu yesterday. By now I am nearly deaf from the cacophony of misogyny, islamophobia, and sheer short-sighted rage that CPM supporters on Facebook are unleashing against this young woman.

Your voice of sanity, Comrade, is therefore a great restorative. If not for your writing, one could have well thought that the CPM was nothing more than a bunch of short sighted, power hungry, strategisers, whose total lack of ethics and values is covered up by a vapid, outdated rationalism and an equally problematic liberalism. You refuse to condemn Hadiya for choosing Islam. You acknowledge that she is brave. You unequivocally reject the father and other minions of patriarchy. You rightly criticise state patriarchy evident in the Supreme Court. Unlike many CPM supporters here, you have no illusions about the times we live in; you are clearly aware that the NIA is not something which will spare us if we stay good. Importantly, you put paid to the idea that the High Court judgement that sanctioned her illegal custody was justified — an idea assiduously nurtured by certain public figures allied with the CPM against religious Muslims. Comrade, thank you again for being so forthright and in the face of snarling islamophobes in your own ranks actually gunning for the voice you raised against her illegal custody long back.

I write to you to also express my gnawing worry about the rising and totally unchecked respectability of islamophobia among vocal CPM supporters on Facebook. They ostensibly criticise one particular group, the SDPI, but inevitably, their venom falls on all practising and religious muslims.  A few weeks earlier, we saw them justify the father’s violence publicly, but now that he has been revealed to be a criminal by Hadiya’s own words, they have shifted to a kind of islamophobia reminiscent of that unleashed by US imperialist feminism in the wake of the bombing of Afghanistan.

There are many such instances, but what worries me especially is that many young women closely associated with the CPM are spreading it nonchalantly. For example, a young CPM supporter, an academic in a technical university outside Kerala, does not bat an eyelid as she spreads the idea that religious muslim groups are necessarily inimical to women’s education. This young woman is pretty pleased with her life choices, with her life as a non practicing muslim woman. She then glibly uses that to measure other muslim women. Noting that the Supreme Court ordered Hadiya to finish her education, she expresses surprise that the SDPI activists rejoice at it. According to her, they should not, because they like to keep their women wretchedly ill-educated. This is of course an absurd response since the SDPI has been supporting Hadiya’s education right from the beginning, and she had been quite fixed on acquiring her degree. Indeed, it was Asokan who had unlawfully taken away her certificates, which the court had to order to return. In another instance, another young AIDWA activist, a lawyer herself, from Thiruvananthapuram, insists that Hadiya’s choice is no choice at all because she chose a religious Islamic life. Today she moved up a notch asking whether Islam is a religion that taught believers to hate their parents!! A cartoon that CPM supporters have been sharing widely shows a niqabi woman holding up a placard saying Free Hadiya as if that were a contradiction in terms. I was reminded of the infamous public unveiling of Afghani women by American imperialist feminists justifying the war there.

We of course agree that all religions, including islam the world over, are deeply patriarchal and that we need to fight patriarchal authorities in majority and minority religions relentlessly. But we also do know that religious women are not brainless puppets and that they do struggle hard within their community. The Indian Women’s Movement as we know has debated this carefully. Surely, none of us there believe that Muslim women will be saved when they abandon their faith and join urban atheist circles. None of us non-Muslim feminists have the temerity to think that lack of self reflexivity is a shining virtue. Yet among many women supporters of the CPIM in Kerala today, blatant islamophobia and vulgar rationalism have become necessary components of what is projected as ‘progressive’ leftist identity. This is despite the fact that the AIDWA had complained early against Hadiya’s illegal custody. The Kerala government’s gender adviser had taken a humane and sensible stand early on. Yet these voices were sidelined and ignored. Even the recent essay by the Kerala Women’s Commission’s lawyer, PV Dinesh, is so utterly condescending and driven by motives other than justice for the wronged young woman.

I truly am concerned when I see that this is not a regional issue anymore. It is a national issue. Can the Left campaign among hijabi women in Lucknow or Kanpur or Hyderabad with such hostile ideas about women in religious dress? Is that done, even? I do hope you will be able to convince comrades in Kerala that the ethical stance towards muslims and muslim women cannot be hijacked by their calculation of short term political gain. In Kerala, the CPM is closely connected with the worst misogynists not just among the Muslims but perhaps among all Malayali communities, the Kanthapuram faction. They also often have a ground level understanding with other ultra conservatives among Muslims. The positions of the SDPI are often not as conservative, nor is the National Women’s Front led by dumb dolls. Clearly, the CPM has other reasons to fight it. Whatever those may be, this reckless use of islamophobia will only end up eroding the ethical core of the Left all the more. That it is already emaciated is evident from the manner in which left adherents are deploying an impoverished version of liberal feminism.

Lastly, may I please ask a clarification? In your essay, you mention that Muslim women in Kerala marrying Hindu men are being violently threatened by extremist Muslim groups like the Popular Front. I would like to know what sources you may be basing this claim on. Since this group has been the target of much attack from quite long, since we now know how wary the general public is of muslim extremism here, surely, many cases must have been filed against these alleged ruffians? I have been trying to trace these cases since yesterday and have found very few, but none in which the Popular Front is directly involved. If you have information – say case numbers, the police stations etc. – please do publicly share them? I am saying this because I have observed since 2008 that the Popular Front has been the target of consistent demonisation by both the left and right in the state.It is high time we start going by clearly identifiable acts. Otherwise, it will end up like the Sanghi complaint that the CPM is mercilessly butchering their people here – powerful claims which seem plausible to diehard CPM haters, but with no factual basis whatsoever. In this case, given the heavy climate of fear against religious Muslims, complaints must have been filed and pursued as well. But if no such evidence is available then maybe that remark should be withdrawn. There could of course be goons in every party. Moral policing by SFI activists is very common in Kerala. But that doesn’t mean that SFI as an organization approves of moral policing. The continuing demonisation of the SDPI may bring gains in that this may mobilize terrified Hindu voters for the CPM. But certainly, that is  a great wrong to do for minor electoral gain.

None of this takes anything away from your principled support for Hadiya. I hear that some CPM supporters have been fuming and calling you a ‘sudapini’, a derogatory term they coined to refer to those of us who did not succumb to the father’s right theory or buy the terrorist muslim discourse. Never mind, all of us in the Indian Women’s Movement should be ‘sudapinis’, by that reckoning.

With love and respect, as always,

Yours truly
J Devika

Courtesy: kafila.online
 

The post An open letter to Brinda Karat: why do female supporters of the Kerala CPIM spew such venom at Hadiya? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Ms Hadiya has been reported by Ms Sharma to be ‘healthy and happy’. However, Ms. Sharma goes on to state, without providing any evidence whatsoever, that while there is no ‘love jihad’ in Kerala, there are forced conversions.

It bears reiteration that Ms. Hadiya is a twenty four year old adult woman, who took a decision to convert to Islam, and then to marry a Muslim man. For this exercise of self determination, Ms. Hadiya has been placed under house arrest in her parents’ control, and this shocking violation of Ms. Hadiya’s personal liberty and her right to take decisions about her own life, has been endorsed by the legal system.

The Supreme Court on October 30th, directed her father to produce her before the Court a month later on 27^th November. We are deeply concerned that during this month long period, Ms. Hadiya will continue to suffer the agony of being held in captivity against her will; and her basic right to choice of religion and marriage partner as well as freedom of movement as a citizen will continue to be denied to her.

Now Ms Sharma’s statement essentially endorses the unconscionable and illegal house arrest of Ms Hadiya, with the certification of her being ‘healthy and happy’. Further Ms Sharma’s claim of forced conversions attempts to distort and cast a shadow on Hadiya’s decision.

Ms. Sharma’s tweets from so-called reconversion camps in Kerala, where adult women are held against their will, in which she claimed they were ‘victims of forced conversions’, seem intended to colour and influence Hadiya’s case and thus compromise her statutory role as NCW in-charge. We are aware that two women have been able to approach the Kerala High Court, swearing on affidavit that they have undergone torture at one such centre. The discourse of ‘forced conversions’ is a form of violent control over adult women taking decisions contrary to the wishes of their families.

Despite Hadiya stating clearly before the Kerala High Court several times over the past year that she has taken every decision about her life with complete knowledge and understanding, the court has essentially handed over her custody to her father.

For Hadiya to depose freely and truthfully before the Supreme Court on November 27^th, it is imperative that she is first freed from the hostile and coercive circumstances of parental custody and be fully at liberty.

Hadiya’s rights and freedoms as an adult citizen must be restored, for which she must be freed immediately from house arrest and all steps taken to ensure that her decisions regarding her life are respected.

Signed:
Ayesha Kidwai, Professor, JNU, Delhi
Dipta Bhog, Women’s rights activist, New Delhi
Farah Naqvi, Independent Writer and Activist, Delhi
Forum Against Oppression of Women, Mumbai
Geeta Seshu, Independent journalist, Mumbai
Hasina Khan, Bebaak Collective, Mumbai
Heba Ahmed, Ph.D. student, Centre for Political Studies, JNU
Inji Pennu, Global Voices & Advocacy
J Devika, Centre For Development Studies, Trivandrum
Janaki Nair, Professor, JNU, Delhi
Jaya Sharma, Feminist activist, Delhi
Kalpana Kannabiran, Professor and Director, Council for Social Development, Hyderabad
Kavita Krishnan, All India Progressive Women’s Association
Kavita Panjabi, Professor, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Kunjila, Women Against Sexual Harassment
LABIA- A Queer Feminist LBT Collective, Mumbai
Madhu Mehra, People for Law and Development, Delhi
Mary E John, Professor, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, Delhi
Meena Seshu, SANGRAM, Sangli
Mrudula Bhavani, Reporter, Narada News
Laxmi Murthy, Journalist, Consulting Editor of Himal SouthAsian
Meera Velayudhan, Policy Analyst, Centre For Development Studies, Trivandrum
Nivedita Menon, Professor, JNU, Delhi
Pratiksha Baxi, Professsor, JNU, Delhi
Pinjra Tod, Delhi
Rajni Tilak, Rashtriya Dalit Mahila Andolan
Ridhima Sharma, MPhil, Centre for Women’s Studies, JNU
Saba Dewan, Film-maker
Saheli Women’s Resource Centre, Delhi
Shabnam Hashmi, Social activist, Delhi
Shyamolie Singh, Student, JNU
Somaya Gupta, Centre for Political Studies, JNU
Suchitra Vijayan, Barrister at Law, Writer and founding director of The Polis Project
Uma Chakravarti, Feminist scholar and activist, Delhi
V Geetha, Feminist scholar and activist, Chennai
Varsha Basheer, Affiliated Faculty with IRDP, University of California Berkeley
Wency Mendes, Journalist, Goa
Asha Rani P.L, Research Scholar, School of International Relations and Politics
Anusha Paul, Communication Officer, World Cultural Forum
Aysha Mahmood, Columnist, and Social Activist
Banojyotsna Lahiri, Lecturer, Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University
Fathima RF, MA Women’s Studies, TISS Mumbai
 

The post Statement by concerned citizens on the continued incarceration of Hadiya appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Honourable Chief Minister of Kerala

Shri Pinarayi Vijayan
7th October, 2017

Dear Shri Pinarayi Vijayan,

I write to you because I am unable to understand how the Left Front government has abandoned a woman who is being victimised because she has chosen to exercise her right as a citizen and an adult to marry a man she wants to spend her life with.

I write to you in great pain, because the party that you work for and are one of its leaders is also a party that I have given 22 years of my life to, my brother, Safdar Hashmi, gave his life to the party, several members of my family continue to work for the CPI (M). My family was the first red family in Delhi in Pre-independence India, my father and both of my uncles worked for the then undivided Communist party, my grandmother was the Founding President of Delhi state NFIW and my mother too was a member of the party and continued to work for the party till her health permitted. My daughter continues to work in Jan Natya Manch and in the party.

Three generations of my family have been associated with the party because this was a party that stood up against oppression and for the rights of the oppressed, the excluded and the marginalised. You will agree with me that women in India, and specially women are the most oppressed. One among these women has chosen to fight for her rights and I find that the left front and the leading party of the left front, the CPI (M) has not come out unequivocally in support of Hadiya.

I find this inexplicable. The entire Hadiya issue and the nonsense of Love Jihad is a conspiracy of the same communal fascists who have heaped untold miseries on the people of this country in the last three years, The lynchings of Muslims on fabricated charges, the flogging and stabbings of Dalits, the murders of rationalists and outspoken journalists and the attempt to build a frenzy against the left are all part of the same game-plan.

By asking, if the courts can annul a marriage, the highest court has indicated the direction of their reasoning, Your government has also indicated that the NIA inquiry was not desirable.

I write to you to come out openly in support of the right of Hadiya and against her forcible confinement by her father. No one, not even a father, can stop his adult daughter from deciding, who she wants to marry. What the father thinks of the match is of no consequence.

In the final analysis it is nothing less than the question of the basic existential rights of a citizen and the party with a tradition of fighting for the oppressed, a party that has contributed majorly to making Kerala the most literate state in the country, of turning Kerala into a state that leads in all parameters of development, cannot be seen to falter on the question of basic human rights of believing or not believing in this or that faith and of choosing a partner.

With warm regards
Sohail Hashmi
 

The post Defend the tradition of fighting for the oppressed: Open letter to Kerala CM on Hadiya case appeared first on SabrangIndia.

To
The Chief Minister
Kerala
 
Dear Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan

We write to you as individuals and organizations who are part of the women’s movement to express our outrage and concern regarding the dangerous implications of Hadiya’s continued isolation and imprisonment in her parental home. We are aware of the positive step that the State Women’s Commission has taken through filing an SLP in the Supreme Court regarding seeking directions from the bench for a meeting with Hadiya as part of its duty as an institution mandated to ensure that women are not subjected to unfair practices and denial of their civil rights.

We welcome the Supreme Court’s decision to examine the High Court order vis a vis use of Article 226 to declare Hadiya’s marriage as invalid. We also appreciate the Honorable Courts’ decision to relook at the issue of ‘protection’ for Hadiya outside of her family. These are a recognition of the serious nature of violations that have impacted her liberty and freedom as an individual.

As women’s rights activists from across the country, we urge you as the Chief Minister to take steps to ensure that Hadiya is not forcibly confined in the home of her natal family, denied the right to cohabit with her husband, and be subjected to coercion for exercising opting for faith of her choice.  It is alarming to have an adult woman today to be ordered into “protective custody” of her parent’s home under the orders of a Court, denied mobility, communication and the company of her friends and well-wishers. Reports of domestic violence at the hands of her family, which if true, is a travesty that places upon your Women’s Commission the duty of initiating an inquiry.  This situation cannot be ignored or allowed to continue.

As you well know, the issue is not about what her family, religious extremist organizations – whether Hindu or Muslim, or even we in the women’s movement, think of her choice of partner. The fact is that she is an adult and that she has the autonomy and the fundamental right to make choices regarding her work, her religion and her partner.

We appreciate and support the efforts of all activists and women’s organisations in Kerala, and we are conveying our concern and sharing some suggestions emerging from our discussions.

-The State Women’s Commission of Kerala immediately visit Hadiya to assess the nature of human rights violations that she is facing.

-The Kerala SWC assess and make public a report on Hadiya’s condition.

-Hadiya be brought under the protection of the State, perhaps in a shelter in consultation with her.

-The Kerala SWC and the LDF government must immediately ensure that friends and well-wishers be allowed to meet Hadiya and that she is allowed access to a phone and communication beyond the walls of her parental home.

We urge you to intensify the efforts that you are already making towards action on her virtual house arrest.

Nandini Sundar
Tanika Sarkar
Kalyani Menon Sen
Mary John
Uma Chakravarti
Abha Bhaiya
Virginia Saldanah
Urvashi Butalia
Malika Virdhi
Deepa Dhanraj
Disha Mullick
Uma. V. Chandru
Purnima Gupta
Arunima
Farah Naqvi
Pramada Menon
Chaitali Haldar
Rohini Hensman
Ayesha Kidwai
Lalitha Ramdas
Susie Tharu
Madhu Mehra
Jaya Sharma
Dipta Bhog
Panchali Ray
Madhavi Kukreja
Brinda Bose
Vimala Ramachandran
Johanna Lokhande
Dyuti
LABIA –A Queer Feminist Collective
Bindu Menon
Svati Joshi
Saheli
Shahira Naim
Janaki Abraham
Suneeta Dhar
Jashodhara Dasgupta
Amrita Nandy
Kavita Punjabi
Ranjani Mazumdar
Sarmistha Dutta Gupta
Bindhulaxmi
Nivedita Menon
Rakhi Sehgal
Radhika Desai
Neeraj Malik
Javed Malik
Baaran Ijlaal
Svati Shah
Karuna D W
Sangeeta Chatterji
Geetha Nambisaan
Richa
Jan Abhiyan Sansthan, Shimla
Bebaak Collective-Voice of the Fearless
Vandana Mahajan
Teena Gill
Anup Kumar
Mast Ram
Anurita. P. Hazarika
Nilanju Dutta
Ranjita Biswas
West Bengal Forum for  Gender and Sexual Minority Rights (WBGSMR)
Sayantan Dutta
Malini Ghosh
 

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Sabrangindia has been highlighting this issue for weeks. On September 22, public intellectuals tried to raise this issue to ensure accountability from the CPI-M led Kerala government. Now AIPWA has demanded that the KSWC make its report on the issue public.
 
[This is the text of the open letter to M C Josephine, Chairperson, KSWC, from Kavita Krishnan, Secretary, All-India Progressive Women’s Association]
 
To
Ms M. C. Josephine
Chairperson
Kerala Women’s Commission
Dear Ms Josephine,

This is with reference to the case of Ms. Hadiya, which has caused deep concern among women’s groups, as well as concerned citizens.

We believe that you will approach the Honourable Supreme Court with a report you have prepared on the human rights violations possibly faced by Ms Hadiya. We applaud your efforts in seeking permission to meet her, and in preparing the report. However, we believe that given the fact that the young woman is under house arrest in her own family home, that the country is watching how a person’s fundamental rights have been violated on the instance of the Honourable High Court, the Women’s Commission could play a more decisive role in making the report public as well.

Also, even as we hold your office in the highest regard, we would like to express some concern regarding the views expressed by you on the matter of conversion. You have stated that you would prefer to refer to her as Hadiya Akhila, and that it was important that young women not undergo religious conversion for marriage. In light of the recent judgement by the nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court, which has affirmed that privacy is a fundamental right, we reiterate that faith, as well as the choice of one’s name as well as partner are indeed private matters protected by the Constitution. In Hadiya’s case, she converted well before her marriage, and chose the name Hadiya. We feel that the message needs to be carried to the public that choice in matters related to faith and matrimony are private matters.

While it may be that changing names, embracing the religion of the husband, living with the husband’s family may indeed be patriarchal practices, but that we need to acknowledge that many women indeed choose to follow them and that their decisions should be respected. Thousands of women move to their marital homes and change their names each year. You will agree that we do recognise them by their new names and addresses. I am sure you recognize that many women who use the surnames of their husbands after marriage, are also respected as leaders of progressive movements and women’s movements, and are not judged for the same.

We urge you to make the report on the human rights violations of Hadiya public, so that such human rights violations will not remain a private matter.

Respectfully,
Kavita Krishnan,
Secretary, All India Progressive Women’s Association, (AIPWA)
 

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Today, at 12 noon well known public intellectuals,  J Devika and Sachidanand  are addressing a press conference on the issue in Thiruvanthapuram. “These elements have sought to infuse fresh life into the dangerous Love Jihad discourse through this case. Far from being just an attempt to malign the present government led by the CPI-M, this is threatening now to undermine the relatively peaceful coexistence of communities in Kerala,: says Devika. A complaint to the State Women’s Commission has also been made.
 
Hadiya, illegally confined to her home through brute force is apparently being coerced and beaten.

The complaint to the SWC states that, “When six women sought to visit her with onam gifts on August 30, 2017, he refused to allow them in, and Smt Ponnamma abused them verbally. These women have persistently claimed that they saw Dr Hadiya stand near the window and heard her call for help, and that she complained of being beaten. Though these visitors did not enter the premises and were on their way back, they were slapped with charges of unlawful assembly and criminal trespass at the behest of Mr Asokan.”
 
Further, it states that, “ On 27 August 2017, Dr Hadiya sent a message to her chosen partner Shafin entreating him to help her. The message was sent from her mother’s phone, and it appears that her access to it was temporary.”
 
Teesta Setalvad has extended her support and issued the following statement: “The confinement of Hadiya,by all accounts, forceful and coercive has not only played into the dangerous communal discourse of Love Jehad but is a serious assault on the autonomy and equality of a woman. Articles 14 and 21, apart from 25 have been seriously flouted. The fact that this set of crimes–there are even reports of her being beaten while in her parent’s custody–are being multiplied manifold by the behaviour of the Kerala police and rhe silence of an otherwise vocal state government makes matters worse. We endorse all attempts to raise voices Against this injustice.”
 
The story
 
First a recent judgement of the Kerala High Court annulled a consensual marriage of an adult Muslim woman. The judgement also makes many other remarks which can completely undermine any claim for equal citizenship for women and are violative of their fundamental and constitutional rights. Hadiya is a young woman, 24 years of age who has went on record to say that she willingly converted to Islam. Her parents have since approached the court twice asserting that she has converted to Islam under external force, demanding that she return to living with them. In their second petition to the Kerala High Court they also raised the allegation that she would be transported outside the country and demanded the court’s intervention.

On the judgement being challenged in the Supreme Court, the apex court ordered an NIA (National Investigative Agency) enquiry into the marriage, framing the whole case in terms of counter terrorism proceedings and completely bypassing concerns around the judicial recognition of women’s agency and the violation of women’s constitutional rights.
 
Where does that leave Article 14, Article 21 and Article 25 of the Constitution?
 
During the proceedings of the second petition, Hadiya contracted a marriage with a Muslim man according to Islamic rites and rituals and stated her full consent in the marriage. The Kerala High Court has finally annulled the marriage and forced Hadiya into the custody of her father. She has not even been allowed a phone and has been denied any contact with the rest of the world beside her parents, in effect putting her under house arrest for no proven crime committed by her. Policemen guard her every day and just beyond stand RSS cadre further ensuring that their prize catch finds no exit from the situation.

Her plight is heart-rending. The attitude of the higher courts question all women in India, young and old, will ask. It is evident that the consequences of this case will fall upon us all, not just those who seek to convert into Islam or marry Muslims. Most worrying is the fact that while ordering the NIA to probe the circumstances of Hadiya’s marriage to ensure that it was not forced or driven by jihadism, the Supreme Court referred to the Blue Whale challenge to prove that people may be misled even to commit suicide. The Supreme Court openly infantilises Hadiya by implicitly comparing her decision to convert and marry a Muslim to Blue Whale victims who are usually teenagers pushed to suicide.
 
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has at one stroke given the highly-exaggerated and Islamophobic discourse of ‘love jihad’ a new lease of life (the incidents used to stoke this fire, of a group of alleged Salafi converts who left for Syria and joined the ISIS in 2015, is more complex, as it involved both men and women converting, but such fine details have to be necessarily ignored if the discourse of ‘love jihad’ is to gain its polarising potency). By stating further that Hadiya’s marriage, the most important event in her life, could not happen without her parents’ presence; that she should be sent back to her parents, assuming that parental custody of a mature woman was legitimate and safe; that her right to public speech and interaction with outsiders could be suspended in this stay, making it confinement in effect; by refusing to speak with her until the NIA report was submitted; and by referring to ‘Indian tradition’ requiring that all unmarried daughters be subject to their parents until their marriage, without mentioning their age, the Supreme Court just eroded the rights of all women in India in a grievous way.
 
In an insidious way, the court’s deep distrust of Hadiya’s account of her conversion may well have pushed her into the decision to marry. Choosing a life partner, Eloping with a lover to escape troublesome parents is not unknown to us; instead of recognising this reality, the court behaved like an overbearing parent.
 
Is this just an isolated case?
 
It was in Kerala that the dangerous discourse of ‘Love Jehad’ was given communal currency. In 2011, when the ‘love jihad’ campaign was beginning, there was a similar instance of ‘guardian angelic moral policing’ by the Kerala high court when a young  Hindu-born woman was sent to her parents’ custody, with their home functioned as a detention centre where the woman was held captive. The couple had applied to marry under the Special Marriages Act.
 
The complaint presented today at the press conference and submitted before the State Human Rights Commission is heartrending.
 
Here is the text of the complaint to the SWC:

To
The Chairperson,
Kerala State Women’s Commission.
 
Sub: The virtual house arrest of Dr Hadiya at the residence of Sri Asokan.
 
Dear Madam
 
We, the undersigned, a group concerned about the protection of citizens’ rights in India, wish to bring to your notice what may be potentially a serious violation of such rights, in the case of Dr Hadiya, daughter of Sri Asokan and Smt Ponnamma, a twenty-four-year-old woman, who is presently staying at her father’s residence at TV Puram, Kottayam.  The case has received much attention in both the local and national press, and so we will not recount the details. We however wish to express our anxiety at several reports that indicate quite convincingly that her rights as a woman and citizen are being grossly violated in Mr Asokan’s house, and police protection provided is working in effect as a system of incarceration. Visitors to the house who sought to meet Hadiya have been turned away roughly, cases of trespassing have been slapped on them, and Dr Hadiya herself is apparently prohibited from meeting and talking with anyone. In the few instances in which visitors, such as the TV personality Rahul Easwar, have managed to see/reach her, she has expressed extreme distress and agony.
 
Indeed, Dr Hadiya was virtually dragged out of her hostel and forcefully conveyed to her parents’ home by the police after the High Court annulled her marriage of her choice. This was broadcast on popular channels on 26 May 2017. When six women sought to visit her with Onam gifts on August 30, 2017, he refused to allow them in, and Smt Ponnamma abused them verbally. These women have persistently claimed that they saw Dr Hadiya stand near the window and heard her call for help, and that she complained of being beaten. Though these visitors did not enter the premises and were on their way back, they were slapped with charges of unlawful assembly and criminal trespass at the behest of Mr Asokan.
 
On 27 August 2017, Dr. Hadiya sent a message to her chosen partner Shafin entreating him to help her. The message was sent from her mother’s phone, and it appears that her access to it was temporary.
 
In the light of these incidents, especially the extreme responses of Mr Asokan to attempts by concerned members of the public to contact Dr Hadiya, we feel that the case calls for an inquiry by the State Women’s Commission to ascertain whether she is being held there against her will and in violation of her rights to free interaction and mobility. Police protection by itself does not require such violation of the protected person’s rights. The NIA’s inquiry too is no reason for forcible confinement and denial of the company of visitors and friends. There is ample reason to think that Hadiya’s stay at the TV Puram residence is in violation of her rights. From the accounts of those who tried to meet her and were dismissed roughly by local people who seem deeply influenced by Hindu radicalism, her family members, and the police, there is also effort to portray her as ‘mentally imbalanced’.

We, as concerned citizens, urge you to visit the home where she presently resides to meet her and clear the anxiety that we feel about her rights and personal well-being.
 
Hadiya’s Struggle Against Her Family and the Courts May Soon Resonate With All Indian Women
 
 

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Image Courtesy: The News Minute

Your Lordship,

We write to you, to bring to your notice a recent judgement of the Kerala High Court which has annulled a consensual marriage of an adult Muslim woman. The judgement also makes many other remarks which can completely undermine any claim for equal citizenship for women and are violative of their fundamental and constitutional rights. Hadiya is a young woman, 24 years of age who has went on record to say that she willingly converted to Islam. Her parents have since approached the court twice asserting that she has converted to Islam under external force, demanding that she return to living with them. In their second petition to the Kerala High Court they also raised the allegation that she would be transported outside the country and demanded the court’s intervention.

During the proceedings of the second petition, Hadiya contracted a marriage with a Muslim man according to Islamic rites and rituals and stated her full consent in the marriage. The Kerala High Court has finally annulled the marriage and forced Hadiya into the custody of her father. She has not even been allowed a phone and has been denied any contact with the rest of the world beside her parents, in effect putting her under house arrest for no proven crime committed by her. Policemen guard her every day and just beyond stand RSS cadre further ensuring that their prize catch finds no exit from the situation.

On the judgement being challenged in the Honourable Supreme Court, the apex court ordered an NIA (National Investigative Agency) enquiry into the marriage, framing the whole case in terms of counter terrorism proceedings and completely bypassing concerns around the judicial recognition of women’s agency and the violation of women’s constitutional rights.

“IN HER BEST INTEREST” – A JUDICIAL PRECEDENT OF INFANTILIZATION OF WOMEN
The absolute denial of a voice to Hadiya by the Kerala High Court is a matter of grave concern, beginning from the court forcing her to live in a women’s hostel under surveillance to the annulment of a consensual marriage on grounds of coercion, despite an adult woman making a clear statement of her consent. The judgement states that ‘as per Indian tradition, the custody of an unmarried daughter is with the parents, until she is properly married’, and that Hadiya, being ‘a female in her twenties is at a vulnerable age’ and cannot understand what is good for her. The judgement expresses unabashed incredulity towards the statements made by Hadiya about her choice to convert to Islam, her interest in the study of religion and her choice to practice a religion different from her parents.

The court continues to address Hadiya as Akhila, a name she has surrendered, and refuses to acknowledge her decision to practice Islam. Most dangerously, the judgement throughout assumes that a father can judge the best interest of an adult daughter. The court only sees her as “indoctrinated and influenced” Akhila who is not to be left “free to decide what she wants in life”, who is not “capable of taking a firm and independent decision on her own” – who hence needed to be “rescued and handed over” to the “safe hands” of “parental authority”, to ensure that she is “protected” from “going astray”.
The Kerala HC goes on to assume a ‘parens patriae’ jurisdiction over Hadiya, i.e. the position of guardianship over her, which is available only in the case of minors or those considered of ‘unsound mind’ or who are ‘incompetent to understand their own interest’ and is completely unjustified and demeaning when applied to an adult woman.

All its utterances put together the HC judgement in this case exemplifies the submission of women’s agency and interest before ‘other’ ‘larger’ concerns. Women’s bodies have across history been made into battle fields for such ‘other’ ‘larger’ battles, those of cultural hegemony, religious and political domination, the formation and dissolution of nations and not least the establishment and demolition of (a country/ community/ family/ lover’s) honour. The present judgement of the Kerala HC takes us back to the point where a woman was at best the property of her male kin and her body the repository of the ‘honour/interest’ of the country/community.

It is indeed incredible how a court which everyday hears hundreds of cases of domestic violence and abuse, of ‘honour killings’ and dowry deaths could repose such blind faith in the institution of the ‘family’, to consider “the welfare and well-being” of their daughter “to be of paramount importance”. ‘Females in their twenties’ are full citizens of this country, who work, vote, study, own property and like all other citizens have a fundamental right to be treated as equals before the law. They must be recognized to be capable of discerning between the good and bad, must be allowed to exercise their discretion in matters concerning themselves and presumed to be capable of bearing the implications of those decisions. The denial of any independent decision-making capacity to such a huge section of the population as implied by the Kerala HC is unacceptable. It runs counter to the entire history of women’s struggle to gain social-political-economic independence and shall only exacerbate the vulnerabilities that we face as women in a patriarchal society.

PATRIARCHY RIDING ON THE BACK OF ISLAMOPHOBIA?
Clearly, the issue in the present case is not the well-being of Hadiya but what the HC records as “the widespread allegations of forcible conversion that were coming up and the national interest that is at stake”. The HC has so undermined Hadiya’s agency, only to address its anxiety around “conversion by radical groups… working in various parts of Kerala influencing young girls from other communities and forcibly converting them to the Islamic faith’. Is it that the choices Hadiya has made – of converting out of her parent’s religion as a young woman, and of converting from Hinduism into Islam – are so unacceptable to the court, so disturbing for the dominant patriarchal Hindu order that they must be overturned, even at the cost of going against the constitution’s mandate and compromising the rights and autonomy of all young women?

The present political situation is marked by increasing polarization on communal lines, a rapid escalation in the viciousness, impunity and public assertion of violence against the Muslim community and the permeation of Hindu fundamentalism into state structure and society. In such a circumstance, the invocation of the framework of terror by the courts in this case must be judged in the backdrop of Muslim youth accused in terror charges being acquitted after spending years in jail due to inadequate evidence.

The HC has justified all instances of overreach in Hadiya’s case citing concern over “forced conversion” to Islam, even as the state has remained silent on campaigns such as “Bahu Lao Beti Bachao” and “Ghar Wapasi”, very much campaigns of forced conversions into Hinduism. Such selective concern suggests that a prejudice is at work against Hadiya due to her being a Muslim woman. The judgement therefore seems to be inflicted by patriarchal presumptions riding on the back of Islamophobia.

OUR ‘BEST INTERESTS’ LIE IN THE RECOGNITION OF OUR AUTONOMY AND A VIOLENCE FREE AND EQUITABLE SOCIETY
As a collective of women students, what is happening to Hadiya is not new to us, many of us have experienced such violence and caging very closely, by this society, by our families, by the state, by universities, by partners and lovers we had ourselves chosen – the list is endless. The bind being currently negotiated by Hadiya is in fact representative in some ways of the challenges faced by numerous young women today. The albeit limited spread of education and employment over the past couple of decades has strengthened before us the prospect of some independence. Having gained greater access to the public sphere, an exposure to ideas and cultures beyond those of our father or our communities, we have before us greater opportunity to ‘choose’. Parallelly, gaining stronger bargaining terms and recognition than before as women, we slowly but increasingly also feel strengthened in our capacity to bear the implications of these choices. Yet, a deep patriarchal bias encounters us at every step we take in this journey, lashing out at many, more violently than at some others, but sparing none. The present judgement of the Kerala High Court comes to us as an institutionalised expression of precisely such a bias. By this judgement, the court has succumbed to upholding patriarchy despite the definite mandate that it has against such discrimination.

Like Hadiya at one point, many of us stay in private and government run hostel accommodations. These spaces are spaces of opportunity for us, often finally a space of freedom, and independence. At the same time, a diverse set of discriminatory rules and regulations, beginning with the ‘curfew’ are imposed by such institutions on women students to control and regulate our lives and decisions in the most intrusive and arbitrary ways, to ensure that we have no opportunity to go “astray”. Educational institutions across the country see themselves as accountable only to the parents of adult women and not to the adult women themselves. The fact that the Kerala HC decided to put Hadiya in a women’s hostel to make sure that she was under strict surveillance only further illustrates how these hostels often end up playing the role of being the transit house for young women from the homes of their fathers to their husband’s, instead of being their road to a self-reliant life. Over the past few years, young women across the country have taken to streets in hundreds and thousands to take greater control over these institutions, to make the best of these spaces of opportunity and not allow them to be reduced to spaces of surveillance and policing.

At such a juncture, the Kerala HC judgement sets a disabling example for all other state institutions on the question of recognising women’s autonomy and is a huge blow to our confidence in the judicial process and its safe guarding of our constitutional rights.

The HC has expressed concern over Hadiya not impressing them “as a person who is capable of taking a firm and independent decision on her own” alleging that the marriage they annulled was contrived to tie the hands of the court. However, the present judgement itself offers a ‘proper marriage’ as the only means through which a woman can leave the custody of her parents. Such an approach only further undermines women’s capacity for taking ‘independent decisions’, forces us into relations of dependence and makes us ever more vulnerable.

We request you to hear Hadiya, to hear the thousands of young women who have struggled so hard to challenge such silencing of our voices through history. Our best interests lie not in such infantilization, such surveillance, such caging and silencing. Instead, it lies in a full recognition of our rights and autonomy and the creation of a violence free and equitable society for all. We may have never met Hadiya, but her struggle is intimate to us! If the women of this country are to have any ounce of faith restored in the judiciary, Hadiya’s illegal house arrest and denial of agency must be immediately revoked.

Yours Sincerely, 

Pinjra Tod 

Courtesy: Kafila.online

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