yatra nAryastu pUjyante ramante tatra devatAH
yatra tAstu na pUjyante sarvAstatrAphalAH kriyAH
Much anger and outrage has spilled over in recent days across cyberspace and OpEd columns in the media over the events in Guwahati. Episodic outrage is always problematic and our public discourse over the past few days is no different. The specific has been conflated with the general to draw all kinds of oversimplifications. The media reportage has not helped either with the flip-flops by the Delhi based media even as the role of the local media came under a cloud.
Hopefully the process of Law in Guwahati will bring closure to the events of the past week . But the episode draws attention to three larger issues.
First has to do with Police reforms, a Law Enforcement that is accountable to the Local Community and a Culture of Vigilance in society in general. Unfortunately the public debate on this count has been deeply disconnected from the realities on the ground. It was very revealing to see the findings recently in an “off the record” citizen’s attitude survey on the importance attached to Local Governance. The participants felt that their vote mattered far more in the context of Local Government and immediate impact on their daily life and surroundings while being generally apathetic to state and national level elections. Clearly there is a latent demand for better and purposeful local governance as this focus group revealed. Political parties and Opinion Pundits are not connecting the dots here between Police Reforms and an electoral agenda for better and purposeful Local Governance.
The second issue has to do with the default perception within the thinking class on the issue of Gender Justice rooted in generalizations and Oversimplifications. Nirmala Sitharaman (former member of the NCW and currently BJP spokesperson) in this OpEd in the Indian Express has put the issue in perspective quite well on areas where the NCW has had an impact and on the need for Parliament to get serious about its role on maintaining oversight of bodies like the NCW.
The third issue has to do with the political dimension to Gender Justice. The politics of the specific incident in Guwahati and the flippant discourse in social media on it has distracted from a larger pattern. Starting with the high incidence of acts of sexual violence in Delhi, to the anti-women diktats by Haryana’s caste panchayats to the manner in which the Bhanwari Devi episode in Rajasthan was handdled and the manner in which the Tara Choudhary episode in Andhra Pradesh has been hushed up one sees a pattern across Congress ruled states. It is ironic that for a Party headed by a woman that also saw the first woman President and first woman Speaker of the Lok Sabha the Congress’ track record in states is shameful.
It is unfortunate that in the aftermath of the Guwahati episode the public discourse has sought refuge in sweeping generalizations in OpEd columns with the common refrain of “No country for women” when the issue demands very specific interventions in Local Governance, Parliamentary Oversight and Political Accountability in states ruled by a specific Political Party.
In closing let me also draw attention to another generalization on Gender Justice with ill-informed references to the Mahabharata by all sides. It is important to recognize that a complex work like the Mahabharata has multiple layers to it. Every act that is seemingly super-human or mythical usually has an unpleasant but factual and truthful counter narrative to it within the text itself. The disrobing of Draupadi is no exception. While the popular narrative has focused on Krishna’s divine intervention, the factual record of what really happened comes much later in the text during the stay in the forest.
Filed under: betrayal of aam admi, Gender Justice, historical, Left Liberalism, Local Governance, UPA-II Critical Appraisal
I don’t know about the appropriateness of the Mahabharata analogy, and agree entirely regarding the need for greater civic participation, but will take you up for discussion on points 2 and 3 – the NCW and the political dimension of gender neutrality.
Nirmala Sitharaman has done a laudable job of defending the NCW, and takes great care to separate the institution from its members. And rightly so. However, if *even* the NCW’s members, members of an institution established to protect the interests of women attempt to lay the blame of sexual assault on women’s behaviour and clothes, there is a deeper systemic problem of sexism which goes beyond the NCW, a point both your piece and Nirmala’s miss entirely. Admittedly, the Parliament and the relevant standing committees need to pull up their socks (that isn’t for just the NCW!), but if they are going to do so to re-inforce some Oversimplifications and generalisations about women, should we not also be debating the NCW itself, and not just the questions of accountability to Parliament?
Regarding the political dimension of gender neutrality – while some pattern may be traced to Congress states, there is a larger pattern of gender injustice in policy-making and law that needs to be debated. Ironic, indeed that the Party’s rule has seen so much obvious violence, but that has as much to do with party rule (admittedly, law enforcement is relevant and poor enforcement may allow expression of such elements) as with seething resentment and poor socialization. If I may take the liberty of arguing by example, I feel not a jot safer in Bangalore than I do in Delhi. Not a jot.
Violence against women is one manifestation of a deeper rooted problem which we ought to consider. So the political dimension is important from the perspective of electing the next government, but could it mask the deeper questions we’ve been shying away from?
I agree some of the discourse has been emotional, even, as you say, “full of generalisations and Over-simplifications”. To my mind, many of them miss the points around an inherent and systemic discrimination against women and crimes against women, which begin with sex-selective abortion. They miss the discussion about recent economic empowerment of women festering resentment amongst certain men. They missed meaningful points about the causes for generally poor enforcement in India, especially with regard to crimes against women. They did get one thing right though, offstumped, and that is that it is pretty damn hard to be a woman in India.
Nice post.
Perhaps you should also mention that it was on Draupadi’s refusal to countenance a peace treaty with the Kauravas that Krishna went half-heartedly to Hastinapura as the Pandava envoy. She implores him to not agree to peace and extracts a promise from him to that effect. Krishna assures her that his promise to her, where he vowed to destroy the Kauravas for disrobing her in a full assembly,would be fulfilled. It was Draupadi’s anger which led to the Kurukshetra war. It was her determination that those who molested her must suffer the consequences, that led Bhima into killing the hundred Kauravas. Krishna asks Arjuna to kill Karna even though he was unarmed at that time, by invoking Karna’s role in Draupadi’s humiliation. Let every Indian parent teach his/her son that if he behaves like Duryodhana or Dushasana, he will meet the fate of the Kauravas. If culture is the root of why women are mistreated in India, let us use culture to set right this injustice.