A life they did not choose

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, May 26, 2013

  

Her insecure space. Photo: K Murali Kumar

TOPICS

crime

sexual assault & rape

family

marriage

social issue

people

social issues (general)

social issues (general)

discrimination

When it comes to women, success stories are heard more easily than the voice of those who fight the odds every day.

Summer is often called the “silly season”. Nothing much happens. People go away on holidays. In Mumbai, the city where I live, the roads are a little less jammed, the trains fractionally emptier.

During these times, people in the news business welcome a scandal, something with which to fill their news hours. So spot-fixing is the flavour of this “silly season” even as the never-ending IPL season finally draws to a close. As a result, the concerns of women have slipped under the radar. Campaigns launched last year, after the December 16 gang-rape in Delhi, have ended. It is as if enough has been written and said about women and that now we can all sit back.

But can we?

I ask myself that as I pass the two women who live with their three children, two boys and a girl, on my street. Once in a while I see a man. They live, eat and sleep next to a small garbage dump. They are rag pickers. When the sweepers from the surrounding multi-storied buildings dump garbage in the large metal bin, the two women rummage through it to extract plastic, bottles, paper, cloth, tin and anything else that could be recycled and sold.

In 10 years, I have seen no improvement in their lives. They started as young, single girls. Today both are mothers with no evident male around. Yet, they laugh, scold their children, miraculously bathe them and clean them up, feed them and send them off to the local municipal school. Some like me “see” them every day, exchange smiles, a few words. To the majority of the people living in the buildings near this small dump, they are invisible. And their stories will certainly never make it to the news pages, even in this “silly season”.

We read about the crime graph climbing in our cities and women remain the principal victims. Each day there are stories about women who are violated, raped, murdered for dowry, tortured and forced to leave their marital homes, roughed up on the road, harassed in offices, schools and colleges. The two women near the garbage dump would have suffered their share of such violence. But we will never read about the daily violence of their lives.

There is also another side, one that we do read about. We know about the women who have “made it”, who have succeeded where women did not in the past. We read recently about the two women, one from Kerala and one from Kashmir, who excelled in the UPSC examinations. And many more who are topping their classes in school and college exams. The very fact that these successes are noted, and written about, underscores that these stories are not the norm but an exception. Despite the odds placed against them as women, as girls, they have “made it”.

Yet even as we celebrate these successes, we should not forget that for every girl or woman who makes it, there are many more who do not get into school, or if they do, cannot complete their education. The two women separating waste are a part of that story. The little girl who is now a member of their “family” might be able to craft another story for her life, or she might just repeat her mother’s story.

One of the reasons so many girls do not make it through school is because they are forced into early marriage. There is a law banning child marriages. No girl should be married before the age of 18. Yet, 47 per cent of Indian girls are married by the time they turn 18. And 18 per cent are married before they are 15.

On any count, this is unacceptable. Indeed, what could be crueller than to dangle the carrot of education with one hand and the stick of early marriage with the other? If the statistics are right, then almost one in every two girls in India will never know the options available if she finishes school and defers marriage. Instead, girls as young as 15 are being pulled out of school and married to men much older than them.

It is these girls, whose bodies are not yet ready to bear children, who are another statistic in the depressingly high maternal mortality rate in India. (In India, pregnancy — by no stretch of imagination a life-threatening disease — is the leading cause of death of women between the ages of 15 and 19). It is these adolescent girls who are vulnerable to contracting HIV because the men they are forced into marrying might be carriers. It is these young girls who are often victims of the worst forms of domestic violence.

We don’t hear much about this, or read about it, because we prefer not to acknowledge that this too is an Indian reality. That, among the many other lists on which India features, it is also among the top 15 countries in the world where early and forced marriages of girls take place.

So next year, summer will come around again. So will the IPL, one presumes, despite the spot-fixing. But will we begin to make a dent on this shameful back-story of millions of Indian girls being forced into a life they did not choose?

(To read the original, click here.)

Cyberspace violence

  

The HinduNot really safe. Photo: H. Vibhu

TOPICS

crime

cyber crime

social issue

Women in public life are vulnerable not just to criticism about their views but also to personal abuse.

The face and voice of Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association, became familiar to viewers across India and around the world when she spoke clearly and fearlessly after the December 16, 2012, gang rape incident in Delhi. She minced no words about what this meant for Indian women and what it revealed about the state of governance.

In this time of social media and the Internet, voices such as Kavita’s are amplified. Even if the mainstream media had ignored her, she would have been heard. Today, thanks to this kind of exposure, Kavita has been recognised by many mainstream television channels as an articulate and passionate advocate for women’s rights.

Yet, such exposure through media has its down side. When you become a public persona, you lay yourself open to criticism that is often trenchant. But women are vulnerable not just to criticism about their views but to personal abuse of the kind that Kavita faced recently when she agreed to a live online chat on issues around women and violence on a well-known website. The comments should have been moderated. Instead, Kavita had to face remarks like: “Kavita, tell me where I should come and rape you using a condom” by someone called RAPIST. The comments were also in capital letters. Kavita is not the only woman who has had to face equally vile, offensive, explicit and violent comments in cyberspace.

So on the one hand, the Internet has opened the way for many more people to be heard, people who might not have found much space in mainstream media. Even women who are not political see the Internet and social media as a space where they can express themselves, where they can connect with other like-minded people, where supportive communities can be formed. Although there is little reliable data on the extent to which women use the Internet in India, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that a growing number of women are using social media. Yet, many realise that what they considered a safe place to “hangout” is actually not that secure because of the men who lurk behind anonymous identities to jointly or individually harass, taunt, threaten and basically bully women into silence.

While one can argue that this kind of violence affects only a small percentage of women — after all Internet access is still very low in this country with hardly 11 per cent penetration — it is symbolic of the larger issues that have been discussed intensely in many fora since December last year. Essentially, the basic issue is women’s right to access “public spaces”, either physical — as in parks, beaches, the street, etc or virtual — as in the Internet and social media.

When women in the public space sense that they will be targeted and attacked, for no other reason than that they are women, many choose to withdraw rather than fight it out. Even if there are laws to protect women’s rights to access these spaces, the majority of women prefer to err on the side of safety than take a chance, especially against the reality of our poorly functioning criminal justice system.

Increasing evidence is now available to show that this is being mirrored in cyberspace where women who have entered with the full faith that they would have the freedom to access this space, are now choosing to pull back rather than fight for their right. As in sexual harassment or sexual assaults, most incidents go unreported when it comes to sexist abuse or stalking in cyberspace. Women will not complain even to their friends or parents. Recent studies have revealed that the majority withdraw, close accounts on social networking sites, change email addresses and try and be invisible.

Is there a way out? Clearly, the solution is not to withdraw. As with so many other battles women have had to fight, this too will be one with which women need to engage. Some younger women are doing just that. But just as individual women cannot fight battles that have to do with societal mindsets, in this arena too the fight must be one that is collective. The Internet Democracy Project mentions one such collective with the Twitter handle #MisogynyAlert. Anyone facing harassment on the Internet can send a message to this address. Also, following Kavita Krishnan’s example, we need to “out” the abusers, compel the sites that allow such abuse to happen to do something to curb it, and figure out if there is anything that can be done with existing laws so that a legal precedent is set for others to use in the future.

The harassment and abuse in cyberspace ultimately reminds us that even as we advance technologically, even as more women and men are educated, even as more information is available through a variety of media, some things do not change. There will always be men who want to confine women to specific roles and will want to punish those women who transgress. Speaking out as a free individual, expressing strong views and even being young and carefree do not conform to the frame that patriarchy has designed for women in India.

(To read the original, click here.)

When protectors turn predators

  

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, April 28, 2013

APNot safe anywhere.

TOPICS

people

children

social issue

abusive behaviour

juvenile delinquency

social issues (general)

social problems

‘Child sexual abuse in juvenile justice institutions [in India] is rampant, systematic and has reached epidemic proportions,’ says a damning report from the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR).

This past week, “rape” is once again the topic of discussion. There has been despair and outrage because this time we also have to talk about a child, a girl, just five years old. Just as the young woman gang-raped on December 16, 2012 was not the first, and certainly not the last, this little girl sadly is also not the first, nor the last.

Even the daily list of rapes that now inhabit our news pages does not indicate the extent of the sickness that is now staring us in the face. According to a distressing report by the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), 48,338 children have been raped in the decade between 2001 and 2011. In these 10 years, there has been a 336 per cent increase in the number of child rapes. Yet, this is only a very partial picture because, as the report emphasises, the majority of child rapes are never reported.

The report is disturbing because it focuses on those institutions where children are supposed to be “protected” — observation homes, shelter homes, children’s homes and special homes designed to take care of children who have been abandoned, have run away or been trafficked. Yet, as the 56 pages of the ACHR report titled “India’s hell holes” details, scores of these children, girls and boys, are raped, sodomised, tortured, forced to work and condemned to live in “inhuman conditions”. The authors of the report conclude: “Child sexual abuse in juvenile justice institutions is rampant, systematic and has reached epidemic proportions.”

Just as stronger laws have been demanded to deal with rape, there are laws to address sexual assaults on children. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2006 was enacted for this purpose. In addition, last year the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 was brought in to specifically deal with such crimes against children. Yet, as the report illustrates, these laws have been rendered toothless with the deliberate violation of their provisions in state after state. For instance, under the law, all homes that shelter children are supposed to be registered. Yet scores of these institutions continue to function without registration or oversight and there is no provision in the law to punish them for this. In any case, even formal registration makes little difference as is evident from what happens in officially recognised institutions. The atrocities against children taking place in such places escape discovery because the mandated Inspection Committees that are supposed to carry out surprise checks either do not exist, or if they do, do not function.

As a result, all forms of abuse, including sexual abuse, are common in such “protection” homes. The report lists just 39 instances but they read like a modern-day horror story. In each instance, young children who are led to believe that they are in a safe environment end up being sexually abused by the very people tasked to look after them — wardens, watchmen and other staff as well as older inmates. The protectors become the predators. From several of these “hell holes” children have run away, never to be traced. In Karnataka, between 2005 and 2011, 1,089 children below 14 are missing from 34 children’s homes. The story is repeated in West Bengal and other states. Where are these children? How can they disappear from places where they are supposed to be protected? What kind of torture did they experience to force them to run away?

One of the worst horror stories is that of two unregistered homes in Mansarovar and Jagatpura in Jaipur. On March 12, the Rajasthan State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, accompanied by local activists and the media raided the homes and rescued 51 children, 27 girls and 24 boys. Of these, 21 were from Manipur, six each from Nagaland and Uttar Pradesh, four each from Assam, Nepal, Rajasthan and Punjab and two from Delhi. The homes were filthy, the food had fungus and the children said they had been locked into the homes. But that was not all. The girls spoke of sexual abuse including being forced to sleep with the man running the home. A 17-year-old girl from Nagaland said she had been repeatedly raped from the age of 11. The children had been lured to the home with a promise of good food and education. Instead, they were served inedible food and educated in sexual torture. This is only one story. The other 38 documented in the report are equally horrific.

So if children are not safe in these “protection homes” and they are not safe in their own homes, what is the answer? It is evident that just having stronger laws is not enough of a deterrent. At the same time, the demand for instant solutions, even if it is understandable in the face of the daily deluge of such atrocities, will solve little.

The significance of so many more people feeling incensed and angry at this state of affairs is that it will turn the spotlight onto the dark corners, like these protection homes where child sexual abuse has been part of the system. Even if we have woken up to the horror of child sexual abuse because of one atrocity, we must recognise that this malady is not skin deep. It has afflicted the entire body.

(To read the original, click here.)

Death by design

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, April 14, 2013

 

APA collapse of faith?

TOPICS

Maharashtra

Mumbai

construction and property

heavy construction

real estate

apartments

The Mumbra building collapse highlights the ugly reality behind lofty promises of world-class housing.

On Thursday April 4, the earth shook. Not because there was an earthquake. It trembled when the deadly mix of sand pretending to be cement brought down a seven-storey building in Mumbra, north of Mumbai, like “a pack of cards”. This was not an accident: it was death by design.

The murky stories of collusion between municipal officials, the local police and the builders are now surfacing. For a few lakhs, even a few thousand rupees, these officials looked the other way while the merchants of death went about building something that was destined to collapse. There was illegality written into every word of the script — from the land deal to the building permissions to even the electricity connection. What levels of cynicism and heartlessness must it require for people to actually construct a building, entice poor and desperate people to occupy it while construction continues, and then watch it collapse on top of these unwary residents?

The 75 men, women and children who died and the over 60 injured committed no crime. Their only fault was to believe that a “pucca” house is any structure built of brick and cement. And if it is multi-storied, it must be even stronger. For unlike their temporary structures in the slums, they presumed that such construction must require some engineering expertise.

It is too late for many of them to realise how wrong they were. There are heartrending stories of workers who brought their families from their villages because finally, they could “afford” a house. An entire family from Nepal has been wiped out, leaving only a 10-year-old boy and the grandparents who are still in Nepal. Infants have been orphaned; families are left without their main breadwinner. Every story is the same. They heard they could rent a place cheap and moved in.

The ripples from the collapse of this one building will be felt much farther than its immediate neighbourhood. One of the most disturbing aspects is the extent of illegality. When you have the Chief Minister of the state acknowledging that nine out of 10 buildings in the area were illegal, you know that this is not the story of one building falling down. How can there be such a state of affairs without rampant collusion at every level? If the CM had said 10 per cent — or even 20 per cent — of the buildings were illegal, one could have accepted that the authorities were making an effort to check illegality but some just slipped through the cracks. But 90 per cent?

While the illegality is excavated, what does this collapse say about the desperation for housing in a city like Mumbai where the majority can only dream of an affordable house in their lifetime while a minority is spoilt for choice? It suggests that if you chance on a house you think is affordable, it is likely to become a nightmare before long. It is within your price range only because corners have been cut at every step of the way. In other words, if you are poor, you will find “affordable” if you are willing to accept “illegal”.

Try and imagine what a poor family, living for generations in one of Mumbai’s many slums, would feel right now. For the women, in particular, the dream of a ‘pucca’ house carries with it the hope of some dignity because of a toilet in the house, and a reduction in the daily drudgery of collecting scarce water. Although life in the seven-storey structures built as part of the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme is far from perfect, no woman will refuse to take the keys to a flat in one of these structures. But these are the women whose families are considered “eligible” depending on their ability to prove that they have lived in that particular slum before the government-ordained “cut-off” date.

What of those who not eligible, or who came to the city in the last 10 years, or who lived in one of the many old, dilapidated buildings that are on the verge of collapse? These are the people who hunt for rental housing and often the only choice for them is buildings like the one that collapsed. Some might not collapse. But they are falling apart within months of completion. And if you are one of these people who thought you had got a bargain, you count your blessings that you have a roof over your head and pray that it will not come down on you one day.

This then is the true picture of housing not just in Mumbai but in all our cities. It is not what you can easily be deluded to believe — the story of the “world-class” housing advertised in pretty pictures on the front pages of practically every newspaper and on large hoardings. It is the ugly reality represented by the horrifying images of the building collapse in Mumbra. Cheap, dangerous, illegal constructions are spawning everywhere, with the blessings of the people in power. Everyone is making money — while the poor are literally getting crushed.

(To read the original, click here.)

No boundaries for harassment

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, March 31, 2013

The HinduWill the law help? Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury.

TOPICS

crime

sexual assault & rape

Now that India has a law to deal with sexual harassment at the workplace, will women who lodge a complaint actually get justice?

Did you think women lawyers, because of the power they wield, did not face sexual harassment? Think again. It took a powerful delegation of some of the most prominent women lawyers like Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising, Kamini Jaiswal, Indu Malhotra, Meenakshi Arora, V. Mohna and others to finally convince the Supreme Court that the law born out of guidelines it issued as far back as 1997 should also apply to courts. Shockingly, despite the long-standing Visakha guidelines on sexual harassment issued by the apex court, women lawyers have only just managed to convince it that sexual harassment is also a reality that they face, and as their workplace is the court, the provisions of the law should apply there.

For all practical purposes, the Visakha guidelines were the law until February 26, 2013 when the Rajya Sabha passed the Sexual Harassment at the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2012. The Lok Sabha had cleared it on September 3, 2012 with practically no debate, as members were more interested in the so-called Coalgate scam than an issue that affects the lives of millions of women. In one way, I suppose we should be grateful that the law passed without too much discussion given the tone of the discussion in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha around the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 recently. We saw on full display the deep-rooted misogyny of male members of Parliament and the conservatism of some female members.

So will this law actually succeed in curbing the incidences of sexual harassment? Will women who suffer in silence now find the courage to register complaints? And when they do, is there any chance that they will actually get justice instead of losing their jobs, something that happens all too frequently where companies dismiss the complainant rather than looking into her grievance.

This law, flawed as it is, could help. It clearly lays down what constitutes sexual harassment, it covers women in the organised and unorganised sector (as well as domestic workers who were earlier left out), it requires any organisation employing more than 10 people to set up an internal complaints committee and a penalty of Rs.50,000 if this is not done. Delay in doing this could even result in cancellation of license. The law covers not just employees but also clients, customers, apprentices and daily wage workers and applies to private organisations, trusts, societies, educational institutions, NGOs and service providers. In that sense it is quite comprehensive.

The most important aspect of this law is that it recognises that women have a right to equality in the workplace and that sexual harassment causes them not only personal distress and injury but undermines this right.

Yet, there are serious flaws. Despite strong arguments put forward by women’s groups, the law includes a penalty for a false complaint. Thus, if a woman is not able to prove that she has been harassed, she will be penalised. As proving sexual harassment is much more difficult than physical assault, such a provision will most definitely deter many women from pursuing their cases.

The law also excludes women called “project workers”, that is women who are part of schemes like the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), village level health workers or ASHA and those employed for cooking mid-day meals. Why should this be so? Have those framing the law forgotten that the impetus to bring in such a law was the result of the gang rape of an incredibly brave village level community worker called Bhanwari Devi, who challenged the custom of child marriage. Women like Bhanwari Devi require more protection, not less. Similarly, the law has excluded women employed in the armed forces.

Even if the law had been stronger, is there any guarantee that it will actually work for women? It is fascinating to read some of the responses of readers when the news first appeared on the web pages of different newspapers about the law being passed. Here is one from a reader who identifies himself as Abhinav from the Men’s Rights Movement: “As an owner of mid size organisation, I am planing (sic) to fire all female workers from my organisation. I can’t bear this overload.” (DNA, February 27, web edition).

In other words, the law could backfire on women if smaller organisations decide it is simply not worth their while to employ women as apart from the Sexual Harassment Act, they are also bound by other laws that protect women’s rights as workers. Secondly, even where there are internal committees, women themselves will be deterred by the process and the provision of a penalty if they cannot prove their case. And once again, particularly in the smaller organisations, or even where women are employed on a contractual basis, there is nothing to stop an employer from simply dismissing them if they complain.

Despite this, there is one practical step that all women can take, regardless of whether they have experienced sexual harassment or not. That is to make sure that their organisations set-up the mandatory internal complaints committee. The provision for a penalty for not doing so is very clear in the law. If more women fought for such committees at their workplaces, the chances of cases of sexual harassment being heard would increase. And as in so many instances, one victory would encourage other women to fight for justice.

So even if in some instances the law is an ass, there is no need for women to be silent or defeated.

(To read the original, click here.)

I am Sharmila

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, March 17, 2013

OPINION » COLUMNS » KALPANA SHARMA

March 16, 2013

THE OTHER HALF

APSharmila’s story is extraordinary and bears retelling. Photo: AP

SLIDESHOW

  A decade-long fight

TOPICS

social issueabusive behaviour
social issues (general)discrimination
social issue
unrest, conflicts and warcivil unrest

By focusing on individuals like Irom Sharmila, the cause or reason for protest is often forgotten. In this particular case, the cause — repeal of the AFSPA — is crucial.

She appears in our line of vision, and then disappears. When we see her, we remember. When we don’t, we forget.

When Irom Sharmila, that frail woman from Manipur, with a feeding tube taped to her nose, was asked to travel to Delhi earlier this month, it was “news”. Her name was in the newspapers, her image on television channels. Yet, how many people really knew why she had been brought to Delhi, why after six years had a court summoned her to face charges under Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code for attempting to commit suicide?

In 2006, Sharmila travelled to Delhi for the first time in her life. In fact, it was the first time she sat in an airplane. Then she had travelled to Delhi by choice. She did so because she reckoned, and rightly so, that her voice would only be heard if she went to Delhi. And she was not wrong. As she sat at Jantar Mantar, continuing a protest that began on November 2, 2000 demanding the withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from Manipur, the “national” media paid heed to her voice, and relayed it to a wider audience.

And how did the authorities respond? By charging her for attempting to commit suicide and force-feeding her. Eventually, Sharmila returned to her hospital jail in Imphal, where she is forcibly fed through that tube in her nose. She has remained in that room, a year at a time. A court in Imphal charges her under the same section of IPC, imprisons her for a year, the maximum sentence, releases her, and then arrests her again when she refuses to break her fast. Every year, around this time, this little drama is enacted. The local press takes note; the national press generally ignores it. And Sharmila continues to protest.

Now, in addition to the court in Imphal, Sharmila has to face the court in Delhi. When she appeared earlier this month, she told the judge: “I love and respect life. I want the right to live as a human being. Mine is a non-violent protest to get the government to meet my demands.” This does not sound like a woman who wants to kill herself. Yet, the law says she does, because she will not eat. And so this case will also continue. And once again, on May 22, she will be brought to Delhi. And we will have another chance to remember who she is, what she stands for, and what she is asking.

Sharmila’s story is extraordinary and bears retelling. Several books have already been written about her, the latest by journalist Minnie Vaid titled, Iron Irom, Two Journeys. It is a slim book that recounts Sharmila’s journey and Vaid’s own journey into Manipur, a place “where the abnormal is normal”, as she aptly puts it. But even as Sharmila’s trials, determination and amazing courage are remembered, and lauded, one should not lose sight of the central issue over which she is so agitated.

In India, we elevate individuals and forget the cause. We need heroes and heroines, more so at a time of visual media. But in fixing on individuals, the issue, the cause, the reason for protest sometimes gets forgotten, or under-played.

In the case of Sharmila’s fast, the issue is crucial. AFSPA has been in force since 1958. The army insists it is essential; for the civilian population it means the denial of basic rights and nurtures a culture of impunity in everyone with power.

If you go to Manipur, you will understand why Sharmila will not relent. They do not have the freedom we take for granted. Nor the basic infrastructure. Daily life is incredibly difficult. There are shortages of every kind — water, electricity, fuel, food, medicines. Not for a week, or a month, but for years. Those of us living in so-called “undisturbed” areas do not have a clue what life is like for the ordinary Manipuri, someone who wants to lead a normal life, a peaceful one, without bomb blasts or armed men patrolling the streets or curfews or extra-judicial killings in broad daylight.

Manipuris escape this hardship by running away to our big cities. Thousands of them have joined the service sector. Does anyone ask them about Manipur? Do people even know they are from Manipur? People like them, living on the periphery, are constantly lectured about “integrating” with India. It is India and Indians who need to “integrate” with the northeast and Manipur and not the other way round.

Eight years ago, in 2005, the Justice Jeevan Reddy committee, set up to review AFSPA in Manipur by an earlier version of the government at the Centre, submitted its report. It recommended that AFSPA be withdrawn. The government paid no heed.

More recently, the Justice Verma Committee, set up after the Delhi gang rape, strongly recommended that the provision in AFSPA that grants armed forces personnel immunity from facing rape charges in a civilian court, be removed. Once again, this escaped a hearing-impaired government.

What will it take for the deafness of the government, and its obduracy, to give way to a listening ear and an open mind on the issue? How many Sharmilas will it take? Should all of us who care, who feel outraged at this state of affairs, decide to become Sharmilas?

(To read the original, click here.)

Chilling Effect:the IIPM block

The Hoot

So why did this issue not generate more discussion in the print media? Could it be linked to the fact that IIPM is a generous advertiser, asks KALPANA SHARMA. Pix: An IIPM ad

Posted/Updated Saturday, Mar 02 17:12:39, 2013

SECOND TAKE
Kalpana Sharma

 

 

Will the print media learn something from the recent blocking of over 70 URLs after a Gwalior court responded to a case filed by the Dean of the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), Arindam Chaudhuri? The latter had asked that these URLs be blocked as they contained defamatory material about his institute. Without assessing whether indeed this was true, the court issued an ex parteorder to block the specific URLs. Oddly, one of them was the University Grants Commission website that stated that as IIPM was not recognised, it could not grant degrees. Within a day of the court ruing on February 14, CERT-In (Computer Emergency Response Team – India) and the Department of Telecommunications proceeded to block these URLs. Only after the uproar this caused did the government consider filing an appeal against the order. On February 28, the same court has now allowed the block on these URLs to be lifted until the next hearing on March 14.

 

The issue here is not just about the way courts are responding to demands from individuals or even the government to block content on the Internet on the basis of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act. It is also not just about freedom of expression, although that is a central concern. The Gwalior court’s action, coming on top of similar actions by courts in different parts of the country, raises issues that also relate to the print media and not just to content on the Internet.

 

Yet, somehow, in the limited discussion that has appeared in print media on this issue, this aspect has not been raised. One would have expected that an issue like this would engage print media as many of the sites blocked were of publications that appear in print. These include The Caravan magazine that was the first to be sued by Chaudhuri when its correspondent, Siddharth Deb, wrote a detailed investigative cover story on the IIPM in 2011. The magazine was slapped a suit not in Delhi, where it is published, but in distant Silchar in Assam. (The Caravan managed, by appealing to the Supreme Court, to get the case shifted to Delhi.)

 

Although the magazine removed the article from its website, given the nature of the Internet, it remains available to this day on dozens of other sites. Yet, Chaudhuri’s court case had an impact because the publishers of Siddharth Deb’s book, “The Beautiful and the Damned”, which had a chapter on IIPM based on his article in The Caravan, were compelled to remove the chapter from the Indian edition of the book. It continues to be available in editions published outside this country.

 

What this latest controversy over blocking content on the Internet underlines is that the print media cannot remain indifferent or complacent to these developments. The lack of critical debate and writing in print media, barring a few exceptions such as The Hindu, suggests that the penny has not yet dropped. As much of print media, including newspapers and magazines, have a substantial and a growing web presence, this means that similar action could be initiated against their websites without affording them a chance to stall court orders, or even to argue out their case. In every instance so far, courts have given ex parte orders and only reversed them later.

 

N. S. Nappinai, a lawyer who has specialized in cyber crime, spoke recently at a meeting of the Network of Women in Media, India in Mumbai on this issue. Amongst other issues, she pointed out that there was an anomaly between the defamation law as it applied to content in the print media and Section 66A of the IT Act, which related to the same content on the Internet. While the former is a non-cognizable offence, the latter is cognizable. There are several other anomalies that would justify a discussion in the media.

 

What was the legal position in this particular case? The web-based First Post carried several articles including a useful one by Danish Raza that went into the legal aspects of the Gwalior court’s interim ruling. It explained how courts can give ex parte rulings but also why this ought to be done only in exceptional circumstances. I quote one paragraph to give an indication of the issues it raised:

 

“Commenting on court ordered blocks, Parminder Jeet Singh, executive director of IT for change, a Bangalore based organisation which works on internet governance issues, says, ‘When there is clear imminent danger or threat to the society, as in case of possible rioting, immediate removal of content without notifying and hearing the other party is understandable. But defamatory content does not fall in this category. Decisions on such largely civil matters should be taken with due deep consideration, after listening to all parties. And by far the considerations of free speech should have overwhelming weight in making decisions.’ Singh adds that ‘Even if it is considered necessary to remove any content, a fully transparent process has to be followed’.”

 

So why did this issue not generate more discussion in the print media? Could it be linked in some way to the fact that until recently, IIPM had been a generous advertiser in a number of major newspapers, taking out full-page ads? Perhaps there is no connection but it does seem odd that such an important issue, with repercussions for content in print, did not invite more comment in the print media.

 

The IIPM case actually sets out a blueprint for what anyone, wanting to curb criticism, can do. If courts can so easily and speedily respond, any individual, institution or even the government can use the law to stop critical writing. As in the IIPM case, the individual concerned does not have to file the case directly. They can put up another person to do this and merely become the second party to the case. Although so far, the defamation law has not been used so widely as to curb freedom of expression in the print media, the IT Act might prove more effective.

 

This then is the danger that must engage people in the print media. 

Link to the original: http://www.thehoot.org/web/Chilling-Effect-the-IIPM-block/6636-1-1-6-true.html

 

 

Invisible and voiceless

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, March 3, 2013

  

APThe farmer is not always a man.

While we are still talking about women, let us spare a thought for those who do not appear on the pages of our newspapers or on television channels; women who seem invisible even when the subject under discussion relates directly to them.

The monsoon was deficient in many parts of the country last year. As a result, the first reports of drought setting in have already begun to be reported. In Maharashtra, 16 districts have already been declared drought-affected impacting an estimated 12,000 villages. Crops have withered, water is difficult to find and the summer has not even begun. You hear stories of indebtedness and suicide once again. The state government has already predicted that this will be the worst drought since 1972, one that many people would have forgotten but not those who till the land and know the price it extracted from them.

The face of the farmer afflicted by this drying up of land is almost always that of a man. Forgotten most of the time is the fact that the bulk of work done on farms across India is by women. Just statistics never tell the full story but the fact remains that while 79 per cent of rural women are agricultural workers, fewer rural men, 63 per cent, work on land. Despite this reality, where the bulk of the workers on land are women, only nine per cent of women own agricultural land. The untold story of Indian agriculture is not just one of mismanagement — of water and other resources — but also of the refusal to acknowledge women’s contribution to agriculture. Despite numerous studies that have established beyond doubt that the bulk of the work to produce the food that all of us consume is done by women, they are still not recognised as farmers in our official agricultural policies. As a result, whenever the government announces schemes for farmers, the women who are actually doing the work are left out of it.

A telling example of this is the dairy industry. According to some estimates, 93 per cent of dairy products are attributed to the work of women. Something like 15 million women are involved in the dairy industry. They tend the cattle, collect fodder, collect and deliver the dairy products for further processing. Yet, few of them actually own cattle or land. As a result, the men and not the women who do the work usually take the benefits extended by the government to dairy farmers.

The majority of agricultural assets — land, machinery, money and credit — remains firmly in the hands of men. The irony is that despite several policies, where women are supposed to be joint holders with the men of land, or even sole owners, many women are not even aware that they own the land. No one, least of all the men, have bothered to inform them.

Why is any of this important, we can well ask. After all, these are agricultural families where everyone works. What does it matter if women work longer hours than the men? Why is it so important for them to be owners of the land they till? If the men own the land, does that not automatically mean they too are the owners?

There are numerous reasons that can be given for why women should be acknowledged as principal workers on land, and they should be the owners of that land. The chief reason is that, in the patriarchal culture that continues untouched in this country, a woman without an economic standing stands little chance of asserting her rights not just as a woman but as a human being. Of course, even women with independent economic means are not necessarily respected or heeded. But they have a greater chance to make choices than those who are forced into dependence and as a corollary to that, subservience.

Much of the violence that we do not read about, because it takes place away from the location of our media houses, is rooted in this powerlessness of the women. Every now and then a horrific story will catch our attention. But for every one such story, there are thousands that go unreported because the women at the receiving end do not count — not even in government records. In rural areas, almost half of all rape cases are related to land. In some parts of India, to ensure that women do not get their share of the land, they are declared witches. In others, even where they are entitled, they are forced to sign away their share.

At a time when the airwaves are full of talk about the budget and financial allocations, all those who are concerned about violence against women ought to look at policies towards farmers — and whether any of them address the women who do farm work. Let us begin by accepting that women are farmers, that they should get the benefits extended to all farmers and that it is pointless talking about ending violence against women without seeing and recognising women’s work and contribution to agriculture.

(To read the original, click here.)