In 2019, a junior woman staffer accused then chief justice of India Ranjan Gogoi of sexual harassment and, subsequently, a targeted harassment of her and her family. The Pegasus revelations tell us that her phone and that of 11 phones associated with her was likely under surveillance along with those of 10 prime ministers, 3 presidents and one king.
Ranjan Gogoi, former chief justice of India is now a member of the Rajya Sabha, nominated by the ruling BJP-led government. Pic: Wikipedia
At the height of the 2019 sexual harassment scandal involving then chief justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, ran the frisson of a rumour — was there a larger conspiracy?
Gogoi has since retired and is now a Rajya Sabha member nominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government. His accuser, after being dismissed from service, has been quietly reinstated.
All would have been forgotten but for the Pegasus revelation that the woman and 11 phone numbers associated with her were potential targets of surveillance. Who had the power to subject a junior court assistant to a level of global scrutiny that reportedly includes 10 prime ministers, three presidents and a king? Was the intended target someone else? Was there a quid pro quo? One can only speculate since Gogoi has refused to comment.
The Pegasus revelation must be probed to reassure half this country’s citizens that justice is our constitutional right; that there is zero tolerance for the abuse of power; that we are not wrong to repose our faith in our highest court
At the height of the 2019 sexual harassment scandal involving then chief justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, ran the frisson of a rumour — was there a larger conspiracy?
Gogoi has since retired and is now a Rajya Sabha member nominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government. His accuser, after being dismissed from service, has been quietly reinstated.
All would have been forgotten but for the Pegasus revelation that the woman and 11 phone numbers associated with her were potential targets of surveillance. Who had the power to subject a junior court assistant to a level of global scrutiny that reportedly includes 10 prime ministers, three presidents and a king? Was the intended target someone else? Was there a quid pro quo? One can only speculate since Gogoi has refused to comment.
The story, reported in The Wire, indicates that the woman became a “person of interest” after she sent an affidavit to 22 Supreme Court (SC) judges on April 19, 2019, complaining she had “been victimised for resisting and refusing the unwanted sexual advances of the CJI.” The 12,300-word affidavit details how she joined the SC library in 2014, was transferred to Gogoi’s court two years later and how, in 2018, when he became CJI, she was transferred to his home office. She and her husband attended his swearing-in. He helped her disabled brother-in-law get a job as a court attendant.
Where it gets murky is with what happened after the affidavit went public. The woman was transferred thrice, and then sacked. Her husband and his brother were suspended from their jobs. In March 2020, she was arrested on charges that were subsequently dropped. For many women, her story is a chilling tale of just how far a powerful, patriarchal system can go in punishing women who speak up.
A three-judge enquiry turned down her request to explain the procedure or allow her a support person during the proceedings; so, she withdrew from it. The report exonerated Gogoi but has never been made public or shown to the complainant. Another enquiry into allegations of a larger “conspiracy” has also remained outside the public realm.
In the wake of Pegasus, the woman’s lawyer Vrinda Grover told me, “Prima facie, it appears there is credibility to her complaint.” But, she added, the woman would not participate in any future enquiry since she has lost faith in getting justice.
Yet, it is precisely to restore faith that the Pegasus revelation about her apparent surveillance must be probed. This is not about one woman or even about all women who speak up. This is about reassuring half this country’s citizens that justice is our constitutional right; that there is zero tolerance for the abuse of power; that we are not wrong to repose our faith in our highest court.
It is in every citizen’s interest to know the truth about this sordid saga. It is, after all, a “matter of great public importance touching upon judiciary’s independence”.
An examination of 40,000 marriages in rural India between 1960 and 2008 by a World Bank report finds that dowry’s taint has spread amongst Sikhs and Christians who now have higher average dowries than Hindus and Muslims
Representational image.
Three deaths, 10 days, 60 years of an anti-dowry law. Cold numbers that tell you not just about the pervasive power of dowry, but its spread to states where it was relatively unknown.
The deaths over 10 days of Vismaya (22), Archana (24) and Suchithra (19) following alleged violence over dowry in Kerala, the state with the best gender indices — literacy, maternal mortality, sex ratio — has revived an old conversation on an ancient malaise.
There is one dowry death somewhere in India every hour, records the National Crime Records Bureau. An examination of 40,000 marriages in rural India between 1960 and 2008 by a World Bank report finds that dowry’s taint has spread amongst Sikhs and Christians who now have higher average dowries than Hindus and Muslims.
The traditional justification for dowry is that it is a “compensation” to daughters who otherwise would have no share in their fathers’ assets. This is rubbish because a daughter has no control over her dowry or even a say on how it is spent or distributed. For instance, a family might use the daughter-in-law’s dowry to boost the daughter’s dowry and improve her marriage prospects.
Furthermore, Hindu daughters now have equal inheritance rights as sons to ancestral property. It’s another matter that the law remains largely on paper and, anecdotally, one hears of daughters signing away their rights to maintain “good relations” with their brothers. But in theory, if the law gives daughters the right to inherit, what is the need for dowry?
At the core of the issue lies not inheritance or even dowry but the status of women as invisible beings who live in the shadows of families, lurking unseen in kitchens, stripped of autonomy and agency. Our value lies in our ability to work as unpaid slave labour, produce offspring (male, obviously, since the family name cannot possibly be passed on to women) and protect the patriarchy.
We have to ask if we love our daughters enough. Or is this a love that is conditional on their obedience? Even today, 95% of marriages are arranged by parents. If daughters choose to exercise agency, or God forbid, break caste and religious endogamy,then all hell can break loose. This is not an exaggeration. Look at “honour killings”. Look at “love jihad” laws that presume daughters, even adult daughters, are easily led astray and incapable of making decisions for themselves.
And, if a daughter chooses not to marry at all, we are aghast. After all, she must go to her “own” home and fulfil her destiny as a dutiful wife and mother.
You cannot fight dowry in a silo. You need awareness campaigns. You need legislative action and activism by community leaders to enable the inheritance of all women. You need to excise everyday sexism and misogyny, starting from school books. And you need to allow daughters to marry whoever they choose — or no one at all.
