A conversation that began after the 2012 Delhi gangrape has grown louder. We may be miles away from a world free of sexual violence, but we are certainly a few notches closer. So, was it worth it, after all? One year after India’s MeToo movement, it isn’t out of place to paraphrase TS Eliot’s existential […]
Underlying the BJP’s concern about a ‘population explosion’ is a false belief that one community, Muslims, are reproducing at a faster rate than others. Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of India’s ‘population explosion’ in his Independence Day speech, an RSS-backed organisation declared that there was no need for sex education in schools. It’s
Despite the hardships they face, teenage girls are on a mission to save the world. One is on a zero-carbon Atlantic voyage to attend climate change conferences in New York. Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old activist who inspired a global youth movement, has reported dolphin sightings – and, mercifully, no sea sickness, yet. Another, in Samastipur,
Women who speak up against sexual assault will almost always sought to be silenced by men who are backed by institutional support. When classics professor Mary Beard tells the story of Tereus who, in Greek mythology, cuts off the tongue of Philomena after raping her, it is to point to a particularly grisly example of
In a country where 52% of women say it’s ok to be beaten by a husband and one in three experience violence at the hands of a partner, the views of Kabir Singh director, Sandeep Reddy Vanga that physical violence is a sign of true love are dangerous, I write in my Hindustan Times column.
No. Physical violence is NOT a demonstration of true love. Read More »
There are many words — cheat, lowlife, scoundrel — that describe men who lie to women and promise them marriage just in order to have sex with them. Rapist is not one of them. My Hindustan Times column: He was a doctor, she was studying pharmacy. They met in 2009 and fell in love, or
Nearly 30% of engineers who graduate from India every year are women. So, why do their numbers plummet when it comes to the prestigious IITs? Among the earnest faces, you’d be hard pressed to spot the girls. The snapshots in the advertisements by coaching classes, of students who recently cleared the advanced Joint Entrance Exams
The mystery of the missing girls in IIT Read More »
When the religion of the perpetrators becomes more important than the crime of rape itself, then you know you are witnessing a civilisational breakdown. To find evidence of the epidemic of violence against young girls and women gripping India, you have only to flick through your newspaper. In the recent past: Two minor sisters, 13
India’s child rape crisis Read More »
The daughter of impoverished parents is India’s first openly gay athlete. But what we will remember and judge her for is being a first-rate athlete. Dutee Chand is not known to shy away from a challenge. One of seven children born to impoverished weavers in Jajpur, Odisha, the sprinter was barely 20 years old when
The remarkable rebellion of Dutee Chand Read More »
In the concluding part of my three-part series for IndiaSpend, I analyse the results. How little has changed. A beauty queen, an award-winning writer and four giant-killers; one who contested because she received a “signal from God” and another who once famously showed her middle finger to a hectoring news anchor, it is safe to
My Hindustan Times column looks at what is perhaps the biggest scandal to hit the Supreme Court with the Chief Justice of India accused of sexual harassment. Their lordships have sworn to uphold Constitutional values of equality and dignity. Their courtrooms have delivered landmark judgments, like Vishaka, which affirmed women’s right to a safe workplace
Disorder in the House Read More »
This is the second in a three-part series on gender and the 2019 general elections I wrote for IndiaSpend She may be the head of her village, but making rotis for her extended family of 22 is still her responsibility. Hunched over the small chulha (earthen stove) in the family house at Hussainpur village in Haryana’s Nuh
Muslim women: nearly 7% of the population, less than 1% in the Lok Sabha Read More »