The December 16, 2012 gang-rape victim had a name. To honour her memory, we could start by reclaiming her identity. Indian law does not permit the naming of rape victims. Presumably, this is because the crime of rape is so terrible that, in society’s eyes, it stains not the rapist but his victim with shame; […]
In the run-up to International Women’s Day, I argue that if men and women are to work as equal partners, then we need new rules of engagement that understand the centrality of mutual respect and consent. Twenty years ago, Abhijit Das, the founder of Men Engage Alliance, attended a meeting on domestic violence. From the
Aam Aadmi Party’s work in schools and mohalla clinics, free bus rides for women and subsidies for electricity and water was a major draw. But if Kejriwal really wants to be a game-changer, he might want to end an old bias against including women in the cabinet. Following his party’s triumph in the Delhi elections,
The job of cooking, cleaning, caring for children and the elderly invariably falls to women. This impacts women’s participation in the paid economy. It’s time to change that. Suvarna Santosh Ghate, a 38-year-old housewife who has never held a job, is learning to drive a two-wheeler at a skilling centre in Mumbai where I met
Women have their own perspective based on their struggles to ascension. To exclude them from crucial meetings is to shut out the voices of nearly half of our population. They flank the prime minister, six on one side, five on the other, dressed in sombre suits to discuss serious matters. The photograph was taken on
India can solve its rape problem. The question is: Do we want to? A week after an “encounter” with Telangana police left four rape and murder-accused men dead, it might not be out of place to ask if India has solved its endemic problem of violence against women. Have men stopped raping women, or killing
One in three women worldwide faces violence. We should be angry. Women have been told to be many things – patient, accommodating, docile even. Now, for the first time on an international platform, they are being told to be angry. Not that they needed prompting. Anger was in evidence at the regional Beijing +25 conference
More girls than ever before are now studying. But this is not necessarily translating into jobs. To call Sunita Khokar’s resume impressive is an understatement. Khokar, the daughter of a farmer who never saw the inside of a classroom, has a list of degrees that includes three MAs (economics, political science and sociology), a B.Ed,
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