In Hindustan Times: Atul Kochhar is the symbol of a far more widespread problem – the normalization of prejudice against Muslims. I run into my college friend after a gap of some years. Post the usual small-talk, she wants to know my views on the tolerance/intolerance debate. I tell her I am worried about the […]
The bigot in my drawing room Read More »
In Hindustan Times: I argue that Section 377, which criminalises sex against ‘the order of nature’, should be scrapped because it is past its use-by date, conforms to outdated values of marriage and family and is a blatant violation of human rights. When Padma Iyer’s son, Harish, told her he was gay in the early
What makes us human? The right to love Read More »
In response to public outrage against a spate of reported rapes of children, the government has now brought in an ordinance that imposes death to anyone convicted of raping a girl below 11. Why I think this ordinance won’t work, and what I think will. The remarkable fact about recent Indian law-making, particularly when it
Laws by public emotion Read More »
In Hindustan Times: Recent gang-rapes and our reaction to them tell us how far we’ve descended in six years after Nirbhaya. When we allowed our anger to spill over into the streets following the December 2012 gang-rape of a physiotherapy student, we didn’t ask about her religion. We didn’t put labels on our fellow protesters’
No country for women Read More »
The murder of a woman in Alwar points to India’s most shockingly under-reported story on why nearly 200 lakh women have quit jobs. All Usha Devi wanted was to give her kids a good education. The wife of a construction worker knew that her husband’s income was not enough to educate her children, Tanuja, 15,
Why women are falling off the employment map Read More »
It has been reported that these godmen had planned to launch a Narmada Ghotala Yatra on April 1 to highlight a slew of ills from Chouhan’s apparent failure to stop cow slaughter to alleged corruption in the planting of saplings along the Narmada river. By some uncanny coincidence, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led Madhya Pradesh government’s
The official government patronage of godmen and sadhus is worrying Read More »
At the heart of this controversy lies not so much the right of a woman to choose her religion and spouse, but society’s attitude to women. We should be grateful for small mercies. On International Women’s Day, a day when hashtags were declaring ‘Time’s Up’ and ‘My Body is Mine’, our highest court reaffirmed a
The lamentable humiliations of Hadiya Read More »
There’s a sickness infecting some of our boys caused by a toxic combination of over-indulgent parents, schools obsessed with ‘brand image’ and the normalising of sex and violence by mass media. On Instagram, the seventh-grader threatens to have his teacher and her daughter raped. The eighth-grader emails two of his ‘very hot’ teachers and invites
Over-indulgent parents and brand-conscious schools are failing our kids Read More »
We are simply not prepared to grant daughters the right to choose their spouses, particularly in inter-faith marriages. In New Delhi, Ankit Saxena made the fatal error of falling in love with a 20-year-old Muslim woman. In Kerala, Akhila Ashokan converted to Islam and, as Hadiya, married a man in accordance with her new faith.
Love and longing in modern India Read More »
All over the world, the responsibility of bringing up children lies disproportionately with women. A 2015 report by McKinsey Global Institute found that 75% of unpaid care-work – cooking, cleaning, washing, caring for children and the elderly – is done by women. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tweeted this past week that she and
Childcare should not only be a woman’s job Read More »
Padmavat has been cleared for release; its attempted censorship and ban comes from non-state actors and Vasundhara Raje’s decision to block its release in Rajasthan out of respect to the ‘sentiments of the people’ is meek acquiescence to these non-state actors I’m not a fan of advocating mass suicide by women as a method of
Padmavat is not a political film and yet, seeing it can become a political act Read More »
A new generation of anti-status-quoists is unapologetic about its beliefs, unafraid about whom it is taking on and unfettered by the hackneyed script. No careers were brought down. No global hashtags were created. No roars reverberated throughout the world. And yet, women in India continued chipping away at that edifice called patriarchy. In a year
A year of assertion when notice has been served on patriarchy Read More »