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 »
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 »
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 »
Every woman has a story, the man who ‘accidentally’ touches her in the metro, the schoolboys who chase her in the park for sport, the masturbating pervert late at night on the bus. We learn to ignore it – rule #1 of the street: never, ever make eye contact – but sometimes it spills over
December 16 gangrape: Five years on, why the streets don’t belong equally to women Read More »
Behind an outsourced list of sexual predators is the story of a law that often doesn’t work in favour of the women it is supposed to protect. I don’t like anonymous lists, that is lists that purport to name sexual predators compiled by one person on the say-so of other unnamed persons. I don’t like
Understanding why an anonymous list of sexual predators exists Read More »
The price of speaking up is simply too high. We have a law, but most companies remain mindful of hierarchies that make it easy for powerful men to prey on subordinate women. When it comes to the crunch, who’s more dispensable, the boss or the one who reports to him? Did you know he…? Oh,
No naming names: India’s Harvey Weinstein moment is passing by in deafening silence Read More »
In reinterpreting the meaning of consent in two recent cases, judges are creating a dangerous precedent: Future rapists can plead that their victims either didn’t say no, or didn’t say it strongly enough. Perhaps the judges forgot that good girls never say no and that we bring up our daughters to ‘adjust’ and never complain.
Treat women as independent adult agents, not as children Read More »
On June 24, a software engineer Swathi was attacked by a man with a knife in Chennai. As she lay bleeding, not one commuter came forward to help. Partly it’s a reluctance to get involved in a long-drawn legal process including police questioning and court appearances. Partly it’s a fear that intervention could lead to
No law can bridge the gap of basic decency Read More »
Lowering the age of juveniles will take into account the reality of a changed India where crimes against women are on the rise. It will not, however, stop them unless we first create an environment of zero-tolerance. Mumbai’s Juvenile Justice Board has packed off the two underage rapists of a photojournalist and a telephone operator
India’s cavalier attitude towards crimes against women Read More »
Through the 1980s when dowry deaths were routinely passed off as kitchen accidents, Satya Rani Chadha was the face of the anti-dowry movement. To a generation of connected, social media-savvy users, Satya Rani Chadha will not be a familiar name. But this was the name that launched the anti-dowry movement in Delhi and across India.
Satya Rani Chadha: The face of India’s anti-dowry movement Read More »
Pal’s statements are in a whole new league: For the first time, an elected MP has on camera actually threatened rape as a form of political retribution. Insensitive, ignorant statements about women by Indian politicians are now, sadly, commonplace. Even so, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Tapas Pal’s remarks, caught on camera in an undated video, mark
Tapas Pal and the language of hate Read More »