The world’s longest and largest march by survivors of rape and sexual assault covering 24 states over 10,000 km in India seeks to break the silence and stigma around rape. My Hindustan Times  column.  Y’s husband beat her senseless when he found out that she had been raped by three men in the fields where she had been working. Then he threw her out of the house and told her to go back to her parents. “I had done nothing wrong. I was just trying to earn a living,” she says. When M managed to escape from three male captors, who…

In Hindustan Times, I argue for the need fathers to take a far more meaningful role in bringing up their children by taking paternity leave.  It was after his son Viggo was born that Swedish photographer, Johan Bavman, then on parental leave, began looking for information about stay-at-home-dads. He found nothing. What he did find was a study that asked children who they turned to when they needed to be comforted. Their mums, said the children. Dads came at fifth place — below the option of not going to anyone at all. Sweden has among the world’s most generous parental…

In Hindustan Times, I look at the bleak prospects for women in the forthcoming 2019 general election. Although women are exercising their franchise in larger numbers as voters, their presence in Parliament and the assemblies remains dismal.  It is early days but already a troika of powerful women — Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati and, now, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra — is dominating the headlines. In a country that has been notoriously stingy in fielding women candidates as MLAs and MPs, this is a pleasant blip but nobody is counting on a New Deal for women with Elections 2019. When women do manage…

The world’s largest march of rape survivors seeks to change the way you see victims of rape and sexual assault. Y’s husband beat her senseless when he found out that she had been raped by three men in the fields where she had been working. Then he threw her out of the house and told her to go back to her parents. “I had done nothing wrong. I was just trying to earn a living,” she says. When M managed to escape from three male captors, who told her they had bought her for ₹2 lakh, her family barred her from…

Social assumptions about Noble Mothers who sacrifice careers for their children are deeply ingrained According to a July 2018 International Labour Organization (ILO)(Pratik Chorge/HT Photo) It was after his son Viggo was born that Swedish photographer, Johan Bavman, then on parental leave, began looking for information about stay-at-home-dads. He found nothing. What he did find was a study that asked children who they turned to when they needed to be comforted. Their mums, said the children. Dads came at fifth place — below the option of not going to anyone at all. Sweden has among the world’s most generous parental…

Women and politics are no longer strangers. Not only are women exercising their franchise in larger numbers, but over the past 25 years, an estimated one million women have been elected at the village, block and district level in panchayati raj institutions where 33% of seats are reserved for them. Almost none graduate to Parliament or even the assemblies. Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati speaks to media during a press conference on her 63rd birthday, Lucknow, January 15, 2019(Subhankar Chakraborty/ Hindustan Times) It is early days but already a troika of powerful women — Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati and, now, Priyanka…

In Hindustan Times, I argue for the need to commemorate the memory of more women, whether by building their statues or naming roads or institutions after them. Why? Because it’s crucial to remember who we are as a people and that our legacy includes not just powerful men in public life but also women who, despite the odds they faced, still surged ahead.   The conference room at the National Commission for Women (NCW), a statutory body that advises government on policies for women, is remarkable for one feature: The absence of women on its walls. There are standard-issue portraits of…

A new book by my friend and college room-mate  Sohaila Abdulali explores the idea that victims of sexual violence are not broken beings. Awful as it is, rape is survivable, and those who have been raped are deserving and capable of happiness again.  I don’t remember the precise moment when my then college roommate, Sohaila Abdulali, told me about being gangraped when she was 17. It was just an incontestable fact of her life: she was from Mumbai, she loved to dance, her parents grew orchids, she had been raped. This is not to imply that being raped was not…

We can’t seem to stop talking about sexual violence from strangers, but cannot seem to start talking about it (or even acknowledge), about the violence many women face from within their own homes. If a picture says a thousand words, then a graphic illustration of 137 figures — the number of women killed every day around the world by a partner or family member — doesn’t even begin to tell you the horror. The statistics are part of a study released on November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, by the United Nations Office on Drugs…

What will it take for political parties to increase women’s representation in electoral politics? After all, there is no shortage of talent and women have occupied 33% of all seats in panchayats and local civic bodies.  Exactly 101 years after the 19th Amendment granted American women suffrage, a record 116 women, including the first Muslim, the first Native American and the youngest ever, were voted to the US Congress. India, too, has the highest number of women MPs in its history — 62 of 543 elected in 2014, nudging our representation up from a measly 11% in the previous Parliament…

Can we even begin to understand the courage and grit it takes for a woman to speak up against her sexual assault? In a climate that is changing, we still continue to shine a spotlight on the victim, not her predator. My column in Hindustan Times: The complainant in one of India’s most high profile sexual harassment cases is telling me about the price of speaking up. A hostile work environment, mental stress, failing health, long and costly litigation and, despite it all, loss of a job, says the woman researcher who filed a complaint against RK Pachauri in February 2015…

In Hindustan Times, I argue that the goal of India’s #MeToo movement is not the taking down of a few predatory bosses but a new deal for women at work.  The resignation of minister of state for external affairs, MJ Akbar, might seem like a victory for the #MeToo movement, but it’s far too premature for any celebration. The former editor is accused by at least 20 women of a range of inappropriate behaviour from interviewing potential new recruits in his hotel room to sexual assault. He has denied the accusations and sent a criminal defamation notice to the first…