Rope in Police who Rape
Sid Harth
Disabled girl ‘raped’ in prison van
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
CALCUTTA Sept. 20. — An 18-year-old deaf and dumb undertrial was
allegedly raped by her police escort while being driven from Alipore
Court to Presidency Jail in a prison van yesterday.
A woman homeguard was supposed to be in the van, police said. It’s
unclear whether she got down before the rape allegedly happened.
The Alipore O-C tonight questioned the constable who was escorting the
girl, and the driver. A test identification parade will be held so that
the girl can identify the rapist.
The undertrial was examined by doctors today; the report will be
available tomorrow.
The girl was arrested on 6 September by Watgunge police on the charge
of stealing sarees from a doctor’s home in Dr Sudhir Bose Road. She was
remanded in judicial custody at Presidency Jail.
Yesterday, she and two other woman undertrials were driven to Alipore
court, escorted by a Reserve Force constable and a woman homeguard. The
girl was brought back to jail in the evening and sent to her cell.
There, as she broke down and refused to touch food, other woman inmates
grew curious. To their questions, she explained through gestures
somehow that she had been raped.
Fellow prisoners noticed scratches on her body. The girl also suggested
that her attacker had tried to throttle her.
Angry woman prisoners began a demonstration outside the jail
superintendent’s office, demanding the guilty be arrested.
The superintendent, Mr Parimal Das, called the girl to his office.
Around midnight, he contacted the Alipore O-C, Mr Pinaki Ranjan Mondal.
The O-C came over and examined the girl’s injuries.
Soon, a further clue was discovered: The jail records showed that the
girl was brought back to her cell at 5.30 p.m. — yet the entry at the
SDJM’s court, Alipore, said she had left the court lock-up at 6.20 p.m.
“She must have been taken out of the court before 5.30 p.m. The Reserve
Police constable made an incorrect entry on the court register,” a
senior officer at Lalbazar said.
Today, a specialist from a school for the deaf and dumb at Rajabazar
was brought to Presidency Jail. With his help, the girl recorded her
complaint before the Alipore O-C and the jail superintendent.
http://www.timesofindia.com/200700/20mahm6.htm
</cgi-bin/mailpg.cgi> </cgi-bin/mailpg.cgi>Cop charged with rape in
police station suspended
AHMEDABAD: Police sub-inspector R R Bansal posted at the Petlad town
police station in Anand district was suspended on Wednesday following
charges of having allegedly raped an accused and for having summoned
the female accused to the police station after sunset.
According to the complaint filed by the 'victim' Minaben Babulal Rami
at the office of the judicial magistrate, Bansal and his constables
brought her to the police station for interrogation at 11.30 pm on July
12 and then locked her in a room and raped her.
After him another constable Johan Singh also raped her, locked her up
and then released her on bail the next morning, says the complaint.
Anand District Superintendent of Police Vikas Sahay who suspended
Bansal told The Times of India on that Mina's son had eloped with a
girl on June 29, after which the girl's father had lodged a case
accusing Mina, her brother Ramesh and her younger son Hiral (17) of
having conspired with the boy in abducting his daughter.
This case was being investigated by PSI Bansal at Petlad. On July 12
Bansal got a tip-off that Mina was in town, so he along with a couple
of constables picked her up from her house with Ramesh and Hiral and
brought them to the police station at 11.30 pm.
According to Mina's complaint, the PSI interrogated her for 3-4 hours
and even beat up Ramesh and Hiral. Later he dragged the woman to a room
opposite the PSO's chamber, locked it and then raped her, Mina stated.
Apparently Mina did not approach either the DSP or the ASP but
registered a complaint with the judicial magistrate. The judical
magistrate directed the DSP Sahay to investigate into the matter. But
by the time the investigations began on Tuesday there was hardly any
evidence at the scene of the offence.
Sahay interrogated Mina on Tuesday and she reiterated her account as in
the complaint. But the witnesses, Ramesh and Hiral kept saying
that "the room was locked and they could heard some sounds", which may
not confirm the rape, believe certain police officials.
"Firstly, there were at least 10-12 people present at the police
station during the interrogation and also the door of the said room
does not have a latch which makes it difficult to establish the rape
charges", argue officials.
Also, police records show that the three accused were in the police
station for only 20 minutes which might go against the rape theory.
Sahay, however, is taking no chances and has sent the clothes of the
victim for forensic examination and is having Mina undergo a medical
examination.
To begin with, Bansal was transferred but then suspended when it was
established that he had violated the basic code of conduct of summoning
a woman to the police station after sunset.
"Firstly, Bansal is guilty of having violated this directive which is
also contained in several government circulars. Secondly, there was no
woman constable present when Minaben was being interrogated, which is
not right", says Sahay.
Sahay feels that abduction was not such a major offence that the PSI
was compelled to call the woman to the police station at such an
unearthly hour.
http://www.fvpf.org/global/gf_india.html
INDIA
Chappal, Sticks and Bags
by Meeta Rani Jha
Violence against women, of which domestic violence is a part, affects
women of every class, caste, religion, tribe, and age in India.
Depending on the particular social, caste, religious and class
background, the violence women experience may be manifested in very
different forms. As a result, women's groups in India do not work on
the issue of domestic violence as separate from other forms of gender
violence. In this paper, I first attempt to lay out the pattern of
violence against women. Second, I describe the unique responses to
violence developed by women's organizations, using both traditional
forms of resistance as well as Western feminist strategies.
India has a population of approximately nine hundred million people, of
which 49 percent are women. The Hindu caste system structures Indian
society in a complex hierarchy that can be socially oppressive for the
majority of women. Not only are the lower castes and tribal groups
socially ostracized and oppressed, but women from these groups face
multiple oppressions that are aligned along the lines of gender, caste
and class.
Historical and traditional caste, gender, class and religious
oppressions were further exacerbated during three hundred years of
British colonial rule that empowered some higher caste women through
access to education and economy, but simultaneously marginalized those
at the bottom. Current economic conditions have worsened the divisions
among women.
In order to understand violence against women, close attention has to
be paid to the intersection of various systems and the harsh everyday
realities in the lives of women. The majority of women are from small
peasant and landless agricultural laborer households, and from
communities of lower castes and tribal groups. Further, for many of
these women, gender-based violence can be used by family members, men
from their community, from other communities and by the state. These
take on many different forms, from aborting female fetuses to the
murder of women. The violence may include female infanticide; dowry
payments (bridal gifts, compulsory marriage); sati (widow immolation);
wife battery; dowry harassment; sexual abuse and incest; witch burning;
physical violence; emotional and mental abuse of girls and women.
The life stories of many women, especially of poorer women, begin in
the shadow of female infanticide, neglect, and sexual abuse at a young
age from family members. Women occupy a secondary position in Indian
society. Men are more valued because they are economic assets, carry
the family line and have social and religious significance for the
afterlife. Therefore, violence against women may begin before birth,
with pre-natal sex determination tests carried out at private clinics
that also offer abortion if test results indicate that the fetus is
female. Violence against girls and women is common in any class, caste,
and religion, but the economic and social background of the girl
determines what hardships she is going to face.
As girls get older, the supposed burden of dowry (payment in exchange
for marriage) is used to neglect their nutritional, educational and
other critical needs. Historically, dowry, as moveable goods like
jewelry, was given to women because they never inherited land, which in
rural India, is the most valuable asset because it is able to
accumulate capital. Dowry has been wrongly equated to land and over
time has become a means for men to circulate valuables and money
through women. Although many feminists have used the term "dowry
deaths" as a rallying cry, it is wife murder with dowry as the excuse.
Once the girl is married, abuse by the husband and his family may
begin. Later in life, many women face violence from their sons and
family when they reach old age. If they are unfortunate enough to
become widows, violence may take the form of widow immolation.
The proportion of females to males in India has been declining since
the beginning of the century, in contrast to most other countries,
where females usually outnumber males. India has a higher mortality
rate for women, and a much higher mortality rate for girls than boys.
Girls are more likely to die than boys between the ages of one to five
years and the risk is 43 percent higher for girls than for boys. Birth
order is influential in determining risk for survival-the higher the
birth order, the lesser chance of survival.
The issue of domestic violence in the United Kingdom had, to some
extent, been influenced by the middle-class white women's movement and
had excluded the experiences of immigrant, black, women of color,
lesbian, disabled and working class women. Over the last decade, due to
the hard work done by women activists and advocates from these groups,
the issues impacting battered women from those communities have been
made visible.
Similarly, the western definition of domestic violence does not fit
into the reality of women's lives in the context of India. Much of the
violence that happens within the home (as private space) spills into
public space depending upon the social group of the women. Women have
very little ownership of any physical space they may inhabit, either
private or public. For the majority of Indian women, violence crosses
over into all spaces, not just designated private or public spaces. For
many groups of women such as poor or tribal or lower caste women,
violence is also perpetrated by the upper caste/class men, the state,
police and landlord. This is often manifested as physical violence,
sexual harassment, rape and mass rape on Adivasi women (tribal group),
Dalit women (the word chosen by the anti-caste untouchable movement to
describe themselves, a reclaiming of name) and working-class women in
their homes, in their villages and in their communities.
Violence within the family has always remained hidden and even now,
women hesitate to speak of it for a variety of reasons. Family violence
or "family quarrel" is common to all classes, religions, and
communities, all over India. In many families, particularly in the
middle class, a woman's status is defined only in the context of a
man's and the patriarchal family. Hence, it is difficult for women to
give up their limited rights in an oppressive situation in order to
break the pattern of abuse. This is exacerbated by poverty and
hardship, scarcity of food and clothing, and lack of education. Social
and religious traditions offer contradictory messages making a
difficult situation almost intolerable for many women. Although women
are taught to revere their husbands as gods, there have always been
traditions of resistance with images of powerful women who have lived
empowered lives. Unfortunately, in the current fundamentalist climate,
the images of powerful women are given short shrift and the
consequences for women are deadly.
To counter violence against women, many organizations have developed
over the last three decades. Some feminists feel that the Indian
women's movement became active during the United Nations' declaration
of 1975 as International Women's Year, which provided a focus for
activities centering on women. The "women's decade" from 1975 to 1985
led the government of India to publish a report called "Towards
Equality," which generated debate about women's exploitation throughout
the country. Many women's groups emerged and the work on violence
against women became more systematic and national. Up until then, work
on women was more fragmented and regional. The focus of women's groups
ranged from changing the law on domestic violence and rape, to
improving legal and social rights for women, to economic empowerment,
to environmental rights, to theoretical discussions on women's issues.
"We will only rest after having broken this prison!" Women's Liberation
Group poster for International Women's Day, Bombay, 1982
Rape and Resistance
Rape is one of the most common and frequent of crimes against women in
India. It has many forms: "landlord rape;" rape by those in authority
of women employees or juniors within the workplace; "marital
rape;" "caste rape," in which caste hierarchy is exercised to rape
lower-caste or tribal women; "class rape;" "police rape;" and "army
rape." For working class, tribal and Dalit women, rape can occur both
in their homes and on their land. The scale and frequency of police
rape is quite startling in India: police records show the number of
rapes by "government servants" in rural and tribal areas exceed one a
day in Delhi.
Forum Against Oppression of Women (FAOW) was started as Forum Against
Rape in 1979 to campaign against an extremely unjust judgment on a rape
case. FAOW takes up issues of rape as well as dowry, wife beating,
sexual harassment, indecent portrayal and sex stereotyping of women in
the media, sex determination and sex pre-selection techniques, and
against harmful long-acting contraceptives. In its anti-rape campaign,
FAOW demanded legal changes - lobbying for changes in the law,
demanding new laws as well as better implementation. The intensive
investigation of rape cases, including police rape cases, the reports
made to women's network, and the publicity obtained in the mass media
strengthened the success of various cases in the legal system.
Between 1983-1986, anti-domestic violence work by FAOW and other
women's groups led to the introduction of preventive legislation. For
example, there was an amendment in the Indian criminal law or Penal
Code, which allowed women to lodge complaints against their husbands
and in-laws for physical and mental abuse within the last seven years.
In 1983, after a long series of campaigns and a much publicized rape
case, amendments were made to the rape laws. In 1986, amendments were
also made in the Dowry Prohibition Law to remove loopholes in the
original law. Several states in India have women-run police stations,
though many activists feel that these are no different than male-run
police stations, as patriarchal beliefs also influence the attitudes of
the police women.
Class, Caste and Violence Against Women
In India, the institutionalized oppression of the tribal community is
part of everyday life. Tribal communities are one of the poorest
communities in the country, due to entrenched discrimination and lack
of resources. Tribal women are prostituted, raped, beaten and used as
cheap labor. Tribal men and women are treated as subhuman. Their land
has been appropriated over centuries, despite laws forbidding any non-
tribal people from owning land in tribal areas.
Mass violence and mass rapes against tribal women are part of the
complex matrix of the continued imposition of patriarchal and
misogynist Hindu ideologies as well as control of land on certain
tribal communities. In some tribal communities women's spaces are not
controlled by men. They have the freedom to have pre-marital sex, to
choose their husbands, divorce if they wish. They don't have to
physically cover themselves, and have a much more relaxed attitude
towards their sexuality. Mainstream Hindu India often sees this as a
direct threat that needs to be curtailed and brought under patriarchal
purview.
One example of resistance to violence by tribal and peasant women is
the anti-alcohol agitation of 1972-1973, a unique strategy against
violence coming out of the landless tribal women's movement. During the
communist uprising, Shramik Sangathana (tribal landless laborers'
movement) was formed in 1972, against the oppressive practices of local
landlords, which included rapes of tribal women. Among the laborers who
were active in the movement, women played the most active role in
leading the demonstrations, and mobilizing the masses. As women's
militancy developed over two years, women began to express
consciousness of their oppression as women. The problem of wife-beating
and family violence was raised.
Women in an Indian village discuss women's empowerment and grassroots
leadership development.
This issue led to the development of a women's anti-alcohol agitation.
Groups of tribal women would go to "alcohol hideouts" and break all the
liquor pots because many men beat their wives after getting drunk.
Through consciousness-raising groups, women learned that wife beating
was about power and control over women and alcohol intake was only a
contributory factor. The protests against alcohol selling and
consumption moved women to protest against wife-beaters, which included
shaming the batterer in front of his community. The strategy had
changed from an indirect protest against violence in the family to a
fairly direct one, making a public issue out of what is generally
regarded as a private problem.1
In recent years, "witch burning" - a means to control women and express
village discontent - has emerged as a new form of misogynist violence,
occurring in tribal and poorer areas. According to Sofia Khan, a
feminist advocate who worked for the Ahmedabad Women's Action Group
(AWAG) in Ahmedabad, the capital city of the state of Gujarat: "Witch
hunting is instigated by family members, where widows who have property
are blamed for natural disasters affecting the village. If there is a
drought due to lack of rain, the greedy relatives have a golden
opportunity to dispose of these women by exploiting the superstitious
beliefs of the village." In the last two years, there have been cases
of witch burning in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Bihar." A
number of women's groups, including Shakti Shalini, a shelter for
abused women which works in many regions of India, are
conducting "awareness workshops" to clear the names of women declared
witches and provide shelter to condemned women.
A Group Called Jagori
Jagori is a women's training, documentation and communication center
which began in 1982 in Delhi to work on the issue of violence against
women. Jagori works in slums of Delhi, with women of lower caste and
class. One of Jagori's pioneering projects is the "Single Women's
Group." This project grew out of an action-research project called
the "Life-Circumstances of Single Women in North India." The main aim
was to change the self-perception of single women from "abla"
(unable /weak woman) to "sabla" (strong woman), and to change the dual
image of single women as "bad" women and "helpless" women within the
society they lived in. The group members are mostly domestic workers
who are single women 15-45 years old, who meet weekly in an
unauthorized slum in the city of Delhi called "Subhaas camp." They
challenge the primacy of marriage as the premier institution within
which women live their lives and address such issues as family
violence, police harassment, and lack of water.
When a woman is harassed by her husband, relatives, or in-laws, she can
come to the Jagori's weekly meeting and discuss her case. The process
of supporting, questioning, discussing options and consequences
empowers the woman as she realizes the injustice of the harassment.
Strategies are decided in the group with the woman's agreement.
In some cases, two to three group members go to the house of the
batterer. They investigate the case by talking to the neighbors and to
the batterer, and they explain the consequences to him. If his behavior
does not change, he is given time to change his behavior. If no change
occurs, he is threatened, and eventually the women resort to public
shaming and physical violence. Sometimes, the group chooses to confront
the attacker directly. Physical violence takes the form of 25-30 women
attacking the batterer with rubber chappals (sandals), sticks and bags.
This strategy works in a number of ways: sometimes it scares the
batterer into stopping the violence; it also informs the whole street
that such violence won't be tolerated; and challenges the belief that
women are passive sufferers of violence inflicted on them.
In cases where women need to flee violence, the group arranges space in
the shelter network and maintains contact and support with the woman.
The group uses many methods like community organizing, publicity
through media, casework, and counseling but does not use legal methods.
Legal cases are difficult to follow up, and for a group of poor women,
the majority of whom are illiterate, legal cases are a disempowering
experience. Legal cases may also involve police collusion with the
batterer, slow court processes and class prejudice.
The success of this group is due to the similarity in the economic
background of the women who come to the group. All are poor and
economically deprived. The group strengthens "singleness" as a viable
alternative to marriage and to break out of the vicious cycle of
marital and family violence. In certain cases, the women from the group
have built 'with their own hands' huts for homeless group members
leaving violent homes.
Jagori increases awareness of how family members perpetuate violence.
In the context of India, the status of women in the family changes
during the course of her life. As she gets older and bears children,
especially male children, she becomes more powerful in the patriarchal
family. Giving power to certain women and depriving it from others is a
way of dividing women with patriarchal control. Mothers-in-law are a
case in point and are often part of the vicious cycle of domestic
violence. Other perpetrators include fathers, sons, brothers, and other
members of the extended family.
Jagori has also been actively involved in various campaigns, on the
local and national level. They took up the Sudha Goel sati case of
1988, and a gang-rape case in 1992 (Bhanwari Bhateri case), organizing
marches, singing songs against violence and also performing street
plays in public marketplace. The group participated in Delhi's
first "Take Back the Night March". The campaign around the gang rape
case led to the declaration of the National Protest Day Against
Violence Against Women on September 22, 1992. Groups all over the
country wore black clothes on that day and organized meetings on
village and slum levels on the issue of violence against women. In the
cities of Delhi, Bombay and Hyderabad, women got onto the public
transport and distributed leaflets and flyers and sang songs about
violence against women. In many cities, meetings with men were
organized for the first time to educate them that violence against
women is a public issue, and not just a woman's issue.
Organizers meet at the village level to form women's groups against
poverty and environmental degradation.
Dowry Harassment and Wife Murder
Dowry has always been part of marriage in India, but the dramatic
increase in dowry-giving in the post-independence period, reflects the
declining value of women in the Indian society. Though the giving and
taking of dowry is a legal offense since the passage of a legislation
in 1961, the custom has flourished, invading lower castes and working
class communities among whom this was not a practice.
Such requested products as videocassette recorders, washing machines,
refrigerators, and scooters reflect the higher dowry demands asked from
the girl's family. Sudha Tiwari of Shakti Shalini (a women's shelter in
Delhi), blames the excessive demands by the boy's family on the western
influence of capitalist materialism and the promotion of mindless
consumerism by the mass media.
The first protests against dowry in the contemporary Indian women's
movement were made by the "Progressive Organization of Women" in the
city of Hyderabad in 1975. Though some of their demonstrations numbered
as many as 2,000 people, the protests did not grow into a full-fledged
campaign. The Mahila Dakshata Samiti was the first women's organization
in Delhi to take up the issue of dowry and dowry harassment, but it was
Stri Sangharsh whose campaign made "dowry murder" a household term.
These organizations use many different methods: investigation and
collection of evidence; recording witness accounts; working with
specialist lawyers' collectives; using the mass media; mobilizing anti-
violence women's networks; organizing local and national marches;
lobbying the courts and the Government with high level of publicity;
publicizing corrupt police system which colludes with the batterer and
his family.
If a girl's parents are not able to meet the demands, even after the
marriage the violence may escalate over many years, forcing many woman
to either kill themselves to escape daily torture or be killed. Madhu
Kishwar and Ruth Vanita, in their book In Search of Answers: Indian
Women's Voices from Manushi, tells the tragic story of Dr. Shakuntala
Arora, who was a lecturer in a women's college and who died of burns.
Her family and her colleagues feel that emotional and physical abuse
and torture over many years drove her to kill herself.
The harassment of Dr. Shakuntala Arora started at the time of her
wedding, when the bridegroom insisted on a scooter as an item in the
bride's dowry. Shakuntala's parents had to comply with this demand or
else the wedding would have been called off. When Shakuntala moved into
her in-laws' house, she was asked to pay off wedding costs of 25,000
rupees, which she was forced to obtain from her parents. Any resistance
on Shakuntala's part led to physical and emotional abuse. Shakuntala
was allowed a meager pocket money from her salary as a lecturer for
food and transport. At the birth of her first child, she received no
help from her husband. Her husband became increasingly more violent at
her second delivery; he kicked her in the stomach before taking her to
the hospital. Only a few weeks after her cesarean section, Shakuntala,
badly beaten and in tears, with a small baby in her arms, entered her
mother's house to seek temporary respite from the tortures of her
husband. She had no money to pay off the taxi. These were some of the
economic, physical and emotional tortures that turned Shakuntala's life
into a nightmare. Two days before her death, she was beaten up and
forbidden to attend her brother's marriage ceremony, because she had
failed to get money from her widowed mother.
The term dowry and "dowry deaths" has become synonymous with wife-
battering and domestic violence. It has become a key issue and rallying
cry in practically all movements in which women are active. However, we
need to remember that dowry is only an excuse used by patriarchal
families to continue to torture and kill women. The unfortunate
consequence of using this term as a rallying cry is that it minimizes
the regular abuse and killing of women. The result is that dowry-
related wife murders and suicides are criticized, but other domestic
violence may not be since it is thought that the wife could have been
provoking the abuse.
Religion and Family Violence
Sati, as the practice of self-immolation, is a long-standing tradition
among upper caste Hindus. Although legitimized through myth, it is a
violent practice against women. It is complicated by the fact that it
is often used against women to take control of land that they might
inherit as widows. Widows have very little status in Hindu India and
are often seen as bad omens. Therefore, they are treated miserably.
Some do commit suicide rather than be subject to daily torture and
humiliation and some are killed.
There has been on an average, something like one sati a year, but the
death of Roop Kanwar in September 1987 led to a massive agitation both
for and against sati. Sati was most common in the state of Rajasthan,
amongst the Hindu Rajput caste. The Indian feminist magazine, Manushi
and Radha Kumar in her book, The History of Doing: An Illustrated
Account of Movements for Women's Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-
1990, describe the practice of sati and the movements against it.
The pro-sati organizations invoked a chivalric Rajput (Hindu upper
caste identity) tradition in which men defended the Hindu tradition on
battlefields by killing and being killed, while women defended it at
home by killing themselves. One case of sati was that of Roop Kanwar.
Roop Kanwar had brought a large amount of gold in her dowry and had
only been married for six months before her husband, who was suffering
from mental disorder, died. Roop Kanwar's in-laws decided she would
become sati - and did not inform her parents.
The evidence that feminist organizations gathered pointed to murder:
some of her neighbors said she had run away and tried to hide before
the ceremony, but was dragged out, pumped full of drugs, dressed in
bridal finery and put on her husband's funeral pyre. The feminists held
counter-demonstrations along the route of the procession and were
confronted by groups of hostile women, who had appropriated the
language of rights, stating that they should have the right, as Hindus
and as women, to commit, worship and practice sati.
The "Joint Action Committee Against Sati" formed and demanded state
intervention on three levels: first, Roop Kanwar's in-laws and the
doctor who drugged her should be charged with murder; second, that all
those who profited financially or politically from her death should be
punished; and third, that a law should be passed banning both
commission and glorification of crimes against women in the name of
religion. Even though the government passed a law under which sati was
defined as unlawful, the first person to be punished was the woman
herself, for attempting to commit suicide.
In the current fundamentalist climate, sati is seen as a return to
old "wonderful" and traditional values with women being the upholders
of all moral traditions. In fact, careful scrutiny of the Roop Kanwar
case shows that this sati was a complex mixture of misogyny, economics
and fundamentalism.
Religion is also a significant factor in the multiple oppression faced
by Muslim women.2 The Muslim community is one of the largest minority
groups in India.
Muslim women face violence at home and outside the home in the same way
as Hindu women. One difference was that Muslim women had the right to
divorce, inheritance, and maintenance. However, these rights have been
eroded over time. All leaders of the women's movement have urged the
restitution of these rights. Due to the passage of the Hindu Code bill
in 1956, the inequality between the rights of Hindu men and women was
technically eliminated. But this was not the case with the Muslim
Personal Law, which is based on religion.3 As a result, the inequality
between Muslim women and men remained. Women's organizations started
examining laws in an attempt to look at women's rights in marriage,
divorce, property and maintenance and demanded secular laws which
allowed universal rights for all women.
The issue of personal law became extremely controversial in the Shah
Bano case between 1986-1987. After she had been thrown out of her home
following fifty years of marriage, Shah Bano filed a case under a
criminal law (Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code), asking that
her husband be ordered to pay maintenance. This law granted divorced or
deserted women maintenance from their husbands. Muslim feminists,
women's groups, liberals and social reformers began campaigns all over
India to publicize the upholding of this law and to demand
improvements. Many women's organizations like the Janwadi Mahila
Samiti, the Mahila Dakshata Samiti, the National Federation of Indian
Women and the Dahej Virodhi (Anti-Dowry) Chetna Manch, campaigned for
universal legal rights for all women.
The courts granted Shah Bano maintenance from her previous husband.
However, fundamentalists on both sides saw this case as a rallying
point for their cause. The old scars of partition in India in 1947 were
raised again and communalism saw a steep rise with severe oppression of
the Muslim community and the destruction of a critical mosque - Babri
Masjid. The government caved in to fundamentalist demands eroding the
limited rights of Muslim women.
Most women's organizations recognize the issue of communal harmony as
vital when doing anti-violence work. AWAG is one such group which not
only focuses on issues surrounding violence against women but carries
out extensive work around communal harmony in riot-torn areas. Sofia
Khan of AWAG explains, "After the bloody riots of 1992 that followed
the demolition of Babri Masjid, this issue was so emotionally charged,
you could not talk about this within the Muslim communities. Women's
groups now talk about equality between Muslim women and men when they
campaign for universalizing these laws so that Muslim women would have
the same legal rights as Hindu women".
The Indian women's movement has made many creative interventions for
social change in mobilizing against violence against women. For
example, AWAG, provides training for police and judiciary around gender
issues and violence in order to counter their attitudes and implement
law more effectively. Shakti Salini is planning a "police sensitization
program," and training on reproductive health, family planning
techniques, and mental health awareness.
Peace rally against caste violence on Dalit, Dalit Women's Action
Council, Kurichy, 1995
Sofia Khan of AWAG remains optimistic about the changes happening at
the grass roots level and on the governmental level. She thinks that
the system of reserving spots for women on different levels of the
governmental power structure will allow women access to resources. In
1990, a National Women's Commission was established to investigate the
subordinate position of women in India. There were plans to establish
women's commissions on the state level. Recently, due to an amendment,
33 percent of the designated posts have been reserved for women in the
Village Panchayat (village council). The Panchayat controls the power
structure in the village, in relation to land and access to water,
mediates conflicts, and has connection to the State government. More
women having access to resources could lead to improvement in the lives
of women at this village level.
Like the pioneering work of Jagori, most women's anti-violence
organizations work on many levels and use many methods or organizing.
But regardless of their methods, their goals are the same: to change
the culture of violence against women systemic in Indian society.
The author would like to thank Sofia Khan, a previous employee of AWAG,
Sudha Tiwari of Shakti Shalini and Jagori. This article would not be
possible without the wealth of information provided by them.
We gratefully acknowledge Sujata Warrier, Ph.D. of the New York Office
of the Prevention of Domestic Violence and MANAVI, a South Asian group
in New Jersey, USA, for her invaluable editorial assistance.
Indian and Western activists sometimes romanticize the position of
tribal women as being "freer" than those of upper caste Hindu women.
While this might be true to some extent in some areas and in certain
tribes, there is a great deal of variation in the status of tribal
women.
One of the common myths regarding Muslim women and oppression is
centered around the practice of Purdah or female seclusion/veiling.
This practice is extremely varied and in the context of India occurs
also among upper caste Hindu women. The meaning of purdah is different
for both communities. In the Muslim context, purdah divides space into
the home (as private) and the outside world (as public). In the Hindu
context, space is divided into public and private within the home as
well as within the outside world.
In India, there are Hindu, Muslim etc., Personal Laws in addition to
the secular laws.
Meeta Rani Jha
Meeta Rani Jha has worked on issues of domestic violence, immigration
and anti-racism for last ten years, mostly in United Kingdom. She was a
management committee member of "Subah", a South Asian young women's
shelter for three years and worked as "Black rights worker" at Salford
Law Center for five years, in Greater Manchester (UK). She was born in
India. Her family migrated to the UK in 1977, when she was eleven years
old. Since 1996, she has been living in the San Francisco Bay area,
where she has been involved with Narika and the Asian Women's Shelter.
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