Why has women’s safety stopped having any political impact in the Modi age?

 

 

Published   8 May, 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wrestlers in protest against alleged sexual harassment by BJP MP, Brij Bhushan Singh | PTI

In January, some of India’s top wrestlers began a street protest in the capital, New Delhi, demanding that Brij Bhushan Singh, president of Wrestling Federation of India, be arrested on charges of sexual harassment.

The protesting wrestlers included some of the top names in the sport, including men and women who have won medals for India in the Olympics. On the other side was Singh, a powerful member of Parliament from Uttar Pradesh belonging to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

In response, the Modi government used a tried and tested tactic to quell agitations: it appointed a committee. Frustrated with this delaying tactic, the wrestlers restarted their agitation in April. This had more success than the January agitation. On April 28, after the case had been heard in the Supreme Court, the Delhi Police relented and filed first information reports against the BJP MP. One of them was under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act given that Singh was accused of sexually harassing a minor.

Backing Singh

In spite of the severity of the allegations as well as the fact that the people making them were some of the most prominent Indian sportspeople alive today, the BJP has stuck by Singh. The Delhi Police, controlled by the Modi government, filed an FIR only after pressure from the Supreme Court. However, even then, it has not arrested Singh. In fact, Singh has released statements brazenly saying that he will not resign as president of the Wrestling Federation of India.

How is the BJP managing to resist the political pressures that such a grave incident could potentially put on the party?

Part of the answer lies in the unfortunate fact that women’s safety plays out in complex ways when it comes to voting. In spite of the fact that women make up half the electorate, by itself it is rare for women’s safety to feature as a major issue during elections. Instead, communitarian identity – caste and religion – usually dominate Indian elections along with economic factors such as inflation and welfare.

This cold political calculus probably explains why the BJP thinks that it might gain more by backing Singh than by supporting the sportspeople who allege they have been harassed. The wrestling chief started out life as a so-called bahubali or gangster and has been accused of working with terrorist Dawood Ibrahim. Later he built an impressive political network in Uttar Pradesh, with strong backing from his Rajput community.

Lack of impact

The fact of community identity trumping gender violence is true not only for the 2023 wrestler’s protest: it has been a longtime feature of Indian politics. The 2002 Gujarat riots, for example, saw mass sexual violence against women. However, this played out electorally along the lines of communal identity. The violence ensured a Hindu vote bank for the BJP, catapulting Modi to the status of a national figure. As part of this politics, the BJP-led Gujarat government last year released some criminals convicted of gangrape during the riots and the party felicitated them after they walked out of jail.

As if to illustrate this political phenomenon, on Sunday, in fact, one of the protesting wrestlers shared a message in support of the BJP’s Hindutva push in the Karnataka elections.

So strong is this communitarian superstructure in Indian politics that even the wrestler’s protest has used it. Khap panchayats of the powerful Jat caste from Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh have backed the wrestlers, ensuring that the protests continue even in the face of strong pressure from the Delhi Police.

Apart from straight electoral calculation, the BJP is also helped by the fact that much of the Hindi- and English-language mass media in the country does not report critically on the Modi government. Part of this has to do with the government’s ability to use the legal framework to reign in recalcitrant media houses. In other cases, owners of media companies are friendly with the government. It is also a fact that members of the upper castes, who dominate the national media, tend to be strong supporters of the BJP. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 11 men convicted in the Bilkis Bano gangrape and mass murder case, being welcomed after they are released by the Gujarat government in 2022. Credit: PTI.

The UPA exception

This stands in stark contrast to the second term of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, where the issue of women’s safety actually did acquire the political prominence it deserves. The Manmohan Singh-led government was strongly attacked by the media in the wake of the horrific 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder. In contrast, in 2020, a gangrape in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh saw much more limited media outrage in spite of the fact that the BJP-led government actually moved to quell protests using draconian force by summarily burning the body of the victim.

In 2012, Delhi had seen large protests for women’s safety. In 2020, the Delhi Police used force to make sure no protests happen given that even a limited protest in the capital would generate TV images that could be beamed across the country and undermine the BJP’s political capital.

With strong media control and support from powerful upper castes, the BJP has ensured that the media is unable to repeat the strong watchdog role it played during the Congress years when it comes to women’s safety.

While media control is a strong factor that helps the BJP government control the political narrative, it is not impossible to overcome. In fact, sustained protests seem to be the one thing that can break it. Farmer protesters have successfully rolled back the farm laws while protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act seem to have led to the law being frozen. As a result, while Modi’s BJP has successfully prevented women’s safety from being an issue that could erode its political capital, a sustained protest by the wrestlers against allegations of sexual harassment by a BJP MP could, in theory, change that.

Source: https://indiafix.stck.me/post/82830/Why-has-womens-safety-stopped-having-any-political-impact-in-the-Modi-age

A foreign woman's response to Mahesh Sharma: It's got nothing to do with dressing modestly

Sexual Harassment

A story of surviving India as a woman, and how things are changing, slowly but surely.

Carissa Hickling

Yesterday · 08:30 am   Updated Yesterday · 03:16 pm

Thank you Mahesh Sharma for reminding me that it is up to us foreign girls to dress modestly rather than for desi boys to behave appropriately or for the police to be actively part of ensuring everyone’s safety in India.

There is nothing new, however, in the tourism minister suggesting handing out welcome kits telling women not to wear skirts or go out at night. It eerily reminded me of the guidelines given to me over 25 years ago before I first came to India.

My first taste of India

Rewind to 1990 in Montreal. I sat through a pre-orientation for a Summer Study Abroad in India programme. We were provided tips on appropriate behaviour, dress, health and safety. Some of these suggestions were remarkably similar to the tourism minister’s controversial comments.

Traveling all over India, we were struck by the contrast in what was acceptable in different contexts and parts of the country. We witnessed clear gender segregation and strict hierarchies, norms of behavior in rural Gujarat that contrasted completely with young couples merrily sauntering hand-in-hand on the streets of downtown Bangalore.

And those guidelines? Dressing modestly was no magic shield from being harassed. Instead, traveling in a group, sprinkled with our limited male members, did the trick.

It was a remarkable experience and an early lesson on how multiple realities and rules coexist – particularly in matters of gender relations.

Introduction to eveteasing

Fast forward to 1995, I returned, as a student in Delhi. This time, I was on my own. No orientation, no guides, no group. I lived as a paying guest with a family for a year.

From the first week, I navigated Delhi Transport Corporation buses and was immediately acquainted with the real meaning of the innocuous sounding phrase eveteasing. On the buses, it meant various body parts rubbed and hands grabbed private places they had no right to.

Did what I wore make a difference? Only slightly. A simple salwar kurta did not prevent unwanted attention. I was young, blue-eyed, fair and, therefore, fair prey.

And then the family I was living with shared a story.

A story of how the matriarch mashi was driving past a bus stop near IIT Gate and saw a young woman being taunted by a young man on a bicycle. The girl kept her eyes downcast, shrinking into herself. The boy grew more emboldened. Until, mashi intervened.

She leapt out of her car, yanked the boy off his bike, grabbed her chappal and started hitting him on the head. “How dare you abuse this girl? Have you no shame? No mother? No sister?” Scared witless, the boy ran off.

But the story did not end here.

Mashi then turned to the girl. “Why did you let him get away with misbehaving? If he does this to you today, what more will he try in future?”

The girl in question was not a foreigner. It had nothing to do with her eye, skin or hair colour. Only her gender.

The story empowered me to shed my polite Canadian demeanour and fight back. Practising my rudimentary Hindi, I embarrassed the perpetrators by shaming them loudly, shoving away their groping fingers.

Simplistic notions of not wearing a skirt or going out alone at night were not enough to survive Delhi. What I had to learn was to behave boldly if required. To expect harassment and be prepared for battle.

It worked. And as I accepted this new reality, I began to see a social revolution around me.

Urban India was changing. Night clubs pulsed till the wee hours. Ad campaigns pushed the boundaries of censorship. Couples lived together before marriage.

And the hypocrisy that sometimes lay beneath conservative veneers was revealed.

That elderly tauji who demands you behave modestly, giving due respect to his stature? He had a long-term mistress with two daughters.

The India I knew on the inside was not the India people perceived on the outside.

Adopting India

For more than a decade, I’ve been fortunate to call India my adopted home.

And I found it ironic when I was asked to give advice for a Study Abroad in India programme.

How do I translate my years here to guide young women coming to India for the first time?

How do I encourage them to find a delicate balance between being true to themselves and open to new experiences and, yet, being sensitive to the different environments they will encounter?

Knowing that any step they take to reduce unwanted attention simply may not make a difference.

How do I alert them to the shifting sands of acceptability based on context, time of day, location, company and more?

How do I make them acknowledge that India is not alone in its male chauvinistic notions and its inability to keep the vulnerable safe, that sexual harassment is unfortunately universal?

Today, I have age on my side. I have grown from being a young didi to a mature aunty, my hair spiked with silver. In Mumbai, I can wear a dress, go out at night and, chances are, I will be fine.

Yet, I look back on those guidelines I was given in 1990 and wonder how much has really changed.

And isn’t there another story in that?

We welcome your comments at letters@scroll.in.

Source: scrollin

A foreign woman's response to Mahesh Sharma: It's got nothing to do with dressing modestly

Sexual Harassment

A story of surviving India as a woman, and how things are changing, slowly but surely.

Carissa Hickling

Yesterday · 08:30 am   Updated Yesterday · 03:16 pm

Thank you Mahesh Sharma for reminding me that it is up to us foreign girls to dress modestly rather than for desi boys to behave appropriately or for the police to be actively part of ensuring everyone’s safety in India.

There is nothing new, however, in the tourism minister suggesting handing out welcome kits telling women not to wear skirts or go out at night. It eerily reminded me of the guidelines given to me over 25 years ago before I first came to India.

My first taste of India

Rewind to 1990 in Montreal. I sat through a pre-orientation for a Summer Study Abroad in India programme. We were provided tips on appropriate behaviour, dress, health and safety. Some of these suggestions were remarkably similar to the tourism minister’s controversial comments.

Traveling all over India, we were struck by the contrast in what was acceptable in different contexts and parts of the country. We witnessed clear gender segregation and strict hierarchies, norms of behavior in rural Gujarat that contrasted completely with young couples merrily sauntering hand-in-hand on the streets of downtown Bangalore.

And those guidelines? Dressing modestly was no magic shield from being harassed. Instead, traveling in a group, sprinkled with our limited male members, did the trick.

It was a remarkable experience and an early lesson on how multiple realities and rules coexist – particularly in matters of gender relations.

Introduction to eveteasing

Fast forward to 1995, I returned, as a student in Delhi. This time, I was on my own. No orientation, no guides, no group. I lived as a paying guest with a family for a year.

From the first week, I navigated Delhi Transport Corporation buses and was immediately acquainted with the real meaning of the innocuous sounding phrase eveteasing. On the buses, it meant various body parts rubbed and hands grabbed private places they had no right to.

Did what I wore make a difference? Only slightly. A simple salwar kurta did not prevent unwanted attention. I was young, blue-eyed, fair and, therefore, fair prey.

And then the family I was living with shared a story.

A story of how the matriarch mashi was driving past a bus stop near IIT Gate and saw a young woman being taunted by a young man on a bicycle. The girl kept her eyes downcast, shrinking into herself. The boy grew more emboldened. Until, mashi intervened.

She leapt out of her car, yanked the boy off his bike, grabbed her chappal and started hitting him on the head. “How dare you abuse this girl? Have you no shame? No mother? No sister?” Scared witless, the boy ran off.

But the story did not end here.

Mashi then turned to the girl. “Why did you let him get away with misbehaving? If he does this to you today, what more will he try in future?”

The girl in question was not a foreigner. It had nothing to do with her eye, skin or hair colour. Only her gender.

The story empowered me to shed my polite Canadian demeanour and fight back. Practising my rudimentary Hindi, I embarrassed the perpetrators by shaming them loudly, shoving away their groping fingers.

Simplistic notions of not wearing a skirt or going out alone at night were not enough to survive Delhi. What I had to learn was to behave boldly if required. To expect harassment and be prepared for battle.

It worked. And as I accepted this new reality, I began to see a social revolution around me.

Urban India was changing. Night clubs pulsed till the wee hours. Ad campaigns pushed the boundaries of censorship. Couples lived together before marriage.

And the hypocrisy that sometimes lay beneath conservative veneers was revealed.

That elderly tauji who demands you behave modestly, giving due respect to his stature? He had a long-term mistress with two daughters.

The India I knew on the inside was not the India people perceived on the outside.

Adopting India

For more than a decade, I’ve been fortunate to call India my adopted home.

And I found it ironic when I was asked to give advice for a Study Abroad in India programme.

How do I translate my years here to guide young women coming to India for the first time?

How do I encourage them to find a delicate balance between being true to themselves and open to new experiences and, yet, being sensitive to the different environments they will encounter?

Knowing that any step they take to reduce unwanted attention simply may not make a difference.

How do I alert them to the shifting sands of acceptability based on context, time of day, location, company and more?

How do I make them acknowledge that India is not alone in its male chauvinistic notions and its inability to keep the vulnerable safe, that sexual harassment is unfortunately universal?

Today, I have age on my side. I have grown from being a young didi to a mature aunty, my hair spiked with silver. In Mumbai, I can wear a dress, go out at night and, chances are, I will be fine.

Yet, I look back on those guidelines I was given in 1990 and wonder how much has really changed.

And isn’t there another story in that?

We welcome your comments at letters@scroll.in.

Source: scrollin