Last Wednesday, I attended an open meeting hosted by the LSE Gender Institute ‘in solidarity with India’s anti-rape protests and to confront gender violence in Britain’. This was, of course, in solidarity with the massive protests that have been taking place in India, and around the world following the rape, torture and death of 23 year old Jyoti Singh Pandey in Delhi last December.The lecture theatre was packed – it was good to see so many people who had turned out in support, especially on a cold and snowy winter’s evening. I must admit I did have a slight feeling of having turned the clock back to the 80s and my undergrad student days in Manchester (where I shared a house with 3 radical feminists who worked for Rape Crisis. Therein lies another story). The last 30 years have seen so much of a shift towards consumerism, neoliberalism, post-feminism (and no-feminism) and political complacency that it was almost a shock to see so many campaigning groups still out there and active in this Facebook-loving, student debt-ridden, You Tube generation. I almost felt like getting my hair cut short again. But I am being flippant when the situation is too serious.
Many groups were represented – too numerous to name them all. They included Imkaan, South Asia Solidarity Group, Women Against Rape, Southall Black Sisters, Newham Asian Women’s Project and academics including Professor Naila Kabeer from SOAS. Much of the evening was given over to hearing from Kavita Krishnan of the ‘All India Progressive Women’s Association’ in Delhi via video / skype link (this did confirm I was in 2013 and not 1987). She spoke eloquently about the situation in India and the ongoing movement for women’s rights there, answering questions from the audience. Many themes came out and were discussed and I will try to touch on some of them here.
Firstly, why did this particular incident cause such an outrage? Arundhati Roy has commented, ‘While we are seeing some very unexceptional reaction to an event which is hardly exceptional, though it’s a terrible thing to call a tragic event ‘exceptional’ (Dec 31 2012). Roy goes on to comment that the real problem is that this crime plays into the idea of the criminal poor assaulting a middle class girl – whereas rape has been used so much in India (and elsewhere) as a means of domination by the wealthy, privileged, the army and police – where it is not even punished. Even if the accused are found guilty and punished for Pandey’s rape and murder, it will not address the ongoing violence against women among the privileged – as the upper and middle classes are rarely brought to justice in this way. Krishnan, in Delhi, also commented that Jyoti Singh Pandey was not even that middle class – in fact her father was a packer at the airport and her family struggled to send her to college to study. But perhaps her status, variously described as a ‘medical’, ‘paramedical’ or ‘physiotherapy’ student lent her middle class support – someone who could be identified as possibly any one of their own children.
Compare the reaction to this event to that of Soni Sori in Chhattisgarh. Sori was arrested in October 2011, on suspicion of being a courier between the (banned) Maoist Communist Party of India and the Essar Group. She alleges that she was tortured and sexually assaulted in custody – including having stones inserted into her vagina and rectum - under the order of the police superintendent Ankit Garg. Despite this, Ankit Garg was awarded the Police Medal for Gallantry in 2012, whilst Sori remains in custody. Her case has been highlighted by Amnesty International, who considers her a prisoner of conscience for her critique of human rights violations by both Maoist rebels and Indian state forces. Currently it is reported that around a third of Indian MPs (158 out of 543) faced criminal charges – including rape (reported by BBC News India, 25 Jan 2013) – with delays in the court process meaning many will wait years before being brought to justice.
Krishnan commented that while the initial protest had started out as wanting justice, it soon broadened to ‘we want freedom’ – freedom from the control of their fathers and brothers. She reported one encounter where a brother considered, seemingly for the first time, the relative freedoms given to him and his sister. He had taken it for granted previously that his sister was not allowed such freedom of movement as he had, without question. But why? For fear that she will not be safe from his own gender?
Other responses have included suggestions that early marriage will protect women (as if violence and rape do not occur within marriage) or that the reason she was attacked was that she was single and out at night with a male friend. I heard the defence lawyer for some of the accused saying it was her male friend’s fault for failing to protect her (as if, by virtue of being out in the evening, she needed special protection, or that anyone other than the rapists were to blame).
One criminal defence lawyer in the audience commented that in her career, she had seen many rape trials ‘messed up’ in the UK, for example, by police losing evidence. She called for zero tolerance in India and the use of capital punishment for rapists, to make examples of the rapists - as it was still available in India unlike the UK. This led to much murmuring among the audience, and shaking of heads in disagreement. Krishnan, in response – to her credit – said she took the question seriously. But, she commented, Saudi Arabia has these laws – and it is certainly not a feminist paradise. Also, she argued, it wouldn’t help as the conviction rate is so low and capital punishment would not be given to wealthy or high-ranking individuals, only those without money or influence. Gender discrimination is so deep seated and deep rooted in India that it is really only through education and cultural change that it can fully be addressed, not by death sentences.
Attempts have been made to brand the women’s movement in India as something foreign and alien. Mohan Bhagwat, head of the Hindu RSS, said the rape was because of Westernisation and modernity. He claimed that rape did not exist in rural India, although backed down after criticism. But Krishnan argued that modernity was not the problem – rather it was the lack of modernity that was to blame – and with it notions of equality and human rights. (Krishnan also commented, slightly mischievously, that the khaki shorts that Bhagwat and his compatriots wore, were not Indian – but instead inherited from colonial days and even fascist regimes. And was he living in fear of being attacked because he had adopted Western dress and had exposed his lower legs?) Others have criticized Western culture in musical and Bollywood influence. Yo Yo Honey Singh, the singer, seems to have come under particular attack for his sexist lyrics.
It is certainly true that the growth of corporate culture has ‘butted up’ against traditional values in India. Corporate buildings exist in or around the major cities, only 10-15 miles away from rural, conservative village cultures. It’s a culture shock, writ large – where traditional villagers judge the new male and female workers by their own medieval standards. It has echoes of early industrialization in the UK – where agriculture workers in the conservative villages, migrated to the new industrial towns in their thousands to earn money, find new values and independence from the rural (stifling) idyll. Young men from the villages see women working for these corporations (often underpaid and exploited in their own way here) as threatening traditional culture where public space is reserved for men, and the only women allowed are those somehow ‘asking for it’.
But other speakers cautioned against casting India in such a negative light. Problems of gender violence that are exposed in India exist in the UK. Of course they do. The speaker from Newham Asian Women’s Project highlighted a case whereby a young women alleged she was raped by her uncle. She complained to the police, but later had to return to the house where her uncle was, as she had no recourse to public funds and had nowhere else to go to. Another women from ‘Women Against Rape’ talked about similar rape incidents of women in the army and police, who face barriers to being believed, taken seriously and the perpetrators brought to justice.
Marai Larasi, of Imkaan contended that the issue was one of education. Whilst DFID were undoubtedly supporting well-intentioned educational projects overseas, we also needed similar projects here in the UK. Larasi continued that Jimmy Savile, here in the UK, got away with so much abuse (together with many other men) – but we tend to export this criminal behaviour – as though it is something that only happens ‘over there’, not in the ‘civilised west’. As she put it, where was the outrage and protests outside the BBC when the Savile abuse came to light? Sex selection abortions and genital mutilation take place here in the West (albeit generally amongst certain ethnic groups), not only in India, China and Africa. The conviction rate for rape in the UK is abysmally low.
There seemed, however, to be some disagreement amongst the representative groups present on whether the UK, and other Western countries, were as bad as India for women. The speaker from Southall Black Sisters said there was a world of difference between women here in the UK and women in India. I agree. There may be a select few, privileged by wealth and caste in India, who have the freedom of the wealthy – but for the vast majority of women, this will not be the case. Undoubtedly gender based violence occurs here in the UK – to all women, regardless of ethnicity or class – but nothing like that experienced in India. I really think the UK has moved on since the sexism and discrimination seen pre-1970s – though it is far from perfect here.
If India really wants to enter the world stage as an economic powerhouse, dominant in a globalised economy, then it has to confront its own issues of inequality and human rights for women. Its lack of investment in basic infrastructure will hold it back. The rape laws need to be modernized and broadened to include all forms of rape. Existing equality laws need to be enforced. We are not complacent here in the UK, we know we have our own problems – but we are trying. Women in India deserve better.
Useful links:
Imkaan
Newham Asian Women's Project
Southall Black Sisters
All India Progressive Women's Association
Women Against Rape
South Asia Solidarity Group
