Prajnya Gender Talks, March 2022 || Speaking Around Law: Gender-Based Violence, Pluralism and Accountability by Srimati Basu

March 2022

Rapporteur: Suhasini Udayakumar

About the Speaker

Dr Srimati Basu is a Professor of Gender, Women’s Studies and Anthropology, and a member of the Committee on Social Theory at the University of Kentucky. She has an Interdisciplinary PhD from Ohio State University in Cultural Studies/Anthropology/Women’s Studies, and her teaching, research and community work interests include Global Feminisms, Law, Gender-Based Violence, Social Movements, Methodologies, and Masculinities.

She is the author of the monographs The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law and Violence in India (University of California Press, 2015) and She Comes to Take Her Rights: Indian Women, Property and Propriety (SUNY Press, 1999), editor of Dowry and Inheritance (Women Unlimited, 2005), and co-editor (with Lucinda Ramberg) of Conjugality Unbound: Sexual Economy and the Marital Form in India (Women Unlimited, 2014). 

Some of her recent articles on masculinity, law, marriage and violence appear in anthologies including 50th Anniversary Commemorative Volume of Contributions to Indian Sociology (2019), Men and Feminism in India (2018), Sexuality Studies: Oxford India Studies in Contemporary Society (2013), New South Asian Feminisms: Paradoxes and Possibilities (2012), and the journals Feminist Anthropology, QED, Journal of Indian Law and Society, Canadian Journal of Women and Law, and Economic and Political Weekly. She is presently working on a monograph about the antifeminist men’s rights movement in India following a 2013-14 Fulbright Fellowship to conduct fieldwork with MRAs across Indian cities.

Setting the Context

This talk will contrast media spectres of violence to a broader evaluation of forms of violence and agency. Dr Basu considers feminism’s ambivalent relationship to law: drawing its power from legal provisions, relying on political and corporate repercussions, but speaking to broader accountability including feminist dissension through the talk. 

Through examples from India and some from the US, including both media accounts and ethnographic data, she traces how people use existent laws – and the gaps and contradictions between legal provisions – to navigate their options i.e. to “bargain the shadow of the law.” She draws on her ethnographic work on negotiating gender-based violence in various legal and extra-legal settings in India to explicate law as a language to express grievances, with all the slippages and elisions of a language.

The Headlines of Rape Culture

Dr Basu inducts the audience into the manifestations of rape culture in India by displaying a few headlines from the prior week. These headlines, resplendent in their representation of rape culture, blame women for their “immoral” behaviour, demonstrate either the alacrity or apathy of the state as a protector, and show the ways in which powerful men are involved in the perpetration and resolution of sex crimes. They showcase – in all their glory – the public’s and the politicians’ perspectives that women lose all safety the minute they step out of their homes and their eye-roll-worthy suggestions that the government register and track working women to safeguard them. Dr Basu states that this is an exercise of power that reinforces other patriarchal relations while enhancing the state’s predominant power. 

The Accuracy of Gender Reports

In Thomson Reuters’ 2018 study on the World’s Most Dangerous Countries, India had moved up from rank 4 to rank 1, spewing defensive reactions from politicians and nationalists. Nevertheless, Dr Basu says there is a lot to criticise about such reports, beginning with the methodology. In this particular study, 548 expert journalists had been consulted but not one ground worker was. The study’s claim to rising rates of violence is also questionable, indicating a colonial gaze – a “theatre of pity” and a “spectacle of suffering.” Similarly, Thomson Reuters’ 2017 Report on the World’s Most Dangerous Cities magnifies and reinforces stereotypes. “What does this type of monitoring and accounting not show us?”, Dr Basu asks. She quotes Kalpana Kannabiran who asked to “demarcate the field of violence in social theory” and differentiate the norm from the normative. She also shares an extract from Arthur Kleinman’s The Violences of Everyday Life about the plurality of violence that shapes images and experiences.

Figure 1: An Excerpt from Arthur Kleinman’s “The Violences of Everyday Life”

Dr Basu posits that gender-based violence (GBV) is not in itself the main driver of patriarchy but is embedded in intersectional structural vulnerabilities. The criminal justice solutions we see around us every day amplify other forms of privilege. Recommended solutions such as the death penalty to curtail rape and the eradication of sex work to prevent sex trafficking serve as examples.

Violence: What are the Dangers? How Can We Best Talk about Them?

Delhi has been irrevocably branded the rape capital of India. What are the representational stakes here? All too often, Jyoti Singh’s rape and murder (ironically positioned as Nirbhaya) is used as an archetypal example connecting GBV and urban transformation. Similarly, the rapes of the journalist at Shakti Mills in Mumbai, and the veterenarian in Hyderabad are used as examples, where quotations of urban activities – going out for a movie, carrying out an assignment, getting home from work – are positioned as driving forces for the crime. They feature rapists from marginal communities inappropriately modern in their drunkenness and out of control in their homosocial groups (male buddies). 

On one hand, these generate the reaction that women leaving the house and western influence is the problem (For example, Mamta Banerjee’s comical “chowmein” thesis) and on the other hand, feminist communities increasingly talk about the need for better laws. Here Dr Basu puts forward four frameworks to be considered for understanding GBV. 

Rape Capital or Love Capital?

A Thomson Reuters’ study has concluded that a large number of cases (20-40K per year) are reported in the country. The conviction rate is abysmal at <25% and there is a backlog despite fast-tracking. As high as these numbers seem, rapes are severely underreported in this country. It is precisely these kind of reports that anti-feminists use to justify the occurrence of false cases. But, we need to realise that a low conviction does not mean false cases. It does however mean that these cases are not received in law as full convictions. We also need to examine the social and economic nuances to this phenomenon. Why are so many convictions lost?

Pratiksha Baxi explains in Public Secrets of Law: Rape Trials in India that falsity is the primary lens used for investigating rapes. Dr Basu shares three examples to clarify this theory. In one example, she talks about how a molested child who can’t tell time is expected to fulfill testimonial requirements for temporality during the trial. In another, she explains how women turn hostile witnesses to their own testimony due to incessant persuasion by family in order to forego the public status as a victim of sexual violence and repair kinship troubles. In another example, she talks about the disproportional police delays and bureaucracy of persecution, and inefficient report writing techniques particularly common for minorities.

Dr Basu also talks about journalist S Rukmini’s work which analyses the rape data in Delhi. A shocking 40% of the cases are filed by parents due to opposition on grounds of elopement and exogamy. Another 25% of the cases are registered when promises of marriage are abandoned. By viewing consent to sex as that to marriage, we completely dismantle the idea of consent. 

The POCSO Act, founded to protect children from predators, instead registers parental disapproval of marriage or property disputes. And that’s why she asks – Is Delhi the rape capital or love capital? It is important to name the various forms of patriarchal control of autonomy and marriage to use these laws as they are meant to be used. 

Dr Basu adds another caveat to this issue. Pluralism is the universe of choices we as citizens have with respect to the law. We need to examine the way plaintiffs negotiate laws and the narrative on the use (and misuse) of the legal system. When women use laws, anti-feminists criticise them, but don’t all people use laws based on how they benefit them? 

She quotes the example of Dalit rape cases where the ensuing narrative either paints the woman as morally culpable for her illicit behaviour or portrays her as being duped by uppercaste connivance to enter relationships that are not of her choosing. Is the simple agency to make bad relationship choices not available to Dalit women?

Usual Suspects

A common media trope is that of rapes committed by men in urban underclass settings as revenge against the urban woman’s modernity and sexuality. This trope of gendered vulnerability enacts caste and class privilege. Dr Basu uses Sneha Annavarapu’s study on women and cabs in Hyderabad (shown below) as an example. 

But why do we only focus on rural men’s violence while forgetting about the deeply violent “boys locker room” culture of entitled men? Similarly, cishetero women’s danger in public space stands as the symbol of the women’s national crisis. What about minority rapes such as those in military detention and of Dalit and transgender women that are entirely cut out of the discourse?

#WeToo

Dr Basu states that it is time to integrate the #MeToo movement with older feminist politics. Bhanwari Devi’s gangrape – where incidentally the rapists were never convicted – forms the base for sexual harassment law in india, which is the most useful law for urban and middle-class women in work and education. 

The naked march of women against the Army Special Powers Act was another iconic moment in marginal feminist history. MeToo takes different forms and holds different accountabilities. It is meaningful in that it stresses women’s profound unhappiness with everyday sexism, drawing attention to everyday power. But it also simultaneously reveals caste and class immunity and triggers a renewed debate on feminist politics and privilege.

Imagined Communities

Gender-based violence fortifies state violence. Hindutva is a cousin to the global right wing – but has its own aggressive menu. It is founded on the figure of the menacing Muslim man and has coloured sexism in two prominent ways. The first is the phenomenon of the Love Jihad, wherein “victims” receive brotherly patronage and protection from Hindu men, while doubt is simultaneously cast on modern women’s dodgy choices and communal solidarity is built up. The concept infantilises adult consent, as is evident in an infamous Uttar Pradesh case, where the woman had denied conversion to Islam and yet a Hindu mob had chased her Muslim lover’s family. Such ideas distract our attention from the gangrapes by uppercaste men in the very same state. The second is the hypervisibility of urban safety and the corresponding invisibility of borders. For example, the conversations around Kashmir are all about nationalism, religion, and militancy. Shouldn’t we rather centre our gaze on the military impunity to rapes and everyday harassment?

Two Frameworks to Pursue Solutions

Dr Basu completes the talk by recommending two frameworks to pursue solutions. One – to revisit Sharmila Rege’s idea that we need to centre our laws on Dalit women’s labour and sexual exploitation. Second – to build on Joe Fischel’s Screw Consent, which discusses how sexuality is pathologised and transacted and how sexual subjectivity and autonomy are curtailed. She says we must deeply question the voluntariness of alleged voluntary sex and the supreme power we assign to consent. Instead of championing legal interventions to beat GBV, we need to instead move to public and political health debates. 

Prajnya Gender Talks, February 2021 || Muslim Women, Agency and Resistance in Kashmir by Inshah Malik

February 2021

Rapporteur: Suhasini Udayakumar

Inshah Malik

Inshah Malik is an Assistant Professor of political theory and international relations at Kardan University, Kabul; a visiting Professor at the University of Washington; and previously a Fox Fellow at Yale. Her 2019 monograph, “Muslim Women, Agency and Resistance in Kashmir,” shed some much-needed spotlight on Kashmiri feminism. 

Context

Having been raised in Srinagar, Kashmir, questions about her and her fellow Muslim women’s mobility and rights followed her through adulthood. She noticed a glaring political disconnect between India and Kashmir, which motivated her to investigate what Muslim women want and to study their lived experiences. 

She launched her study with an interventionist feminism approach i.e. when groups of people from mainland India would visit Kashmir to research the struggles of Muslim women. However, this would often lead to tropes of these women being voiceless victims of double patriarchy. She knew there were several challenges in her way: How would she talk about them without taking away their sense of agency? How would she communicate that Kashmiri women who complied with Islamic rules and wore a hijab were not necessarily without agency?

Prevailing Narratives

She began by defining the concept of agency. Mainstream western feminism is well aware of cultural patriarchy but not that patriarchy can manifest in various forms (political, social, militarist, authoritarian regimes-based patriarchy etc). Agency must be defined keeping all these patriarchies in mind. Inshah dove into the work of middle-eastern feminist scholars, which was nevertheless complicated by West-vs.-Islam narratives and countered by right-wing Islamist movements, inevitably dislocating the findings of Muslim women’s research. American imperialist interventions operate through a white saviour complex that means to “protect and save Muslim women” (the despicable counter of which is the Indian man’s complex as displayed in the aftermath of Article 370 when Indian men rushed to marry Kashmiri women); Inshah spurs us to reflect: considering that feminism is a movement against the oppression of women, how can it align itself with imperialism?

Over the past decades, researchers have studied the struggle in the Kashmiri political context and the school of self-determination that emerged. But Inshah asks, how did women articulate themselves within the (sometimes) restrictive and conservative Islamic laws, while at the same time questioning and critiquing the state’s patriarchy?

Kashmiri Women and Self-Determination

Inshah interviewed 50 women who were active in various movements since 1947 to answer these questions. A few respondents – now in their 80s and 90s – had participated in the Riverside Front Movement, fighting for the right to vote. The movement had galvanised scores of women who supported Farooq Abdullah’s campaigns for women’s rights. 

The new Kashmiri manifesto led to liberationist ideas and the Kashmiri socialist self-determination movement which fought against feudal land acquisition. The movement aimed to reshape and emancipate Kashmiris’ social public life. Mass mobilisation and education drives happened through word of mouth and community-based political discussions. Women, who were active members, had no formal education but were well aware of the nuances of self-determination. One respondent described how she was inspired by the struggle because of the sense of community and common faith that it instilled amongst women, and the sense of purpose and agency it gave them. 

Meanwhile, a class divide emerged: elitist women were creating a narrative of modernisation – one that was defined as being linguistically, culturally, and politically closer to North India. Many  Kashmiri women shed traditional headgear and reformation was influenced by elitist Indian modernity. However, women continued to discuss their individual, personal, collective and Kashmir’s political future.

Dismantling Misconceptions

Inshah highlights that Muslim societies are viewed as products of religion and not of modern transformation and industrialisation. Narratives commonly depict Muslim women as wholly oppressed and ignore the political actions that actually led to women’s behaviour. She states that Kashmir was indeed India’s first Hindutva state, where the Dogra Rule was imposed and beef banned; so Kashmiri Muslims are not as governed by Islam as people think. Such a monolithic, linear view of Muslim societies is problematic because it becomes impossible to discuss Muslim women without mentioning their religion. Such a view is also exclusionist because Islam is labelled as especially or exclusively patriarchal whereas all major religions in the world are unequivocably patriarchal. 

Even the idea of agency that we have stems from Indian feminism, where it is seen as individual autonomy. This conception of autonomy is masculinist since the concept of agency can never really be individualistic even in modern societies where gender relations have changed; it can only be exercised in relation to other people. Our feminism fails to acknowledge this idea.

Inshah next delves into the post-1980s trend that viewed Kashmiri women as “mad women, a simplistic narrative that politicised madness. This narrative traps women’s work in the web of patriarchal language, and questions how these women who fought for the rights of other women also furthered the cause of men who oppressed women. But this narrative is overly simplistic and fails to understand the depth of the situation. She cites a few examples to describe this phenomenon. 

Aasiyah Andrabi was the leader of the Dakhtaran e Millat (Daughters of the Nation) outfit, which propagated an Islamist right-wing vision. Aasiyah used feminist interpretations of Sharia law to fight for women’s rights. She broke open the locks of mosques where women were prohibited, fought social evils like dowry and divorce, and helped women regain economic independence. But even until 2000, Yousaf Raza Gillani disregarded her completely, labelling her as “crazy.” 

Kashmiri women struggle to express themselves and be heard as political leaders. In other states, the law determines life; but in Kashmir, institutions have broken down and laws work against people, delivering impunity to criminals. Asking women to take political actions that are also feminist means a dismissal of the unique and challenging socio-political and cultural realities of Kashmiri life. We must rethink women’s relationship to religion – but not without considering the context within which these women are embedded and examining why they choose to work within those tropes. 

From another perspective, the “mad” Kashmiri woman is recognised as part of a political movement but is a target of redemption. Footballer Afshan Ashiq who was active politically found herself in the midst of disparate narratives due to her “stone-pelting.” Some insulted her for doing what must be left to men, or what was a traditionally masculine and reprehensible behaviour; some Kashmiri journals painted a narrative of her journey from footballer to stone-pelter while Indian media spun it as a transformation from stone-pelter to footballer. Thus, the mad vs. sane narrative becomes a pro-Kashmir vs pro-India narrative. 

Masrat Zahra, a Kashmiri photojournalist, defied her family and community by studying and pursuing journalism. She is famously known for her photograph of Arifa Jan, a woman whose husband was shot 18 times by the Indian army, and who routinely suffers from panic attacks. Masrat was booked under the UAPA for “inciting unrest” through this photograph. However, media narratives disregard her political feminist work and instead focus on her conservative dressing.

In yet another story, top militant groups had announced that women did not need to participate in political resistance such as stone-pelting and reassured them that they would be protected by themselves – their “brothers.” In response to this announcement, thousands of women came out to pelt stones. Such stories of daily resistance by common women are lost in the feminist discourse on Kashmir. 

Inshah concludes by pointing out that Kashmiri women are wedged between two oppressive influences, one where they are disregarded and another where they are regarded as crazy. But they are smart enough to know they have to fight both these influences with their own distinct brand of political feminism.

WOMEN, CITIZENSHIP AND THE DUTY OF AGENCY

Swarna Rajagopalan

A talk written for Stella Maris College, Chennai,
on the occasion of International Women’s Day 2018.

What is International Women’s Day? If you were to believe Panagal Park, it is a day to offer discounts and special prizes to women customers. If you were to believe corporates, it is a day for roses and special gifts and possibly some awards. For some clubs it is an occasion to have a cultural programme, maybe even with a stand-up comic or MC whose jokes centre on hapless husbands and ridiculously aggressive women in their life.

Yesterday, I was speaking with post-graduate students, asking them how they would observe the day, and one of them said, she would help her mother with housework. Very nice. But just think. That she can only associate her mother, the most important female figure in her life, with housework. That she does not know her mother beyond her service delivery role in the household. That she thinks this is a special, noble thing to do and that sharing work in a household is not just normal.

Clara Zetkin would have been shocked at how Indian patriarchy has subverted her idea that a single day should be adopted around the world for the advocacy and lobbying for women’s rights. This proposal was accepted at the International Conference on Working Women in 1910. At that time, women were active campaigners in their own countries and transnationally on issues as vital as the vote, citizenship, equal pay, better working conditions and world peace. They were citizens in fact, if not in law, and this observance date was to be a mirror and a rallying point for their work.

What is citizenship? Instead of spending all my 20 minutes on a review of the academic literature, I refer you to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which defines citizenship as the “relationship between an individual and a state in which an individual owes allegiance to that state and in turn is entitled to its protection.” The second sentence of the definitional paragraph states that “Citizenship implies the status of freedom with accompanying responsibilities.”

Citizens enjoy all the rights a state can offer, along with its protection. What does this mean?

This Women’s Day, let us do something like a quick rights survey for Indian women. I will just list the rights and ask you a question about each of them. I want you to scribble down your answers in your notebook or notes app.

The Right to Equality:  On a scale of 1-10 where ten is the maximum, what is the equality score you would give women in India?

The Right to Freedom includes

• Freedom of speech and expression
• Freedom of assembly without arms
• Freedom of association
• Freedom of movement throughout India
• Freedom to reside and settle in any part of India
• Freedom to practice any profession

Which freedom is most available to Indian women, and which one most imperilled?

Right against Exploitation: In which spheres have we most successfully eradicated exploitation of women?

Right to Freedom of Religion What does freedom of religion mean in the context of gender justice in India?

Cultural and Educational Rights Do these rights even matter for gender equality, and how?

Right to Constitutional Remedies Do most Indian women have access to justice?

And let us also briefly think about political and civil rights. How do women fare in electoral politics? How many women are nominated? How do the women manage to fund their campaign? Who is going door to door for them?

During the last election, a gynaecologist contested from our Assembly constituency. She did not campaign in our neighbourhood, no one saw, no one knew anything about her, so we voted in a guy who ended up at that resort with the other Sasikala supporters. And there are marvellous women who have come up from the Panchayats where there is reservation but no one wants to give them a ticket and let them rise to the top leadership levels.

Being a citizen also comes with certain obligations. The ones that the state is interested in are loyalty, obedience, taxation and military service. But citizenship is a relationship and a relationship takes two parties at least, so what about citizens? What else comes with citizenship and what should be the bare minimum we expect from each other?

You have rights, you have duties, you have agency. Citizenship is maximum entitlement, but it is also maximum agency. If you emigrate to the US or Dubai or Australia, you will have all rights as a citizen, but for the first generation immigrant, there is always an invisible limit to agency, I think. In this country, where you were born, agency is your birthright. And I am not talking about personal choices or free enterprise, or even the charitable edition of social work—I am going to talk about political activism.

This is your country, and you get to write the script as you want. You have a right to shape this country and change it. You have the right to change the world.

You are one of the most privileged groups of citizens I will address this year—you study in English at one of Chennai’s elite institutions and forevermore, when you step out, people will say, “Oh, you are from Stella Maris?” But frankly what does that really mean? Your dress is more stylish? Your English accent is better? You come with a nice social network? What difference does it make to the world? And let me not mince words: Nothing, unless you make that commitment now.

What does citizenship mean today for educated, privileged Indian women? So remember your answers to the survey questions now, and think about what they mean for you.

• The duty to learn: You have access to learning and to information. You carry smartphones which can be libraries in your purse. You are learning how to learn. So, stay informed. Read the newspaper. Learn more about issues you care about.
• The duty to listen: You have access to a cross-section of people in college and your circles, starting from Stella Maris, will only grow. Listen carefully to both what people say and what they leave unsaid. Consider that what they choose not to say may be what they think you should already know (so look it up and learn) or, more important, what they are afraid to say in front of you. Education should be opening your mind; only you can open your heart.
• The duty to communicate and teach: You have words, in more than one language, and wherever life takes you, there will be people who listen to you. Share what you know, where you can, while also listening to what others know.
• The duty to think critically: This is actually the point of higher education, and if you have been lucky enough to get some, you should be asking questions all the time—to learn and to hold accountable.
• The duty to vote: This is the bare minimum exercise of citizenship. If you do not vote, quite honestly, I think you should not complain. If you don’t like the options, do something about it.
• The duty to speak up: Speak your truth. Speak up when others need support. Speak up with something wrong happens. Speak up when you see injustice.
• The duty to take action: Around you, countless small problems need solutions. Garbage is not collected. Someone is not able to send their child to college. Someone is looking for a full-time care-giver. Someone is lonely. Someone is being gaslighted. Are you the person who says, “Damn tough, man?” and moves away, shaking their head with temporary sympathy? Or are you the person who calls EXNORA or sets up a crowd-funding appeal or looks up and calls service agencies? Who are you? Find the thing you can do and do it, without expectation of reward.
• The duty to resist: Do you obey unconditionally? Or do you try to understand before you comply? And if the regulation makes no sense or its problems outweigh its purported solutions, do you resist? Or at least rail? Being a citizen is also to take turns at the sentry post, to protect our rights and everyone else’s.

If you speak about your rights without doing your duty to society, consider that you might be exercising your privilege and not your citizenship. You are consuming what citizenship entitles you to, and giving nothing back in return.

So as I close today I want to remind you that citizenship is like everything else in life: Use it or lose it. If you are not a pro-active, engaged, thoughtful, critical citizen and you are willing to leave the tedious, troublesome work of citizenship to others, then you are complicit in the erosion of your own rights, whether it is equality, freedom of speech or privacy.

On International Women’s Day 2018, sitting in the elite surroundings of Stella Maris College, the choice is yours. Will you be a consumer or a citizen?

March 8, 2018