This is what she said, her exact words in Hindi,

“koi ladki jaa rahi hoti hai, chaar ladke comment kar dete hain, “Badi sexy hai”, sexy ka matalab wo naheen hai, sexy ka matlab hai beautiful hai, khoobsoorat hai, khubsoorat ke alawa charming hai, charming ke alawa… a a a  badi excited, badi khoobsoorat lag rahi hai. Hum uske galat arth jab lene lagte hain, tab hee samasyane paida ho jatee hain… “

Roughly translates to,

” If a girl is going somewhere and four boys pass a comment and say, “She’s very sexy”, sexy doesn’t mean that, sexy means beautiful, she’s charming, beautiful and charming …also very excited, looking very beautiful, when we start taking it in the wrong/negative sense, only then there are problems.”

What do you think?

Do you think ‘sexy’ is inoffensive?

Would you find it as good or as bad if you were going somewhere and ‘four boys’ passed a comment and called you ‘sexy’ as when they called you ‘charming’ or ‘beautiful’? Would your reaction be different if somebody else (a partner, friend, someone known to you) said the same thing?

“Focus on a particular word is misplaced. Any word that is unsolicited or unwanted, which is about, on or to a woman, is an offence. That is the real issue, not just the word,” said CPI(M) leader and prominent women’s rights activist Brinda Karat.  [link]

Mamta Sharma says,

“I would like to clarify that the younger generation is literate and have certain different approach and have come to terms with words like sexy which is not held to be a derogatory remark. But that doesn’t mean anyone can use it,” she said. [link]  

Edited to add this video where she is trying to clarify,

And worse,

“She had gone there willingly… She was not lured into it… They drank vodka,” said Ananth Dev Tiwari, Superintendent of Police, Noida.

There are court directions which say the victims’ statement should be taken at face value till the trial proves otherwise. [ NDTV article here.]

Why did a police officer break the law?

I wonder if he was hoping that if she could be proven suspected to have gone willingly, and drinking vodka, she would not get as much sympathy. And perhaps then Noida police would not be held responsible for not creating an environment that discourages sexual assaults? Or maybe he genuinely believed that the teenager deserved to be raped by five men because she knew one of them and went to his birthday party (where others were already present)?

Is it difficult to believe when the family says they did not report an earlier rape by the main accused an year ago, after which, they allege, he threatened the minor with an MMS clip?

Why does it look like the police has no idea that they are paid, trained and employed for protecting the victims and for controlling crimes and that can’t be achieved if the victims are afraid to report crimes?

It is now perfectly legal for a woman to retain her maiden name after marriage. The Bombay high court recently amended a crucial rule under the Family Courts Act to prevent a woman from being compelled to file any marriage-related proceedings only in her husband’s surname, thus offering relief to many seeking a divorce. It will also help a married woman file proceedings in other courts under her maiden name, say legal experts.

The radical rule says that “a wife who has not changed her name after marriage, by publishing in the official gazette, may continue to use her maiden name”. The law is clear now: a woman is not obliged to take her husband’s name after marriage. [Read more]

One good thing about women not changing their names is they continue to carry the family name like actor Kalki Koechlin said, “It’s still ‘Kalki Koechlin’… I’d never want to let go of Koechlin; that’s who I am. Besides, I’m the only child, and it’s like my family legacy, I can never give it up.” [Read more here.]

Since Indian parents’ male child preference is also based on family name being carried forward, it might help if women kept their names and pass a  part of their names  (first name, second name) to their children. It’s already  being done and I am sure our future generations will wonder how we allowed mothers’ names to be completely excluded from children’s name.

The Law On Names

After Marriage

* A wife may continue to use her maiden name if she has not changed it officially after marriage

* A wife can file for divorce in her maiden surname; married surname; any other name she may have adopted and officially gazetted

After Divorce

* A woman can continue using her former married surname, except if her intention is to defraud the ex

[Read more]

Note: I am starting a new tag in response to a comment complaining that I seem to see nothing good in India.  Now if you click here, you will be able to read all the posts tagged ‘What I love about my country’

Related posts:

First name, Unwanted. Second name, Dad’s or Husband’s name.

So what could make even the average, selfish, money-minded Indian family welcome baby girls?

When she said ‘Divorced’ the clerk in this bank (SBI) in Goa chewed his pen for sometime and then wrote ‘Miss’.

If he was in France today, he would not have had to worry so much. (Thanks for the news and the link @allytude)

France is bidding adieu to the  term ‘mademoiselle’ – on the grounds that it is ‘sexist’.

The Gallic equivalent of ‘Miss’ will  be abolished from all Government  documents because it suggests that a woman is available.

Prime minister Francois Fillon has also banned the phrase ‘nom de jeune fille’, meaning ‘maiden name’, from official paperwork because it is ‘archaic’ and has ‘connotations of virginity’.

To the delight of feminist campaigners, an order issued to all ministries and regional authorities on Tuesday said ‘mademoiselle’ must be replaced with ‘madame’ and should be not interpreted as an indication of marital status.

‘Maiden name’ must also be swapped for ‘family name’ or ‘name of usage’.  Read more: here.

France isn’t the first country to ban the discrimination.

English-speaking nations have largely replaced “Mrs.” and “Miss” with “Ms.”

In Germany, the term “fräulein” (“little woman”) is no longer in official use.

In Italy, honorifics are typically not used on official documents.

And in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec, “madame” is used for all except the very young and those who insist on “mademoiselle.”

On state forms in France, the terms “maiden name,” “patronymic” and two expressions meaning “married name” are to be replaced by “family name” and “used name,”  Read more: Link

Language matters. It reinforces what is conveyed.

‘Men are never asked if they are married if they want a credit card or mobile phone.’ [French feminist campaigner Julie Muret -link]

Language says a lot about those who use it. For example, ‘Husband’ in Indian languages – Pati, Malak  (Thanks BIW), Swami, Pati-Parmeshwar and Patidev roughly translate to lord, owner, god and master.

And,

“You’ve never wondered why we don’t call a single man ‘mondamoiseau,’ or even ‘young male virgin?’ ” [Read more].

Every blogger should mind their language?

Why does Gender Sensitivity in Legal Language matter.

1. Preeti Shenoy
2. Sangitha Krishnamurti
3. Bikram
4. Ruchira
5. Suranga
6. Nandini
7. Shail
8. Bhavia
9. Sunita Kurup
10. Gounder Brownie
11. Desi Girl – Desi Girl of girlsguidetosurvival
12. Su
13. R’s Mom
14. Meera Sundarajan
15. Pepper
16. Haresh
17. Careless Chronicles
18. Tikuli
19. Yuvika Chaube
20. Crescentia Kalpana David
21. Imp’s Mom
22. Giribala
23. Momofors
24. Chandni
25. Amodini
26. Khushi
27. Unmana
28. Shree Venkatram
29. Nita J Kulkarni
30. Ranu Chakravarty
31. Hamsini Ravi
32. Usha Vaidyanathan
33. Preethi Krishnan
34. Mad Period Woman
35. Celestial Rays
36. The Bald Guy – TBG
37. Braja

Updated:

38. Deeps
39.Sandhya
40. Pawan Maruvada

All the winning entries can be read here.

Although they have little real choice in whether or not they want this life, the responsibility to make this work is still theirs. Sounds fair?

What is Indian Culture?

Traditional Indians seem to see Indian Culture as ‘Raising Indian daughters to be good daughters in law’.

So if Indian women (like other Indians) begin to see a life beyond the goal of Getting Married and Staying Married then they fear that Indian culture is in danger.

Sindhuja Giridharan shared the link to this article about double standards that some NRIs call ‘Parenting’ and ‘Saving Indian Culture’.

//It wasn’t family responsibilities or businesses interests in India that drew Shankar back home after so many years abroad. Quite simply, his little girl had grown up. “It just struck me one day when she refused to change out of her jeans for an Indian party we were going to… She was 11 years old then …”//

Of course the Indian way of bringing up daughters is better than anywhere else.   That is why we dread having them so much that we pray, fast and abort for sons.

More from that article,

//The question that arises then is: why is imbibing the Indian culture more important for girls than it is for the boys? Perhaps the reason lies in the fact that America is thought to foster a sense of individuality, of fierce independence and lateral thinking, which while great for our boys, can severely hamper a woman’s marriage prospects. Of course, most Indian women (groomed from the cradle to make the best wives) are still expected to strive to attain the virtues of domesticity, obedience and docility, to the point of being self-effacing. If the girl must ‘fit in’ with her husband’s family after marriage, she must learn to be flexible, to adjust without argument — lessons of life that some NRI parents feel just can’t be learnt in America’s hedonistic culture of unabashed gender equality, money, sex, drugs and self-gratification.//

Please do take a look at the article here.

Here is a comment that sees loving (?) a child as reason enough to take away any choices from her.

What good is being liberal or modern if your daughter gets divorced in the first year of the marriage? Which parent would want to take such a risk?

…
The media always use the term ‘double standards’ . Is it ‘double standard’ when the father drops the daughter to the bus stop & the son has to go all alone?
Is it double standard when the parents are agitated when their daughters out of contact for more than a few hours?

Yes , we treat our children differently. That does not mean we love one less than the other…

Fear of a marriage not working out, but no fear of life long dependence. What message do Indian daughters get?

‘In a significant decision, the Punjab and Haryana High Court last week ruled that the right to abort a pregnancy in a marriage rests with the wife and not husband.

“A woman is not a machine in which raw material is put and a finished product comes out. She should be mentally prepared to conceive, continue the same and give birth to a child. The unwanted pregnancy would naturally affect the mental health of the pregnant woman…” said the court.

Stressing that marital intimacy between a couple does not automatically translate to the woman’s consent to child bearing, Justice Jitendra Chauhan said, “Mere consent to conjugal rights does not mean consent to give birth to a child for her husband.”’ [Link] Thanks for the link Brown Vagabond.

I wish this judgment and what it conveys was understood by families of women like Sita. (All names changed)

A friend (and a social worker) told me about this woman in her twenties who lives in a village in Haryana.

Sita’s parents had first arranged her marriage into a family where she worked all day and wasn’t given enough food.That marriage did not last. When the parents arranged a second marriage for her, their biggest worry was that she may not conceive because her first husband had raped her violently.

In her new home she works all day, but she is given enough food to eat and her husband is kind to her. (Although my fried noticed that Sita has not even seen the local market, because the family does not believe in their daughters in law stepping out of the house).

Now she is pregnant and her mother in law took her to a city hospital where they said since she is the ‘size of a ten year old girl‘, she must have a caesarean section in the eighth month, although the baby is growing well and there are no other complications. Sita’s mother in law, Kaushalya is excited about raising a second  grand child.

Kaushalya has raised the child of her first daughter in law too. This little boy has little attachment to his mother, who my friend was told, is a bad mother. My friend shopped for gifts for this mother in law saying this would make them treat Sita kindly. She was excited about meeting them but came back disappointed, because Sita is so stressed, she fears she might miscarry.

Sita is worried that she won’t be allowed to take care of her baby, her mother in law believes her ‘age and experience’ make her better qualified for caring for this child. (Sita is expected to cook, clean, wash the family’s clothes etc). Sita’s husband, though kind to her, is an obedient son. Sita is also upset because he will not be with her during or after the baby’s birth. Kaushalya told my friend he is the most devoted of all her sons.

This is not one rare story. Take a look at the pregnant woman in this advertisement. In another case the daughter in law was sent to her parents’ home as a punishment for general incompetence, and the mother in law raised the grandchild. This daughter in law was called back when the family started arranging a marriage for the second son.

I have blogged about another set of grand parents who raised the grand child, because the mother was only good enough to give birth, here ‘Better than mothers?‘

Harijan who sodomised a ten month old baby had his sentence reduced because he was away from his family and hence ‘lost control’. Another child abuser in Kerala was excused because he had a family (the 11 year old victim was thrown out of school).  But it seems not all pedophiles and rapists find such support and understanding when random situations cause them to  ‘lose control’.

Here’s a verdict that gives hope.

“Castration is the most befitting sentence which can be imposed on any pedophile or serial offender but the hands of this court are tied as the statute does not provide for it… Indian legislators are yet to explore this as an alternative to conventional sentencing,” observed additional sessions judge Kamini Lau.

ASJ Lau sentenced a man to imprisonment for his “entire life” for raping his six-year-old niece and directed the prison authorities not to give him any remission. PT please explain!

“The message to be sent by the court has to be loud and clear, and that is ‘do not mess with a child’ and any person who meddles with the child, male or female, in any manner shall not be spared,”…

The court convicted 30-year-old Nandan for rape, kidnapping and unnatural sex. Calling the convict a “live sex bomb”, the court refused to take a lenient view of his act. “Society cannot afford to have live sex bombs who, if let loose, are a potential threat… particularly to women and children. The convict before this court with his track record of a compulsive sex drive requires to be kept out of circulation,” it said.

Nandan had kidnapped his niece when she was playing with her brother and took her to his house on pretext of giving her ice-cream and raped her … Nandan had earlier tried to sexually assault women in his family but the matter was hushed up to protect family honour…

The court noted that the minor was rescued from the clutches of the convict by her mother and aunt who went to his house in search of the girl. They had found the injured child crying while Nandan was sleeping after committing the crime. [From TOI]

More about this verdict in Indian Express.

“… Nandan … had also threatened to kill her if she informed anyone. …Nandan had also attempted the same offence with another girl, aged 13, who had come to the house of a relative. Though family members knew what had happened, they kept quiet, an act which the judge condemned in her order.

“It is the primary duty of each adult member of the family to identify, expose and act against such persons exhibiting these kind of sexual tendencies and aberrations… It is deplorable that for Nandan’s family, his liberty was more crucial to them than the life of the girl which he destroyed,” the judge said. …

Nandan was sentenced to a prison term for actual life, meaning that there would be no remission after 14 years of jail.

The Indian Penal Code provides only a jail term for sexual offenders. Countries like the US, UK and Germany have started awarding ‘chemical castration’ as punishment.

The court also ordered the Delhi government to pay the victim a compensation of Rs 2 lakh towards her education and welfare.”  [Read more - Indian Express]

Related posts:
“A message is required to be sent, loud and clear that wife bashing has no place in a civilised society and violent husbands deserve no mercy,” (Verdict by the same judge)

In Rape Culture, we understand that if the rapist was living alone, away from his native place, he could lose control over himself.

Rape Culture 101

The noises got louder inside the lift and kept getting louder after that, on the ground floor it was difficult to imagine why nobody else was reacting. Just then a youngish man came running down the stairs, seemingly from the direction of the violence, so I asked, “…where are these noises coming from?” “Nothing. Over there somewhere…” Still walking away very fast.
“Aren’t the noises too loud, somebody could be being robbed!“
“No, no…” He rushed away. He spoke in English, could have been a resident or a visitor.

He was followed immediately by another, heftier and unwashed looking man running down the stairs, and then one more and then a woman shouting, “Guard stop them!” Something was wrong, I also called out, “Watchman!! Watchman!” Another man came running down and the couple, who looked like residents, was trying to stop the two (or three?) men from leaving. The husband stood infront of the car the unwashed looking man had got into and had started. The couple was yelling and asking the security to stop them from getting away. Some security men arrived, but the unwashed looking tall man said in Hindi,”We are from Vigilance, we have reports there is a sex racket going on in house number XXX…” At the same time, the woman was shouting, she demanded they show their papers, he flashed some card but wouldn’t let them really read it. She demanded some identification, “You can’t leave, you are not from Vigilance, show your voter id?” He said, “Do I go everywhere with my voter id? We are from Vigilance, we had got a report that there was a sex racket going on and we wanted to know if someone with xyz name…” “I am not xyz, I am abc. But how dared you push me and get inside my house like this! You are not from Vigilance! Guard! …don’t let them go away! And I recognize this one, he did the woodwork at our place!“

I remember thinking if they were from Vigilance, why were they running away.

Hearing them say ‘sex racket‘, even though I didn’t believe them completely, did make me take another look at the residents. They wore kurta pajama and sweaters, like they were getting ready to sleep. Just then an old man, also similarly attired, appeared, he was also shouting, “You barged into our house, you entered my bedroom, they said they were from vigilance, don’t let them go away!” I asked the woman (in her late twenties/early thirties) what happened. She kept repeating that they had said they were from vigilance and had no identifying papers. This was one of the rare times when I had left my cell phone at home, and the building intercom wasn’t working. Somebody should call the police…

After a while I brought Gabbar back home and realised not a sound of the commotion downstairs could be heard in our wing, went to my son’s room and could hear the arguments and the struggle to leave still going on. I did not even have the number of the main gate. The thought that somebody actually barged into an apartment in the same building at 10 pm was a frightening thought. A ‘sex racket’ in the neighbourhood however unlikely, would be preferable to intruders inside one’s house. I called my husband in another city and then my mom and sis in law and realised there was no way I could sleep or even focus on anything else. Then the dogs started barking, so went back to the balcony and saw around ten watchmen trying to stop a car and the man was refusing to come out, then he backed and accelerated and zoomed away, almost running over one of the guards. This time all the guards seemed to understand that these men were not from vigilance, one of them shouted in Hindi, “He could have run over one of us, we have to stop him.” They rushed after the car which stopped with a screech at a speed breaker – it was dark but I filmed this part (not clear) from my balcony. In the dark I heard someone shout, the police was on its way and they were going to lock this man (or two men?) in the Guard Room till then. Relief.

What would you have understood from this? How would you react? I hesitated in calling the police and wasn’t even sure what number to dial.

The experience was unnerving, I couldn’t sleep. Our house had an armed robbery when I was 17 and I have blogged earlier about how I had jumped over a wall and raised an alarm which made the armed dacoits run away. Nobody was arrested, and each one of us, who were present at our place that night, apart from the fear and shock which never completely went away, also became kind of vigilant – not out of choice, it just became a part of our system. I realised neighbors never know what to do if they hear suspicious noises. All they have to do is call the security, call every other neighbour, call the police – and if possible make a noise (just yell together so the criminals hear), while keeping themselves safe.

The next day passed with near indifference after the building security guard said two of the men were with the police, the other two had escaped. It seems nobody could warn the Main Gate in time to stop their car. Why? Because, the watchman said, we would have caught and beaten them but, “unhone aisi baat bol di…” (‘They said such a thing, we were confused’ referring to the ‘sex racket’ accusation) He was right, nobody was sure if they were not from the vigilance and the woman was not in some way involved with some crime.

In the evening I met two neighbors who confirmed that the intruders were armed robbers and also that hardly anyone else in the building (let alone in the complex) was even aware that anything had happened. This was dangerous, all the residents should have been alerted. My immediate neighbour said she did hear something but she thought some young people had had too much to drink. She agreed that we should meet the family and find out exactly what happened, instead of relying on hearsay. So we met them.

Here’s what actually happened.

The young woman said she had opened the door when the door bell rang, and four-five men pushed her and got inside, claiming they were from ‘Vigilance’ and they swiftly scattered all over the house, in various rooms,  and they got all the occupants to collect near the dining area. There was this young mother, her father in law, husband, their one year old daughter and a male helper. She noticed these men had locked the door from inside and realised they could not be from Vigilance. She confirmed that the police found they were armed not only with knives, desi katta (locally made rifles) but also pepper spray, chilli powder, duct tape, rope and large knives (etc). The young woman said she sensed they were in serious danger and were unlikely to be left alive and, “Then I thought of my daughter, and then nobody could stop me, I rushed to the door, fighting them and shouting ‘Guard, guard!’ … and shouting at them very loudly …I was hoping somebody would hear.” She managed to open the door with some struggle, and had to struggle even more when they tried to drag her back inside. A neighbour opened the door but went back in – maybe in shock? At least he could have called the security? When these men realised they couldn’t stop her, they rushed ahead of her to get into the car (i think two cars were there, not sure) parked outside and escape. That is when I saw them. She said she remembered talking to me last night but wasn’t sure what she said, or what she had been shouting. She was fine all day but had started feeling scared now… Her father in law said they were all alive because of her courage and presence of mind.

It seems these criminals signed and entered the supposedly safe complex as visitors, giving this family’s name and apartment number.

I asked her if I could blog about this and she said that would be fine.

The residents are discussing what can be done.

Here’s something I feel everybody should know -

1. Do have some numbers to call in case you hear any noises that are suspicious. Police, security, reliable neighbors etc.

2. It’s better to raise a false alarm than to do nothing. If there is hesitation in calling the police, then do call other neighbors, friends, and building/society security.

3. And it is not a good enough to yell ‘guard’ or ‘somebody help’.

Scream  ‘CHOR’ / ‘BACHAO’ / ‘pakdo’/local translations of ‘Help!’.

Yell your apartment number clearly (in high rise buildings it’s difficult to identify where the commotion is)

Yell that you are being killed/attacked.

Or yell “fire” but again, along with the apartment number.

4. Make sure everybody in the neighbourhood is aware of what happened. Have meetings, discuss what can be done to prevent such incidences.

This is where I have blogged about the armed robbery at my place.

Is it possible that the need to be a man or to be physically stronger in violent situations is overrated?