Women’s rights in India needs a new model for action.
by David Adler
I used to travel two hours a day on the Delhi metro to go to university. In the fluorescent frankness of public transportation, conditions of gender violence are impossible to ignore. Trains are separated into general and women’s compartments, a necessary division to offer women a safe space in which to travel. Still, crowds of men gather at the edge of the women’s car, staring unabashedly at them across the divide. The few women who stand amidst the crowds of the general compartment are often groped, grazed or leaned against. One morning in November, as the train stopped at Rajiv Chowk station, a flood of passengers exited the car. I watched as a man grabbed the behind of a young woman, who did not even turn around to see him. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Chalta hai,” he said—“So it goes.”
The gang rape of 23-year-old Nirbhaya in Delhi last December was a great tragedy, but the outrage it has generated is a triumph for many. The widespread protests that erupted in its aftermath were equal parts fury and relief: here was an international awakening to a fact of daily life that remained shockingly pedestrian until her death.
Brown University professor Patrick Heller’s recent op-ed in The Indian Express (“Taking back the city,” Feb. 6, 2013) lavishes praise on the demonstrations for challenging a “cultural and legal status quo that demeans and victimizes women.” At the same time, Heller expresses skepticism toward movements’ capacity to maintain momentum and deliver institutional change. His reservations are certainly justified. Social movements in India have a remarkable ability to stagnate as politicians juggle the blame, gesture toward reform, and by and large crouch until the wave of controversy has passed.
Yet where Heller’s analysis highlights the productive, central role played by the urban middle class, many point with deep concern to the periphery of the movement: a substantial part of the Delhi demonstrations, composed of protesters who care little about gender violence and are content to join the public mob, agitate for the sake of agitation and compromise the movement’s non-violent means. This periphery accounts for an international media corps gawking at Parliament’s Raisina Hill, portraying “terror in Delhi” and tossing out rape statistics to feed outrage abroad. And last, as usual, it includes politicians leveraging the opportunity of large-scale public dissatisfaction to chisel away at the parliamentary majority. Now, as the momentum of the early demonstration fades, the movement must reorient itself to retreat from party politics into a stance that is truly discursive, looking not for short-term legislative Band-Aids but for long-term social change.
In a late December address to the nation, Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi pledged to combat the “pervasive, shameful social attitudes that allow men to rape and molest women and girls,” bringing forth a new lexicon in Indian politics to describe an issue that had largely laid dormant and invisible to the penthouse of Parliament.
Yet these were words delivered for transcription; footage reveals Gandhi reciting lines from rote, and it is difficult to parse out the compassion from the political calculation. Elections are approaching in 2014, and Gandhi’s Congress Party has long been criticized for being out of touch with aam admi (the common man), due to economic reforms such as encouraging foreign direct investment and reducing subsidies for propane, as well as favors for Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra. The ambivalence toward Gandhi’s speech stems from an underlying impression that her condolences were merely a means for reestablishing solidarity with her constituents before voters head to the polls.
These are the side effects of democracy. India is by no means the only country in which politicians pick up on social issues to boost their electoral résumés—yet the urgency of India’s gender violence requires Gandhi to approach the issue differently than standard procedure dictates. No one could deny the key role played by policymakers in aiding the movement. Policy could serve to challenge the status quo in a variety of ways and help protect women; more police accountability, harsher penalties for sexual violence and a more efficient legal system that can prosecute offenders effectively are all welcome. Heller is right to point out that the movement will have to make its march through the institutions.
Yet policy can only offer so many solutions, and patriarchy is equal parts public and private. The Indian state—overburdened with poverty while attempting to chart the path of its high-powered global economy—has only limited capacity, and women’s rights are not a top priority. Following Nirbhaya’s death, only a handful of states have made significant policy changes. Such lack of initiative is no coincidence. As the Association for Democratic Reforms makes clear, in the last five years Indian political parties have nominated a total of 260 candidates facing charges for crimes against women.
More importantly, though, we should remember that legislation is not a substitute for social change. Norms and behaviors fuel these issues, and while those norms will eventually have to find expression in the institutions, minor policy changes here and there in response to protests, without the backing of a long-term, concrete strategy, will do little else besides allowing politicians to feel they have appeased the masses.
In this regard, the gay rights movement exemplifies what will happen if the present mobilization does not develop a long-term strategy. With courage and persistence, gay rights activists mobilized large numbers to protest against Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, composed of British-era legislation that criminalized all sexual activities “against the order of nature”—sodomy among them. Facing major public pressure, the Delhi High Court finally scrapped Section 377 in July 2009, a major victory for the movement. Yet in the wake of that success, the gay rights movement struggles to keep its numbers. Many of its fringe members walked away in 2009 feeling like the job was done, even though homosexuality remains heavily stigmatized throughout the subcontinent.
The 2011 anti-corruption movement followed a similar pattern. After a series of major corruption scandals in the summer of 2011, the streets of nearly every major Indian city overflowed with protesters as Anna Hazare languished in prison. Hazare had become the Gandhian figure driving the movement forward, offering his body as sacrifice when he launched his first major fast and demanded the implementation of the Jan Lokpal Bill, which would establish an independent body to investigate all levels of parliamentary corruption.
Only one year later, the fireworks of the anti-corruption campaign were exhausted, and Hazare could only muster a slow burn on his own. At his second fast this fall, only a small gathering of protestors lent their support. Media outlets were quick to note the disappointing turnout. Meanwhile, the Jan Lokpal Bill foundered, and while corruption made its way onto the temporary short list of India’s hot political topics, the parliamentary status quo remained largely unaffected.
It is a tragic tale, and one that Indians cannot afford to repeat in the case of gender violence. The issue at stake is social and requires a shift in discourse. Education reform is crucial: schools in India can no longer afford to shy away from addressing issues of sex and educating its students about its safe practice.
The workplace, too, must make changes. At St. Stephen’s College, an elite institution preparing the next generation of Indian leaders, a horrific sexual harassment case among its faculty was completely ignored and covered-up while the administration actively intimidated students who attempted to protest. The current movement cannot afford to narrow its ambitions. When women are afraid to travel on public transit, when they do not feel protected by the very force of law designed to provide protection, and when—in the case of Delhi—they are advised not to leave the house at night, neither legislation nor civil disobedience will suffice.
The Indian media has begun to pay attention to stories of rape and harassment, pushing them from page seven or eight—where they normally reside—to the front cover. This, as Heller notes in his piece, is a success in itself. But violence persists. In February at a non-violent student rally against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the police deployed water cannons and beat protesters across the barricade, then sexually harassed many of the women at the helm of the protest.
The Nirbhaya case will proceed and the offenders will be punished. Meanwhile, opponents of gender violence in India face the urgent task of creating a new model for action that will continue to unsettle the status quo: keeping the conversation alive, demanding justice from parliament, and proving that women’s rights are more than an electoral issue. Nahin chal hoga—it will not go as it always goes. India must play that on loop until it becomes true.
David Adler ’14 is a Development Studies concentrator.
Art by Tiffany Keung