No Care for Women

The National Commission for Women (NCW) is once again hopping about for the limelight. After explaining diligently to us why women should rejoice if called “sexy” by eve-teasers and how molestation is caused by women dressing provocatively, the NCW has now risen in righteous indignation against Kiran Bedi, the supercop turned activist.

They want Ms Bedi to apologise publicly for her comment about the media giving more space to a “small rape” than to corrupt ministers. And no amount of apologising and explaining on social networking sites by the ex-cop seemed acceptable to the schoolmarms of NCW.
I am not saying that the NCW has no reason to haul up Ms Bedi. It does. However, it is also palpably clear to anyone with any common sense that Ms Bedi was not really commenting on the dimensions of rape but on what the media finds sensational. She was angry that in the news media, sex, even involving unknown people, gets precedence over corruption involving big ministers. In effect, she was saying to the media: why can’t you speak up against the powerful guys who are raping your country? But then she is Kiran Bedi, given to shooting from the lip. And her weapon is a peculiar Delhi English that can swiftly rearrange words, brushing aside syntax and grammar. But it rarely misfires. Sadly, here she was pulling up the media, which decides whether a shot is on target or not. And the media ducked.
“Ask yourself,” Ms Bedi had raged. “On a small rape case or assault which a low-ranking police official commits, how you would discuss it. But against 15 ministers, Prashant Bhushan and Arvind Kejriwal had given the evidence but nobody from among you media hold any debate or discussion over the issue. Tell me, why you haven’t done that? Do you fear them?” Yes, she had said it. She had no patience for small rapes and assaults by small officers taking away the spotlight, or all the light, from the really big corruption scandals. But it is also clear that her anger and frustration had got the better of her English, that in her frustrated fumble she had got her words terribly mixed up.
But the NCW, exhibiting uncharacteristic alacrity, pounced on Ms Bedi. And after some spirited spouting of clichés about how bad rapes are, and how as a woman Ms Bedi should have known better, demanded a public apology. Too bad the respected members of the NCW don’t show such eagerness to extract apologies from people more powerful than a retired-cop-cum-activist who has alienated both political lobbies and the media.
For example, some months ago, when West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee haughtily dismissed as a lie the complaint of a woman who had been raped in Kolkata by men she had met at a nightclub, stating that the woman was making it up to “malign her government” the NCW said nothing. They said nothing when Madan Mitra, Cabinet minister and the chief minister’s close aide, kept making horribly sexist and unkind remarks about the victim, harping on how she had been drinking at the nightclub and wondering aloud on television why the woman, a mother, would go to a nightclub.
After a media storm, the NCW finally mustered enough courage to declare: “NCW is concerned of the reported statements of the West Bengal government saying the claim of the woman was fabricated. The reaction should have been given after a thorough investigation of the matter and such premature reaction can influence investigation.” No strident demand for an apology, no terse reminders about the gender of the chief minister or the demands of the public office that the ministers hold.
The NCW was also silent when Jayant Chaudhary, a young member of Parliament from Uttar Pradesh, said that he found nothing wrong in the decision by the local khap panchayat to restrict the movement of young girls and not let them use cellphones.
But the NCW was not silent when a minor girl was mob molested near a pub in Guwahati — in a chilling flouting of rules, NCW member Alka Lamba announced the name of the victim to the press. And chairperson Mamta Sharma advised women not to dress provocatively, because such attacks are caused by women aping the West. Dear Ms Sharma also advised women on tackling lecherous comments by roadside romeos: “Women need not be offended when called sexy. It is merely a compliment that the dictionary defines as beautiful and charming.”
Nor was the NCW silent on the attack on young women in a Mangalore pub some years ago. Its report blamed the pub and the clothes women wear in pubs rather than the hooligans who had assaulted them. Furious protests led to the trashing of the report and the removal of the member responsible for it, Nirmala Venkatesh.
The NCW clearly proves that just being a woman does not give you the right to deal with women’s issues. Set up in 1992 as an autonomous body, the NCW was supposed to voice women’s concerns, help women overcome discrimination, stand by women victims and advise the government on remedial measures. In its early days, especially under Mohini Giri and with members like Syeda Hameed, it did excellent work to curb violence against women, help women in distress and fight feudal values and patriarchal discrimination. Over the years, it has become an irrelevant abode for gender-insensitive women in politics, failed the cause of women and mutated into a silly extension of the government of the day. There is no transparency in the selection of its members, who are routinely political appointees and lack awareness, sensitivity and accountability.
It even helps the government get away with murder. Like when the NCW, then headed by BJP member Poornima Advani, gave a clean chit to the Gujarat’s BJP government following the horrendous sexual violence and murders during the 2002 sectarian violence. It clarified that no particular community had been targeted. In the UPA regime, Congress members rule the NCW.
Institutions like the NCW are too precious to be smothered by politicians. Women activists around the country have voiced their concern and asked for a revamp and more transparency. The NCW was supposed to promote gender equality. Instead it now represents the stereotype of the safe Indian woman — ornamental, irrational, subservient to powerful bosses and obsessed with the trivial.

The writer is editor of The Little Magazine.