dna edit: No stopping such men

The perverse logic employed by CBI chief Ranjit Sinha to justify his view that betting needed to be legalised despite a lacunae of enforcement agencies conforms to a long tradition of powerful men using sexist language to fortify their arguments. Sinha criticised those resigned to the continuation of unregulated betting with the use of a shocking simile: “It is like saying if you cannot stop rape, you enjoy it”. While the CBI pleaded that its director’s statements be not taken out of context, it is impossible to not view the comments from the context of gender. Especially coming from a public servant in a country where patriarchal mindsets come up with outlandish explanations for the spurt in crimes against women.

Former Kerala Chief Minister and Communist stalwart EK Nayanar was one of the early culprits.

He once said that rape in the US was as “common as drinking a cup of tea”. In 1996, Nayanar dismissed the media attention over several men raping a young girl hailing from Suryanelli wondering why such a fuss was being made “since rape happens all the time”. Over the years, a number of honourable men have earned notoriety by their warped view of women and the crimes against them. President Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit’s remarks on “painted and dented women” taking part in the December 16 protests and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s comments that sexual assaults occurred in urban India and not in Bharat or rural areas earned much ridicule.

Not to be left behind, VHP chief Ashok Singhal’s premise was that western lifestyles were responsible for a spurt in sexual assault. There is little doubt that chauvinistic attitudes, conservative mores, and the sexism that dots private conversation force their way out in these public pronouncements.

In sharp contrast to the men who are at ease trivialising rape through their inane public statements, are the women who  struggle against daunting odds to surmount the omerta of silence governing sexual harassment at workplaces. Responding to the allegation of sexual harassment against a retired SC judge, raised by a lawyer interning under him, women lawyers have said they will back the intern. Many of them have admitted to knowledge of harassment but feared to speak up. Not surprisingly, it took 16 years after the Supreme Court laid down the Vishakha guidelines against sexual harassment of women at workplaces for the The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act to be enacted earlier this year.

The three-judge committee, comprising just one female judge, constituted  by the Supreme Court to probe the matter violated the court’s own Vishakha guidelines and the legislation it inspired.

The guidelines insist that half the members of the complaints committee must be women and the chair, a woman. Further, the Act mandates that a 10-member complaints committee must be in place at workplaces to investigate grievances. The inefficacy of the sexual harassment laws and the feeble outrage against Sinha’s statement reveal some bitter truths. CPM leader Brinda Karat was quick to call for Sinha’s resignation, but failed to give a proportionate response towards Nayanar. Like Brinda’s political limitations, women like the intern who challenge masculine power structures have tough choices to make. Often, justice becomes a lonely battle with a career at stake and intentions under suspicion.