dna edit: Tokenism flourishes

Governments across the board love tokenism. A common manifestation of this jaded trend is in naming buildings and streets after victims of violence. Currently, we are witnessing a spate of such government tokenism around the horrific gang rape, and the subsequent death of a young paramedical student in the heart of Delhi, six months ago.

Consider this: two days ago, president Pranab Mukherjee laid the foundation stone of the National Commission for Women (NCW), at a function in the capital. Earlier, during the budget session, the finance minister P Chidambaram, instituted the Rs100 crore Nirbhaya Fund, ostensibly to empower women.

Amid this flurry of tokenism the real issue — violence against women — seems to be losing its urgency. The government’s attention has moved to  ritual atonement rather than concrete action. Ironically, the NCW, which came into existence to empower women, is in need of fundamental transformation itself, something that’s hardly served by re-naming the  building. Recently we have heard regressive moral judgments emanating from NCW chairpersons across the country, condemning women for dressing ‘provocatively’, while they commented on incidents of rape.

It was expected — naively — perhaps, that the UPA government would not lapse into complacence so soon, forgetting the public outrage that not so long ago, had shaken the political establishment to its very core. The compelling anger of protesters, young and old alike, cutting across sections had then for the first time, impelled the government to deal with violence against women as part of its political and governance agenda.

For that long awaited beginning to translate into tangible gains for women however, the government needed to make an all-out and sincere effort to reform the system, particularly the police force. Unfortunately, we have seen little change on the ground.

Let’s take the recent case of Reingamphi Awungshi, a 21-year-old woman from Manipur, brutally sexually assaulted and killed in her rented apartment in Delhi, last month. True to form, the local police refused to lodge an FIR. Even worse, even as those protesting Reingamphi’s death awaited a post mortem report, the police designated her death as suicide. It was only after her family kept up their demands for an investigation that the police, after three days, finally lodged an FIR, as a case of abetment to suicide.

Police callousness, gender insensitivity, and routine refusal to lodge FIRs were, and still are, big hurdles in the way of  punishing perpetrators of violence, and bringing justice to victims. Even as violence against women continues unabated across the country, governments in states and at the centre, are dragging their feet on police reform. The landmark recommendations of Justice Verma Committee, which called for a systemic overhaul and police gender sensitisation, have moved out of the government’s discourse.

With the public glare fading, the government has yet again retreated into its familiar comfort zone of futile tokenism.