Category Archives: Genders

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Genders, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Movements, Politics, Sex

Adventures in Creepland: An Open Letter to the District Collector, Calicut, Kerala

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This letter is jointly written by the signatories.

 

Dear Mr Prasanth Nair

We, the undersigned participants of the 7th Queer Pride March held on 12 August 2016 in Calicut, would like to bring to your attention the unforgivably irresponsible attitude of the Kozhikode police towards the rights of young people who identify themselves as queer, and their allies. In what should have been a completely joyous event, their attitude cast a dark shadow, for sure. Continue reading Adventures in Creepland: An Open Letter to the District Collector, Calicut, Kerala →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Feminism, Frontiers, Genders, Identities, Images, Language, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

A response to “Kashmir is Feminist Issue” by Sonam Mittal: Tupur Chatterjee

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Guest Post by Tupur Chatterjee

Sonam Mittal’s recent piece in Kafila, “Kashmir is Feminist Issue” draws upon an oft-cited gendered analogy to describe the Kashmir’s relationship with India and Pakistan. Though it makes a few pertinent points about the nexus of power and patriarchy and the urgent need for Indian feminist solidarity with the Kashmiri resistance, I found the analogy deeply problematic and strongly feel that it needs further unpacking to underline its worrying implications.

Continue reading A response to “Kashmir is Feminist Issue” by Sonam Mittal: Tupur Chatterjee →

Bad ideas, Culture, Feminism, Genders, Government, Law

Where Judges Lead Societies Astray: Bobby Kunhu

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This is a guest post by BOBBY KUNHU

Background

That subjective morality influences judicial interpretation of law is a given. But, this influence has to remain within the paradigm set by the law and cannot operate outside it or breaking it. So there are two moralities that effect the outcome of any case, one the morality of the law itself and second how the morality of the judge works in the interpretation of the law. It is in this context that judicial attitude towards sexuality has to be analyzed. And for this first the entrenched patriarchy of the legal profession has to be acknowledged. The best evidence for this is the representation of women at every level of the profession from the bench to senor advocates to advocates on record to the lowest echelons of the bar and judicial bureaucracy.
Indian law with respect to sexuality is in a Victorian time warp. It continues to criminalize any sexual activity that is not penile-vaginal penetration, so much so that till recently when the definition of rape was amended and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act was enacted this was the paradigm of penalizing non-consensual sexual predation. Add to it the ingredients of individual judges’ patriarchy and accumulated religious and social conditioning.

Continue reading Where Judges Lead Societies Astray: Bobby Kunhu →

Bad ideas, Culture, Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Government, Identities, Law, Media politics, Sex, Violence/Conflict

Moral Police-Police!

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The Kerala police has once more revealed how utterly unreconstructed it is since colonial times, in their brutal attack on transgender people in the city of Kochi. Stuck in 19th century Victorian morality on the one hand, and in the unabashed sense of power that only colonial authority can bequeath, these policemen thought it perfectly alright to use violence to correct what they perceive as a ‘moral problem’, sex work and that too, by transgendered persons. Continue reading Moral Police-Police! →

Bad ideas, Culture, Feminism, Genders, Images, Politics

Love in the Time of Public Despair: Remembering Kamala Surayya

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31 May passed like any day in present-day Kerala – filled with the cacophony of mediocrities and expressions of greed, envy, and hate which have become the new normal. No wonder, then, that most people did not remember that this was the poet Kamala Das/Madhavikkutty/ Kamala Surayya’s death anniversary. I cannot help recollecting that I had predicted that this would happen: that people here would celebrate her death, display sickening sentimentality, and then quickly forget. In life and in death, Surayya never received the critical attention that she deserved as a thinker, nor did those interested in progressive left politics take her forays into politics seriously. In these times of despair, one must, however, turn to her …

Read more on:

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/know/seeking-rhyme-in-reason/article8737506.ece

 

 

 

Culture, Genders, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Of men, women, caste and cinema: Rita Kothari

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Guest post by RITA KOTHARI

 “Woh kam-jaat  ladka hai. Phir kaise uske saath bhag gayi?  Sochna tha na  pehle?”  (He is a low-caste boy, why did she elope with him then? Shouldn’t she have thought of this?”)

Vimala’s judgment was unequivocal. She was talking about Hansa, her neighbour  and my former ‘help.’  Hansa  is  a young girl , perhaps seventeen,  and she  recently eloped with a boy. I stopped myself from saying anything facile, as yet.

“Ab pyaar poochhke to hota nahin, “ I said to her.  Love seeks no permission.

“To bhugatna bhi padta phir.”  Then be ready to suffer, Vimala quipped.

She went on to tell me about an incident she had witnessed in her village,  about 30 kilometers away from the big town of Dungarpur in Rajasthan. A Rajput girl and Sewak boy eloped. They settled down in some city, and ten years went by. Meanwhile the girl had a child and was carrying her second baby. Her family had managed to track her whereabouts and convinced that she would be welcome home. The couple returned to the village for a visit. One night the girl’s brother put out lights in the entire village. The young couple was killed.

“Poore gaanv ki bijli band kar di, aur maar dala dono ko. Humne dekha apni aankhon se,” Vimala said.

I stood transfixed. What was more accurate here, fiction or life?  I had just returned from watching the  Marathi film, Sairat.

Continue reading Of men, women, caste and cinema: Rita Kothari →

Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

India vigils in memory of Orlando shooting victims

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FROM ORINAM

The mass shooting in Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, US, on the night of June 11, resonates with those of us who have faced intolerance, hatred and violence simply for being who we are. The lesbian, gay, bi, trans*, intersex, queer, ally and other (LGBTIQA+) communities in India stand in solidarity with the families, biological and chosen, of the victims of this senseless crime.

LGBTIQA+ people have always been at the receiving end of bigots from all faiths, and we register our protest against initiatives by ideologues of all stripes to use this incident to advance political and personal agendas of xenophobia and Islamophobia. Bigotry is a form of violence against a community, and we stand firmly against all attempts to make this part of a global anti-Islam narrative, just as we resist the dastardly celebration of this incident by homophobic groups.

We condemn all forms of hatred and violence, whether based on sexuality, gender, religion, caste or ethnicity.

Protests and vigils are being planned in the following cities and towns.

FOR DETAILS SEE ORINAM.NET

Bad ideas, Feminism, Genders

[Statement] Does the “Liberal Cause” need Tejpal? Complainant Responds

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Earlier today, the Mid-Day newspaper carried a short piece arguing that the so-called “media trial” of Tarun Tejpal, for raping a junior colleague, had damaged the “liberal” cause, at a time when personal freedoms are under assault in India. The article concluded by hoping that Tejpal would make a “come back” – presumably to save us all from the Big Bad BJP.

The article is not just profoundly misogynist and ignorant, it also conflates all resistance to oppression in its many forms with Tehelka and Tejpal’s transactional and dubious politics.

Here we reproduce the complainant’s response to the Mid-Day piece:

Fighting patriarchy, sexual violence and harassment at the workplace should be the cornerstone of any progressive politics. For TT’s supporters to claim that all should be forgiven because the liberal cause needs him is completely bogus. There was nothing liberal about the source of Tehelka and Think’s funding, or the fact that stories in the newsroom were killed whenever they threatened the editor’s friends.

If Tehelka was so righteous and embattled, how did its editor in chief amass huge properties in Delhi, Goa, Mumbai and Nainital? If a media trial destroyed Tejpal, how does he continue to pay his huge and expensive battery of lawyers? Finally — whom does this delay in the ‘fast track trial’ benefit? What kind of justice should one hope for when wealthy and influential criminals are lobbying with journalists, politicians and industrialists to hold an international conclave under the guise of “liberalism”?

 

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Countryside, Culture, Debates, Education, Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Left watch, Media politics, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

But She was a Law Student …

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In a way that is perhaps unprecedented, today, a very large number of Malayalis feel connected to each other by a veritable tsunami of pain. No wonder perhaps, because the veils of our complacency have been ripped off too thoroughly. The immediate context is the gruesome murder of a young Dalit student in central Kerala, in the tiny, rickety squatter-shack that was her home, in full daylight.

At a single stroke, the incident fully exposed the dimensions of social exclusion in contemporary Kerala. Hers was an all-woman family among families deemed ‘properly gendered’, they were lower caste people trapped and isolated among upper and middle caste families, they were the working-class poor without property in an area full of propertied domestic-oriented bourgeois and petty-bourgeois families. Oppressed in all these ways, they were invisible to the state and the political parties. They possessed no form of capital that would have allowed them upward mobility. Yet, the young woman struggled on and reached the law college.

‘But she went to college’, some ask, ‘how could she have been so helpless?’

Read the rest of the article here 

 

 

 

Debates, Education, Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Excavation, Feminism, Genders, Government, Identities, Law, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

जिशा, मेरी दोस्त, दलितों की जान इतनी सस्ती क्यों है? चिंटू

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अतिथि पोस्ट : चिंटू

Josh
जिशा

जिशा, मेरी दोस्त मेरी यार, क्या कहूँ यार तुम्हारे साथ जो दंविये बर्बरता हुई उसके लिए मुझे  शब्द नहीं मिल रहे हैं कुछ कहने को. ये देश ये समाज हर रोज़ ऐसे झटके  देता रहता है और इतना देता है, इतना देता है, की हमारे लिए वीभत्स से वीभत्स घटना क्रूरतम से क्रूरतम घटना साधरण बन गई है और इन घटनाओं को पचाने की क्षमता में भी हम माहीर हो गए है. देखो न दोस्त, असाधारण कहाँ कुछ रह गया है. बचपन से आज तक तो यही सब देख- देख कर पले बढे हैं हम सब की, जो कुछ हो अपना हक़ मत मांगना, पढने लिखने की बात मत करना , बाप या भाई लात घूंसे  मार- मार कर तुम्हे अधमरा कर दे लेकिन एक शब्द भी उनके खिलाफ बोलने की गुस्ताखी मत करना, गाँव के उच्च जाति वर्ग के सामंती तुम्हे अगर छेड़े तुम्हारा बलात्कार करे तो उसका बहिष्कार मत करना कियोंकि ये तो उनका जन्म सिद्ध अधिकार है.

तुम्हारे लिए जो लक्ष्मण रेखा खिंची गई है उससे बाहर जाने की कोशिश की तो तुम्हारी शामत आना पक्की है. और शादी? ये तो दूसरी जात में तो दूर की बात अपनी जाति  में भी करने का अधिकार या आजादी की बात मत करना ये तय करना घर के बड़े पुरुषों के कंधे पर छोड़ो. सती सावित्री बनो, एक सद्गुणी बेटी, बहु और पत्नी बनो इसी में तुम्हारी भलाई है.

 

Continue reading जिशा, मेरी दोस्त, दलितों की जान इतनी सस्ती क्यों है? चिंटू →

Culture, Debates, Feminism, Genders, Violence/Conflict

‘The queer fight is against Western hegemony, not by its side’: Queer activists of Bangladesh

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Received through Meena Seshu

Anindya Hajra, a friend and Queer activist in Kolkata posted this on FB.

The following letter was sent to me very early this morning over WhatsApp by a queer activist friend from Bangladesh with who I have been trying to establish contact over the past few days (and was successful only yesterday) and who wanted this to be shared as widely as possible. They said this letter was a joint one written by many persons, specifically ‘their comrades’. I have kept the original spellings. On asking them as to what this letter should be called if anything at all, they said, “Naam naai” (There is no name). Hence that is how I am sharing this letter – Anindya

“…while the West has hand-picked extremist Islam as its enemy (with the banner of ISIS) – speaking out against the violence of labor practices and money-making in third world nations is not high on their agenda.”

Dear all,

I am writing to you from a rather desperate place in the hope that you will heed my plea. I am sure that this is reaching you because you have posted something or the other about the two murders of the gay activists in Bangladesh. We are all outraged,shaken and deeply saddened by their untimely brutal deaths. Having said that please read this carefully. Let us honor the dead but not forget the living. Please stop circulating any content containing the following, especially if you are from the North America, Europe:

Xulhaz Mannan as the face of the entire LGBT movement

Roopbaan, or any other organization associated with the term “LGBT”

Bangladesh as an islamic fundamentalist country unsafe for secular bloggers, free thinkers or gender deviants.

“Freedom, diversity and tolerance are Bangladeshi values”.

You see, when you sit on powerful land and demand justice from a government, whether you are well-intentioned radical queers or people of color or marginalized activists who want to demand justice alongside us, sharing these contents, or making this news viral will not help right now. Putting pressure on your local/national governments will not help either. However, what will happen is that this will create a false image of an “islamic” fundamentalist country out to kill queers demanding that international wellwishers (read: Europe and USA) come and save them from the brown men. The deviants and queers are hiding but the international call for justice is making it difficult to avoid being visible. Continue reading ‘The queer fight is against Western hegemony, not by its side’: Queer activists of Bangladesh →

Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Education, Feminism, Genders, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Left watch, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Responding to the Challenges of Blue and Red – Reminiscences of a JNU-HCU Alumna: Shipra Nigam

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This is a guest post by SHIPRA NIGAM

That the past few months have been cataclysmic is an understatement. Personal tragedies and political catastrophes have exploded within our most cherished spaces, and brought a churning in them.  What was truly transformative was the experience of both the emergence of broad solidarities against right-wing fascism, and of the reminders of multiple registers and contexts within them. These underline the need for multiple conversations to understand both our common struggles, as well as the contradictions within, and to renew a resolve for introspection through them as we move towards real ‘azaadi’.

There is of course an ongoing debate on this, and here I felt that some binaries being invoked in it are not very convincing, while others brought home stark truths that pose challenges to a patriarchal, majoritarian caste hindu ordering of society, within which we are all located at different levels of hierarchy, complicity, and engagement.

I have been part of both public universities under fire right now, and the present brings home the urgency of the dual task of defending the public university as a space for pushing the boundaries of critical thought, and confronting the very hierarchies and complicities with power that shape it. This is necessary even as processes of democratisation and affirmative action take root in public institutions . So these are some reminiscences from an alumna of both these public universities who has been wrestling with articulations and complexities which lie beyond institutional labels or binaries. Continue reading Responding to the Challenges of Blue and Red – Reminiscences of a JNU-HCU Alumna: Shipra Nigam →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Genders, Government, Language, Mirror Worlds, Violence/Conflict

Kashmir IG Police Refuses to Speak with Handwara Minor Girl: JKCCS

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Guest Post by Jammu & Kashmir Coalition  of Civil Society

Since last 3 days, JKCCS has been approaching the Inspector General (IG) of JK Police, Javed Geelani for a meeting in connection with the illegal detention of the minor girl and her family. Yesterday evening the Handwara minor girl spoke to JKCCS team on phone. She and her family informed that against their will the police has shifted them to a stranger’s house 15 kms from Handwara town. After detailed discussion JKCCS proposed her to call the IGP Kashmir and Chairperson of the State Commission for Women, Nayeema Mehjoor directly to inform them about her ordeal in the illegal police detention, her demand for free movement and an immediate access to her lawyers. 
The minor girl called the IG several times but only once he picked up the phone. After she identified herself, the IG cancelled the call. JKCCS team called DIG Ghulam Hassan Bhat and requested him to inform the IG that the minor girl wants to talk to him urgently. We were assured that the IG will speak to the girl. 

Immediately after that the police personnel went inside the house where the girl is detained and threatened her to not call the IG Kashmir, Javed Geelani.

The minor girl was able to speak to Nayeema Mehjoor and gave her detailed statement and requested her to facilitate her conversation with IGP Javed Geelani. Ms. Mehjoor promised to help.

The minor girl and her family wanted to communicate to the highest police officials that the police should stop her illegal detention and allow her to meet her lawyers so that she can herself alongwith her family proactively contribute in the legal struggle. 

Feminism, Genders

Statement by feminists against R K Pachauri’s intimidation of complainants’ lawyer, Vrinda Grover

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Sexual Harassment At The Workplace In India: Over-Powering Patriarchy At Work 

We, the undersigned activists and organizations of the Indian women’s movement express our outrage at the fact that R.K. Pachauri has filed a civil suit for injunction and demanded damages of Rs. 1 crore against Advocate Vrinda Grover. The attempt is to hold Ms. Grover liable in a civil suit for her efforts towards bringing official cognizance of two complaints of sexual harassment at the workplace brought against Mr. R.K. Pachauri by two of his former colleagues. Both these women have complained that they were sexually harassed at TERI by Mr. Pachauri much prior to the complainant of FIR dated 18th February 2015, in which Mr. R.K. Pachauri has now been charge-sheeted in February 2016. Alarmingly, despite the fact that Ms. Grover has sent repeated written communications to senior officers of the Delhi police informing them that her two clients would like their statements to be recorded, the police have till date not taken any steps in this regard.The very public attack on Ms. Grover is a matter of concern for all those who, like the signatories to this letter, are struggling to deliver substantive justice under the laws on sexual harassment in the workplace in India today.  Continue reading Statement by feminists against R K Pachauri’s intimidation of complainants’ lawyer, Vrinda Grover →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Law, Violence/Conflict

A third woman accuses Pachauri of harassment

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Yesterday, a young woman accused TERI’s Rajendra Pachauri of harassing her when she worked briefly as an intern when she was only 19 years old. When she resisted Pachauri’s advances, the woman says in her statement, her contract – originally signed for a duration of one year – was terminated in only 4 months. Here, we reproduce her statement in full – as obtained from her lawyers.

I have read the story “Rajendra Pachauri speaks out over sexual harassment claims”, published in The Guardian. I remember that in the third week of February 2015, I had read some news reports which said that an employee of TERI had filed a criminal complaint against R.K. Pachauri for sexually harassing her. On reading these news reports, I was 0% surprised. I can very much relate to what the other women wrote in her statement. When I was 19, I worked for 4 months (end of 2008) at TERI, as Pachauri’s secretary. Pachauri’s claim that his computer was hacked is totally false. From my point of view, this is right in line with his character, and not a case of his computer being hacked. I think it is important for me to now make my statement public so that people know the truth about Pachauri.

Here is what I recall from my time in TERI.  Continue reading A third woman accuses Pachauri of harassment →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Debates, Education, Genders, Identities, Language, Media politics, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Confront the Rupa Subramanyas Within : A Note to a Nair-born Friend

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Dear Kaviraj,

Just saw your post condemning The Telegraph’s representation of Smriti Irani as ‘Aunty’. I understand your indignation, though I am curious to know why few people like us stand up and protest when the people who supporte her, the sanghis, throw vile abuse at dissenters and feminists, label them prostitutes, and threaten them regularly with rape and disfigurement. My daughter was recently threatened in Delhi and warned not to behave like a ‘JNU randi’; senior women teachers from JNU were showered with similar abuse, shoved, groped, and hit at the Patiala House, and many of them have received direct and indirect threats. JNU women have been portrayed in the most despicable terms recently, before which Telegraphs’s characterisation of Irani as ‘Aunty’ is tame indeed even if unacceptable.

Continue reading Confront the Rupa Subramanyas Within : A Note to a Nair-born Friend →

Debates, Genders, Law

The Blackhole called Bastar: Aritra Bhattacharya

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This is a guest post by Aritra Bhattacharya

Unidentified persons attacked tribal leader Soni Sori on February 21, hours after she bid farewell to Shalini Gera and Isha Khandelwal, lawyers at the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group and journalist Malini Subramaniam, when they hurriedly packed their belongings and left Jagdalpur. Over the last few months, they had withstood all forms of harassment and hostility from police officials and pro-police ‘civil society’ organisations in war-torn Bastar. They had been heckled, threatened with dire consequences and targeted via a sustained vilification campaign calling for their ouster from the region on grounds that they were stalling Bastar’s ‘development’.

Beginning 8 February, the pressure intensified. Police first landed at Malini’s house and then JagLag’s residence; they intimidated their landlord and domestic help, kept them in jail for hours together over several days and threatened to implicate them in false cases. Within ten days, Malini and JagLag lawyers had to leave Jagdalpur due to relentless pressure and harassment from the police.

Continue reading The Blackhole called Bastar: Aritra Bhattacharya →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Countryside, Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Excavation, Genders, Government, Identities, Language, Law, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Politics, Right watch

Support and stand for Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group: Mohammad Zafar

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This is a guest post by MOHAMMAD ZAFAR

We are going into a dangerous situation now. It is that time when we all should come together to work against autocracy, state led atrocities, bullying, dictatorship and authoritarianism and any other form of injustice. We all know about JNU case, role of Lawyers & MLA O. P. Sharma in the shameful acts of abuse and warnings to people who take initiative to speak against atrocities and injustice all-over the country. Now Raman Singh’s model of development has also showed us two shameful cases in Chhattisgarh. One is attack on Tribal activist and AAP’s leader Soni Sori who has faced a lot of humiliation, atrocities and pain but always stood steadfast on her path and is still fighting. And one more case of state-led dictatorship is related to Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group, which is a legal aid group to support tribal people who are facing problems in that region in terms of false cases, fake encounters, etc. for details about its existence see this link of the Hindu’s article (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-group-of-lawyers-trying-bring-law-to-lawless-bastar-region/article7735079.ece) They worked for people facing false charges of Naxalism, against controversial encounters and other issues where there is a need to work hard for giving support to the voice of justice among tribes.

This has become problematic for state and police. They first started annoying them, throwing false allegations against their degrees and eligibility to fight case. When they fought and won against those charges now some organizations (with the support of state officials & police) also warned them to leave that place and said that they are Maoist sympathizers. And now finally they left their landlord’s rented home in Jagdalpur when police pressurized their landlord who (according to one member of Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group (JAGLAG) in an interaction to a reporter) is very good for them and they don’t want to be a problem for him. For further details and mail of a member of JAGLAG see the article in this link.

            We should think again, is it development where state itself making people speechless and generating more mistrust among people for government, where they do violence by their own way and more than that they are even silencing voices of resistance. These officers will get awards by government like Ankit Garg who shamelessly ordered humiliation and sexual abuse of Soni Sori. They want to silence voices like JAGLAG so that they will punish more innocents in the name of Naxalism as they did with Kartam Joga, who because of lot of efforts of Lawyers and activists found a new life after 3 years’ Jail and pain of brutality of Police. They don’t want any voices of resistance because they know their reality will emerge; so they beat people without any reason as they did with Lakhan Lal and broke his legs just for replying “Laal Salaam” in the dead of the night; their shameful act of humiliating Soni Sori in jail in the name of police inquiries is also for the same reasons. In the name of Anti-Naxalism/Maoism they are trying to silence all voices and justifying all their acts as their friends are trying to do in the name of nationalism in other parts of country. We should support now all members of Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group and raise this issue on all platforms.

Genders, Government, Identities, Sex

A test of dignity and democracy

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Today, as the Supreme Court hears the curative petition on Section 377, it has an opportunity to remember its promise to be the last resort of the oppressed, to let dignity be the domain of all.

In 2015, a student at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru was blackmailed and threatened with being publicly outed for being gay. When he refused to pay extortion money, the private letters turned into notices pinned on noticeboards on campus. The words were sharp, relentless and inhumane: “I think it’s completely shameful, bad, immoral and disgusting. You should go kill yourself. Why do you think it’s illegal to be gay in India?”

Evading prejudice

For many queer people, this moment is familiar. It is one that many of us have faced or live in a constant fear of facing. In some ways, it is the latter that is worse. We live our lives anticipating prejudice. Even before it comes, we are constantly censoring, moving, and shaping our lives to evade it or, if we can’t, to survive it. Those of us who have the privilege of privacy scan rooms to find allies, weigh what to tell our doctors, measure out information in our offices, and seek safe spaces. Those without this privilege face a much more direct battle to be who they are: an unrelenting and legitimised public violence that falls on working class bodies in our streets, police stations and public spaces. The law is not the only force behind this violence, but it is an important one. “Why do you think,” the blackmailer asks, “it’s illegal to be gay in India?” When petitioners in the Naz Foundation case argued that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code played an important part in shrouding our lives in criminality and of legitimising violence, this letter was one of many that we wrote against in our heads. Continue reading A test of dignity and democracy →

Feminism, Genders, Language

We, Naked Women : P Padmarajan

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[P Padmarajan passed away on 24 January, 1991. In his extraordinary and brief life, he attained the status of a living legend in Kerala. Celebrated much more as a cine director and a script-writer of some of Malayalam’s most memorable films, he was however, one of Malayalam’s finest fiction-writers. In many ways, as a writer, Padmarajan was ahead of his times; no wonder then,  he never received the recognition that he richly deserved as a writer. Continue reading We, Naked Women : P Padmarajan →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Feminism, Genders, Government, Identities

Women in Sabarimala – The Untold Story: Elsa T Oommen

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This is a guest post by ELSA T OOMMEN

‘For the last 20 years woman irrespective of their age were allowed to visit the temple when it opens for monthly poojas. They were not permitted to enter the temple during Mandalam, Makaravilakku and Vishu seasons’
– (S. Mahendran vs The Secretary, Travancore Devaswom Board and Ors. (1991) (8) [AIR 1993 Ker 42])

The Supreme Court of India will soon be hearing the final arguments on the question of the restriction imposed on women in the reproductive age from entering the Sabarimala temple in Kerala. The court had earlier questioned the constitutional basis of the restriction at the behest of a the public interest litigation (PIL) placed before the apex court of India by the Indian Young Lawyers Association (IYLA) where it called for allowing women of all ages to be allowed entry to the temple. Continue reading Women in Sabarimala – The Untold Story: Elsa T Oommen →