Guest Post by KAVITA KRISHNAN
A year ago, a massive movement erupted on the streets of Delhi and the country – against the brutal gangrape of a young woman on a bus, leading to her death. Looking back at that movement a year later, it is clear that the questions, concerns and above all the tensions and debates embedded in that movement are with us still – and are quite crucial to the political discourse around us.
Guest post by HIMIKA BHATTACHARYA and DEEPTI MISRI
The public preoccupation with both the death penalty and castration as punishment for rape continued last week, with the Pakistani activist Asma Jahangir reportedly suggesting that the rapists of the Delhi rape case be either punished with castration or else face the death penalty.[1] The consistent demand for punitive castration in India may be somewhat boosted by the Indian media reporting the following developments – last week, the South Korean court ordered Asia’s first chemical castration[2]; the Malaysian bar is pushing for castration[3] as a punishment for repeat sex offenders; and that such punishment has reportedly been long used in other countries[4]such as Germany, Denmark, and some states in the U.S. Continue reading Against Castration: Himika Bhattacharya and Deepti Misri
Guest post by NEHA DIXIT
In the last fortnight, we unlearned submission. On December 16, a 23 year old girl, just on the brink of leading a socio-economically independent life was raped in a moving bus at 9.30 at night.
We saw protests, we saw outraged masses. It is the first time in the history of this nation, when people were out on the streets on the issue of gender. For more than two weeks in a row. And it continues. Figures have been thrown at us: every 20 minutes a woman is raped in India, every third victim is a child, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
At one of these protest sites, the car parking contractor informed me that they have slashed the parking charges from 30 bucks to 10 bucks in solidarity with the girl and her family. This may be dismissed as a ‘simplistic’ contribution by those who have been accusing these protests of being ‘middle class’. But we need to hit the core, to understand the wider repercussions of the Parking contractor’s this simple act. Continue reading Unlearning submission: Neha Dixit
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 