EPW
August 18, 2001
Special Articles
Sexual Violence and Predicament of Feminist Politics in Kerala
J Devika
Praveena Kodoth
When the mainstream Left went to the polls in Kerala in early May this year they used ambiguity, as a mode of rhetoric, to bypass a commitment to womenís issues.1 On the one hand, at the very fore of their campaign was the claim that the Left-sponsored decentralised development programme had brought substantial gains to women, especially poorer women.2 Indexical of this perhaps was the campaign strategy of one of the architects of decentralisation in Kerala and former member of the state planning board (in charge of decentralisation), T M Thomas Issac. As if pegging his campaign to the role of women in development, Issac invited discussion with voters and especially with women on development projects like Kudumbasree, a large section of the participants of which were women and in which he was a major player (The Hindu, May 6, ëYes, empowering women is politicsí The New Indian Express, May 7). Indeed in tackling livelihood issues of the poor, the Left did attempt to organise women under a wide range of programmes into self-help groups to generate work and income for their families. In so far as the correlates of ëempowermentí are assumed to be entirely or even predominantly economic, proceeding from income-generating work, the claims of the Left had some basis. However, decades into womenís studies in India, it is more than clear that the economic is merely one dimension of a far more complicated and embattled picture of womenís rights to a decent livelihood.
On the other hand, and to set this up in sharp relief, we have the instance of feminist activists having had to cry themselves hoarse against the Left-led governmentís dithering on several incidents of sexual violence, all of which have involved, directly and indirectly, the use of political clout against women, in the interests of unabashed sexism. Perhaps nothing better illustrated this than the charges of sexual harassment at the workplace brought in the recent past by two women, P E Usha, who has been involved in feminist and environmental activism in Kerala since the 1980s and who is a non-teaching employee of Calicut University and Nalini Netto, an Indian Administrative Service officer. Importantly, these cases have come up in the wake of the Supreme Court (SC) judgment on sexual harassment at the workplace ñ the Visakha and Others v State of Rajasthan and Others case (J2 1997 (7) SC 384) ñ which was to provide the legal framework to address such complaints. It bears pointing out that the emphasis on the inseparability of work and a safe working environment is a crucial point made by the Supreme Court judgment. In other words that the economic cannot easily be separated from other aspects of womenís lives; or work from the right against sexual violence. When the state went to the polls, neither of the cases had been resolved and the former minister facing charges of sexual harassment was re-elected from Kovalam in Thiruvananthapuram district.
This essay is a beginning towards understanding the ëpossibilitiesí of autonomous feminist politics in Kerala ñ here in the context, specifically, of the experience of struggle to force the Left-led government to take note of the legal provisions of the SC judgment.3 Among the issues that this struggle brought to the fore were brazen political partisanship and entrenched sexist interests in institutional and political functioning in the state. Of particular interest here is the strategy of the Left government of throwing different institutions of the state and of the public into apparent mutual conflict and orchestrating confusion to evade responsibility and enervate resistance, offered by both the aggrieved women and feminist support groups. In the Prakashan case (on Ushaís complaint) we had on the one hand the university, with its mainstream Left identified vice chancellor, and on the other hand the department of higher education and the State Womenís Commission speaking in different voices; in the Neelalohitadasan Nadar (Neelan) case (where Nalini Netto was assaulted) it was the state government eliciting the resignation of minister Neelan on one side and appointing an overtly partisan one-man judicial commission to inquire into the complaint made by Nalini Netto on the other.
Deliberate attempts to stifle womenís efforts to raise the issue of sexual violence force us to ask whether there is a space for a feminist articulation of womenís sexual/working rights within contemporary mainstream Left politics in the state? Or on the flip side, how do we understand mainstream Left efforts to discredit autonomous womenís initiatives and political interventions by laying claim to ëwomenís issuesí in ëlivelihoodí terms, efforts pernicious if somewhat naive to discredit the political claims of feminism? It is crucial to note that the efforts of womenís groups to take up and politicise the several instances of sexual violence that came to light in the decade of the 1990s, have helped to carve out a space for feminist interventions. This is apparent in the public support received by the aggrieved women and the considerable amount of space devoted by the media to debate the issue.
This is not an effort to assess the ëtruthí of the charges. Sexism is so central to the reception of and response to demands by women in the state, that the ëtruthí of charges is not even at issue. Besides, our engagement with the ëlesserí or ëeverydayí forms of violence (offensive remarks) is deliberate insofar as it helps us to confront the groundswell of ëpoliticalí resistance to raising the issue. Besides, experience with these cases raises the question of the difficulty of addressing ëjusticeí within the framework of the law and of the state. Yet the almost instinctive reaching out to the law in all these cases is one indication that there can be no vacating the terrain of the law for womenís groups.4 This is more so in cases involving workplaces such as the university or the bureaucracy, which if defined formatively by liberal ideas of rights are informed nevertheless in their functioning by the hierarchies of caste, class and gender.
The specific nature of political polarisation in the state lends different interpretations to autonomous feminist aspirations itself ñ the reading for instance that they either lack or divert commitment to/from socialist ideals, that they voice elite/middle class rather than working class womenís interests. The exclusive claim being staked by the mainstream Left over all ethical political space, by incorporating at best a limited gender rhetoric, forms the very ground upon which an autonomous feminist politics becomes imperative. Our invocation of ëgender-basedí politics is not to stake an ëindependenceí for gender as a category of politics or analysis. Gender is only one of several dimensions of womenís/menís identity but it is imperative that gender-based interests not be circumscribed by prioritising ëoutside workí over the domestic, or ëworkí over ësexual rightsí. Effectively these are spurious distinctions, which serve to take further the very forms of inequality that they claim to address. That is they proceed as if unaware of a range of problems arising from the continued identification of women with the domestic (which they assume is broken once women get out to work) or the typecasting of sexual integrity as a middle class problem or at any rate one that is unrelated to ëworkí.
We hope to make this clear in dealing with cases that involve women (and men) with widely different interests and identities. We propose to examine in detail the Prakashan case, using the Neelan case to highlight the similarity in response and intransigence by the state and public institutions. Following a brief outline of the SC judgment we analyse the cases in two sections dealing in some detail with (a) the reports of two inquiries instituted into the Prakashan case and (b) media representation of the two cases. In the next section, this discussion is placed in the context of the historical and political record of the mainstream Left. Our concluding remarks seek to open up the understanding of ërightsí of the mainstream Left.
Supreme Court Judgment
Issued on August 13 1997, this judgment opened up the narrow understanding of sexual offences embodied in existing legal codes. It defined sexual harassment as forms of unwelcome sexually determined behaviour (whether directly or by implication): (a) physical contact and advances; (b) a demand or request for sexual favours; (c) sexually coloured remarks; (d) showing pornography; and (e) any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature. The judgment underlined that sexual harassment constituted an infringement of womenís constitutional rights to function, i e, ìThe fundamental rights to carry on any occupation, trade or profession depends on the availability of a ësafeí working environmentî [IAWS 1999:22]. It required that employers make provisions for prevention and provide procedures for the resolution, settlement or prosecution of acts of sexual harassment. Hence rules and regulations of the public and private sector were to be amended to include prohibition of sexual violence. The judgment required the formation of a complaints committee, which ìshould be headed by a woman, and no less than half of its members should be women. Further to prevent the possibility of undue pressure or influence from senior levels such complaints committee should involve a third party, either NGO or other body familiar with the issue of sexual harassmentî [IAWS 1999:33]. Besides, it insisted that employers should see that ëvictimsí or witnesses are not victimised or discriminated against while dealing with complaints and further that, ìthe victims of sexual harassment should have the option to seek transfer of the perpetrator or their own transferî [IAWS 1999:32].
A national consultation on sexual harassment on university campuses made it clear that the judgment was not to provide ëguidelinesí for institutions, but to formulate a statute on the basis of which institutions were required to amend their rules of conduct for employees.5 ìThe option of whether or not to amend did not rest with institutions. Institutions that had not set this process in motion were in fact committing contempt of court. In this situation the guidelines issued by the University Grants Commission could not replace/substitute the Supreme Court judgment as the latter had the status of statute, and thus overrode any stipulations by agencies like the UGCî [Kannabiran cited in IAWS 1999:8]. Notably, Kannabiran took note of the confusion, that the UGC guidelines on sexual harassment overrides the SC judgment and pointed out that the UGC guidelines were at best recommendations and not mandatory (ibid).
Sexual Harassment at Workplace
P E Usha, a non-teaching employee of Calicut University, charged Prakashan, a male colleague, with making sexually coloured remarks about her in their workplace. This happened after she was assaulted sexually on a bus by a stranger late in the evening on December 29, 1999.6 Prakashan is said to have propagated a distorted version of the incident, i e, that it occurred with Ushaís consent and cooperation. Usha registered complaints with the registrar of the university and the Kerala Womenís Commission (KWC) seeking action specifically under the provisions of the SC judgment. It bears mention that while Prakashan was a member of the CPI(M)-led employeesí union (EU) and Usha belonged to the much smaller Calicut University Employees Forum (CUEF), not affiliated to any one party.7 According to Usha this factor has informed the delayed and blatantly partisan proceedings of the university on her complaint. For their part Prakashan and EU functionaries maintain that Ushaís complaint was motivated by union rivalry.
With considerable prodding from Usha, the university announced on January 27 the formation of an anti-harassment committee, under the UGC guidelines (University of Calicut (UC) Order no GAI/GI/1881/99). The announcement referred neither to Ushaís complaint nor to the SC judgment. The committee had the head of Prakashanís department (the dean of students welfare), a male, as the convenor and six of its eight members were affiliated to the CPI(M). It met on March 7, but resolved unanimously not to proceed with the complaint as one of the employees unions had questioned its jurisdiction on a complaint filed by a non-teaching employee [Syndicate Inquiry Report (SIR) 2000].
Three months after the incident in mid- March 2000, Usha moved the high court questioning the formation of the anti-harassment committee and seeking remedy against Prakashan. The university then announced the formation of a four- member syndicate subcommittee and placed the complaint before it;8 on April 17, Usha gave evidence and on May 5 five witnesses were interrogated. The section officer of the department in which she worked and another co-worker testified for Usha; the other witnesses were the president and two vice-presidents of Prakashanís union. The manner in which this committee went about its task is instructive. The Syndicate Inquiry Report states that the committee resolved to allow Prakashan to engage a legal practitioner for his defence ìsince the case involved many legal questionsî, no mention here of Usha. Usha points out that she was not given a similar opportunity.9 The committee considered two issues, (a) whether the ìallegations made byî Usha could attract the provisions of the SC judgment; and (b) whether Prakashan had made sexually coloured remarks about Usha. On the first issue the committee found that ìthe complainant was silent about what was the sexually coloured remark made by the accusedî ñ by which they seem to suggest not that Usha failed to reveal the content of the statements but that she had failed to make apparent what was sexually coloured about the statement! The committee goes on to state that
It is also worth mentioning that at no stage the authorities considered the complaint as one which made against sexual harassment as evident from various memos and orders issued in this regard (sic). The complaint was treated as false propaganda (sic). The committee is of the opinion that since the alleged sexually coloured remark was not communicated to the complainant directly but to her colleagues it could not attract the SC judgment [SIR 2000].
As against this the committee dismissed the evidence proffered by Ushaís witnesses:
Out of the five, three witnesses [office-bearers of the EU] did not support the complainantís alleged story. First witness Zainaba [section officer of Ushaís department] admitted that Prakashan had not communicated anything directly to her. But she overheard while the accused was talking with Abdul Kareem [Ushaís second witness]. On the other hand, Abdul Kareem stated that immediately after Prakashanís remarks he asked Zainaba about it and she replied to the effect that she already has information about the incident. And also he was not sure about the statement of Zainaba that she overheard the conversation to be true (sic) [SIR 2000].
Abdul Kareem (Ushaís witness) testified that Prakashan had made sexually coloured remarks against Usha directly to him. The committee dismissed his account on the following grounds: as Abdul Kareem had admitted that he was no friend of Prakashan there was no reason for the committee to believe that the latter had made these remarks to him; Abdul Kareem was an active worker of the CUEF, of which Usha was an office bearer. Besides Usha and Kareem were its senior leaders in the eastern block, where the incident occurred. ìIn the above circumstances we feel that it is not safe to rely entirely on the evidences of Abdul Kareem in the absence of any material or oral evidences to corroborate (sic)î [SIR 2000].
Usha moved to Thiruvananthapuram in July 2000 on long leave from the university. She has pointed out that it had become impossible for her to continue on campus as she had started receiving threats of violence against herself and her 12-year-old daughter.10 It bears emphasis that by this time, she had exhausted all legal remedy at the university, had moved to the high court and the KWC and even attempted to speak to Left party functionaries.11 Usha then formally approached the Kerala Stree Vedi, a statewide network of women and womenís organisations, and with their support in late August, she spoke to the press ñ the story appeared first in a popular Malayalam daily.12 If this sparked off wide publicity and considerable public support for the issue and had an important role in bringing pressure to bear on legal and quasi legal authorities to take note of the case,13 it has also led to charges from the mainstream Left that the issue was entirely the production of the ëpopularí media.
The KWC turned its attention to the complaint in September 2001 (the complaint was made in early January 2001). Its inquiry requires some elaboration if at least because its verdict against Prakashan reversed the Syndicate Inquiry Committee findings. The KWC considered the evidence of seven persons, besides the complainant and the accused. Two vice presidents of the EU (Sadasivan Pillai and Velayudhan) and Abdul Kareem, who were examined also by the earlier committee, maintained their positions. Both EU office bearers maintained that they had learned of the incident from posters that were put up on campus denouncing the campaign against Usha and from news reports. The report also presents the evidence of four other non teaching employees, two members each of the EU and CUEF.14 A woman member of the EU maintained that she had heard Velayudhan tell Usha not to take seriously the rumours that were being spread by Prakashan for he was known to indulge in such gossip. Velayudhan admitted speaking to Usha but denied the content. The three remaining witnesses, including another EU member, pointed out that Prakashan had narrated offensively a version of the incident on the bus [KWC Report 2000].
The KWC held Prakashan guilty of indulging in unfair practices against Usha. They recommended to the government and university that Prakashan should be suspended; Usha should be offered an option of transfer. However, the decision of the KWC was not unanimous. In fact the delay in taking up the issue itself has been attributed to internal differences. Besides, one of two CPI (M) members of the commission put in a dissenting note to the final recommendations, asking instead for a fresh inquiry. CPI(M) member of the commission, T Devi, accused the chairperson, Sugatha Kumari, of taking ëspecial interestí in the case and taking ëexternalí legal advice (Deshabhimani, November 11, 2000).15
The KWC report and recommendations were forwarded to the social welfare department on November 11, 2001. On January 15, 2001, the department of higher education forwarded the KWC recommendations to the university and sought information on the action taken. Meanwhile, in December, Prakashan had obtained a stay from the high court on the order to suspend him. This was vacated by a division bench of the high court on February 2 with the stipulation that Prakashan maybe given an opportunity to present his grievances before the department of higher education about the procedures adopted by the KWC. This was completed on April 25 and an order revalidating the earlier one of January 15, 2001 was forwarded to the chief ministerís office, where it languished till after the elections.
Meanwhile Usha had made public her intention of going on indefinite strike from April 18 before the university administrative office. On April 19, Prakashan went on strike along with his wife and infant son. On April 30 Usha converted her strike into an indefinite fast, was arrested on the fourth day and moved to the medical college. Human rights activists tried to intervene by holding talks with the vice chancellor, who at first agreed that he would take action if he received the report from the higher education department. They contacted the department, which required a request from the university. When asked to send the request, the vice chancellor backed out with the comment that he would consider it but took no action. (Mathrubhumi, May 7).16 Usha called off her fast on the ninth day after mediation by Justice Krishna Iyer and on the ëassuranceí that the minister of education had told the press that he had signed the government order. The university has since suspended Prakashan. In June 2001, it constituted a compalints committee in formal accordance with the SC judgment.
The Left-led governmentís response to this affair maybe characterised as a tactics of ëcalculated delayí. This is not the equivalent of ëfrank neglectí; it is rather a strategy of keeping together the Left support groups. Its effects however have been two: one, it has pandered to entrenched sexism in the university in general and unions in particular; two, it has attempted to discredit feminist groups as participants in the Malayalee public sphere.17 As one observer noted, if Ushaís strike was against the denial of her right to work (by denying a safe working environment) by a public institution, Prakashanís was with the support of these institutions [B R Bhasker, ëPrakashan, Reshmi and then of course Pokkerí, Madhyamam, April 29, 2001].
Moving to the second case, Nalini Netto filed a complaint with the government on February 9, 2000 alleging that on December 21, 1999 Neelalohitadasan Nadar, minister for forests, had assaulted her sexually, in his legislative chamber. She also registered a first information report. At the time of making the complaint she was transport secretary but was forest secretary when she was assaulted. The minister was forced to quit and an inquiry by the crime branch charged him under Section 173 of the Criminal Procedure Code. In a questionable move, considering the ongoing police inquiry and the SC judgment, the government appointed the Justice Sasidharan Commission to look into Naliniís complaint. The commissionís attitude towards Nalini was hostile right from the beginning. It refused her request for in camera proceedings, arguing that if Monica Lewinsky could stand public trial, why not Nalini. Besides, the commission pursued Nalini, who refused to answer its summons, making it seem like she was fleeing from justice. Nalini, like Usha felt forced to resort to long leave and sought the intervention of the Kerala Womenís Commission and the high court. The former recommended that the commission be scrapped as the police inquiry was complete and the high court recently issued a stay order against it. Also in response to a petition filed by Kerala Stree Vedi, challenging the appointment of a one-man judicial commission, the high court directed the state government to produce before it the affadavit filed by it before the Supreme Court that it would take effective steps to deal with sexual harassment of women in government and private institutions in the state. (The Hindu, February 19, 2001). Subsequently, the recently formed government refused to extend the term of the judicial commission.
Media Representations and Entrenched Sexism
Prakashan and Neelan are positioned as differently in Kerala society as are Usha and Nalini. In using union affiliation and party loyalty in defence of sexism, Prakashan received active support from the university authorities; Neelan, was forced to quit by the ruling front but placated with the appointment of a judicial commission so openly hostile to the complainant. Importantly, Neelan is a member of the Janata Dal, one of the smaller constituents of the Left front and is from a backward caste family. In taking up his cause there was a concerted attempt by one newspaper, the Kerala Kaumudi, to deploy caste.18 If Nalini was seen as a tool in the hands of upper caste men, she was simultaneously arraigned as a corrupt bureaucrat, playing to the tune of the forest mafia.19 Prakashan is affiliated directly to the CPI(M) and in defending him, various arms of the party ñ the union, its newspaper ñ and the university too sought to erase caste and gender, as divisive of class interests. In contrast to Neelan, Prakashan was portrayed as a loyal soldier of the party ënot a leaderí, a victim of union rivalry and a responsible family man (P K Pokker, ëDeceptive Writersí, Madhyamam, May 4, 2001).20 The middle class position and high educational achievements of the women involved were used by their advocates and critics alike to bolster their respective claims. ëPopularí sympathy towards these women (detailed ahead) seemed to be rooted in sense of outrage against the harassment of ìwell educated and cultured womenî; many of their critics laboured hard to show that such cultural capital was being used by these women against ëless privilegedí men. In these narratives the possibility of acting against sexism on behalf of women was ruled out for both these women. Admittedly, there are serious problems in treating gender identities as if they were detached from all other axes of determination, especially in the contemporary Indian political context. However this should go hand in hand with the need to guard against the use of such a critical position to direct action on the basis of erasure of gender as an axis of determination. In other words the specific context and balance of forces within which the critical position of a unitary ëwomení is taken requires serious attention.21
It is possible here to identify two very distinct strands of narrative in the portrayal of the Prakashan case by the print media in the state. Media interest in the case began with a report in the Malayala Manorama. A survey of such ëpopularí narratives makes apparent the effort to produce Usha as ëdeservingí of justice in ëmoralí terms.22 In fact, it is made to seem that her claims to justice could be defended only on the terrain of an ëalready victimí. She is portrayed as defenceless, ëabandoned by her husbandí and waging the battle alone. Such narratives then have no space for claims of justice by women who have made socially difficult choices. This representation of Usha as engaged in a lone struggle armed with moral superiority and the comforting shoulders of a big newspaper anticipates almost the Left media portrayal of Usha as a ëfreakí case and hence marginal. Left narratives, such as those appearing on the pages of the CPI(M) run newspaper, Deshabhimani, have sought to disperse the impressions conveyed by the ëpopularí press. Their position is that (a) Usha was sexually harassed on the bus, but not in the university; (b) incidents of harassment such as that which occurred on the bus need to be addressed but are the result of ëabnormalí behaviour; (c) the popular media has given the impression that Prakashan was the aggressor on the bus; and (d) Prakashanís remarks about Usha were not sexually coloured.23 The central concern of Left narratives is the need to ëdisabuseí Prakashan. Besides, in accusing Prakashan, organisations and individuals supporting Usha are portrayed as attacking the university, the mainstream Left, and ëthe familyí.24 More importantly, the university went out of its way to defend Prakashan, ironically against defamation. It put out an advertisment in all issues of Mathrubhumi on May 3, 2001 pronouncing Ushaís strike unnecessary and declaring that the man who assaulted Usha on a bus was not an employee of the university; that Usha was not demanding that this man should be brought to justice; that Ushaís demand was that Prakashan, should be punished; and that the university was unable to act upon the KWC recommendations as the high court had ruled that the government should give Prakashan a chance to present his grievances.25 This was also the universityís position in a counter affidavit filed in the high court.26
Curiously then, Prakashan becomes the victim in these narratives and hence eminently worthy of defence. However the popular media and not Usha is targeted as the aggressor. In a Left narrative that probably comes closest to condemning sexual harassment, R Parvathy Devi, CPI (M) associate and a media person, criticised the unions for not supporting Usha in her struggle against ëabnormal mení. ìIn Ushaís case, the vested interests of some sections of media caused attention to be completely shifted from the real issues. With the Usha incident, womenís organisations should become able to turn the oppression of women in buses and trains into a major social issueî [Penn Masika, 33 December 2000:1]. The issue of sexism is then displaced on to that of ëabnormalityí and womenís organisations are urged to take on this ërealí issue. It is striking that the Left representation of Usha as an isolated case and lone irritant inverts the Malayala Manorama representation of Usha as a morally outraged woman and lone warrior. In both cases the efforts of womenís organisations in raising such issues and politicising them is either underplayed or overlooked.
Entrenched sexism in public life is an important constituent of responses to womenís issues in the state. If sexist statements, passing for humour, by the former chief minister E K Nayanar are legion, what is worse is that he is celebrated for precisely his turn for humour; that rape is as old as time and would continue as long as there were women. (K M Tampi, The Hindu, May 17). The conditions of intelligibility of such statements as humour makes it possible to undermine the seriousness of harassment. Perhaps the sheer frequency of sexual violence is important here. A National Crime Records Bureau study published in 1992 showed that a girl/woman is harassed sexually every 51 minutes. In 1996, the Gender Studies Group in Delhi University found that 48 per cent of women students had faced sexual harassment by teaching and non-teaching employees; a large section of students and staff living in and around campus reported being harassed on campus roads. Such street harassment, they reported, was so regular as to be viewed as ìa normal part of womenís livesî (Ammu Joseph, The Hindu, November 19, 2000). Analysis of more recent National Crime Records Bureau data shows that reported crime against women in Kerala is very high. In the ascending order of crime, Kerala ranked 25th among the states and union territories in the frequency of molestation and 18th in sexual harassment [Mukherjee et al 1999].
Womenís Issues and Mainstream Left
At first glance it is only too easy to relate this range of mainstream Left responses to the much lamented ëdeterioration of leftist cultureí in Kerala, and the shrinking of the public sphere that seems to follow. However, it would be instructive to probe something so glib. A critical yet self-reflexive history of the leftist political and cultural upswing in Kerala since the mid- 20th century is yet to be written, but there is evidence to suggest that the hostility towards the local presence of gender-based politics in the public sphere is not of recent origin. The decades in which the Communist Party and leftist thinking took shape were also times that saw a considerable number of womenís ësamajamsí active in Kerala.27 Indeed the 1930s was a decade in which the modern educated, middle class (often, but not necessarily, upper caste) female activist was seen often articulating a politics (again, not necessarily recognised as such, though the bid for power was always felt/belittled, explicitly or otherwise) centred on ëbeing a womaní. This was frequently read as a threat to social order by otherwise progress-oriented male intellectuals. The ëAvivahitayaya B A kkarií (the unmarried woman graduate) as P K Rajaraja Varma, a popular mid-20th century humorist in Malayalam caricatured her ñ was seen to be haranguing against male power from every possible public platform. These suspicions, so conspicuously present in works of then immensely popular writers of different political persuasions28 were not absent in the writings of male intellectuals committed to the mainstream Left.
The visibly middle class orientation of most womenís samajams and their questionable emphasis on philanthropy as the major way of relating to working class women probably fuelled Left suspicions. This comes through explicitly in C Achyuta Menonís play ëSevanathinte Perilí (In the name of service) written in the 1940s; but later on, we find cruder caricatures of flippant, frivolous, coquettish ësociety ladiesí appearing frequently in Left leaning literature and cinema.29 However ëstree samajamsí were also platforms from which women debated many issues live and vital in the Malayalee public sphere in these decades. Not surprisingly then, it was also not uncommon for legislators in Tiruvitamkoor and Kochi in this period to refer to resolutions passed in these ësamajamsí as evidence for the assent or dissent of ëwomení for or against various legislations.30 They were also at times centres, which trained women in modern housewifery, and more importantly, initiated them into modern cultural values and practices ñ both these we know, were never unequivocally rejected by the Left cultural vanguard. Mainstream Left cultural production ñ fiction, drama, cinema ñ in the 1950s and 1960s emphasised the idea that marriage to a progressive male and the frame of a nuclear family as the desirable way of ëliberatingí a woman. Even the most radical progressive writers, like Cherukad, had little quarrel with modern domestic values ñ thrift, efficiency, hygiene, neatness ñ and the modern womanís commitment to these.31
On the other side of the suspicion of womenís ësamajamsí as offshoots and carriers of bourgeois elitism lay the denial of validity to independent gender-based politics. This was clearly related to the endorsement of an Engelsian perspective, widely known as the ëWoman Questioní in socialism, which was intact in the west until second-wave feminism. In Kerala, it is alive and kicking even today.32 The ideal of a ëunited democratic Keralaí, constituted via ìthe mobilisation of all democrats and progressives and the leadership in action of the working classî shaped in the writings of Marxist intellectuals like E M S Namboothiripad (1968:191) uphold the Engelsian perspective faithfully if indirectly. Obviously, those elements, however democratic and progressive they maybe, can only be marginal if not subordinate to working class interest supposedly represented by the Communist Party (they must also be ëmobilisedí by it).
So even as middle class womenís social and philanthropic work was accommodated by Leftist governments ñ as for instance, in their continued support for pre-existing social welfare boards ñ public action that was overtly political and centred on ëwomení was frowned upon. Incidentally the subsumption of gender politics within the Left to working class politics did not go unnoticed even in the 1950s when the leftist cultural upsurge was making steady gains. A woman commentator remarked that womenís organisations scarcely talked of womenís issues and gender specific oppression; they slipped, instead, into questions of class as if the resolution of the latter would ensure that of the former. (Kumari Saraswathi, ëVanita Sanghatanaí (Womenís Organisation) Kaumudi Weekly, 6 (10), May 9, 1955:13-15).
Economic and Sexual Rights: Competing Concerns or Spurious Distinctions?
Of course, we are not even trying to suggest that Left governments and Left cultural initiatives have been negligent of women in general. On the contrary the cultural Left represented by work such as Cherukadís has upheld a version of liberal feminism that equates gender equality with sameness with the masculine. However, the mainstream Left seems to cling stubbornly to outdated and highly undemocratic notions of social struggle, to its narrow and economistic understanding of womenís liberation and gender justice or equality. This is unforgivable given that these have been subjected to thorough and critical re-examination even within Marxist circles. Besides, the focus on the ëlivelihoodí aspect of poor women is supported by two sets of assumptions: one, the separation of sexuality from labour power, virtually disembodying the worker and two, the association of sexual rights predominantly with middle class/elite women, who are then identified almost entirely with the bodily sphere. This distinction provides the context for us to understand mainstream Left responses to cases of sexual harassment and to feminist pressure to resolve them. For a politics that tries to appropriate womenís issues in ëlivelihoodí terms, sexual harassment becomes either a non-issue, or a particularly middle class one or one at any rate that is low priority. This is precisely the context in which, the mainstream Left seems to have transferred its hostility to those caricatured as ësociety ladiesí to feminists striving to carve out space in the Malayalee public sphere. It seems no coincidence in this context that AIDWA in Kerala, despite its massive membership figures, is rarely heard in public debates. This is in sharp contrast with much smaller units, such as the AIDWA in New Delhi.33 Women, it seems, must keep themselves within the paternal care of the mainstream Left, content with, and grateful for such paternalism. In return, they must keep quiet, endure sexist insults, complaining to no one but the Party and waiting for the Party to solve the problem of ëinternal sexismí in its own sweet time! It is no wonder, then, that in contemporary Kerala, even those feminists who would want to sustain conversation with the mainstream Left (or at least with the non-sexist elements within it) are left with a sense of despair.
Notes
[We thank Usha for several discussions and for giving us access to her documents; Aleyamma Vijayan, Sandhya and Daya for information and comments; Sakhi for access to its documentation of the cases; Achin Chakravarthy, Rekha Pappu, S Raju, and Sharmila Sreekumar for discussions and suggestions. Our account has drawn on the experience of womenís groups in the state, however we are entirely responsible for views expressed here. Our names are in alphabetical order.]
1 Our concern in this paper with mainstream Left political culture is not to be read as a comment, and certainly not a sympathetic one, on the other political combines in the state. Nor do we think that their positions (as parties, unions and other groups) on womenís issues and gender politics could be conflated.
2 Mainstream Left intellectuals, however, have been at pains to differentiate decentralisation in Kerala from the more touted programmes of multilateral funding agencies such as the World Bank [See for instance Patnaik 2000:10]. However both sets of agencies increasingly seek to pin responsibility for the family and for ëpoverty managementí on women on the basis of shared assumptions that women (as against men) are efficient and flexible as workers; as well as dependable and hence credit worthy.
3 This is not to overstate the coherence of the autonomous womenís movement in the state. Yet the absence of a bureaucratic coherence could be used to its advantage in initiating discussion and thinking through the issue of sexual violence, hence going beyond what appears to be ëforcedí and rushed resistance.
4 Flavia Agnes (1992) illustrates the difficulties in addressing sexual violence within the law (in terms of its interpretations, procedures and processes) but sees the need to work on the terrain as well. In contrast, Nivedita Menon (1999: 285) argues that attempts to define and deal with sexual violence within the law necessarily undercut the ethical impulse of feminism. Noting precisely Menonís (2000) desire to ìradically to deconstruct this apparently universal, shared understanding of ësexualityíÖto emancipate us from the very meaning of rape [sexual violence]î, Gayatri Spivak (2000:317) cautions about the use of theory ìagainst the feminists who work on the groundÖ We will never be able to define rape [sexual violence] satisfactorily enough for the law not to lean toward its transgression, if not in patriarchy then in the general vulnerability of a law that must always be open to correctionî.
5 The reference here is to the national consultation on sexual harassment on university campuses organised by the Indian Association of Womenís Studies and the Human Rights Programme, University of Hyderabad in January 1999 in which several human rights persons including lawyers, academics and activists participated [IAWS 1999].
6 Eventually the offender was chargesheeted. The State Womenís Commission found that the police had been negligent on several counts; Ushaís clothes, surrendered to the police for examination (there were stains of semen) were later reported missing and the police made attempts to intimidate the complainant [KWC 2000].
7 CUEF was the outcome of discontent felt by a section of employees with the two major groups the EU and the Congress-led university staff organisation and its members are affiliated in their individual capacity to different political parties broadly of the Left.
8 The members were C P Chitra, a teacher of Malayalam in an affiliated college and a CPI(M) associate, Smija P S, state vice president of the SFI, C H Ashique, former president of the SFI, and K V Mani an associate of the Kerala Congress(J).
9 The notice issued to the witnesses does not mention Usha among the people to whom copies were issued nor was Usha informed separately. (Letter from the registrar to Sainaba, section officer, SDE, UC, no Ad.A1/297/2000/1). The SI report made available by the university did not include the evidence taken.
10 These included telephone calls warning her of violence if she took the campaign forward (In conversation with Usha).
11 In fact she has been at pains to point out that her complaint was not against the CPI(M); that she had met senior party person and state committee member, M A Baby and submitted a complaint to the state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. She spoke to the press only when it was clear that her complaint was not going to be addressed.
12 Usha maintains that the decision was a joint one.
13 Ushaís story appeared on the front page of the Sunday supplement of Malayala Manorama on August 8, 2000. The newspaper has the largest circulation in the state and is not known to be sympathetic to the Left.
14 The KWC report however does not indicate the union affiliations of the witnesses.
15 She claimed that the report itself was prepared by an outsider and accused the chairperson of malintent. ëUsha Case Report not Innocent: Sugata Kumari took Special Interestí ñ T Devi, (Deshabhimani, November 11, 2000).
16 On the same day that vice chancellor Kurup was refusing to observe legal procedure as a mode of circumventing a womanís quest for justice, chief minister Nayanar was reported to have belittled opinion polls predicting the defeat of the Left front on the grounds that the people of Kerala could not be fooled by surveys. ìThis is not Bihar that people are likely to be fooled. Only 20 per cent of women there are literate.î (Mathrubhumi, May 7). No small indication of the deployment of women as statistics and their abuse simultaneously as citizens!
17 Not without import mainstream Left narratives avoid recognising the role of womenís groups and feminist initiatives in fighting these cases. They refer to such support as coming from Ushaís friends. Cruder versions refer to womenís organisations as ëpowerbrokersí and ëagentsí supporting Usha or her ësponsorsí. (In conversation with Usha).
18 The Kerala Kaumudi is ezhava (a backward caste) identified. Like a section of the ezhavas, the nadars are an economically dominant caste concentrated in erstwhile north Travancore. During Ushaís strike in late April, the paper supported her in the ëvictimí mode.
19 It must be mentioned here that caste/religion (including those of the backward castes) have formed an important basis of economic and political mobilisation and consolidation in Kerala since the early 20th century. In contemporary Kerala, the more dominant of caste/religious groups, have sought to protect entrenched vested interests. Here the development ëoutliersí are the coastal and tribal communities and though to a smaller extent the scheduled castes. Elsewhere in the country, caste is increasingly emerging as an axis of struggle for rights by socially and economically weaker sections. Notably, early last year pulaya (a scheduled caste) and other dalit groups had to wage a long battle, including suicide by a young boy of the caste, to force the government to reconsider permission granted to an industrialist (a woman) to draw electricity cables over a pulaya residential area, (in Kurichi, Kottayam district) a move that placed the residents under tremendous risk.
20 This came up front during the strike in late April, 2000, for Prakashan went on strike along with his family, speakers at EU meetings during the strike drew attention to the absence of Ushaís family as telling of the questionable nature of her claims (in conversation with Usha). The attempt to play on restrictive family values did not go unnoticed. One commentator noted that if Usha fought without support from husband or family, Prakashanís wife was portrayed in the sati mould. (B R Bhasker, Madhyamam, April 29, 2001).
21 In Kerala, the political claim that demands made on behalf of gender identities must remain secondary to those advanced in the name of the community dates back to the 1920s at least, and has persisted since. This is emphasised in discussions on legislative measures that aimed at gender justice and involved the specific customs and practices of communities. To take just one telling instance, when Thankamma N Menon introduced the Child Marriage Restraint Bill in the Cochin Legislative Council in 1940, no less a person than Sahodaran K Aiyappan, ërationalistí and associate of Sree Narayana Guru, contended that since the measure would affect Tamil brahmins most, it should arise from the community itself [Cochin Legislative Council Proceedings, Vol IV, 1940, April 5:1439].
22 For an instance the ëmoralí overtones are evident in P Vatsala: ëLessons from Ushaís Experienceí, (Malayala Manorama Weekly, May 19, 2001).
23 Several commentators in Deshabhimani accused Usha of diverting attention from the ërealí issue and of not taking the ërealí culprit to task. See for instance, P S Smija, ëUsha Case: Who got away and who is in the dock?í (Deshabhimani). Mainstream Left intellectuals have also taken issue with writers, who have questioned the position of the Left on the issue. See notably P K Pokker, ëDeceptive Writersí, (Madhyamam, May 4, 2001). A professor of philosophy at the university, Pokker was involved in an acrimonious debate on the issue on the pages of this weekly.
24 P S Smija, ëUsha Case: Who got away and who is in the dock?í (Deshabhimani). Notably Prakashan himself accused his opponents of attempting to destroy his ëfamily lifeí. ìThey even attempted to destroy my family lifeî, (Kerala Shabdam). Others urged all humanists to come to the aid of Prakashan and his family. Pokker, ëDeceptive Writersí, (Madhyamam, May 4, 2001).
25 The ruling of the high court was more specific. It required the higher education department to hear Prakashanís grievances regarding the procedure adopted by the KWC. This hearing was completed on April 25 and the advertisment appearing on May 3, was dated April 30, 2001.
26 It stated that, ìthe issue considered by the honourable Supreme Court is the question of sexual harassment to women employees by their superior officers. In the instant case even if there is any sexual harassment to the petitioner that was on December 29, 1999 in the bus during the journey of the petitioner and that was at the hands of somebody elseî. (Counter affidavit filed by the liason officer, University Legal Cell, May 1, 2000 in OP no. 8560 of 2000, Usha P v state of Kerala and 3 others).
27 In the 1930s women workers were also beginning to be unionised, with the first womenís trade union, the ëAmbalapuzha Kayarupiri Tozhilali Unioní [Devayani 1995]. However, the general absence of women in the early trade union leadership has been noted [Ram Mohan 1996:158-59]. This is despite the fact that often separate factory committees were organised for women workers with full time women activists. They were also given special representations in union management committees. Along with annual union conferences, womenís conferences were also held [Cheriyan 1993:332-35]. This however did not imply an endorsement of a politics that engaged critically with gender identity.
28 See for instance E V Krishna Pillaiís play Pennarashu Nadu (The Land of Woman-Government) written in 1935. Sanjayan writing in his immensely popular column in the Mathrubhumi accused women public speakers of demeaning themselves and lacking in self respect, in rejecting womanliness which is taken to follow automatically from their critique of male power. (Sreemati-Teravathu Ammalu Amma ñ Oru Anusmaranam, 1970:163-64). See also Puthezathu Rama Menonís Paurushamulla Streekal (Masculine Women) in Lakshmi Bai (Vol 10 (8), 1915). Humour periodicals prominently, Rasikan, Aryakeralam, Navasarasan were given to lampooning womenís aspirations to the public domain ñ specifically to their aspiration to carve out a space in the public sphere. For some instances of hostility of these magazines to womenís entry into the public sphere see ëNagarathil Streekalkku Cheyyavunnathuí (What women can do in the city) (Navasarasan 2 (3, 4), 1934, p 12) and ëStreesvatantrya Bheri Athava Tiruvananthapurathe Manga-Naranga Matsaramí (The clarion call of womenís liberation or the mango-lemon contest at Thiruvananthapuram), [Ibid:23-25]. This drew bitter reactions from women aspirants to the Malayalee public sphere prominently Anna Chandy, a lawyer and one of the earliest women in the public sphere. Such confrontations were staged in very different situations also. B Bhargavi Amma, editor of the womenís periodical Mahila, at the Sahitya Parishat in Ernakulam in 1932 protested against the confinement of women to vanita sammelans, which prevented their participation in general sessions. (Reported in the ëMahilabhashanamí column in Mahila 12 (4, 5), 1932, p 158).
29 For instance see Cherukad Govinda Pisharotyís, Devalokam.
30 In one such instance A V Moothedan, while moving for a discussion of the Cochin Christian Succession (Amendment) Act in 1940 in the Cochin Legislative Council, cited in support, resolutions passed by the Ernakulam Womenís Association, a meeting of a branch of the All India Womenís Association at Trissur, The Ernakulam Catholic Womenís Club and the Catholic Womenís Association. See Cochin Legislative Council Proceedings, Vol V, 1940, November 22, pp 407-08. Womenís meetings held in connection with annual conferences of community movements discussed more than the merits of middle class domesticity; indeed a topic ranging from the Great Depression to artificial contraception with a focus on their impact on womenís lives were discussed.
31 In Muthassi, Cherukadís well known novel, Nani, is a courageous and dedicated social activist; also and no less importantly she brings thrift, order and good health to her husbandís non-modern household.
32 This is not to claim that the marginalisation of women happens in quite the same mode within the different institutions constituting mainstream Left popular culture in Kerala. During the 1980s the Peopleís Science Movement, the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishat made an effort to reach out to women partly by expanding its perspectives on gender as an axis of power. However even in speaking of the abuse of science against women, it relied wholly on an Engelsian perspective. Importantly they failed to examine critically their commitment to ëscienceí, as if it were immune to epistemological critique from for instance a feminist standpoint. It maybe remembered that the KSSP has been widely hailed to represent the best of Left cultural achievement in Kerala and it has been acclaimed for challenging the CPI (M) on developmental issues.
33 It is perhaps not surprising that while little was heard from the local AIDWA on the ministerís assault on Nalini, its general secretary, Brinda Karat pointed out that the case highlighted an issue that was threatening to become a national shame (Hasan Suroor, The Hindu, February 20, 2000).
References
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Calicut University Syndicate Sub Committee (2000): ëReport of the Syndicate Committee to Examine the Alleged False Propaganda Made by Mr Prakashan, Assistant, Dean Office, Against Mrs P E Usha, University Assistant, School of Distance Educationí, Ad A1/287/2000, no date.
Cheriyan, P J (1993): ëThe Communist Movement in Travancore: From Origins to the Uprising of 1946í, unpublished PhD thesis submitted to the University of Calicut.
Cherukad, Govinda Pisharody (1971): Devalokam, Deshabhimani, Trivandrum.
Devayani, K (1995): ëAlappuzhayile Stree Munnetangalí, paper presented at seminar, Women in Kerala: Past and Present, AKG Centre for Research and Studies, Trivandrum, February 11-12.
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Kerala Womenís Commission (2000): Report of the Kerala Womenís Commission on the complaint by P E Usha submitted to the principal secretary, Social Welfare Department, Government of Kerala, C3/437/2000/KWC, October 11.
Menon, Achuta C (1975): Sevanathinte Peril (In the name of Service), Prabhatam, Trivandrum.
Menon, Nivedita (1999): ëRights, Bodies and the Law: Rethinking Feminist Politics of Justiceí in Gender and Politics in India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
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Namboothiripad, E M S (1968): Kerala: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, National Book Agency, Calcutta.
Patnaik, Prabhat (2000): ëAlternative Paradigms of Economic Decentralisationí, paper presented at the International Conference on Democratic Decentralisation, Thiruvananthapuram, (State Planning Board), May 23-27.
Ram Mohan, K T (1996): ëMaterial Processes and Developmentalism: Understanding Economic Change in Tiruvitamkoor, 1800-1945í, unpublished PhD thesis submitted to the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum.
Spivak, Gayatri (2000): ëDiscussion: An Afterword on the New Subalterní in Partha Chatterjee and Pradeep Jeganathan (eds), Subaltern Studies XI: Community, Gender and Violence, Permanent Black, New Delhi.Return to New collection at South Asia Citizens Web
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