Women

The endless Agony
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedom set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. But that does not seem to be happening.

After a crime it is important to get that complaint lodged. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible for educated or professional women in Delhi to go to a police station, especially in the night. Even in daytime it is plain difficult for ordinary Indian women from the margins, or who don't have any influence whatsoever, to enter police stations. This is not a general rule but a repetitive narrative.

And if this is the scenario in Delhi, it's like a nightmare in mofussil townships and interior villages. Witness for instance the police stations in western UP, Omkara territory, where between crime and law and order, the lines are so terribily blurred. Tribals and Dalits, especially women, are routinely refused entry in police stations. In a classically perverse sense, it is often the typical scenario shown in old parallel cinema like Aakrosh - check out innumerable stories of women assaulted, degraded and humiliated in Indian villages, or where movements against displacement are consolidating like in Lalgarh, Kalinganagar, Kashipur or Dantewada, or close to the capital in the caste khaps of Haryana and western UP, in the lynching and public spectacles of torture and death sentences given to women in the form of honour killings.

Rashi Mera was the president of the Gargi College Students' Union in Delhi University, when, on September 16, 2007, she saw it point-blank - male, machismo's perversity as a public spectacle. A gang of nearly 300 young men who had come to appear for the 'constable exams' in Delhi Police, went berserk around the north campus of  Delhi University, attacking, abusing and molesting female students.

"I was in the south campus when we heard of this. We spoke to the girls who were molested. Since they were shocked, and shy of approaching the police, we formed a Joint Action Committee Group (JACG). We, a group of girls from Lady Sri Ram, Hindu, St. Stephen's, Kamala Nehru and Gargi College, went to the Maurice Nagar police station, which has north campus under its jurisdiction. But the FIR was not lodged. "We were told that you cannot lodge an FIR as we were not the ones who were molested. Do we have to be raped or molested first to get an FIR lodged for a woman who has been brutally attacked?" questions Rashi Mera angrily.