Don’t Say ‘No’ When You Want to Say ‘Yes’

Why those who decry the ordinance on sexual violence make no sense

On 22 June 2009, the tabloid Mid-Day published a story headlined ‘Roadie in Sex Video’. In the first para, it named a contestant of MTV Roadies and said that she is ‘surprisingly well endowed’. The second para went like this: ‘A 37-second sex tape with a girl, having a stunning resemblance to the Roadie, having sex with a boy has been posted on Rapidshare and Easyshare, both video sharing websites.’ It was accompanied by a screen grab of the MMS. It was only the next day that they talked to the girl, who was understandably upset. This is a snatch of the conversation:

Interviewer: “…let me make it very clear that it was not for publicity. The story clearly says that the girl on the sex- tape is someone resembling you.”

Roadie: “Apka matlab kya thha! The idea was such that someone might have committed suicide.”

It didn’t occur to the journalist that even if it was another girl’s image, there was still a reputation at stake. Alas, the newspaper had tasted blood. After a month, it reported another MMS, which it said was of a contestant in the show Splitsvilla. It was again accompanied by a screen grab of the MMS.

Mid-Day has been a serious newspaper (disclosure: I myself worked there a decade ago), and since a new editor took over, the paper is considerably more responsible. But, at the time, its actions reeked of yellow journalism.

If the same story were run today, the journalist and editor would be facing jail for a year. This is because of The Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013, which was signed by the President last Sunday and came into force immediately. It makes voyeurism a crime and is targeted at the making and dissemination of MMS sex clips without consent. India has a history of it. Earlier, a single MMS scandal was news; now there are websites which update clips on a daily basis.

The ordinance also addresses acid throwing and stalking. Open had a story on acid attack victims in January 2012 and one of the persons we profiled was Mahalakshmi, a Bangalore-based doctor whose landlord first stalked her for a period and then threw acid on her. She had complained to the police about the stalking, but they did nothing. Even after the attack, the police took nine months to make a chargesheet. Women have had no legal shield against stalking until this ordinance. A policeman who does not take a rape complaint also faces jail now because of the ordinance.

All these are not baby steps. The ordinance is a leap, at least in bringing the umbrella of law over physical and psychological violence against women. Which is why it is incomprehensible that feminists should have been asking the President not to sign it. The reasons cited are that many of the Verma Commission’s recommendations—making marital rape a crime, removal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, etcetera—have been ignored.

It would have been interesting if Pranab Mukherjee had, in fact, done the impossible and not signed the ordinance. Because then, for the next two years, these groups would be clamouring to get exactly these laws passed. You would have had the Bill in Parliament at the mercy of people like Mulayam Singh and Mamata Banerjee. Debate is good, if everyone can agree that Parliament will function. At present, it is not certain that a single day in the next session will be a working day. And then, the Bill will have to compete for space against other bills that have been in limbo for decades.

You can understand that rhetoric has an important part in activism, but when you start believing your own bluff, it’s not very intelligent. The suggestion by the Verma Commission that the AFSPA should be repealed is sensible. But that it will be repealed over the question of rape is letting optimism run wild. It is just not going to happen. The AFSPA’s repeal threatens the foundation on which the Army believes it is entitled to operate. It’s an elemental question, and it will not be settled on a corollary like rape. Just as it was always going to be impossible to turn over the CBI to the Lokpal because that is one of the pillars on which governments survive. If you go rigid on it, the Lokpal itself gets doomed, as Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal have found out.

In an ideal India, the AFSPA should be repealed and the CBI should be independent. But we are all in the gutter and there are some ropes that come our way. To not have a law on stalking because the AFSPA is not being repealed makes no sense. Savour a victory, pat yourself on the back, and rest a day before taking up the good fight again.

 

Mid-Dayordinancesexual violence