Voices from the Indian Feminist Movement
Ranjana Kumari
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We continue on the topic of marriage, and specifically on dowry, the practice that makes girl children liabilities to their parents. A dowry is a fee, of sorts, that the bride’s parents have to pay to the groom’s family in order to get her married. “No marriage in India happens without it”, Dr Kumari states. She adds, “Dowry is nothing but a greed for money, and entitlement. Parents have to buy a million rupee lengha (Indian skirt). No more Honda, the family wants a Mercedes.” The tradition of dowry is exactly
“Monsters! Let them go to the gallows, because the rarest of the rare rape case has been established in the Nirbhaya case, and so the rarest of the rare punishment should be given. Capital punishment,” says Ranjana Kumari, one of India’s leading feminist and “woman extraordinaire”.
As she sits across from me in a bright orange sari and a warm smile, Dr. Kumari seems more like my favorite aunty rather than a fiercely committed women’s champion. She is currently the director of the Center for Social Research, the country’s leading advocacy institution for women and girls. She is also a member of the Global Advisory Board of Facebook, and the chairperson of Women Power Connect.
A notable champion of Nirbhaya, the heroic girl whose brutal gang rape sparked an Indian #MeToo revolution back in 2013. Her mother keeps in close touch with Dr Kumari and urges her daily to pressure the government into hanging her daughter’s
rapists. The Supreme Court sentenced the four perpetrators to death in September 2013. As a response to the widespread outrage of the case, India has recently approved capital punishment for rapists of minors (i.e under 18) and gang rapes. Unfortunately, capital punishment is rarely carried out in India, with only three hangings in the past decade, of which only one of them was for rape. While there was widespread national jubilation for the Nirbhaya verdict at the time, six years on, justice is yet to be served.
As we delve into a discussion on the death penalty debate in India, Dr. Kumari softens her strong words: “My position is that there should be a debate about this. But the Nirbhaya case is non-negotiable. Because we can change the law of the land if there is a majority of people saying that as a progressive human rights protector and as a democratic state, we should not give the state the right to kill citizens. The state should not become as brutal as people are. Eventually, we should do away with capital punishment.” She continues by saying: “We have 97,000 cases of rape pending in India. Okay, 50% will be acquittals. 30% may not be as gruesome as Nirbhaya or others. But the 10% that is child molestation, or the kind of brutality and shame that has happened, may be 2,000 cases per year. But the nation has only ever managed to hang three people in its history!"
The Indian judiciary is infamously slow. In fact, there are 33 million civil and criminal cases currently pending, and a severe shortage of judges. One judge, according to the Financial Times, estimated that it would take 320 years to
designed to provide fast-track courts and general resources for organisations and individuals working to ensure the safety and security of Indian women. But, much like the verdict, its execution has been disappointingly delayed. In addition to the fund, there has been serious legislative change following Nirbhaya, such as the rape law being expanded to penetration of the woman’s vagina of any kind, as well as harsher punishment for rape and an improved standard of consent (lack of physical resistance is no longer counted as consent). But again, India’s Achilles’ heel is implementation.
Outrage over the Nirbhaya case sparked mass protests across the nation.
Image Credits: NDTV
clear all the cases. But after the Nirbhaya case, a fund was created, named after the 23-year-old who united the Indian feminist movement. It was
Basically, the economic value of a girl child at birth is zero. It becomes negative, because of the dowry payment.
I ask her, whether or not she thinks progress has been made after the landmark moment, as someone who is deeply involved in both the Nirbhaya case and the Indian feminist movement. “To understand progress, you must understand that this society has always suppressed, from the families, to the police, to law enforcement, have always suppressed the issue of rape”, says Dr Kumari. She acknowledges that we have a long way to go before India is close to becoming an egalitarian society. But statements like “India is the most unsafe country for women”, as communicated by the Thomson Reuters Report on Women’s Safety in 2018, make her scoff. “You know, there are more rapes in France and America than here! There, at least 60-70 cases get reported per 10,000 people!” she exclaims. She concedes, however, that over there “justice is delivered, and all kinds of rape get reported: Intimate partners rape, marital rape.” Marital rape is still not recognized in the Indian Penal Code. I ask her why. “Because you give away your girl in marriage, so you give the husband complete control”.
why 2,000 sex-selective abortions happen in India every day. “Basically, the economic value of a girl child at birth is zero. It becomes negative, because of the dowry payment.” she explains. Sons can work and bring income to the family. The assumption with daughters is that they will just leave and get married, and to make matters worse, you have to pay her dowry. Even though the practice of dowry was outlawed by the Dowry Prohibition Act in 1961, it continues to this day, having devastating repercussions on the female sex and on the Indian demographic.
We end on a positive note, despite the heavy conversation and the grim points brought to light on the state of gender in India. “Our country is going from very primitive to very modern. Girls are working, are being educated, are ambitious, but when you go through that period of dramatic change, there is some tension.” Whatever hurdles we girls may face in today’s India, I have confidence that, with women like Dr Ranjana Kumari, we will be able to jump over them when the time comes.