Street sexual harassment is not teasing; and it can be effectively tackled only if we change our attitudes towards it.

By Hamsini Ravi

Men and women look at public spaces differently. After three months of helping run the Chennai Hollaback! website, I have learnt this. Prajnya, a Chennai-based non profit launched Hollaback! in Chennai after conducting a safety audit as part of the 16 Day Campaign Against Gender Violence in 2009. “One of the reasons, we launched Hollaback! in Chennai, was that while it is perceived as a safe city for women, many incidents are brushed under the carpet, simply because women and girls are not encouraged to talk about it. Or simply, because we don’t think there is anything wrong in being whistled at”, says Anupama Srinivasan, Director, Gender Research and Information Taskforce, Prajnya.

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Traditional midwives if supported with modern training can make a significant difference to maternal health in India.

By Soma Mukhopadhyay

It was a dark night on 31 December 2011 when our youth were celebrating their New Year’s eve with light and music. Meanwhile, an expectant mother Bina Gyan in Jamespur, a remote village of the Sundarban in West Bengal was eagerly awaiting her delivery. There was no doctor, no nurse, nor any hospital nearby. Bina was suffering from labour pains, with the village midwife and elderly women of her house for company.

A Royal Bengal tiger had wandered into the village from the adjacent jungle just a couple of days ago, and the whole village was gripped with fear.In this situation, who would take the risk of carrying her to the primary health centre across the river by a narrow boat?

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Jayalakshmi’s story of domestic violence is that of lakhs of other Indian women. That is why it needs to be told. 

By Subir Ghosh

Minutes after I had put up a status message on Facebook saying that I was planning to pen first-hand accounts of domestic violence survivors, I was flooded with messages.

Among those who responded was my friend, Nargis Yousuf *, from Bangalore. Er, was she a victim?

No. But she had an account of someone. “Would you need the person to narrate it herself? As in, meet her?”, she asked. I thought otherwise. “But she won’t be able to speak to you here (on Facebook).”, Nargis added. So, was this person seeking anonymity? “No, it is just that she can’t be on a comp.”, she stated. The woman in question was illiterate. She was Nargis’ domestic help. My friend felt her maid had a story in her – one that needed to be told to the world.

So, here it is.

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The rural education system desperately needs a shake-up, and qualified, comfortable urban dwellers like us need to pitch in. 

By Sabbah Haji

Aisha Tabassum, age 4, had just started Lower Kindergarten. Like all the new students in her class, Aisha was still a little shy. Her elder brother Nazir would accompany her, sitting with her through the day in all classes. Nazir was already a student of Grade 8 in the local Government High School. Except, Nazir couldn’t read. He was unable to recognise even the alphabet, yet he had never been failed in all his years at the school. Like all his peers, he was just on an enroll-and-pass system, with no connect to actual learning. This had been the case in the village for a couple of generations when we decided to try and change things.

Haji Public School [HPS] started off as a very simple idea within the family: “Let’s get our people educated. Let’s start from home.” Home in this case was our ancestral village Breswana, sitting high up in the mountains of Doda in Jammu and Kashmir. ‘Our people’ were generations of students whose school life had flitted by without them gaining so much as an elementary level of learning, judged by any decent academic standard.

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Shirin Juwaley of Palash Foundation, an organisation dedicated to the rehabilitation of people with disfigurement, explains how disfigurement affects the lives of women.

By Shirin Juwaley

Having a facial disfigurement, according to me, is an advantage! It has sieved out the people in my life as only the significant remain. In the 13 years of surviving an acid attack by my ex-husband, I have come across all sorts of attitudes and behaviours towards a deviant face.

Justifying and accepting discrimination

I often wonder why most people cringe, repel, flinch, stare, avert their gaze and feel awkward in their interactions with people with disfigurement. To cite a few examples, Deepa.S*, 25, decided to burn up as she was fed up of living a life not meeting her expectations. This wife and mother of a one year old survived and suffers extreme contractures. Her chin and neck are fused with scarring all over her body. Let’s face it; her physical symmetry has gone askew. This mother prefers to isolate herself in a dingy house with no electricity and water, as fetching food would mean the neighbours cringing and fearfully closing their doors. This means Deepa is willing to go thirsty and hungry rather than step out in a community that is obviously uncomfortable with her physical appearances.

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Kiran Manral shares with us the story behind ‘India Helps’ – a group of volunteers who seek to help disaster victims, in their times of need.

By Kiran Manral

It started with the relentless live telecast of the 26/11 terrorism carnage which saw many killed, injured and stricken in Mumbai. The sense of helplessness at the plight of those who had their lives overhauled completely in those few minutes overwhelmed me. The emails and messages flowing back and forth between me and others across the city, the country and the world, led me to post details about those who needed help and act as an interface for people to help them directly.

India Helps was born then. Not as an NGO. But as a hands-on group of people who wanted to reach out directly to disaster victims and offer relief, assistance, hand holding and emotional support until they were able to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives and get on with living, at times without a loved one. And there were those who were injured and had lost their ability to earn a livelihood because of their disabilities. It was tough because no one in the India Helps team had a back ground in social work. It was the combination of a fierce determination to help, to make a difference and the willingness to go out there and visit, get involved with people’s lives that made it work. Also many people who wanted to help but didn’t know whom to approach and how to contribute felt assured that we had ground contact with the victims and knew us all personally.

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Indian woman are familiar with street sexual harassment, a.k.a “eve-teasing.” Meet Hollaback! Chandigarh, part of a global women’s network creating awareness.

By Rubina Singh

I am yet to meet a single woman in India who has not faced street harassment at least once in her life. Since I’ve started working with Hollaback!, I’ve heard numerous stories from women of all ages. Some are funny, some are brave, some are touching and some are downright scary!

Street harassment or eve-teasing is one of the most under-reported gender based crimes in the world. Not only is it most common, but it is also the least legislated against. Street harassment generally refers to unwelcome words and actions by unknown persons in public which are motivated by gender and invade a person’s physical and emotional space in a disrespectful, creepy, startling, scary, or insulting way (courtesy: www.stopstreetharassment.org).

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Orinam, a Chennai-based voluntary collective and online resource combating prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people on building an inclusive society.

By L. Ramakrishnan

As I write this, a crisis is unfolding in the life of Mala K.*a young woman from Chennai, whose parents discovered that their daughter is attracted to other women, not men.

Initial response: Panic. What will others say?

It’s a close knit and conservative society; everyone’s business is everyone else’s. A lesbian daughter would make them the laughing stock of the entire community.

Second response: Let’s cure her of this ‘disease’.

She is rushed to the psychiatric ward of a private hospital, where, fortunately,  the doctors tell the parents homosexuality is not an illness, and that medical science has no way to change her orientation. Others of her kind are less fortunate – drugged with anti-depressants or hormones, and administered electric shocks by unethical physicians – in futile attempts to make them heterosexual.

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Tulika Editor Niveditha Subramaniam discusses the heightened interest in children’s fiction in India, and the drive to make it more reflective of our diversity. 

By Niveditha Subramaniam

In 1996, a time when independent children’s publishing in India was nascent, Tulika Publishers was founded by Radhika Menon, along with Sandhya Rao. What began as a small team of three today comprises of 15 members. This piece looks at the changing face of children’s books in India and the challenges that lie ahead from an independent publisher’s perspective.

Children’s Publishing in India: The Big Picture

More than ever before, we need good stories and original ideas. Tulika’s focus is on picture books and we publish in English and 8 other Indian languages: Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati and Bangla. Finding new ways of representing the familiar to the reader and exposing children  to a range of social milieus, ideas, forms of art, ways of seeing and living, the experience of different childhoods ­and to make great stories accessible to children everywhere: this has been the greatest challenge.

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The Thasni Banu case shows that a society as educated as Kerala is still not able to tolerate an empowered woman.

By Preethi Krishnan

Last month, Kerala witnessed another incidence of violence against women. On June 19th Sunday, Thasni Banu was on her way to work in Kochi on a bike driven by her friend. Oh, how can I forget? Her male friend and it was 10:30 pm. According to her statement in this interview (it is in Malayalam), Thasni was to reach office for her shift at 11pm. Since they had some time, Thasni and her friend decided that they would stop for tea. In search of a tea shop, they took a different route and did find one. When they realised that there was no tea in stock, her friend bought a cigarette and together they walked towards the bike which was parked in front of the shop.

At that time, an auto rickshaw driver parked his auto near the shop and said to her friend in a degrading tone, “Drop the girl back home.” (Of course, translating the undertones from Malayalam to English is near to impossible). Her friend explained that he was dropping her off at her office, since she had a night shift and that she is just a friend. At that point, another person came by and asked them why they were standing there. Her friend repeated his earlier clarification. Both the driver and this person were drunk. Further, they asked him his name, address and even details on where exactly his house was located. He answered all of it.
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