Organizer and Chair: Sara Dickey, Bowdoin College
Wo Ayee Hak Lene/Here She Comes, To Take Her Rights: The Dreadful Specter
of the Property-Owning Woman in India
Srimati Basu, Southern Illinois University
When the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 became part of Indian law, Hindu women in India theoretically acquired equal rights to the "self-acquired" property of their parents. In fact, the inscription of their right to be equal heirs along with their brothers enshrined in that Act has often been hailed as a hallmark of postcolonial legislation embodying gender equity, and a token of the superiority of "reformed" Hindu law over the personal laws of other religious communities. However, despite the existence of legal guidelines, most women do not get or do not accept natal property, and frequently cite complex reasons relating to the construction of gender roles, kinship, entitlement and responsibility to justify this situation.
This paper will analyze the material and cultural construction of Indian women's property, using folk and ancient textual evocations of women's entitlements, contemporary family history accounts showing the wrath coming down upon women claiming any family property, and women's own perceptions of agency, responsibilities and losses in these contexts. The analysis is centered around the powerful and pervasive image of the "haklenewali," the specter of the property-claiming woman who destroys her kin. This image serves to contain post-colonial legal reform, perpetuates hegemonic control of land and property, and involves women in a complex and divided construction of self. Thus, the lens of gender and property provides a perceptive glimpse of contests over discursive space and material resources in contemporary India.
Constituting Violence, Co-opting Rights: Debating the Decriminalization of Sex
Work in India
Heather Dell, Duke University
Should human rights and the rights of Indian citizenship be granted to sex workers? A bill to decriminalize sex work has sparked intense debate over what constitutes violence in the sex industry. Anti-sex work activists define sex work as a form of violence, arguing that decriminalization amounts to the state condoning sexual slavery, a violation of freedom that will damage the fabric of India as a postcolonial nation. Instead they recommend enforcement of existing laws, development in districts that supply the trade, and funding to make sex workers into rehabilitated citizens.
Indian prostitutes' groups in Calcutta, Delhi and Bombay argue that the continued suppression laws place them at the mercy of the police, brothel owners, and local toughs. Decriminalization, they contend, will help break the vicious cycle of physical violence and financial coercion they face. Unlike some Dutch and U.S. prostitutes' groups, however, they do not suggest that sex work is just another form of labor that needs work safety reforms. Yet, until unskilled women can earn a family wage and men's demands diminish, sex work will remain. Given this, they favor decriminalization as one plank in their platform of lobbying the government to finally uphold their rights as citizens of India-the right to safety, to freedom from harassment and extortion, to vote, to education for their children and themselves, and to health services.
This paper explores competing understandings of violence in the sex industry and what it might mean to be an Indian citizen.
Taking Gender Off the Agenda: Women's Rights and the Religious Right in Indian
Politics
Rina Verma, Harvard University
What effect has the rise of the religious right in India had on legal reform for gender justice? This paper argues that the rise to political prominence of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has harmed the cause of gender justice by redefining gender issues in terms of religion and national unity. I compare the debate over personal laws (Religious laws governing matters such as marriage and property rights) versus a uniform civil code in the 1950s and the 1980s, drawing on Parliamentary debates and other primary sources to demonstrate; (a) how the B.J.P. redefined the debate; and (b) the effect this has had on the cause of gender justice.
In the 1950s, Parliament codified and reformed Hindu personal law. At that time, progressives called for the elimination of religious laws that discriminated against women, and demanded a secular, uniform civil code to implement equal rights on the basis of gender. Conservatives opposed such a code and argued for the retention of the religious laws. In the 1980s, after the Shah Bano case brought Muslim personal laws to the top of the political agenda, the BJP began demanding a uniform code, not to enhance gender rights, but to assimilate religious minorities, especially Muslims.
I argue that the BJP has thus redefined the debate in terms of religion and nationalism (should Muslims retain separate laws or integrate with the nation?) instead of gender rights (are the religious laws of all communities unjust to women?). The effect has been to bury the cause of gender justice under the call for national unity.
Who Draws the Line? The Legal Regulation of Speech and the Hindu Right in India
Ratna Kapur, Centre for Feminist Legal Research
The paper will examine the ways in which the Hindu Right is invoking laws relating to speech to promote an important part of its agenda-the hatred of religious minorities and a conservative ethic for women. I discuss the existing legal provisions governing hate and sexual speech and their impact on the fundamental right to free speech and expression. I analyze how the Hindu Right is increasingly determining the boundaries of these legal provisions to create ample room for their speech while curtailing that of progressive groups, religious minorities and women.
Hate speech laws have been invoked by the Hindu Right with the intention of attacking religious minorities while at the same time accusing them of violating the right to free expression. I discuss recent cases where the Hindu Right has successfully invoked these laws while at the same time avoided prosecution of their own vitriolic, anti-Muslim rhetoric. I examine the effectiveness of hate speech laws in a climate of increasing religious intolerance and the extent to which the law can be used, if at all, in stemming this tide.
I also examine how the Hindu Right is using censorship to reinforce the rigid norms governing sexual conduct in India. I address its use of censorship to restrict the sexual freedom of women and others, and promote its own narrow vision of women's roles in society more generally and in the family in particular. Through such endeavors, the Hindu Right is posing a significant threat to the gains of the women's movement in empowering women in India.
Transformation of the Self and Other: Analysis of the Lives of Activists in a
Community Organization in India
Jotinder Sekhon, Greensboro College
Considerable attention has been paid in recent years to the role of grassroots organizations in contributing to the participatory democratic process and expansion of the public sphere. Feminists, however, have critiqued the neglect of the private spheres of people's lives and the close connection between public and private lives. They argue for a participatory democracy that allows both individual self-development through participation in the public sphere and enables empowerment and change in the private sphere of family, and interpersonal relationships.
This paper focuses on the influence of community activism on identities and lives of activists in Action India, a grassroots organization working with women, children and youth in four settlements in Delhi. In-depth interviews with 17 members of the organization focused on the lives of the activists before they became part of Action India, changes in consciousness since joining the organization, and the influence of their consciousness and work on their position within the family and on other family members. Analysis shows that being part of Action India has had an empowering effect on the activists. However, this is not a linear process of change for all. Many are in unsatisfactory family situations and do not always live according to the egalitarian and feminist principles they espouse or advocate. However, activists derive personal strength from the space provided by Action India to deal with problematic personal issues.