On 25th November this year, I had a wonderful
opportunity to be a part of ongoing global campaign against violence against
women. I was invited by the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth
Development, Sriperumbudur for a one day seminar to give lecture on
online violence. Meeting with stalwart feminist advocates, scholars and Ms.
Latika Sharan, ex-director general of Police, Chennai not only made me enriched
in understanding the present scenario, it boosted my confidence in my own work
too. I presented my paper, pointing out some crucial trends
of on-line victimisation of women with a special note that
women’s right to speech is many often been gagged even in the cyber space. The
Palghar girls were prime examples (even
though this could have happened to men also, I specifically noted how women
victims can be exposed to physical violence due to this). But this news which
pulled up huge debate over section 66A of the Information Technology Act, could
not keep me concentrated over the issue for a long time when I further
witnessed two other unique cases of gagging right to communication of women.
First it was a community panchayat in Rajasthan which declared a ban on women
using mobile phones in early November this year(see No
mobiles for girls: Rajasthan panchayat) , and then a village
panchayat in Bihar followed the same path (See Patna
village bans women from using mobiles) in prohibiting women from using
mobile phones. The reason for both these decisions were apparently the same:
making the women turn more ‘docile’, stopping the young girls from making
any contact with people other than those their fathers or other family heads
would choose and prohibiting ‘eloping’ for the sake of love. The later dictate
also imposed financial penalties on women who would be found doing this
‘crime’. In both the news reports majority of the villagers have reported
said that this is a good dictate.
Are you surprised? Well, I am not. Note that both these villages do not
fall in the wealthy and progressive village status. The concept of women
freedom may sound like a never
heard before term in such
societies and freedom of life and liberty, especially marriage as per one’s own
choice may look like a distant dream for young boys and girls here. These two
incidents can be a reflection of the mindset of majority of Indian urban and
semi rural patriarchal societies. There are many men and men-dominated
older women who feel that letting the girl get connected to the world would
obviously bring unwanted problems. Agreed, that lack of education and
awareness is a huge reason for such gagging of speech in these societies.
But do look into your own social strata. One can find this problem in a
more refined way in almost every family irrespective of urban or rural society.
In many economically developed families women are regularly blamed for
giving more time to internet, to spend some time in chatting through mobile
phones. Surprisingly when men do the same, it is often considered as their
right to ‘catch up with friends’, ‘increasing networks for works’ and ‘relax
after a hard day’s work’. In many families women are cynically accepted to do
all these when men feel that their needs are satisfied for the day. Exceptions
do exist. But this is what the real picture is. Prohibiting women from getting
in touch with the digital communication technology has become a new trend to
gag their rights not only to speech, but to equality and work.
Shame on men who hate to see
women digitally connected to
the world.
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would
like to use informations provided in this blog for your own
assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2012),
“Gagging the right to digital communication for girls
”, 3rd December,2012, published in
http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/
