Editorial:End Prejudicial Profiling

International Women’s Day coincided with Holi this year; a wicked irony for a country, where, this festival celebrating the arrival of Spring, is also one which women have grown to disdain for the lumpen vulgarity it unleashes on them should they venture out into unfamiliar streets. In a way though, it is also perhaps apt that a Day devoted to prioritising the pursuit of equality and empowerment for women should coincide with a festival during which the itemization of women as chattel for lewd affronts peaks [and this is not about being prude, because in most places in this country, the frivolity of Holi lost out to vulgarity long back]. The contrasting responses to Women’s Day and Holi should have perhaps served to highlight the challenge which still confronts empowerment in a country where people at large, and through them their representative and media, routinely perpetuate the subordination of women by continuing with offensive stereotyping. There has been much written about how mass media and its depiction of women, whether in advertisements or the slant in how they profile women [even those of ‘substance’], has led to a situation where women have subconsciously begun evaluating themselves according to their physical appearance and ability to attract the male gaze. This Women’s Day, we stay away from joining this debate, and instead highlight some other recent developments which should meet with universal condemnation for the prejudicial profiling they broadcast and the offensive mindsets they lay bare.
Some week ago, the Ministry of External Affairs is reported to have ordered its embassies in Russia and its breakaway nations to “closely screen visa applications for women between 15 and 40 to weed out prostitutes”. This plays out from loosely based facts because while there is no denying that girls from Eastern Europe have been trafficked into the flesh trade in India, there is no evidence to suggest that most of women from that region ‘aged between 15 to 40’ applying for visas to visit India plan to sell sex here. India already has one of the most skewed Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act in the world and despite whatever reservations one might have about this Act, fact remains that laws exist to prevent prostitution. Instead of ensuring that these laws work effectively, the babus in MEA have decided to go with rumour-mongering and media hype to officially brand women from Eastern Europe. Those from the northeast part of the country know of this distasteful profiling not just by ill-informed and insensitive mainstream masses, but also their institutions. The latest development on visa screening has been largely ignored by mainstream media, which probably endorses the move as morally sound; but this MEA directive needs to be universally condemned and an apology demanded. Thankfully, the women in Ukraine did not take kindly to this offensive profiling and members of Femen, an activist group of Ukrainian women, stormed the Indian embassy in Kiev demanding an apology. Now, this group is known for its extreme tactics [how else will they get news coverage], so they gheraoed the embassy topless, pulled out banners, shouted slogans and ended up even toppling the Indian flag. Now, following an ‘FIR’ by Indian officials in Ukraine, they are facing charges which could send its activists in jail for up to five years. While they will probably end up getting ‘punished’ for the nature of their protest, the offense which drove them to such an extreme remains unaddressed. More than the ladies in Ukraine, it should be the women of India who demand that the MEA directive be retracted and an unconditional apology extended not just to the women of the ‘profiled’ countries but to women across the world. It is after all in attitudes like the one which sits in MEA nowadays that elected Chief Ministers [a woman herself at that], their Ministers and police can issue public statements questioning the claims of rape by a victim as recently happened in West Bengal. Prejudice and offensive stereotyping of women leads to situations where a victim of rape is expected to justify her lifestyle, struggle with her trauma even as attempts are made to malign her character and stay on course with her pursuit of justice even as a majority sniggered at her plight as something she invited on herself. The UN explains the dedication of a day exclusively to the celebration of the world’s women as a reiteration of the call to Governments, civil society and the private sector to commit to gender equality and the empowerment of women — as a fundamental human right and a force for the benefit of all. As the two incidents shared above highlight, this commitment is yet to rise beyond superficial tokenism because unless the stereotyping of women ends, a fundamental right of the women will remain denied.