Is Porn Making Indian Men Rape?

May 2013: Contesting the recent petition to punish the viewing of pornography, I explore its history and proliferation; and propose that the psychosocial solutions to the rape epidemic include creating a liberal society and the legalisation of the porn industry.

Recently, during the investigation after the rapists of the five-year-old in Delhi were captured, it emerged that the two accused had been drinking and watching porn before they decided to find this child to rape. It prompted Indore-based advocate Kamlesh Vaswani to file a writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking a change in internet laws that would make watching pornography a non-bailable offence. Porn’s roles in the rape and the subsequent petition have raised a whole host of questions about its sociocultural impact on society.

The History, Evolution & Nature of Pornography

Pornography is a Christian Western creation. Erotic paintings, sculpture, music and literature have been a part of ancient Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Greek and Roman civilisations, which associated sexual acts with supernatural forces, divinity and fertility. In India, the Kama Sutra, Tantrik practices and the Khajuraho temples were instructions on and depictions of an activity that was a part of mainstream life, religion and culture. However, with the advent of Christianity in the West, the Bacchanalian and Satyrical elements of Greek and Roman cultures, which celebrated the body and the fertility rituals from across Europe, were slowly relegated to the level of ‘pagan’ practices and banned by the Church. 

The complicated relationship that dominant religion and culture today has with sex, sexuality and pornography can be traced to the birth of modern religions that virtually ‘outlawed’ sex. Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions believe in ultimate judgement and an absolute apocalypse, so sex for pleasure is considered morally wrong and a waste of precious time. The sexual repression born of this philosophy found expression in pornography.

Various technological inventions have allowed pornography to reach mass media and culture. The printing press, invented in 1440, allowed the mass production of pornographic literature. Photography began with the daguerreotype in 1839 and the calotype process, invented in 1841, made the mass production of nude portraits possible. Halftone printing, developed in 1880, caused the multiplication of pornographic magazines—that published nudes as ‘artistic’, ‘scientific’ or ‘naturist’ subjects—as it made the reproduction of photographs inexpensive. When moving pictures were invented in 1894, nudity and sex were standard fare, as evident in mainstream movies such as Traffic in Souls (America, 1913) and A Free Ride (America, 1915). The VCR brought pornography into the privacy of the home in 1972. And the technology boom since the 1980s has caused pornography’s rapid growth and evolution. Inexpensive recording equipment and the ability to manipulate images have both improved the quality of professionally produced pornography and increased the production of amateur pornography. The internet and mobile revolution has also been the ‘porn revolution’. With the anonymity it allows, not only can pornography—legal and illegal—be traded with relative security, it can be viewed and interacted with in complete privacy.

Criminologist Berl Kutchinsky believes that modern pornography originated in the 1650s with the appearance of three classic novels—La Puttana Errante (Italy), L'Ecole des Filles (France) and Satyra Sotadica (France). 

To view pornography solely as a deviant expression would be a very limiting view. Pornography has been used as a powerful tool for political protest. During the Enlightenment (early 1700s) and around the Revolution (1789-1799), the French used pornography for political and social satire—attacking the Catholic Church and sexual repression, like Marquis de Sade’s work, published during and after the Revolution, arguably more provoking and rebellious than sexually arousing. French pornography had lost most of its political agenda by the 1920s. However, pornography continues to be used to satirise religion—particularly in strongly religious countries. Latin American pornography after World War II focused on defaming the Church. Through brutal depictions of humiliating sexual treatment meted out on women, it attacked the concept of the Virgin Mary and the Immaculate Conception, which were the very basis of Roman Catholicism practiced in these countries. 

A certain kind of ethos has produced a certain kind of pornography. Pornography is a reflection of and reaction to and against the moral and sexual mores of the time. And the more repressive the age, the greater the demand for pornography—the rigid bourgeois morality around the Victorian Era (1837-1901) caused the development of a thriving sexual sub-culture with much pornography and prostitution. Pornography usually merged the theme of man’s power over a woman’s virtue—the desire to defile and humiliate the ‘good (modest) woman’—with an atmosphere of feverish sensuality with emphasis on the preliminaries, such as in Raped on the Railway (1894) and Sadopaideia (1907).

The switch curled wickedly around her legs and between her thighs. After one or two cuts, which evidently reached the tenderest spots, she began to cry for mercy. Her legs swung out here and there trying to dodge the cuts, and ever and anon I had a glimpse of the little virginal crack and the soft fair hair just beginning to shield it. When her bottom began to show marks, I let her go... (Anonymous, Sadopaideia)

Pornography and society have a symbiotic relationship: pornography reflects and influences society, just as society reflects and influences it. According to social commentator Tina Lorenz, pornography has always been more interesting than sex to get to know a moment in history. At the end of World War I, sexually graphic and minimally plotted ‘stag films’—for men only—became popular. During World War II, ‘pinups’—erotic photographs soldiers pinned to their walls—objectified women’s bodies in fragmented ways: mostly legs in the 1940s and breasts in the 1950s. Playboy, the world’s most successful soft-core magazine, was launched in America in 1953, with a centrefold spread of Marilyn Monroe.

Social, economic and political factors converged to diminish sexual repression, prudery and the hold of religion on the Western youth in the 1960s. This freedom allowed sexual explicitness to enter literature, film and popular culture. Much pornography reflects the paradox of changing mores—the want for sexual liberation yet the need for possession and stability.

We made love as though it were the last time. I wanted to swallow her whole, to possess her fully and finally, and simultaneously to destroy her, to make it impossible for her ever to do this with anyone else. (Marco Vassi, The Gentle Degenerates, 1970)

In India, far before Savita Bhabhi, Desi Fantasy and poorly produced clips took the internet by storm, were stories by ‘Mast Ram’, a pseudonym adopted by writers of Hindi porn since the 1980s. Debonair, an adult magazine modelled on Playboy has been around since 1971; the titillating Crime & Detective, that sells upwards of two lakh copies a month, started in 1984.

In the Eye of the Storm
Pornography has faced censure, criticism and censorship for various reasons over the ages. Though governments and religious bodies down the ages always tried to clamp down on pornography, it is in the 18th century that this censorship gained ground. In the West, the latest anti-pornography movement, which focussed on the harms rather than the morals of pornography, started as a reaction against the violent sex films of the 1960s. The imagery and sadism of Blood Feast (America, 1963) and other sexploitation films are alarming, as blood rather than semen is the symbolic fluid of erotic expression. In the late 1960s, Germaine Greer started and edited Suck, a magazine that promoted ‘healthy’ pornography.

In India, the media and society’s eye has been trained on gender, sexuality and violence since the Delhi Rape in December last year. And this attack on pornography is the most recent fallout of the outrage, of a society seeking answers to the horrific demons it is creating. But is criminalising pornography the real answer? 

What is pornography’s impact, and does it lead to violence?

No doubt, there are negative effects of pornography.

It has resulted in the sexualisation and pornophication of mass media: over the last century more urban, educated women the world over are taking control of their bodies and sexual identities. The destabilisation of traditional gender roles in mass media was at its peak in the 1990s, and women were beginning to be portrayed as powerful, intellectual, independent beings, comfortable with their bodies and sexuality. However, traditional gender definitions have resurfaced in mass media since the millennium, probably because pornography has gone mainstream, a phenomenon called ‘porn chic’ by British media researcher Brian McNair. Women in pornography are stereotypes—meek, subservient and sexual. At first glance, women showing their bodies and displaying their sexuality in every music video are indicators of great liberation. However, on deeper analysis, the display of the eroticised female body is no more than the objectification of women, catering to a phallic gaze. Owing to pornography, the representation of women is shrinking back into one of two traditional roles—the sexualised object of masculine desire and/or ‘the angel in the house’.

Women are frequently coerced in to the porn industry; and often made to perform painful sequences and positions. Pornography also provides an avenue to express hatred or anger against a particular woman or women in general, particularly when men feel powerless against or rejected by them. For instance, much pornography in the period leading up to the French Revolution targeted Marie Antoinette. When women were gaining economic and professional control while men fought in the World Wars, the depiction of women as passive and submissive increased in erotic movies. The misuse of technology, such as morphing and spy and phone cameras, has resulted in the violation of privacy and the sexual misrepresentation of celebrities and normal women alike. And when private sex acts are taped and circulated, inadvertently or not, the woman still bears the brunt of the censure.

But a debate rages on whether violent and/or non-violent pornography makes men sexually violent, with both camps presenting equally strong arguments and valid studies.

Anti-pornography feminists, conservatives, fundamentalist Christians, some psychologists and criminologists, and now Mr Vaswani believe that pornography can cause men to be violent towards women as it—
i) Causes objectifying and dehumanising of women and female sexuality
ii) Perpetuates rape myths
iii) Increases acceptance of interpersonal violence
iv) Propagates the belief in male dominance in intimate relationships

Dr Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin and groups like Anti-Porn Feminists and the Women Against Violence in Pornography believed pornography solidified a phallic patriarchal power. Most third-wave feminists disagree.

Colin and Damon Wilson believe that the steep increase in sex crimes in the 19th century can be directly linked to the development of the imagination and pornography. For some, normal sexual relations cannot satisfy the intense desire that reading pornography causes, leading them to seek more perverse, violent and fetishist sexual outlets.

[I]magination was pushing human beings towards the dividing line between the “permitted” and the “forbidden”. And—since forbiddenness (sic) is another name for criminality—towards the criminal. Since Victorian pornography, this criminal element has become all-important. Now it is a question of seeking out the forbidden for its own sake. (The Killers Among Us: Sex, Madness and Mass Murder, 1995)

However, other data shows that pornography and violence may have an inverse relationship. Countries like Denmark and Sweden, where pornography has been easily available, have a very low per capita crime rate, as does Japan, in spite of its very violent pornography (though great social factors may be at play there). The internet’s delivery of pornography to every doorstep may be the reason for the steep decline in sexual crimes in the United States since 1993. 

In his 2007 essay ‘Rape, Porn and Criminality: Political Truth on Trial’, Anthony D’Amato of Northwestern University School of Law theorises:

[S]ome people watching pornography may “get it out of their system” and thus have no further desire to go out and actually try it. Another possibility might be labelled the “Victorian effect”: the more that people covered up their bodies with clothes in those days, the greater the mystery of what they looked like in the nude… But today, internet porn has thoroughly de-mystified sex.

While feminist icon Naomi Wolf’s essay ‘The Porn Myth’ focuses on the pressure pornography puts on ordinary women to measure up to porn stars in looks as well as sexual prowess, the basis of her argument is that pornography is, in fact, numbing the male libido in relation to real women.

It then boils down to the question—does pornography feed the imagination or satisfy it?

Liberalise, Legalise
Over the ages, the dominant criticism of pornography has been on various grounds—it has been seen as obscene, immoral, irreligious and most recently, anti-feminist and violence-causing.

Pornography is a reaction against sexual repression. I believe that the sexual liberation, and the interest and studies about female sexuality that have been the result of pornography—along with other factors—are very important from a sociological point of view. Women have gained sexual rights and respect as a result of having independent sexual identities. The acknowledgement of female sexual needs has resulted in the expectation of fulfilment—women are allowed to express sexual dissatisfaction. A woman having sex is no longer seen as a deviation—as pornography brings sex into the open and ensures it gets talked about. Slowly but surely, pornography, in conjunction with other social, political and economic factors is helping remove the ‘good woman’/’bad woman’ judgemental distinction that women have had to live with as part of inherited Victorian social norms. With the birth control pill and legalised abortions, women can be untroubled by unwanted pregnancies. Virtuousness and acceptance are no longer at odds with sexuality.

If watching pornography can provide a sexual outlet and channelise the sexual impulses of men who might otherwise get sexually aggressive towards women, I see no reason why it should be banned or limited.

There are ways to justify and counter the negatives of pornography. For one, the industry should be legalised. While playing a part in pornographic films is a woman’s choice, stronger laws must be enforced regarding exploitation and sexual targeting. Women today must embrace—and indeed flaunt—their sexuality while portraying independence and strength and avoiding the media’s tendency to exploit female sexuality to cater to men.

The rise of pornography has increased the need for intense comprehensive sexuality education to counter the unreasonable expectations, depictions and myths that pornography propagates. It is also important to spread the message of safe sex. Most important is to create a strong culture where women are respected, as, far before these rape accused were exposed to porn, they were brought up in a culture of patriarchy and misogyny that allowed them to believe that women and their bodies are at the mercy of men and their wills.

Banning or limiting the consumption of pornography is not possible—Vaswani’s petition alleges that Indians have access to more than 200 million clips; and it is everywhere, on a majority of PCs and mobiles, across sociocultural barriers, in towns, cities and villages. Imagine a law and order situation if our courts and jails were stuffed full of every recreational porn user! Even if it was possible, I believe it’s unnecessary and will only lead to a murkier underground with more avenues for exploitation. Instead, even the creation and sale of pornography should be regularised and controlled by strong laws that keep its negatives at bay.

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An edited version of this article appeared in Governance Now in May 2013.

Interview: Ingrid Newkirk

April 2013: The founder of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, the world famous animal rights organisation, talks about PETA and animal rights in India.

What are yours and PETA's agenda for animal rights? What are the beliefs that guide you?

PETA and all PETA affiliates are driven by the burning desire to open people’s eyes to the fact that all living beings deserve consideration and must not be treated cruelly in a myriad of ways simply because we don’t think, are ignorant of their nature and sentience, or feel we can get away with abusing them without consequence. We believe in respect for all, doing away with the caste system that allows others of all types to be exploited and abused, the lack of reasoning and decency that allows people to believe their own race is superior to the others, that men are more important than women, and that the interests and feelings of all other species who happen not to have been born human, can be tossed aside. We do not believe might should make right. And if everyone accepts these premises, then we will have a better society and an acceptance of animal rights.

What is the animal rights situation in India? In what way is the situation here better or worse than the world over? 

India has traded on her reputation as a country in which animals are often revered, but some of its citizens have drifted so far from the ideal in that in the name of religion, a male elephant is kept frustrated in chains for life, bellowing and trying to break away to be who God or Nature has intended him to be; a ‘sacred’ cow is likely nowadays to live in a factory farm dairy and be manipulated with harsh drugs to produce more milk and her beloved calf is taken from her so that we can steal every drop of milk that was intended for him. There is no romance in the reality for Nandi, the bull, who has a bleeding nose from a rope thrust through his septum, a bed of nails tied to his side to gouge him if he turns to the right or left, and a heavy yoke on his back as he trudges overladen with sugarcane from the factory. In Mumbai, horses are forced to haul loads of tourists, and you see them tottering along on swollen ankles, pulling Victorias—a carriage that is a relic of a bygone time. Indians were by and large vegetarians but are turning away from this traditional, compassionate, healthy diet and courting diabetes, heart disease and cancers with their new interest in eating animal flesh. The leather goods and meat in India come from among the worst slaughterhouses in the world. Cows and other animals are crammed onto trucks in such high numbers that their bones shatter, they suffocate or die en route to slaughter. Those who survive are hacked at with dull knives in full view of others.

On the other hand, India has the Animal Welfare Board of India. Set up in 1962 in accordance with Section 4 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960, the first of its kind animal welfare organisation to be established by any government in the world. It is also following in the footsteps of the EU by moving toward a ban on testing cosmetics on animals, has humane education in many school systems so as to better prepare children for a world in which they can make kind or cruel choices, and following in the release of PETA India’s video exposes such as ‘Glass Walls’—the first comprehensive video expose of what happens to animals for meat, eggs or dairy—numerous people are choosing to switch to a vegan diet. In fact, vegan groups are popping up everywhere including the Mumbai Vegans, Bengaluru Vegans, Chennai Vegan Drinks and more. There are vegan shoes and vegan handbags and vegan everything!

In what ways is PETA India working towards animal rights in India?

In India we are working on numerous initiatives. This includes ending the use of animals to train students, and now because of our efforts and those of progressive scientists and politicians, the use of animals to train medical, pharmacy, zoology, life sciences and dentistry students has been banned. That said, despite the ban, some universities including Delhi University are still using animals, which is outrageous. PETA India is working to ensure the ban is enforced. We are also pushing through our seats on Bureau of Indian Standard Committees to end the use of animals to test cosmetics and household products. Following our pressure and that of MP Maneka Gandhi, the Drugs Controller General of India, Dr GN Singh, declared in the last BIS meeting regarding cosmetics that animal tests will be suspended until satisfactory validated non-animal methods are included in the current safety standard.

We are also working to end Jallikattu, a cruel so-called bull ‘taming game’ played in southern India, and have caught on video participants feeding bulls alcohol, stabbing them with knives and rubbing irritants in their nostrils in order to force them to run. These bulls have crashed head first into busses and into people’s homes while running for their lives and have died or shattered their bones in the process. We are also working to push the government to ban the use of all animals in circuses. Many species of animals are already banned, but of course no animal wants to be chained, whipped, separated from all that’s natural and comfortable, including from their families, and forced to perform daft tricks. We have convinced the Election Council of India not to permit animals to be used in political rallies, persuaded Jet Airways to promise that it will not transport animals to laboratories, and together with wonderful activists helped save 70 beagles from cruel tests (these beagles are now in loving homes). Millions of children will learn how to respect animals and peacefully coexist with them now that the Central Board of Secondary Education has endorsed our humane education programme, Compassionate Citizen, on its website and is requiring all CBSE schools to use this beautiful programme as part of their school curriculum. PETA also worked with the Animal Welfare Board of India to successfully encourage it to classify the common crushing method of castrating bulls as a violation of The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. The AWBI states that all bulls must now be castrated under anaesthesia by a veterinarian rather than have their testicles crushed with a rock while they are fully aware. We’ll see how long it takes to implement this vital directive.

I’m also happy to say that PETA India's youth division reached thousands of young people in the last year alone with information about cruelty to animals by partnering with Submerge, Sunburn, Nokia Indiafest; we attended and leafleted and showed videos at more than 130 college events in that time span. These are just some of the many initiatives PETA India is working on, so it’s all quite exciting.

What do you think of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals law in India? Some say it, and the Animal Welfare Board of India, lacks teeth. What do you think of the law itself, and its implementation? And how does PETA interact with the AWBI?

The AWBI had formulated a draft Animal Welfare Act, 2011, and submitted it to the Ministry of Environment and Forests to replace the outdated Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. However, two years after the draft was submitted, it continues to simply collect dust.

Currently, the penalty for cruelty to animals is too weak to act as a deterrent. It is between 10 to 50 rupees for the first offence, which may go up to 100 rupees for a subsequent offence or up to three months in prison. The new proposed Animal Welfare Act, 2011, if passed in the form submitted by the AWBI, would result in the penalty for cruelty to animals being at least between 10,000 and 25,000 rupees or imprisonment for up to two years—or both—for a first offence. For a subsequent offence, the penalty would be between 50,000 and one lakh rupees and imprisonment for one to three years.

The chairman of the AWBI, Dr Kharb, is a very kind-hearted man. PETA works very closely with the AWBI and him. In fact, recently, when we learned that the Elephant Festival in Jaipur planned to use elephants without obtaining AWBI permission, we worked with the AWBI to get the planned cruel uses of elephants (polo, tug-of war, rides) stopped. But many decisions, such as the passing of the draft Animal Welfare Act, need to be made at the central government level. And fast.

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An edited version of this interview appeared in Governance Now in April 2013.

‘Self Arranged’: The Online Matrimonial Mantra

April 2013: How urban Indians use matrimonial sites has changed, and what these changes mean.

I recently met an old friend, and we got chatting about how he met the person he had married. “We met online,” he said. “Don’t tell me you met on Shaadi.com,” I exclaimed with my usual disdain of arranged marriages. “Actually, we did… I saw her profile, liked what she said about wanting an equal partner and being feminist, paid three and a half thousand to get her number, and called her.” Rajiv and Niharika dated for two years before marrying last November.

Several of my other friends, all around 30, are on online matrimonial sites. All of them: A) claim to be coerced in to registering themselves by friends or family. (“It keeps mum and dad off my back,” one said. Another’s friend made his account, and even shortlisted a few interesting prospects.) And B), will only grudgingly admit it. Because, for a generation that scoffs at the idea of arranged marriage as seeing each other over chai and samosas with hovering parents, the very idea of meeting someone on a matrimonial site is problematic, as an idea.

Increasingly, though, I realise that, to a certain section of urban India, the function and utility of these sites is changing. It seems that being on an online matrimonial site only indicates that one is on the lookout for a serious relationship, and most of my friends who’ve met people through them have dated for a while before settling down—or not. And by filtering matches according to the parameters people are looking for—age, religion, etc—there’s a system-generated adherence to social mores. For some, these ‘self arranged’ matches have the best of both worlds—unlike in real life, where love can happen inter-caste/creed/religion (heaven forbid!), the people one meets here check the right boxes straight off. And then one gets to date a person with similar serious intentions, but not necessarily ready to go straight from keyboard down the isle. “From the start, you know the meeting is not about friendship, which changes the equation of the interaction from the beginning,” says 31-year-old Sangeetha, who married someone she met online.

In other countries, this function would be served by online dating sites. There are a whole host—from those for those looking for casual flings, threesomes and swingers even, to those for those with serious intentions. But simply calling them ‘dating’ websites would make them too Western in the Indian scheme of things; the idea that marriage is the ultimate agenda makes them easier to for families to palate.

What Does this Environment Mean for Women?

On one level, online dating can be empowering for women. Aside from the photograph, a great deal of the initial communication is online, allowing the development of a personality-based connection beyond pressures on appearances. “Meeting online allows two disparate people, who would never exchange numbers at a party, to explore a deeper connect,” says a Jordyn Steig, who met his wife Pamela through Facebook. 

Does being allowed to ‘self arrange’ empower women, giving them some degree of freedom to choose their own partners from within a family-approved shortlist? Not really. For the most part, women aren’t allowed to negotiate this world unchaperoned either. Fathers and mothers remain the gatekeepers, dis/approving potential partners. And, unfortunately, the gender inequality of conventional dating rules still applies. “You can’t ask for guys’ numbers; it’s considered too forward,” says a 30-year-old architect. “You can’t be too comfortable or proactive. Guys will be more forthcoming, and the onus remains on them to make the first moves.” The men will—and can—write to a whole host of women, hoping that someone will write back.

Interesting, for an environment that, you would think, demands high levels of trust, Indian matrimonial sites are chock-full of players, and, worst still, scam artists. Players troll matrimonial sites, looking for the gullible and the desperate, with a purely sexual agenda. A Mumbai-based friend has encountered several of those. One wonders at the desperation of the Indian male—in the early days of Couch Surfing, I’ve heard stories of how potbellied sickos would appear for meetings, waiting for the foreign women to get drunk and loose. Are there not enough places for people with sex on their minds to connect with others similarly inclined? My personal experience on this front is a little dated, but I'm sure the internet continues to offer many such avenues.

On serious dating websites abroad, one tends to encounter more scam artists than players. My mother, a young widow, who I bullied onto these sites in India and Australia (where she lives), encountered a fresh-faced 50-year-old in another Australian city, almost too good to be true. In English that raised several red flags, he told her he was soon leaving for Central Africa for a mining contract. He’d be too busy to call her before he left; would she be okay if they spoke once he reached, of all places, Nigeria (another red flag)! I was certain he had never been in Australia—and sure enough, one phone call and my mother knew too. “He’s black, Tara*,” she said, not being racist but simply stating that he wasn’t what he seemed. Mum stopped responding to his plaintive emails, so the expected ‘I’m in trouble, I need you to wire me some money urgently’ email never came. The site soon sent her an alert about this profile. (Incidentally, my friend never managed to get the administrators of an Indian site to take her complaint about a fellow user—with a misrepresentative profile and sex on his mind—taken seriously, and he continues to hold an active profile.)

‘Matrimonial’ sites allow urban Indians to bridge traditional and modern worlds, one click at a time, but continue to bear the unfortunate baggage of gender inequality. With time, perhaps, our culture will evolve beyond needing the subterfuge of dating under the guise of seeking an arranged match; and our players will find enough willing and sexually liberated playmates in appropriate places, without needing to feign serious intent.

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in April 2013.

The Battle for My Surname

April 2013: Why is retaining my surname after marriage such a constant fight?

I am fiercely protective of my name, and would not change it for the world. (Thanks to a bullying ex-husband, I’ve been there, done that, got the passport, thank you very much.) Nothing but ‘Tara* Kaushal’ feels like my name, not then, and even not now, in a very happy second marriage. Besides, I have a strong feminist agenda, and a whole score of reasons why I believe it was a mistake of youth to hyphenate the first time around and why I won’t do it again.

Anyway, the issue here is not why I want to retain my surname after marriage, but the fact that I do. And in the little time that I’ve been married, I have realised just how ingrained the patriarchal assumption of an automatic name-change is in our society and government systems.

My passport was a whole different level of complicated. Well after my divorce and even a few months in to my second marriage, for want of a permanent address, my passport stayed unupdated and said I was still married to my first husband, hyphenated surname et al. Now, in Maharashtra, marrying a Sahil Mane automatically makes me a Mrs Tara* Sahil Mane, adding the insult of his first name as my middle name to the injury of his surname automatically replacing mine. So, when it came time to update my passport, I visited the passport office to figure out how I could bypass this. The blank stares that greeted my preposterous request led me in to the arms of an agent.

Much research later, he said I would need an affidavit that went something like this: ‘I, Tara* <insert hyphenated surname>, upon divorce and remarriage, would not like to change my name to Tara* Sahil Mane but would like to revert to my maiden name.’ I bullied and blustered my way through the first few stages of the passport interviews, flashing my affidavit at confused officials. The last lady asked for a copy of the ad I should have placed in a national newspaper declaring my changed name, but accepted my protests that I was just choosing to retain the name on my birth certificate, why would I need an ad? It must have been a confusing, unusual case, because my passport came four months later.

Armed with this passport, getting my lost pan card reissued was simpler. A friendly, gentle Mr Deshpande with a foot in the retirement door asked if I was one of those ‘crusader types’. Though I don’t know the language, he even showed me a Marathi newspaper with an article about some feminist campaign, and insisted I take a photocopy to keep up with the actions of my comrades in arms.

The effort towards a married-with-my-original name passport has made life infinitely easier. Now, every time I have to insist on the use of my name, I simply have to whip out my passport. I even carry a copy around in my wallet (sarcasm intended). What’s scary is how often I’ve had to use this tactic. Adding my name on to Sahil’s membership at a local gymkhana is a fight I'm still fighting. Apparently, its systems are not built to accept different surnames for married couples with the same membership number. “Aapko feminism karna hai toh dono naam kyon nahi rakh lete? It will be easier,” advised this helpful clerk when I baulked at the looming battle with bureaucracy.

Then, there are the social reactions that I and other women who have different surnames from their husbands encounter. When booking tickets on a sleeper bus to Goa, I told the agent I’d like the seats together as I would be travelling with my husband. He filled in my name, then assumed my husband’s name was Kaushal. When I said it wasn’t, his snigger said it all. (And when he realised that we don’t share a surname and he is younger, that’s it, his image of me as a lying woman of questionable character was complete.) I also deal with sniggering clerks when we try to check in to smaller hotels. The social censure doesn’t faze me; Sahil and I lived together for years before we married, and one develops a bit of a thick skin. Fortunately, he laughs off the mail addressed to ‘Mr & Mrs Kaushal’ that occasionally lands up in our letterbox, as he does friends’ teasingly calling him ‘Mr Kaushal’ when I’m hogging the limelight. These may not be easy things for a less secure man to accept.

The sign of a mature democracy is the way it treats its women. Are we cattle, to be possessed and passed on from one male to another, ensconced in a patriarchal cultural and governance system; or are we treated as individuals entitled to make our own choices? That the default is patriarchal is bad enough, it is infinitely worse that one has to struggle against so much to make customised choices against the norm. I always choose to wear the name I grew up with… Except when dealing with traffic cops, where I allow myself the small luxury of donning Sahil’s Maharashtrian surname. The battle wages.

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in April 2013.

Interview: Tabu

April 2013: Tabu embodies the best of the Indian film industry. Here she talks about her long and unexpected journey from Hyderabad to Hollywood.

The cover of Harper's Bazaar.

It is mid-afternoon when I get to Tabassum Hashmi’s home in a leafy building society in Lokhandwala, Mumbai. As I wait, I take in the unpretentious Indo-fusion decor in warm earthy tones, dominated by a large, unmistakable Husain. Soon, Tabu emerges from her bedroom wearing a big smile, and promptly starts fussing over me: "Nimbu pani? Chai? Are you hot; should I turn on the AC?"

In a maroon kurta on a white churidar, Tabu is comfortable in her simple style. “When I’m not working, I wear casual Indians, dresses with classic lines and, most often, jeans—a lazy person’s dressing! Even when I dress up, the more I put on myself, the worse I feel.” Priyadarshini Rao has styled her look for over 10 years, even when she received the Padma Shri. She is also in a mutual admiration society with her go-to designer duo Abu-Sandeep, whose clothes she carries with great élan. Says Sandeep, “Tabu gets in to the skin of clothes; it’s almost like she enacts them.”

As we settle down, I tell her why we at Harper’s Bazaar believe she’s the ideal cover girl for this issue that celebrates a hundred years of Indian cinema: while most of her contemporaries have taken career breaks to settle down, she’s continued adding to her prestigious body of work; where many bemoan the lack of meaty roles for older women actors, she continues to get better, stronger roles that garner international attention, making her one of the most successful crossover actors; she’s worked in films across many Indian languages and in Hollywood, apart from Bollywood… “I don’t like the terms Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood,” she interjects passionately. “I know they’re accepted, even in the dictionary, But I feel they trivialise the Indian film industry. Why should we make our industry sound like a cheap imitation of Hollywood, when we have long before established an identity of our own?”

Point taken. I will soon find that Tabu holds strong opinions about the industry she entered reluctantly and by chance. “For my older sister, ['80s leading lady] Farah and I, growing up in a typical household in Hyderabad, there was no aspiration to be in films. We went to convent school, and both of us wore churidars beneath our uniforms. We were taught that girls didn’t laugh showing all their teeth.” At a birthday party in Bombay, while visiting their mum’s cinematographer brother, director Vijay Anand’s wife saw the 11-year-old and thought she’d be perfect as Dev Anand’s daughter in Hum Naujawan. “We thought: ‘Why not go? We’ll get to meet a hero.’”

Not only did he like and convince her to do the role, working for a few days every few months, he also screen tested Farah who had accompanied her. “Back in Hyderabad, Yashji called on our neighbour’s phone—we didn’t even have a phone at home—saying he wanted to cast Farah. Mum was like, ‘Yash Chopra who?’ That’s how little we knew about the industry!”

The Harper's Bazaar cover story.

It was a big decision, and the Hashmi family didn’t realise how life would change. Tabu visited Farah in Bombay, often accompanying her on outdoor schedules, before moving here for college. It was Shekhar Kapur who convinced her to do “just one film” before studying further: Dushmani, with Sunny Deol, which never materialised, and then Prem, with Sanjay Kapur that was six years in the making. “If films hadn’t happened, don't think I would have been a professional. I’d be married to a nice boy in Hyderabad or London, with two-three kids,” she laughs.  

Has the Indian film industry changed since she started? “Cinema and the industry reflect the society we live in, and the social, generational and technological changes that are in all walks of life. People communicate more openly and freely now; there are more specialisations and designations; and budgets are much bigger. But, I don't see many changes in the power structure and hierarchy.” In fact, she says, there are just a few degrees of difference between the Indian and Hollywood industries: “Ultimately, it’s a business.” It is with this that she brushes away a question about film dynasties. “In every industry, there are people who run family businesses, so too in films. Also, if you’ve grown up in a family that acts or directs, it’s in your nature and nurture. Doctors’ children often become doctors; my mother is a teacher like my grandparents, I might have been one too—it’s okay if people want to carry on their families’ legacies. I don’t see it as a problem and don’t judge it. Ultimately, it is your personal journey, and only work will become your identity.”

Tabu is uniquely qualified to talk about Hollywood, with two major films, Mira Nair’s The Namesake and, recently, Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning Life of Pi to her credit, both with Irrfan Khan, who says she has a special place in his life. “Tabu and I have a great work connection; we even won the Padma Shri in the same year!” When I ask Tabu about this pairing, she laughs, “Maybe we are easy to cast.” I chide her for being modest, so she adds, “I think The Namesake has given us international recall.” Life of Pi is special because its universal message has touched so many people. “Some pieces of work use you for a greater purpose that consumes you. Every human being has existentialist questions, and Pi’s journey is common to all races, religions, countries and nationalities. I am honoured that the director chose an Indian family to be the vessel for this message.”

Consciously or not, she’s become the poster child for art-house cinema, an actor instead of a ‘heroine’. “Images and perceptions are made in retrospect. I chose from the projects that were being offered to me. I was just working, I was not thinking about working. I’m fortunate I’ve made such a strong and significant place for myself.” She wishes she had a life plan, but has long since realised that going with the flow, following her heart is the only way for her. “I live life from my feelings, and happiness comes from personal satisfaction from my work, love and respect from my peers and audiences, my relationships, and my friends.” She counts Vishal Bhardwaj’s 2003 film Maqbool as the one that has given her the most creative satisfaction.

She’s met most of her friends through work, and feels a “connection, comfort and camaraderie”, with others who work in films. And this begs the question: does this mean she’s going to end up with someone from the film industry?

Tabu mock balks at this “perennial question”, then says she doesn’t know. “When there is no one on the horizon, what’s the point in dissecting what he’s like, which industry he’s from? What can I say about a relationship, especially if it doesn’t exist!” Does she aspire to children? “That’s very hypothetical,” she exclaims. “There’s no man, no marriage, where’s the question of children...!”

Over the course of our conversation, Tabu has mentioned wanting to study abroad for six months, maybe teach acting, and her upcoming film Mental in which she plays Salman Khan’s sister. "What’s next?" I ask as I prepare to wrap up. “I don’t plan, and my life is unpredictable. If you read this interview a year later, things will be so different that you’ll probably laugh.” 

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An edited version of this interview was the cover story of Harper's Bazaar in April 2013.

Life, Interrupted: Sanjay Dutt

March 2013: Why are we feeling bad for Sanjay Dutt?

I was surrounded by film folk, art directing a television commercial, when news broke of Sanjay Dutt’s sentencing by the Supreme Court. Within four weeks of March 21st, Dutt has to return to jail to serve the remainder of his five-year term (reduced from six), of which he has already served 18 months.

The reactions on the set were mixed: someone called and commiserated with a director friend, whose film requires only five more days of Dutt’s time to complete (according to some reports, Bollywood has Rs 250 crores riding on him); one-time fans bemoaned the fall of a once-bright star; others said he deserved it, and that justice was finally served. My Facebook news feed has been swamped with a regurgitation of archival articles and current news about the case, and, in most cases (saving biased Twitter talk by his colleagues in Bollywood), the feeling is ‘finally!’

I do not dismiss the overwhelming sentiment: to see it in black and white, surely, Dutt broke the law and, like other citizens, deserves to be punished. At first glance, there is validation in the fact that the best lawyers, and the combined might of political clout, fame and wealth have not been able to prevent this mighty from falling, albeit not as far as he would have had the TADA case stuck. (Though the Terrorist And Destructive Activities case against him was dropped in 2006, questions linger about why he, and he alone among the others chargesheeted, escaped, especially since he is known to have famously confessed, “Because I have Muslim blood in my veins, I could not bear what was happening in the city.” Also, he’s got away with a five-year jail term, the absolute minimum the law prescribes for possessing illegal arms under the Arms Act.)

So, the fact that at least some punishment has finally come Dutt’s way should be cause for celebration. Then why this little, niggling tinge of grey sympathy? And I am not alone. Not counting Justice Foot-in-Mouth Katju’s laughable open letter appealing to the governor for Dutt’s pardon, I notice other nuanced reactions: “My heart goes out to Sanju Baba, his wife and kids—fifth jail sentence in 20 years,” is a sensitive friend’s status update.

Nothing is more telling of the passage of time than the images accompanying the news stories, contrasting the long-haired hulk being arrested in April ’93 with the ungracefully aging man Sanjay Dutt is today. He was 33 then, a brash have-it-all who did some seriously stupid and illegal things. Twenty years later, he’s almost five years into his third marriage, with toddler twins. In three and a half years, he will emerge from jail pushing 58, and it is unlikely that he will ever be able to reignite the embers of his already dying career.

Hypothetically, let’s consider what the past 20 years would have been like for Dutt, were we living in a parallel universe where the Indian justice system was swift and efficient, and one couldn’t exploit its tardiness by influence. Assuming a year-long trial from beginning to last appeal (boy, I’m optimistic, aren’t I?), plus a six-year sentence, he’d have been out in seven years from ’93, in the year 2000. At 40, it may have been easier to pick up the scraps of his life and salvage his career. Today, 13 years later, (to stretch metaphors) it would have all been water under the bridge and water would have found its level.

There is a reason Christian mythology describes the state of ‘limbo’ as almost akin to hell; in colloquial parlance, it refers to being stuck until another action happens. Twenty years is a long time to languish in debilitating limbo. Can you imagine the stressful anticipation of not knowing if or when the other shoe would drop; and then there have been courts, lawyers, police, arrests and bureaucracy to grapple with at every step of the way. My mother likens this situation to my father’s unsuccessful tryst with chemotherapy, that didn’t save his life and instead reduced its quality. “Just because you have the means to do it, doesn’t mean it’s better than the alternative,” she says. As with dad’s chemo, with 20/20 hindsight one wonders about Dutt: has his clout and wealth, that preyed on delays afforded by a flawed system hoping to eventually Goliath it, been no more than a double-edged sword, adding 20 excruciating years of punishment. Would he do it again?

‘Justice delayed is justice denied’ is most often used to illustrate a victim’s predicament, not that of the accused, especially one who has (perhaps misguidedly, in retrospect) perpetuated the protraction. While I use the phrase to extend human empathy to Dutt and his family and to criticise the judiciary, I am, nonetheless, glad that the law finally caught up.

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in March 2013.

Fault Lines

March 2013: The questions that arise as two high-profile rapists, Bitihotra Mohanty and Ram Singh meet their fates.

Shortly after the news of Bitihotra Mohanty’s arrest in Kerala last week, came news that Ram Singh had ‘committed suicide’ in Delhi’s Tihar Jail. Bitti has been on the run since 2006, when he jumped parole and escaped a seven-year sentence for raping a 26-year-old German woman in Alwar, Rajasthan. Singh was the main accused in the brutal Delhi gang rape of ‘Nirbhaya’ that rocked the nation in December last year.

The Blunder of Bitti

For over six years after his escape, supposedly with the aid of his Odisha-based senior police officer father, Bitti evaded the cops, living nondescriptly in Kannur as Raghav Raj from Andhra Pradesh. Here, he obtained an MBA degree, took a public exam, produced the requisite documents and joined the biggest public sector bank of the state, the State Bank of Travancore. It has been revealed that he was finally done in by an anonymous letter that disclosed his identity, apparently sent to the bank by a jilted lover.

Bitti’s case was unique for several reasons. On the night of the 20th of March 2006, on a visit to Alwar, he entered the hotel room of a fellow student and raped her. She SMSed a relative in Germany, who contacted the German embassy in Delhi. Bitti had fled the hotel, and was arrested from the Alwar railway station the next day. He confessed; she filed a complaint despite pressure from his high-profile family; and the trial began on April 1st in a fast-track court in Jaipur. It was one of the fastest rape trials in the country, and Bitti was sentenced within nine days. There was none of the faux pas one often associates with high-profile cases, and the verdict was highly hailed: no one questioned her virtue for having gone for the visit with a strange man in the first place, no one said she was ‘habituated to sex’, no one gave caved in to the pressure from his family.

The backslapping ends here. In end 2006, Bitti disappeared while on parole, only to be undone many years later by the lover. It begs the question: if the guilty aren’t tried and convicted fairly and legally, must victims just cross their fingers and hope for a jilted lover out for vengeance… or a suicide, like in the case of Singh?

Singh: Suicide Until Proven Otherwise

At the time of going to press, questions remain about the veracity of the official claim that Ram Singh did indeed commit suicide. As the Delhi rape and its aftermath made international headlines, so too has this murder/suicide, with the BBC terming it "incredibly embarrassing to the Indian government" and the Time pointing out that this is yet another crack in India’s weak criminal justice system. Whether it was a suicide—questions remain about Singh’s fear for his life, and allegations of torture and sodomy; his short height in relation to the ventilator; his torn shirt; his damaged arm that would prevent him from hauling himself up; and his cellmates who slept though the entire episode—or murder by cellmates or murder by prison authorities, as has been suggested, the difference is only in degrees of fault. An under trial dying under mysterious circumstances in one of India’s most prominent high-security jails leaves many issues and questions in its wake.

Like Nirbhaya’s own mother, who confessed that the suicide brought mixed emotions, I too am struggling. It is simplistic and, perhaps, inhuman, but I cannot get myself to feel bad that a psychopathic social menace of this calibre is no more. That he believed five orgasms were more important that one life… I rest my case. However, I recognise his suicide or murder for vengeance cannot be seen as justice in a modern nation. Says Delhi-based Anisha Singh, 30, “Most people are relieved if not celebratory. The truth behind it all is that there is a deep-rooted distrust in our judicial system that the guilty will get what they deserve. I personally think it’s a shame he wasn't pronounced guilty and then sent to the gallows.”

Criminal Injustice

Both these cases bring the focus back on the weaknesses in our criminal justice and law enforcement systems. In these two cases, the much maligned judiciary, often slow and prone to injustice, cannot be faulted—in Bitti’s case, the sentencing was quick and efficient; in the Delhi Rape Case too, things are progressing quickly and efficiently, and will, hopefully, continue to do so. But, it has been said before, and I’ll say it again: reforms to the judicial process will continue to be ineffective and hollow unless the government’s enforcement arm, the police also gets its act together. Letting a parolee escape, and stay underground for so long, undermines the good of an exemplary trial. As if allowing Nirbhaya to get raped in a moving bus in the capital city wasn’t bad enough, allowing/causing the custodial death of the main accused will undercut the absolute triumph of justice, however good the court’s verdict.

For a people badly in need of a restoration of faith in the systems of governance, a veritable good-triumphs-evil ending; for a judiciary that’s doing its best; and for the government that needs an image boost, the police keeps coming up as the weakest link.

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in March 2013.

Drive, Survive

March 2013: What does the way we drive say about us?

A long time ago, I read one of these firang’s-first-time-in-India travel books, where he said that, when Indians want to go somewhere, they just point their cars in the direction and drive, side-of-road, traffic signals, etc, be damned. Not fair, we’re not that bad, I thought, but on second thought…

I've had a driving license from Noida, in the much maligned UP, since I was 18. I remember taking a proper test, driving alone around a veritable obstacle course, and passing. Ten years later, when I wanted to get one in Mumbai as my old one had expired, I was told that, no matter where else in India I have my license from, or for how long I've had it, in Maharashtra, I have to be a learner for a month first. Which I think is ridiculous; even Australia lets you get a license for merely possessing an Indian one! But a few friends said the possible justification is that Maharashtra has better driving than the rest of India, the state wants to maintain its standard of road safety, which is apparently higher than the rest of the country. “In Rajasthan, I know a blind person who has a license,” one said.

A couple of weeks ago, I went for my driving test in Andheri, to go from learner to full-license-holder. As I stood in line to get tested, someone came to me and asked whether I wanted to jump the line, for Rs 200. “Yahan sab kuch bribe se chalta hai,” he said. Well, apparently not necessarily bribe, but inefficiency se. When my turn finally came, I was put in to a driving school car, you know the ones where the instructor has pedals in the passenger seat... The ‘passenger’ drove for me in first gear, even when I protested that I could drive, no problem! I 'drove', straight, for a distance the width of a Mumbai building. “Chalo, aap pass ho gaye,” he said, stopping the car to let me off. And, a few days ago, my brand new and spanking smart card license arrived home.

My experience was not unique. Ami Mane, 24, was similarly co-driven down a road, but at least she was made to demonstrate reversing. Another friend who, daunted by the chaos of the system, went through a tout, never even went for the ‘test’, thought he did go to be fingerprinted and photographed. So when the newspapers point out that an accident-causing driver was a juvenile/without a license, forgive me for thinking: what a farce.

Cut to my driving test in Australia last year. Since I didn’t have a valid Indian license, I had to start from scratch. While other states have it easier, Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has the strictest driving license laws. Before being allowed to even take the multiple-choice theory test, driving license hopefuls have to attend a weekend-long workshop, the fees of which includes three attempts at the objective test. After passing this test, we would have to be learners for between six months and two years, and would not be allowed to drive unless we had zero blood alcohol and a full-license-holder in the car. After passing a driving test, we’d hold provisional licenses for three years, and only then would we get full licenses. Phew!

As I sat mugging up my manual in the run-up to the weekend, I wondered what this workshop was going to be about. What happened was this: in the two days of coaching, the instructor rarely mentioned the words ‘fine’ or ‘punishment’ to our class of 20. Instead, we were taught the reasons behind the rules. We were shown and discussed videos of driving accidents caused by speeding drivers; made to challenge our concentration through a card game to demonstrate why talking on the phone would make one a worse driver; and made to walk lines in glasses that simulated being drunk. (Interestingly, Australia doesn’t use the work ‘drunk’ driving/driver, but ‘drink’ driving/driver, subtly driving home the point that your blood alcohol level is what matters, even though you may not be or feel drunk. It also has graphic and no-nonsense ad campaigns for safe driving: ‘People DIE on ACT Roads’, different from our funny ones: ‘Safety on Roads, Safe Tea at Home’.)

This was not what I expected, and some point during the workshop I had an epiphany. You see, I carry the baggage of the way we are taught to follow rules in India, with the carrot and stick approach, where the emphasis is on the punishment for getting caught. The ‘why/why not’ is not about the reasons for doing/not doing certain things or following/not following the law, but about doing them when convenient and escaping the eyes of the law. Notice how, several years after the seatbelt law was passed, many cab drivers will put theirs on only when they enter Mumbai from the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.

Sociologically, we are considered a collectivist society as opposed the West’s individualistic one, which is why we lay such a misguided emphasis on preserving ‘culture’. Scratch the surface, and beneath the mass hysteria at Ganesh Chaturthi (transformed into a public celebration by Tilak to unite and promote nationalism in Maharashtrian Hindus), the idealising of the joint family system and of the long suffering Mother India figure, and there emerges a picture of a people who each believes that s/he comes first, with the deep-seated hypocrisy and disdain for governance of the individualist in a mismanaged collectivist society. So we double park to run in to a store or to touch-and-go at a temple; see red lights as out to personally inconvenience our day; dodge traffic cops down one-ways; and tail ambulances and cavalcades when possible to travel home in the fast lane…

There are manifold challenges with this approach of and to the law. First, the most basic lesson of good teaching: encouraging parroting and promoting punishment as opposed to explaining reasons will leave any lesson unlearnt. And, for a pushy, me-first race like Indians, that will only mean following the law until one doesn’t get caught, making the government seem autocratic and dictatorial. This approach also puts undue pressure on policing—and with the ability to bribe policemen for the smallest offences to the BMW hit-and-run deaths, where’s the fear of that? A ‘because I say so’ Chinese-government-type attitude will (and does) not work on the Indian psyche, and certainly not when law enforcement is suspect, lax and distrusted.

As the country rages against the fraudulent education imparted by the IIPMs, may I suggest that the government work at systematically and systemically educating Indians that road rules are for a reason—and for their personal as well as others' good. And us, with the fire in our bellies to challenge authority: let’s save our energy to change the system in spheres that really matter.

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An edited version of this column appeared in Governance Now in March 2013.