Empowerment Mantras

The transcript of the BBC Hindi special programme, Aapki Baat BBC KeSaath with India's first woman IPS officer

Nagendar Sharma: Would steps like Parliament passing a bill on domestic violenceagainst women and the ongoing efforts to forge a consensus on reservation forwomen in Parliament and state legislatures help in changing the attitude ofIndian society towards women?

Kiran Bedi: Why not? We should welcome anything done for almosthalf of onebillion of the country’s population, which would help in empowering women bothmentally and economically as well. Such steps may look incomplete as of now, butwhen power is given to any strata of the society, which it lacks at the moment,a change in attitude would definitely take place.

Listener from Mumbai: Do you think that steps like reserving seatsin state legislature and Parliament would really empower women, when we see thatdomestic violence is not restricted to housewives. In a recent case, the ADC ofa former Maharashtra governor used to beat up his IAS wife. Where does the realfault lie: in our education, society or our psyche?

Kiran Bedi: I think in all three factors that you have pointed out. Theerroneous thinking of our society that if you are an MA, PhD, and you havepassed IAS/IPS, you are bound to be a good person, is wrong. What type of aperson you eventually turn out to be would depend on how your upbringinghas been, what has been taught to you apart from the books and what is yourmentality, so you are right the fault is in all three basic things.

Nagendar Sharma: You have laid stress on the psyche. When you compare the psyche ofIndians with those of other countries, what difference do you find? In yourview, what could be done to change the male domination mindset ?

Kiran Bedi: Well, it is a five thousand year old mindset which we are discussingtoday. A change is coming in the Indian society in the attitude towards women,but it would take time in such a big country with so much diversity. So youwould find women doing well in life, leading the police force or heading a boardmeeting, thereby leading by example on one hand, but, on the other, you would finda vast majority of them silently bearing the physical and mental torture in their homes.

Listener from Oman: Apart from the in-laws, don’t you alsothink that the Indian law has also been unfair to women, whether it be dowry,cruelty or women’s rights?

Kiran Bedi: Well, a mere law in itself is like a shadow. Law needs acomplainant, it needs witnesses and it requires evidence; without these threemain components, the law in itself is blind. To make the law work you need to putit in motion, and in cases of dowry or cruelty, who is the complainant? It hasbe to the victim, who is a woman. She suffers silently, and I have seen, in somany cases, that even after lodging a complaint with the police, she tries herbest to not break the house. She is a mother also, where would she go? She hasnowhere to go. Even her parents say we have got you married, now you have to liveand die in your in-laws' house. That is why I am saying we are fighting a fivethousand year old psyche. Figures already speak about the abysmally lowconviction rate in dowry and cruelty cases.

Listener from Delhi: My question is precisely that. Why is theprosecution lax in cases involving women? Police officers pressure women onlyto go back and compromise with their husbands and in-laws. All sorts of pressureare exerted on complainant women. Would women ever be able to live fearlesslyand report to police what they face?

Kiran Bedi: Amazingly, if you look at the statistics, the only crime whichis going up is the crime against women, and the reason for that is higherreporting to the police of crimes against women. What I am saying is based onfigures provided by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Who are thecomplainants in such cases? Victim women or at the most their parents. Soslowly, things are changing and women are coming forward to report what isagainst them, despite all sorts of pressures. I think that this figure of crimesagainst women would continue to go up, as more and more women would come forwardand speak out, then eventually we would see a reversal of the trend, which wouldactually then mean that crimes against women are going down. Once the Lawagainst Domestic Violence is implemented, I do see the situation changing.

Listener from Chattisgarh: I think that in ninety percent cases, men areresponsible in domestic violence against women, but ten percent are those who areinnocent and suffer because their wives are rich and resourceful. Similar is theposition in dowry cases. Now Parliament has passed this new bill, what arethe safeguards that innocents do not suffer, there is no debate about those whoare wrong...

Kiran Bedi: Well, a study carried out by Centre for Social Research shows thatcases of misuse are only four to five percent, when we look at figures of dowryand cruelty against women cases. Now, instead of looking at this minimalnegative figure look at the success -- that 95 cases out of hundred, which arereported, are correct. But we do not want that even this five percent figure ofwrong cases should remain. The new law on domestic violence against women,passed by Parliament that would soon become an act as soon as President signsit, has certain positive features to check the misuse. Any case of domesticviolence against women would be reported to the court and would be taken up as acivil case. The concerned woman would be provided protection by special protectionofficers of the court. Only if an injunction of the court would be defied, thenonly would the police step-in, therefore when the new law comes into force,police would be the last resort and not the first. Also I see that Section 498-A ofIndian Penal Code (IPC), which deals with cruelty against women, could come intothe realms of the new law, and the whole attitude could change in the comingdays.

Nagendar Sharma: Once this law on domestic violence against women comes intoexistence, how would it work? If any woman wished to lodge a complaint against herhusband/in-laws, what would she have to do?

Kiran Bedi: Well, once the new law sees the light of the day, which is just amatter of time now, after that a complainant woman can come and file hercomplaint before a sessions court if any cruelty or violence has been inflictedon her. Slapping would be considered an offence, so would be abusive behaviour,as violence is not merely physical, even mental violence is a big cause of worryfor the Indian women. 

After a complaint is filed, both sides, the complainant aswell as her husband/in-laws would be summoned to the court; both parties wouldbe heard as in a civil suit. If the court feels injustice has been caused to thecomplainant, relief would be ordered, and she could be provided security to stayin her husband’s/in-laws house. Even after this, if the complainant feels thatthe environment has not changed, the court would take this to be a violation of theinjunction, and the matter would be then referred to the police, where afterregistration of the case, guilty could be punished upto a period ranging fromthree to seven years. So as I said, police would be the last resort.

Listener from UP: Whatever laws be made or figures be cited, the factremains that dowry cases against women, female foeticide and violence, all arecontinuing unabated and are on the rise, instead of declining with time. Who isresponsible for this – our society, our leadership or our entire system?

Kiran Bedi: Well, we ourselves are responsible for this. Now in cases ofdomestic violence, there is no leader who comes from outside and does it, noneighbour does it, there is nobody from the system, no NGO comes and beatsanyone at home, police does not do that. But it is we, ourselves, it is thepeople living in that very house who are responsible for subjecting someinnocent to this brutality. Now who is there in the house? The husband,father in-law, mother in law, brothers in-law, and in some cases unmarriedsisters in-law. Therefore it is only the family members and none else who areresponsible for brutalities on a woman whom they respectfully brought to theirhouse. 

In this entire issue, I feel very pained when I come across cases wherewomen are involved in beating of another woman. Let me also tell you that therate of cases relating to cruelty or domestic violence against women beingreported is very low. Figures of Centre for Social Research show that only oneout of a thousand cases are reported to the police, and out of these also,convictions take place only in two out of a hundred cases. More startling is thefact that a victim waits for at least three years before finally approaching thepolice. No woman wants to break her house, patiently gives time to her husbandand in-laws to improve, even has children in the hope that things might changefor the better, but only when all limits are crossed, does she take the boldstep of approaching the police, and that too how many? 0.1 percent, or one in athousand.

Listener from Glasgow : Is it right to blame men for violence againstwomen? Don’t you think women are also responsible for this menace? And if theyare, to what extent ?

Kiran Bedi: Well, it depends which kind of women are you talking about. Icategorise women into two broad categories: firstly those, who are totallydependant on others for everything, I call them helpless because their parentsdid not allow them ever to independently take decisions, their lives weredecided by others. Second category is of those women who are educated,economically self-dependant, have the will to take their own decisions, suchwomen are courageous and do not need any help, but in India such women are aminiscule minority. 

Now the law on domestic violence against women is for thevast majority of helpless Indian women, it is they who need help. They havenever taken any decision in their life independently. When such women go totheir in-laws after marriage, even their mother in-law turn into enemiesdemanding more dowry. It is ironic, but it is a woman who turns into the firstenemy of another woman. Therefore if our education system is to do anythingconstructive, it should remove the helplessness of Indian women, this tag has togo if our country has to move forward.

Listener from Glasgow (continues) : But the educated women can understandthe new law, what about the helpless, for whom you say this new bill is aimedat, how would they come to know about the relief they are likely to get fromthis step?

Kiran Bedi: Well, women in India have achieved all victories the hard way. Inmy 33-years' police career, I am for the first time witnessing a change. I had ahard time, trying to interpret various sections of the IPC so that I could finda new way to ensure justice for victims of dowry or domestic violence. Women’smovement was on since 1975 to get a law enacted against domestic violence; ittook three decades, but it has finally happened. I have no hesitation in saying itis a big victory of women’s organisations, who had been fighting for this. 

Awareness about this new bill is a challenge, but I feel today informationtravels at a speed which is beyond imagination, and for the helpless -- for whom Isay the entire exercise is aimed at -- it is for people like me and you to do thejob. We also want to tell men that we do not want any confrontation, nor is thenew law for breaking homes, it rather for strengthening them by way of ensuringequality for both. So please do not slap and abuse anymore.

Listener from Karnataka: I feel that 33 percent reservation for women instate legislatures and Parliament would prove counter-productive. It would onlyhelp the male members of women candidates’ families to further their interestsrather than empowering women.

Kiran Bedi: Let me give you an interesting piece of information to clearyour misconception. Out of a total of 30 lakh elected posts in India’spanchayati raj institutions, 10 lakh elected members are women. Now if out ofthese ten lakh, even ten thousand or less were to emerge as independentrepresentatives, what a wave of change would be there in the country. Look at astate like Uttaranchal, where majority of male members in the families had toleave the state on the lookout for jobs. The change brought about by women inpanchayats is for all to see. Similarly, look at Karnataka, where initiallyaround thirty-five seats were reserved for women in panchayats, but today thenumber of elected women representatives in panchayats in forty-seven percent,women are getting elected from open seats. What you have said is also notincorrect, especially in UP and Bihar. There you have male sarpanches working inplace of their wives. In some cases they work as interpreters, but in othercases they take the lead role also. For this scenario to change completely, it would take time.

Nagendar Sharma: Nearly six decades after independence, do you find that the attitudeof Indian men is changing towards women, or is it the same and male dominationwould continue?

Kiran Bedi: I think it is changing, but the change is slow. Indian men witha positive attitude towards women are in a minority, the majority still has tochange. And in keeping with 21st century, and in keeping pace with the rest ofthe world, the male mindset would have to change. However, if Indian women wantto get respected, then the attitude of Indian mothers would also have to change.The age-old mindset of mothers to make daughters submissive and teaching them totolerate everything under the sun, would have to change, and mothers would haveto teach their daughters to fight for their rights and not tolerate injustice.