JNU: SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND ATTENDANCE ROW

JNU: SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND ATTENDANCE ROW

R. N. MISRA

JNU flashed into the limelight again, this time for more wrong reasons and even without Kanhaiya’s ‘Azadi’ gimmicks.  The cause was more academically inclined with sexual harassment of a girl student pursuing research.  Later, it turned out to be a terrible movement against such harassment of more than eight students.  However, their combined FIR was not accepted.  Those girl students ultimately submitted separate FIRs almost containing the same language and the same offence, thus creating a doubtful case in the eyes of law.  It was an explosion of immoral activities of a professor cum research guide who had been torturing his female students for quite some time.  Academically, JNU seems to have rolled down to the lowest level because if students are not sexually safe, how can the institution survive?  With whatever modernised ways in sexual freedom the institute has acquired, it has still a limitation as far as the teacher and a taught relationship is concerned.  A teacher must have an unimpeachable character.  If he is unable to maintain it, he must find some other job.  Whatever is the politics involved in such cases or even deep-rooted group power is played, a teacher in every respect come out blotless in his individual sexual and moral character.  It must be noted that when a girl complaints about sexual harassment her whole life is at stake.  Her future is supposed to be marred.  Therefore, she rarely complains unless the matter becomes acute and unstoppable or goes out of control. 

The post-Nirbhaya scenario has created a different situation and provided a platform for judging     men-women relationship distinctively.  It has left no choice for an investigating authority if a complaint is lodged by a woman against a man.  It has to frame a charge-sheet.  The man involved in the case is arrested immediately.  He may be bailed out, but the damage is done instantly.  Therefore, the men should give a deep thought to their action or go even hundred times to think before taking any untoward sexual act, physical or non-physical.  He must know that no evidence is required except girl’s own statement and no collaboration is needed to confirm it. In this respect, the man is highly susceptible to be charged with a criminal offence.  The Verma Commission has redefined the concept of rape and our IPC has been changed accordingly.  The rape includes all five points which Justice Verma has mentioned. They are:

1.      Physical contact and advances or

2.      A demand or request for sexual favour

3.      Making of sexually coloured remarks or

4.      Showing pornography and

5.      Any other unwelcome physical, verbal, nonverbal remarks and conduct of sexual nature            

Justice J. S. Verma has dealt with in detail the concept of rape, sexual assault and harassment.  Rape is not limited to penetration of private space of a woman as was accepted earlier.  It includes oral and anus sex also.  Any non-consensual penetration of sexual nature is included in the definition of rape.  In this respect non-penetration form of sexual assault is also rape.  The acts of sexual assault means use of criminal force or disrobe a woman as an attempt to insult woman’s modesty.  All such acts come under definition of rape.  Rape also includes use of foul words, gestures, unwelcome threat of sexual nature, stalking, staring and molesting etc.

The above acts of offence have been elaborated to explain what constitutes rape in Indian conditions.  These points should be known to every man who comes in contact with a woman in his personal and professional life.  Men should be alert, behave and act properly if they often come in touch with women.  A teacher is supposed to be a friend, philosopher and guide to all his students and he must rise above sexual considerations.  To his girl students, he must appear to be a father figure.  This is the minimum social qualification of a teacher which we expect or else who will send his daughter to an educational institution?

JNU is no exception for the moral codes as adopted by its teachers.  It has a very high sounding anti-harassment committee known as Gender Sensitization Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH). But it functions differently to what it stands for.  Within 24 hours the offender must be suspended and inquiry committee must finalise its decision within 3 days.  If the offence seems to be true it should be reported to police for further inquiry and FIR be submitted on behalf of the victim.  This is what JNU should do in sexual harassment cases.  So far JNU has shown laxity on such matters.  It was this reason that a sexual harassment complaint developed into a movement.  JNU once again failed in its duty and has demonstrated a very low level of its administrative competence.

Now I come to the matter of attendance which became a dominant authoritarian contention at JNU.  It must be kept in mind that attendance as a form of activity is a necessary evil.  It has different shapes, effects and styles through which a person’s presence is registered.  It is applied differently in different cases.  The concept of ‘presence’ is variously styled.  The attendance which is needed in an educational institution differs from the attendance which is held in other centres.  The attendance which is taken of the criminals in a prison cannot be compared with the attendance as is taken regarding the university students.  Even among them, a research scholar has a different form of attendance than PG or undergraduate students.  Though the concept of attendance is the same, its form varies from institution to institution or group to group.  It varies from proxy attendance to the highly liberated form where columns of presence and absence are filled arbitrarily,  thus the formality of completing the register is done. It is in this light that JNU attendance should be taken into consideration.  Every fool who has a little schooling understands the concept of attendance as it is generally prescribed i.e., 75% classes to be attended.  When JNU VC declared 75% attendance mandatory for all students, irrespective of their classes, gradations and levels, he posed administratively a nave and funny problem.  JNU already has a statuary provision for the same.  What was the reason which prompted VC to reiterate the same?  Naturally, under his nose, the concept of attendance was not seriously taken; rather it was unofficially permitted to avoid attending classes by students.  The teachers do not regularly maintain the register of attendance and only under pressure and emerging situations they fill the columns as needed.  The situations have always been the same or tell us how many students were detained in the previous session from appearing at the final examination due to shortage of prescribed attendance?  The teachers know well how they maintain the register.  Why and how suddenly this attendance ghost started haunting students?     

            
 In actuality, the mandatory 75% attendance came to light as retaliation against the sexual harassment cases filed by the girl students.  There ought to be no connection between sexual harassment and attendance.  But some of the professors created it as a defence against their immoral activities.  These are two separate concepts.  Even a student who does attend classes less than mandatory percentage has every right to complaint against the professor for sexual harassment and shortage of attendance cannot be made as an excuse.  By mixing abruptly sexual harassment case with mandatory attendance the VC and some of the professors have confused the matter so as to punish the complainants.  It is a clear case of mismanaging an educational institute which once had a good reputation.  I wish that the attendance matter must be dropped or diluted in good faith so as to create conducive academic atmosphere.  As for sexual harassment cases are concerned let them take a natural legal course.  JNU sexual harassment cases have been followed by a movement first by a combined FIR and later on through individual FIRs which have made the whole situation farcical.  JNU students are experts in creating a ‘movement’ but they are unable to fight their individual cause.  JNU in this respect represents a confused group of some of its teachers and students and the present sexual harassment case, as has been clubbed with a mandatory attendance, is a real example of this confused scenario, retaliation, and defeatism on the part of its administration.

 Delhi High Court has admonished JNU for not providing a safe environment for women students.  The report of the fact-finding committee set up by JNU was an eyewash.  It contained nothing substantial to know about what happened in the Lab No 409.  Even both the parties were not called to give an explanation.  What type of fact-finding committee it was?  If it had no power why it was set up?  VC is the weakest link in the whole affair.  JNU must understand that there ought to be a permanent committee to deal with sexual harassment cases and setting up a temporary committee like the fact-finding committee is a violation of the law.  Every institution employing or dealing with men and women must have a permanent set up to deal with sexual abuses. By mentioning committees after committees (GSCASH/FCC/ICC) and doing nothing or trying to buy time to protect its staff is a clear indication that JNU has never taken seriously the matter of sexual offenses.  Hon’ble High Court/ Supreme Court is requested to set up SIT to look after the matter and bring JNU to book so that in future no such laxity in dealing with sexual matters be done by it.  As long as a safe environment for women students is not provided, and VC does not submit an affidavit to the court (HC or SC) to this effect, girl students have every right not to attend classes, labs or research activities. JNU must be taught a strong lesson for its open violation of women rights.  

             

ON WATCHING PADMAAVAT

ON WATCHING PADMAAVAT

R. N. Misra

If you wish to see 3D cinematographic effect at its near perfection from Indian standard, the film Padmaavat would be a treat to your eyes.  If further, you desire to observe minutely the midriff in several scenes of royal and not so royal ladies, Hindus and Muslims alike, the very first dance in Turkish-Afghan style as celebration for the acceptance of Nikah within the close family, in presence of Feroz Jalaluddin, would certainly throb your heart and keep you anxiously waiting for Bollywood Padmavati to appear as a dream girl dancing as courtesan like perfection to the tune of her director.

       
This      makes a turning point in your mind about the film.  Was this really the face that launched Jauhar?  Was this Mewar or Rajput icon danced with Thumkas and waving waist?  How had the natives of Rajasthan regarded her their mother or in a broader perspective as Goddess?  For those who are unconcerned with the history of Chittor and never thought of Rajasthan of Medieval India, the cardboard structure and make-believe landscape of sand dunes and Aravali hills, falsifying history and geography together, the film Padmaavati provides sufficient return with satisfaction for the money in dollars or rupees spent per ticket for viewing it.  But then from where comes the drama so melodramatically staged by Shri Rajput Karni Sena, one wonders?  For an average man this is just another Bollywood film with suspense, fight, sex, murder, and the villainy – all as part of entertainment – and the comment like ‘see the film as a film’ is quite justified.

But the difference comes only when you try to be mindful of your pride, your icon, the essence of your cultural and historical account as a part of your critical judgement or emotional aspect of your collective consciousness in a Bollywood dramatized version of the film on Rani Padmavati – the spirited queen of Chittor.  Rani Padmavati/Padmini had no occasion, purpose, craft, need and reason to dance like a dancing girl.  But the heroine of the film is paid for it; paid for her midriff to keep open; paid for dancing with choreographic perfection and Bollywood harbours such sensuous exhibitionism.  Dances and songs are synonymous to this tinsel city of India and if there is no demand for these in the film, they invent them.  Bollywood has invented ‘item song’ superficially and there is Shabana Azami’s lone voice which has opposed this ‘Play-Girl’ culture only recently.  If Bhansali’s earlier films are of any evidence, he is the perpetrator of this trend and this time Padmavati became the victim of his insensitivity by choreographic depiction of an iconic personality – the queen of Mewar – whom people of Rajasthan worship as Goddess.  Bhansali made Bajirao dance in his earlier film and objections were raised by the Marathas, but the matter was subsided.   Bhansali kills the very spirit of plot and the story by creating choreographic effects and movements of his heroes and heroines.  In Devadas, Paro was made dance in a mismatched sequence.  Devadas is not a historical figure or Paro is not an iconic character, but there is some established literary truth about them which should not be falsified.  Even Ala-ud-din Khilji has danced in Padmaavat.  It is awkward rather shameful to look at Padmavati dancing.  The question is from where had she received the training?  She was asked during her marriage reception at Chittor to present a Ghoomar dance of Rajasthani origin whereas she was a Singhalese damsel with no expertise of a Ghoomar dance.  It was an impossible proposition.  It was, on the other hand, unbecoming of a Rajput Rani to have danced like that.  An important personality of Rajput clan, who upholds the legacy of Rani Padmini/Padmavati, Maharaj Kunwar Vishwaraj Singh son of Mahendra Singh of Mewar has reportedly called the film “a historic fraud to portray an incorrectly attired courtesan-like painted doll in the song as the very ‘queen’ the film purports to pay obeisance to”.  

Here one can draw a parallel case of abuse relating to the iconic figure of Gandhi.  It concludes: “Artistic freedom cannot be used for abusing icon like Mahatma Gandhi” SC.  It adds, “You cannot use abusive words or diminish historical figures (by putting them in an unacceptable situation) under the garb of artistic freedom.  There is complete freedom of ideas but freedom of speech and expression is not absolute.  The Constitution provides restrictions and it is a regulated freedom” (TNN/April 17, 2015).  Article 19(1) of Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech, but it restricts under certain conditions in Article 19 (2).  In case of Mahatma Gandhi episode (Supreme Court), it has been observed, “Had it been an ordinary Gandhi, it would have not been a problem but abusing icon Gandhi is objectionable”.  It further explains, “You can write a satire on Gandhi, lampoon him or criticise him, but if put abusive words in his mouth, then it is not permissible”.  Here the same yardstick should be used for Bhansali. The case is one Bhansali vs collective consciousness of the Hindus of India in general and people of Rajasthan in particular.  Rani Padmini is an iconised figure of India as dignified, honourable and graceful as Gandhi, Vivekanand and Rani of Jhansi.  Why Bhansali had been allowed to make a mockery of an icon? Why Rani Padmini was gracelessly reduced to an item girl?  In some of the scenes in the film, Ala-ud-din Khilji holds a lotus flower in his hand and kisses it too.  It is a symbol of Rani Padmini (Padma pushp symbolises her) and Khilji openly plays with it.  It is like embracing the queen, an act more offensive than a dream sequence.  This has tortured the inner self of the people who uphold the legacy of Rani Padmini and feel disgusted and deceived at the hands of Bhansali.

Now going back to Nehru-era, the fifties and sixties of the last century - there was an earnest demand - for making a film on Gandhi.  Nehru liked the idea but had reservations about Bollywood’s capabilities in making the film on the iconic personality of Gandhi.  Nehru knew the fact that no Indian cinematographer would be able to do justice in that case.  The matter was dropped rather prolonged for another generation to come.  By that time Attenborough was trying his skill to handle this great project on Gandhi and wrote the film script.  During the last years of Nehru, the script was shown to him but the matter was not finalised, though tentatively approved.  It was again prolonged with so many drafts, corrections, cuts and perusals of the script.  During Indira Gandhi’s regime, the matter was actually finalised and it took more than 20 years (1959 to 1982) to come to the film in shape.  Making a film on the icon like Gandhi whom the whole nation revered as a father figure was not an ordinary task.  But Attenborough succeeded in depicting gracefully the dignified life of Gandhi.  The film on ‘Gandhi’ grabbed eight Oscars and India basked in reflected glory.  Is it possible even a fringe like this for Padmaavat to achieve?  Hardly will it earn a national award (and awards like Filmfare are just a personal sharing – less said the better).

What is the difference between the film ‘Gandhi’ and ‘Padmaavat’?  Both are period dramas in contents and based on the life and deeds of two great iconic personalities of India.  But judging from their production stand-stand point, the film ‘Gandhi’ succeeded in historic contents and maintained reality of the main character supposed to be projected without much artistic liberty.  Padmaavat in this sense failed in bringing about the real historical character of the queen Padmini who never hit her paramour with a bow or was loved instantly in that fashion and danced a Ghoomar – the art form – which was not so developed then.  Actually, it was not a real Ghoomar dance at all.  Bhansali has produced a Bollywood-Mix where other Rajasthani folk dances had been put together creating a cocktail of local dances. Attenborough, on the other hand, maintained the dignity and honour of the lead character as his life was unfolded step by step.  There were no songs, no dances; not even Gandhi’s popular Bhajans and yet the film stood at the top of the world.  Bollywood filmmakers must learn the cinematographic art from such films.  What did Bhansali do of Padmaavat?  The spirited queen was disgraced, degenerated and was made to dance as a courtesan with costumes not befitting the queen of Mewar.  Padmavati has been turned into a commercial commodity while Gandhi of Attenborough remained, simple and dignified – a true icon - father of the nation.  People who opposed Padmaavat were displaying the inner feelings – the collective consciousness - of their community and the society.  They were not a fringe group, but a majority of the people.  But those who interpret the laws are not as sensitive as those who are the lawmakers.  Hence the majority suffers; an icon gets destroyed.

The film has a funny start.  Ala-ud-din was asked to bring a feather of an ostrich but he brought the whole live Ostrich. A photographically managed image of a zoo-fed ostrich convinces the audience and the viewers of the film that something big and special has been brought to impress upon the princess – Mehrunian – to win over her heart.  One can imagin to eat a royal roasted turkey – a large bird specially reared for that purpose – but to accept an ostrich as a part of menu for Arabs, Afghans and Turks and their descendants inside Delhi Sultanate is highly unimaginable.  Muslims are voracious meat eaters but not as obnoxious and ferocious as shown in the scene where Ala-ud-din Khilji gulps up the pieces four times bigger than his hands.

You will have a few refined scenes and moments to enjoy the film that may elevate your thought and sublimate the inner self.  The ambience created around some scenes is profoundly managed and dialogues, diction and delivery are beautifully arranged and performed.  These may earn some credits from those who oppose the film on some other lines.  These specific moments have saved Padmaavat from getting doomed and show a silver line in maintaining some honour and dignity of the queen. 

But what did historian say about it?  Some of them were vocal and others neutral.  Farishta and James Tod had accepted Padmini’s existence, though they differed with each other about the dates and happenings.  When you open a historical account after a gap of two/three centuries, such inaccuracies are bound to crop up.  But the modern historians specializing in the medieval history of Rajasthan have conclusively accepted Rani Padmini, Jauhar, the siege of Chittor and its ultimate fall on Monday 26 August 1303 CE.  But some of our historians differ.  Prof. Irfan Habib never gave any cognizance to Padmini.  And those who have nothing to do with history or art of film criticism have given certification to the film to convince the people that ‘when it is a work of fiction, why you worry for Padmini? The film's name has been changed to Padmaavat (of Jayasi) and it is not history.  But by the same argument that it is being a fiction, Bhansali should not have included in the story the scenes of Chittorfort, names like Ratan Singh or Padmavati.  The film should have been named like Leelaavati or Kalaavati etc., but it should not have any proximity to historical characters and places as was done by Bhansali.  This is a fraudulent way of expression and it should have been restricted and curbed.  The basic problem is that no constitutional authority has given any deep thought over it.  Our Cinematographic Act is weak and its interpretation makes it much weaker to protect our national or community icons from getting debased or suffer indignation.