Subject in International/Post-Colonial Feminist Legal Politics

The Tragedy of Victimization Rhetoric: Resurrecting the "Native" Subject in International/Post-Colonial Feminist Legal Politics Ratna Kaput" Through traveling to other people's "worlds" we discover that there are "worlds" in which those who are the victims of arrogant perception are really subjects, lively beings, constructors of vision even though, in the mainstream construction they are animated only by the arrogant perceiver and are pliable, foldable, file- awayable, classifiable. -Maria Lugones' IfI can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution! -attributed to Emma Goldman In the much publicized visit of Bill Clinton to South Asia in March 2000, the then U.S. president stated he "could have danced all night" with the rural women he met in the western Indian state of Rajasthan. He was surprised at the knowledge the women had of their rights, and, I suspect, also at their ability to dance. His surprise in turn surprised me, until I reflected upon the images of the "Third World" subject-in particular, the female subject-that dominate news items in the Western Hemisphere and the * Visiting Professor of Law, New York University School of Law; Director of die Centre for Feminist Legal Research, New Delhi. India. My thanks to the International Centre for Ethnc Studies. Colombo. Sri La"a Cleveland Marshall School of Law;, the International Law Workshop. Columbta Law School; and the International and Comparative Law Workshop, Cornell Law School; where I presented diffiieztc versions of this Article. I am grateful to Brenda Cossman, Karen Knopp, Tayyab Mahnmud, Danne Otto. Tanika SarkarJyorsna Uppal, and Led Volpp fortheir helpfil comments on various drafts of this Aricle. fy thanks to Roshni Basu and Deepanjali Kumari for research assistance. My dunks also to Aparna Ravi, Bridget Kurtr, and Jayne Hukerby for their research assistance. 1. Maria Lugones, Pkofufiwss, World-Travdling, ard Lximg Pmalip7, in mMNG FAcr, MtAmG Sow IAcaEtNqo CARAs: CREATIvE AND CRITICAL PIsPsicrviws Byv Vb*,str OF CoLon 390. 402 (Gloria Anzaldua ed., 1990). HarvardHuman RightsJournal / Vol. 15 developed world. Indeed, that look of starvation, helplessness, and victimization is remarkably familiar to our imaginations, irrespective of the reality. The victim subject is a transnational phenomenon. It occurs, at least within legal discourse, in both the "West" and the Third World. However, the Third World victim subject has come to represent the more victimized subject; that is, the real or authentic victim subject. Feminist politics in the international human rights arena, as well as in parts of the Third World, have promoted this image of the authentic victim subject while advocating for women's human rights. In this Article, I examine how the international women's rights movement has reinforced the image of the woman as a victim subject, primarily through its focus on violence against women (VAW). I use the example of India to examine how this subject has been replicated in the post-colonial context, and the more general implications this kind of move has on women's rights. My main argument is that the focus on the victim subject in the VAW campaign reinforces gender and cultural essentialism in the international women's human rights arena. It also buttresses claims of some "feminist" positions in India that do not produce an emancipatory politics for women. This focus fails to take advantage of the liberating potential of important feminist insights. These insights have challenged the public/private distinction along which human rights has operated, and tradi- tional understandings of power as emanating exclusively from a sovereign state. In the first Part of this Article, I examine how the victim subject has become the dominant focus of the international women's human rights movement. I examine this move specifically within the context of VAW cam- paigns and then look at the broader implications it has for women's rights. I argue that the victim subject has reinforced gender essentialism and cultural essentialism. These have been further displaced onto a Third World and "First World" divide. I discuss how this displacement resurrects the "native subject" and justifies imperialist interventions. In the second Part of the Article, I show how the victim subject has been central to feminist legal politics in India and how this focus, in turn, is a symptom of post- coloniality. The victim subject has invited a protectionist response from the state. The focus on the victim subject at a time when the Hindu Right dominates electoral politics in India has reinforced this protectionist response. 2 In the final Part of this Article, I argue in favor of transcending the 2. The Hindu Right is a religious right-wing and nationalist party that has become increasingly influential in contemporary politics in India. It consists of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political wing of the Hindu Right; the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is the main ideological com- ponent of the party; and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which promotes the religious ideology of the party. For more on the rise to power of the Hindu Right, cegenerally BIPAN CHANDRA, COMMUNAL- ISM IN MODERN INDIA (1984); BENEDICT ANDERSON, IMAGINED COMMUNITIES (1983); GYANUNDRA PANDEY, THE CONSTRUCTION OF COMMUNALUSM IN COLONIAL NORTa INDIA (1990); K. JAYAPRASAD, RSS AND HINDU NATIONALISM (1991). 2002 / The Tragedy of Victimization Rhetoric victim subject and disrupting the cultural and gender essentialism that have come to characterize feminist legal politics. I then discuss the political and emancipatory value of focusing on the peripheral subject and identifying her locations of resistance when addressing women's human rights. Finally, I discuss the importance of engaging with non-state actors and with new sites of power in order to address a broader array of rights and a broader range of arenas that implicate women's human rights. I. THE HEGEMONIC VICTIM SUBJECT The 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights marked the cul- mination of a long struggle to secure international recognition of women's rights as human rights. It was a turning point for both the international women's rights movement and the human rights movement. The final document that emerged from Vienna acknowledged that, partly as a result of the artificial line drawn between the public and private sphere, certain gender-specific issues had been left out of the human rights arena.3 Govern- ments around the world acknowledged that women, too, were entitled to enjoy fundamental rights. These included fill and equal participation in political, civil, economic, social, and cultural life at the national, regional, and international level.4 In addition, the document brought about a significant change in human rights law: the recognition of women's human rights in the private sphere. A broad spectrum of harms occurring in the sphere of the family were rendered open to human rights scrutiny.5 The 3. See generally Hilary Charlesworth et al., Feminist Approadcs to Intrraticn-alLaw, 85 Am. J. IN L L 613 (1991). See also Elizabeth M. Schneider, The Violenu f Pritaot, 23 CoNN. L R'v. 973 (1991); Karen Engle, After the Collapse of the PulidPrivateDirtirtion: Stratqizing l -s't Righ: in RECO.NaCaaG REA=.TY" WOMEN AND INTERNATIoNAL LAw (Dorinda Dallmeyer ed., 1993); Celina Romany; W.m as Aliens: A Feminist Critique of the PuhlidPrivateDistirction in Internalic.al Hu an RiSgts La; 6 HAMv. Hum. RTs. J. 87 (1993). For an analysis of how the publidprivate distinction continues to inform international law and its exclusionary impact on women, se Dianne Otto, Ckallengirgth "New Mald Or7r": InternationalLaw, Global Demracy and the PossibilitiesfcrWM m, 3 TRANSNAL L & CoN.r;mp. Paous. 371 (1993). 4. Vienna Dadarationand Progranmme of Action, United Nations Wcrld Ccnfeirre on Human RightS. U.N. GAOR, at 25, U.N. Doc. AICONF/157123 (1993). Part I. Article 18 of the declaration provides that The human rights of women and of the girl-child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. The full and equal participation of women in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life, at the national, regional and international levels, and the eradication of all forms of discrimination on grounds of sex are priority objectives ofthe international community. Ia Part II, Article 39 urges states to withdraw reservations to the Convention on the Eliminaton of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Dec. 18, 1979, 1249 U.N.T.S. 13. U.N. Wcrld Ccnfoi'ere cn Huran Rights, supraat 37. 5. U.N. World Conference on Human Rights, supra note 4, at 37. Part U. Article 38 of the Vienna Decla- ration provides: the World Conference on Human Rights stresses the importance of working towards the elimination of violence against women in public and private life, the elimination of all forms of sexual harassment, exploitation and trafficking in women, the elimination ofgender bias in the administration of justice and the eradication of any conflicts which may arise betwen the HarvardHumanRights Journal / Vol, 15 document challenged the public/private distinction along which human rights had traditionally operated and increased awareness of the fact that power operates in multiple arenas. The women's rights movement at the international and regional level, as well as official recognition of women's rights, appear to have focused primarily on the issue of violence against women and their victimization in this context. Immediately after the Vienna conference, the U.N. General Assem- bly passed a Declaration on Violence Against Women. 6 The declaration stated that it would strengthen and complement the process of effective im- plementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Dis- crimination Against Women (CEDAW). It recognized that violence against women "is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women." It reiterated the consensus reached at Vienna: that violence against women covers "gender-based violence ..

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