MARCMARCHINGHING TOGTOGETHERETHER......

Resisting in Author : JAGORI : July 2009 Compiled & Edited by : Monobina Gupta Infopack developed for:

The India Court of Women on Dowry and Related Forms of

INTRODUCTION

Not only did the 1970s and 1980s bring about a ‘second wave’ of feminism, unleashing strident women’s agitations, they also marked the beginning of the contemporary women’s movement, moving away from the earlier phase of social reforms and focusing on gender, violence, feminism and the law. A stormy backdrop – Emergency, the International Women’s Year and the report of CSWI (Committee on the Status of ) – led to the formation of new autonomous women’s groups, infusing women’s activism with a fresh energy and resolve. Violence against women became the rallying point for mobilizations on a scale that faded away in the following decades - mobilizations hinging on protests against , dowry and dowry deaths. As the streets exploded with protests, thousands came out into public space, forcing policymakers to sit up and the media to focus attention. It was as if the lid over pent-up anger had been blown off and women were ready to walk that extra mile, marking their presence in the national discourse. The trigger was the of a 16- year-old tribal girl Mathura by two policemen in the compound of Desai Ganj police station in the Chandrapur district of Maharashtra, and the subsequent unacceptable judgment delivered by the Supreme Court. It acquitted the guilty on the plea that Mathura, “habituated to sexual intercourse” and of “loose morals” had consented to sexual intercourse. Outraged, women’s organizations closed ranks, thronged the streets, pitched high their agenda for legal reform. They demanded that the onus of proof should shift from the prosecution to the accused and that a ’s sexual history should not be part of evidence. Under mounting pressure, the government amended the law in a half-hearted manner, leading to the incorporation of the first demand in cases of custodial rape and the rejection of the second demand. Conservative assumptions about virginity and chastity, however, held sway as the conservative forces co-opted and cast the demands raised by the movement, in the “traditional discourse of shame and honour” (Shilpa Phadke, EPW, October 25, 2003).

Dowry and dowry deaths transformed the quality and character of activism, translating the feminist assertion of the personal as political. Harassment, atrocities, and deaths within the four walls of private space, brought under public glare, stunned the nation and evoked widespread anger. It was a momentous phase for the women’s movement. A broad platform, Dahej Virodhi Chetna Manch, was formed, including a diverse range of women’s groups, cutting across political and feminist lines. Among them, Mahila Dakshata Samiti was the first in Delhi’s feminist movement to take up the issue of dowry and Stri Sangharsh made it a household term (Radha Kumar, The History of Doing).

The anti-dowry movement included people from diverse ideologies: from men who felt it their duty to protect their as good patriarchs, to anti-capitalist organizations like Stri Sangharsh and ‘anti-patriarchal’ organizations, which protested against dowry but did not invest it with the feminist critiques of the institution of . “Perhaps this range in points of identification explains why it has been one of the most prominent aspects of the recent women’s movement: it incorporates the

1 Introduction

domains of economy, marriage and the ‘cultural’, and violence ag