Society The
Politics of Sexual Harassment
by Elisa Patnaik
It appears that all that was needed to revive the Orissa State Level
Complaints Committee on Sexual Harassment was a case of alleged sexual
harassment against the Orissa Assembly Speaker Maheswar Mohanty; his
resignation and the adjournment of the Legislative Assembly. The
Committee, which lay defunct for the past two years, has now been
reconstituted - following allegations of sexual harassment levelled at
the former Speaker by Gayatri Panda, 29, an Assistant Marshal of the
Orissa Legislative Assembly.
The current developments have brought to the fore the
manner in which significant cases involving women are
seen by political parties in Orissa, with politics
taking centre stage and associated issues pushed to
the background.
The only woman marshal of the Assembly, Panda, who was
recently suspended on charges of negligence of duty,
had alleged in her complaint that the Speaker harassed
her after she refused to provide sexual favors.
According to Panda, she had first lodged a written
complaint with the secretary of the Assembly but to no
avail. She went public with the allegations but soon
became incommunicado, leaving women activists, along
with the Opposition Congress Party leaders, to step up
their campaign against the Speaker and the ruling
government.
The Speaker had said that the charge against him was
part of a "conspiracy in which influential people were
involved". He had suggested a probe into the matter by
a House committee, which was rejected by the
Opposition.
Led by the Congress, the opposition parties stalled
the Assembly proceedings demanding an independent
Central Bureau of Investigation probe the allegations.
With the demands for his resignation intensifying,
Mohanty stepped down from his post after the Assembly
was adjourned sine die. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik
in order to save his and his party's image sacked
State Information & Public Relations Minister Debasis
Nayak, in view of the allegation that the minister was
involved in the controversy.
For nearly a week, women activists, mostly from
Opposition parties, staged demonstrations, meetings
and even stormed the office of the State Commission
for Women (SCW), accusing chairperson, Namita Panda,
of taking a soft stand on the case. At the same time,
some of the activists were criticized for
"highlighting a sensational case for the wrong
reasons."
"In most cases like this, the incident gets more
prominence than the issue. The question is not whether
the allegations were fabricated, but why the State
Level Complaints Committee on Sexual Harassment wasn't
functioning," points out Lalita Missal of the National
Alliance of Women, Orissa. "More importantly, is the
government aware about the existence of the Visakha
guidelines on sexual harassment?" says Amrita Patel, a
faculty member of the Bhubaneswar-based School of
Women's Studies, Utkal University.
According to a study conducted by the School of
Women's Studies in 2004, only 30 per cent of the organizations examined in Bhubaneswar had constituted
complaints' committees on sexual harassment. Both
Missal and Patel feel that although such Committees
have been formed at the state and district levels in
Orissa, there is no information on their functioning,
role and jurisdiction.
Although the role of the SCW is considered to be
crucial in this context, many are critical of the
'political compulsions' that the Commission has to
reckon with, time and again. In the recent sexual
harassment case in Orissa, when the SCW chairperson
was accused of not taking up the case suo motu, she
had retorted by wondering why the victim had
approached the National Commission for Women (NCW)
instead of the SCW.
"Such cases serve as good opportunities to settle
scores in politics," says a senior leader of the
ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD), on conditions of
anonymity. "Interestingly, most of the women activists
fighting on behalf of Gayatri Panda are either from
the Congress Party or harbor political ambitions," he
adds.
The latest case is not an aberration in Orissa
politics, which has witnessed tumultuous times with
high-profile cases related to violence against women
continuing to surface. It is ironic that Leader of
Opposition J. B. Patnaik, who has now been demanding a
CBI inquiry into the recent incident, had once
vociferously denied a judicial probe into the infamous
Anjana Mishra scandal during his regime in 1997.
Mishra had accused former state advocate-general
Indrajit Ray of attempting to molest her. While she
took him to court the then chief minister, J.B.
Patnaik, was drawn into the controversy for his
alleged role in shielding his friend, Ray. Later,
Mishra who was gang-raped on her way (TO?), alleged
the crime as a "pre-meditated" act to scare her into
withdrawing the charges.
The reactions from the then Opposition parties was
along predictable lines and the then BJD president
Naveen Patnaik had said J.B. Patnaik had lost all
moral authority to rule. It must be noted that the
NCW, which had visited Orissa at that point, had even
urged all political parties not to twist the case to
suit their interests and advised them to rise above
party lines in matters concerning the dignity of a
human being.
Experts point out that another reason for this trend
is the fact that men have lately dominated politics in
the state. "We have hardly strong women political
leaders both in the ruling and Opposition parties who
can champion the genuine causes of women. Most of them
exploit cases to their advantages," opines Patel.
The sensational Chhabirani gang rape and murder case
that shook Orissa in the early Eighties is another
testimony to the politicization of violence against
women cases. Chhabirani, wife of a journalist, was
gang-raped and murdered on a riverbed in the
Jagatsinghpur district, allegedly by the local
Congress leaders. Incidentally, when the murder took
place, Congress was in power, and there were
allegations of deliberate attempts to hush up the
case. The victim's husband, Nabakishore had reportedly
acknowledged the help given to him by the then
Opposition leader, Biju Patnaik, including money to
fight the case. It took 22 long years for the court to
convict four of the accused in the case.
Says senior journalist and political commentator, Rabi
Das, "Politicization of such cases is not peculiar to
Orissa but is seen across the country as they are
supposed to be sensational in nature." According to
Das, the criminal conspiracy involving politicians and
criminals should also receive prime attention while
cases of violence against women are being
investigated.
The recent sexual harassment case in Orissa is being
investigated by three agencies, the State Human Rights
Commission, Mahila Police Station and the SCW.
Observes Missal, "It is ironic that a single case is
now being investigated by three agencies at a time
when several women all across the state, who are
victims of trafficking, rape and molestation, do not
even have the proper mechanism to lodge a case."
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