Namita Bhandare
Namita Bhandare writes on gender and other social issues and has 25 years of experience in journalism. She has edited books and features in a documentary on sexual violence. She tweets as @namitabhandare
Articles by Namita Bhandare
Dowry remains India’s abiding shame
UPDATED ON MAR 05, 2021 05:47 PM IST
In the run-up to the International Women’s Day, it’s good to celebrate the undeniable gains on our road to gender equality. But it’s also worth remembering just how far we have to go — and how little has changed.
Shake power structures to give women dignity
UPDATED ON FEB 19, 2021 06:17 PM IST
The MeToo Movement undoubtedly gave a few women a voice and a platform, but it left out the vast majority of India’s working women, women employed as domestic workers, in brick kilns, as farm labourers, in garment factories. Dalit, tribal, trans and marginalised voices were never heard.
The trinity of patriarchy, poverty and the pandemic
UPDATED ON FEB 06, 2021 06:40 AM IST
There is a clear link between keeping girls in school and delaying marriage. Raising the minimum age of marriage for girls to 21 is not a solution
To protect women, challenge patriarchy
PUBLISHED ON JAN 22, 2021 10:42 PM IST
Seldom has the State’s concern to protect one half of its citizens been so high
The conversation India refuses to have
By Namita Bhandare
UPDATED ON JAN 08, 2021 08:01 PM IST
In the past few years, India has broken traditional silences on sexual abuse, on consent, and on the rights of sexual minorities. It’s time to break another traditional silence
India’s 2020 Gender Report Card
UPDATED ON DEC 25, 2020 05:36 PM IST
The end of a year is a good time to take stock – just how much we’ve achieved, how much more must be done and, this year in particular, how much is in danger of being lost
Covid-19: A distressing spike in violence
UPDATED ON DEC 11, 2020 07:46 PM IST
To stop gender-based violence, target attitudinal change through interventions in education, ad campaigns and other behaviour change communication
In defence of the right of women to choose
UPDATED ON NOV 27, 2020 08:37 PM IST
The solution is not to ban interfaith marriage, as this ordinance effectively does, but to make it easier for citizens to exercise their autonomy, regardless of parental approval
Covid-19: Preserving the gains on education | Opinion
UPDATED ON NOV 13, 2020 08:45 PM IST
It’s the job of institutions and government to provide infrastructure. We need a coherent policy tailored to specific regions and needs that will look at the complexities of online learning.
Expanding the ambit of the MeToo movement | Opinion
UPDATED ON OCT 30, 2020 07:48 PM IST
India’s #MeToo movement left out the voices of 195 million women in the informal sector
A model for rooted, inclusive journalism | Opinion
UPDATED ON OCT 17, 2020 06:34 AM IST
Khabar Lahariya, a women-led digital platform that today counts 30 reporters and stringers across 13 districts in Bundelkhand has, for close to two decades, been chronicling a side of India that is seldom written about.
Being a Dalit woman in modern India
PUBLISHED ON OCT 02, 2020 07:37 PM IST
To say don’t make the Hathras incident about caste is ignorance and privilege. But the systemic oppression of Dalit women isn’t new
The autonomy to choose one’s partner
UPDATED ON SEP 19, 2020 10:23 AM IST
Couples who wish to marry under the Special Marriage Act must serve a 30-day notice during which their personal details are on public display. This violates their privacy and leaves many vulnerable to parental and community reprisal
Covid-19 and the spike in child marriages
PUBLISHED ON SEP 04, 2020 08:00 PM IST
There has been a surge in child marriage, a side-effect of the pandemic. But to reduce child marriage at any time, expand opportunities in education and work, rather than increase minimum age of marriage
Covid-19 and the heroic role of women health workers | Opinion
UPDATED ON AUG 21, 2020 07:09 PM IST
India’s army of community health workers feels invisibilised despite the critical role they play in fighting Covid-19
Covid-19’s impact on sex workers and their families
UPDATED ON AUG 07, 2020 05:46 PM IST
There are 6,57,800 sex workers in India, according to a 2016 UNAIDS study. Other estimates put the number at three million. The lockdown and social distancing measures have pushed them to the edge.
The embedded patriarchy in arranged marriages
PUBLISHED ON JUL 24, 2020 07:14 PM IST
Arranged or otherwise, marriage in modern India continues to be bound by rigid social-economic-caste structures
Gendered language has its roots in sexism, bias | Opinion
UPDATED ON JUL 10, 2020 07:38 PM IST
Gendered language is not just an annoyance. It can harm
Women in labour must be treated with dignity
PUBLISHED ON JUN 26, 2020 07:29 PM IST
The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted an old problem of the mistreatment of women in the labour room
How Covid-19 has set back the education of girls | Opinion
UPDATED ON JUN 13, 2020 05:51 AM IST
The risk of girls dropping out of school in large numbers is real. The time to act, plan and stop a predictable slide is now.
Build a society that respects individual choice | Opinion
UPDATED ON MAY 29, 2020 07:40 PM IST
Demonising doctors and families who force individuals to undergo conversion therapy is the easy bit. The far harder part is the work that must go into building an affirmative society that is respectful of individual choice
Start talking to boys on what constitutes consent
UPDATED ON MAY 15, 2020 05:18 PM IST
If sex education is such a loaded term, call it something else — value education, life skills, consent education — but we can no longer ignore how desperately we need it in India’s school curriculums.
The lockdown is hard for women with disability
PUBLISHED ON MAY 01, 2020 06:22 PM IST
Before Covid-19, women with disabilities were already undergoing their own lockdown, invisible and shut out from the rest of the world. Now, the walls are closing in.
Covid-19: The centrality and invisibility of women
PUBLISHED ON APR 17, 2020 07:31 PM IST
As the world battles the pandemic, it cannot be a coincidence that countries headed by women — Taiwan, Germany, New Zealand — are doing comparatively well. In Taiwan, President Tsai Ing-Wen’s early intervention, including screening passengers from Wuhan, limited the outbreak to 393 infections and six deaths.
Women are bearing the brunt of the lockdown
PUBLISHED ON APR 03, 2020 05:48 PM IST
The silver lining in the Covid-19 shock would be this disruption of India’s business-as-usual labour market. “In the long-term, when companies realise how beneficial work from home is, the biggest beneficiaries would be women,” says Mahesh Vyas, managing director and CEO, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.
Reclaiming the identity of the December 16 victim
UPDATED ON MAR 20, 2020 07:49 PM IST
To honour the one who died, we could begin by reclaiming her identity and calling her by her name
How to bring men into conversations on gender| Opinion
PUBLISHED ON MAR 06, 2020 05:14 PM IST
If men and women are to work as equal partners, then we need new rules of engagement, ones that understand the centrality of mutual respect and consent
How Kejriwal failed Delhi’s women voters
PUBLISHED ON FEB 21, 2020 06:24 PM IST
Women want politicians who will listen to them. The AAP’s work in schools and mohalla clinics, free bus rides for women and subsidies for electricity and water was a major draw. But if Kejriwal really wants to be a game-changer, he might want to end an old bias and recognise that there can be no democratic representation if 48.1% of the country’s population is shut out.
Gender stereotypes can be broken. Here is how
PUBLISHED ON FEB 07, 2020 07:17 PM IST
In a slum in New Delhi, a group of young women and men are making their city safer
Recognise unpaid care work as a common good
UPDATED ON JAN 24, 2020 08:16 PM IST
Care work is highly gendered and a barrier to women’s participation in the paid economy. It’s time we changed that