Rising cybercrimes that target women tends to affect their self-worth, said Supreme Court judge, justice S Ravindra Bhat, as he unveiled a book presenting a critique on various judgments from the Indian courts focused on law, gender and society in Delhi on Saturday.
Justice Bhat, who is part of the five-judge bench hearing petitions demanding marriage and other consequent rights for same-sex couples, said, “Studies by UNICEF show that one-third of young adults are victims of cyber-bullying with girls being at higher risk.” He cited yet another trend quoting data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to suggest that cybercrimes against women has gone up 28% since 2019.
“These tendencies affect women the most as it leads to loss of self-worth in them,” Justice Bhat said, while talking about the book written by Aaliya Waziri, a lawyer and daughter of Delhi high court judge, justice Najmi Waziri. The book dealt with the issue of cyber-bullying and presented a critique on the inadequacy of laws to deal with the Bulli Bai and Sulli deal apps in the cyberspace where photos of Muslim women were posted without their consent for auction.
“A lot of ground needs to be covered as such instances reflect stereotypes. Though the book has addressed several elephants in the room, there are many barriers women face across professions,” said the judge, who was accompanied by noted poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar and Charu Sharma, professor at the OP Jindal Global University.
{{/usCountry}}“A lot of ground needs to be covered as such instances reflect stereotypes. Though the book has addressed several elephants in the room, there are many barriers women face across professions,” said the judge, who was accompanied by noted poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar and Charu Sharma, professor at the OP Jindal Global University.
{{/usCountry}}Akhtar spoke about the raging issues of love jihad, crime against women and the mistake one makes in drawing a causal link between rising crimes and portrayal of women in cinema. “Love jihad is not against a minority community but against Hindu girls. It is based on a patriarchal mindset that tends to suggest how the Hindu girls are such an idiot that they are not in their right mind when it comes to marriage. This is their opinion against women and so love jihad is a male thing and not a Hindu-Muslim thing,” he said.
His comment on Love Jihad (a term loosely referred to describe the trend of Muslim men marrying Hindu women with the purpose of getting them converted) came at a time a film, The Kerala Story, narrating the story of three Indian girls being trapped by terrorist group ISIS and forced to convert to Islam, hit the screens on Saturday.
Addressing the argument that vulgar depiction of women in movies triggers tendency to commit sexual crimes, Akhtar said, “It is a wrong diagnosis.” The states where you have more sex crimes have less cinema halls, Akhtar said adding that out of nearly 14,000 cinema halls in the country, the bulk (about 8,000) exist in south India. “If cinemas incite people, there should be more crimes in south,” he said.
He also banished the theory that co-education invites problems for girls and said, “When you don’t know about something, you fantasise and that leads to perversity.” But times are changing, Akhtar said, adding, “Now the civilization of women is emerging which men, thankfully, are not aware of.”
Aaliya spoke about her book being a collection of essays penned during her stint as an international consultant at the United Nations Women Office and later as a lawyer practising before the Delhi high court. “I wrote this book as it is important to identify and plug loopholes.” With the book engaging with law through the lens of gender and society, Aaliya said, “Law and gender are like two rivers and culture is a bridge that connects them. This book explores about the lives they touch and crops they harvest through the course of their flow.”
The book begins with the criminal law reforms introduced in the aftermath of the brutal Nirbhaya gang rape of 2012, and goes on to explore judgments that deal with woman’s consent – outside of and within marriage (marital rape), and the emerging rights of women on abortion and reproductive care among other gender sensitive issues.