Introduction

A large part of what makes National Law School of India University a premiere university in the country is the opportunity it provides to students in terms of co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. We are privileged to learn, not only from our professors, but also through credit courses, talks, conferences discussions and debates. Access to these resource persons allows us to supplement our classroom learning with a wide range of diverse perspectives on various subjects and contributes to shaping our minds. However, very often, the people we invite to our campus as experts may often not be inclusive and representative of the diversity that exists.

We at AOW: The NLS Feminist Alliance undertook a “silent count” for the academic year of 2016-2017 We tracked the number of men and women who were invited to college as part of conferences, panel discussions, judges for competitions held across the year to measure whether there is a gender bias in who we invite as experts. The purpose of this study is not to allege deliberate bias or attack any committee, for we acknowledge there may be many genuine reasons for any disparity. Instead we want to bring this issue to the forefront, to ensure that committees are able to address this bias, if any, in the upcoming year.

Thus the question we asked was, do we, as the National Law School of India University, host ‘manels’?

What is a ‘Manel’?

This clever moniker refers to an all-male panel.[1] We’ve all seen them– in conferences, committees, panels and even Supreme Court benches. These include only men as representatives or members to debate, discuss and decide issues that affect all of us. Here are some famous examples of manels:

This list could go on. But the point is, a lack of representation of women exists in almost every sphere even today. A large part of the problem is manels, which by rendering women experts invisible contribute to the larger issue of recognition of women and their perspectives. Before we continue, we would like to address why ‘manels’ are an issue.

The Problem with Manels

Earlier this year, one of us attended a panel discussion on ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Law’ organized by the Law and Technology Society. To their credit, they had 2 extraordinary women from this field. During a presentation, a male member referred to leading opinions of four famous men in the field on the issue of AI. This was pointed out by one of the women speakers who then informed the room of the opinions of many women who had extensively written on the same issue.

Here, having a woman on that panel made sure that these women were given the representation they deserved and an entire room full of people learnt of the contribution of women in an industry which is often stereotyped as masculine.

Therein lies the first issue with manels. They hinder representation. Representation has both inherent and instrumental value.

Instrumentally, it promotes diversity of perspectives, which always makes for better discussion and debate. Very often these opinions may be identity specific where no panel on women rights or queer rights can or should be discussed without representing these identities. But this does not mean that the role of women should only be limited to discussions surrounding their identity as women. Even the fields of science, technology, economics that are usually understood to be blind to gender, have been proved to be geared towards the interest of men time and again. Be it the lack of knowledge of the female body, or the sexism in the Tech industry or the devaluation of women’s labour in society– it is only natural, since men have always dominated the field, which makes it all the more important to ensure that the voices and opinions of women in this field are heard across the world.

However there is also great inherent value to representation. Bringing visibility to women in the field helps reduce the barriers to entry and success for women in various professions. It was the lack of representation of women in history that made us all grow up thinking that all great inventions and art and music were by men. It was this lack of representation that denied recognition to Ada Lovelace while granting Charles Babbage a place in history, and what denied Rosalind Franklin a Nobel Prize despite her contribution to the discovery of the DNA, and what obscures the contribution of Savitri Bai Phule and the countless other phenomenal, talented women whose name have not even seen the light of the day.

Ignoring the contribution of women and denying them representation means that while their male counter parts are given increased recognition and the benefits that accompany it, women fall into the vicious cycle of no representation- no recognition- no representation, on repeat.

One of the biggest arguments often made against this is that of merit. “We don’t care about gender, we just want the best people. We don’t want to call women if it means reducing quality.” This argues against the tokenism that is often seen in industries, which include women for the sake of it. Very often these are women who have only been included to comply with reservations or fear of ridicule. But seeing this issue in these narrow terms ignores two very important issues. First, that merit does not exist in a vacuum. Who we consider the ‘best’ may very often be colored with the same biases that deny women representation in the first place. But second, women have to often prove themselves to be twice as better than their male counter parts to be given the same chance. As Richa Naujoks, partner at Richard Nixon and Peabody put it during AOW’s conference on sexism at the workplace last year, “Women are made partners at law firms because of their performance, and men because of expectations.” This holds true across fields. The problems of tokenism should, therefore, not be used and misused to deny representation to deserving women.

With that introduction, let’s focus our attention to Law School.

The Law School Scenario

In the year 2016-2017, various activity based (ABC’s) and Non activity-based committees (Non ABC’s) invited over 220 speakers to law school. This includes speakers for panel discussions, judges, professors for credit courses, etc. Of the total number of speakers, 63% were men.

To better understand the issue, we also looked at committee-wise breakup.

Committee Wise Break Up:

Committee Wise Break Up (Continued)

As you can see, while some committees have equal number of men and women, there are many which sorely lack representation. This is not to accuse any committee, for there are many reasons why this disparity exists. Given that men are still more in number in most fields, it is much easier to get men who are available compared to women. And there have been many incidents where despite wanting to include women, committees and organizers are unable to do so. But equally, committees often do not take into account this issue while deciding speakers and judges. We acknowledge that it may not be easy but we hope they will be willing to put the additional research and work that may come with contacting female speakers. There are quite a few faculty members on campus who would also be able to help out in this regard, given that NLSIU itself has produced a large pool of highly accomplished female alumni.

The same disparity is more starkly visible in the number of visitors that the college administration invites as distinguished guests:

Thus we can see, that a gender bias, whether subconscious or not exists in the kind of resource persons we as a college and as students part of committees contact. To clarify, the purpose of this exercise is simply to bring forth this issue into the minds of all Conveners, Joint Conveners, Committees and the student body in general to ensure that the next time they organize an event or a talk, they ensure that they make the effort to contact the many women who are contributing to their fields and acknowledge their efforts.

Before concluding, we would also like to acknowledge the limitations of this report. There are other issues of representation, which need to be addressed, before we can call ourselves a truly diverse place. However we believe this is a start to achieving the inclusive campus we all want to be a part of.

A detailed report of the data collected can be found below.[2] We’d like to thank everyone who provided us with the information used in this count.

[1] https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2017/07/on-the-radar-manel/

[2]https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18nGXnkKH0pH1zgCc0rtvQUga6Dor8D3EfHXhTRGmbhs/edit?pli=1#gid=0

This article attempts to document my experiences as a ‘Lone Female Traveler’-aka, the LFT. Once a rare species, this creature is now spotted quite frequently in-habitat, nervously waiting at deserted metro stations, clutching her purse to her heart in a sensual embrace on shady sidewalks, pretending to be engrossed in a non-existent Whatsapp group chat at cafes, and sometimes, giving wistful looks to couples at bars. LFT’s vary in size, height, ethnicity and profession. The binding characteristic, if any, is that they identify with the female gender, conspicuously lack a boyfriend, father or any other suitable patriarchal substitute to safeguard them in their adventures, and often tend to be the only single woman in their group of friends.

You may also find varying degrees of social awkwardness, misanthropy and Pretentious Wanderlust^TM in LFT’s or maybe that’s just me. Not to be confused with the Single Upper-Class Urban Female (though there are often overlaps) or the Daily Drudgerer (single moms and suburban housewives attempting to beat the city traffic while ferrying nervy pre-pubescents to and fro coaching classes and football practice).

The LFT has been gaining quite a lot of popularity, what with Kangana Ranaut’s stupendous portrayal of the Heartbroken LFT in Queen and Deepika Padukone’s aborted journey as a Nerdy LFT in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewaani before she succumbs to Bollywood Heteronormativity and falls for yet another Nomadic Manchild^TM.

I don’t know what category of LFT I would describe myself as. I have gone through varying phases, depending upon which year of law school I happen to be in, the number of commitments I am juggling, and how many Imtiaz Ali movies about magically finding yourself in Europe I have been watching. This article will focus on my experiences in India, because home is gold. Also if you can’t navigate your way through Nagarbhavi you have no business wandering the hipster ghetto areas of any of your international dream cities.

10:30 a.m. For various reasons which are linked to my being a socially awkward loser who didn’t have the foresight to book plane tickets home, I am alone in my room with no plans for the long weekend. Since I don’t have any Jaanu or Baby to give me frantic wake-up calls, and also because I’m too lazy, I end up oversleeping and missing the high-quality 5 star mess breakfast.

10:50 a.m. While reading yet another GOT fan/conspiracy theory, I get a mail from BookMyMovie.com telling me that they have an ‘offer’ for me. Some random data analyzer sitting in their head office in Canada or wherever has told their marketing executive in India that I haven’t booked tickets in a while, thanks to the time constraints of the trimester system and general student penury. Yay internet algorithms and innocuous usage of cookies to stalk consumers. The marketing executive, out of unconditional love for me, and unconditional concern for their dipping sales graph, gives me a 40 percent discount that will be usurped from me in due time at the multiplex popcorn counter.

The discount is for a movie I have been really excited for, called Saahobali 2. The Saahobali duology is about Bali, the prince of a mythical kingdom in ancient India (which is not really India, because India is a joint venture constructed by the Congress and the British circa 1947); and his struggle for the throne against his evil uncle Saaho. I have no interest in Bali and his misogynistic shenanigans stalking and molesting the neighbouring kingdom’s princess, but I enjoyed the cinematography and the overall character-sketch in the first movie, so I decide to take up the offer. Also, I have a secret crush on the dude who plays the villain. There’s a reason they make Saaho go bare-chested in the posters.

BookMyMovie informs me that the last available show is at 7pm. My mental alarm faintly protests ‘It’s too late! What will you tell your mom?’ I look at a devilishly hot Saaho grinning at me from the film poster and put the alarm on snooze.

6:00 pm: I call for a Share cab because YOla is one of the few companies who understand that even friendless people need to save money. My co-passenger is a senior from law school who is co-incidentally, going to watch Saahobali 2. I have an awkward phone conversation with my mother where I try to explain that I am going alone to watch a movie in a place which is more than 10 minutes away from campus, after sunset. Since my mother lacks the paranormal ability to fly down to Nagarbhavi and whack my head off, she convinces herself that said law school senior is my chaperone for the evening and that I will be Safe. I neglect to mention that the senior is going to a different theatre. You must adopt these tricky survival mechanisms if you want to be a successful LFT.

7:00 pm: The movie has not yet started, because in the interests of capitalism and free-market society, I must sacrifice 15 minutes of my life watching ads for jewellery for my imaginary nuptials and the imaginary dream house in Whitefield where I will live with my dream husband and our imaginary kids. We live secure bourgeoisie lives thanks to the dream life insurance policy which my husband buys because women can’t handle planning for the future and shit. This is followed by an ad for the pest control and disinfectant which I will buy to protect my imaginary babies from keetanu and show my husband what a good domesticated idiot I am. This dream montage climaxes with the national anthem, which you must stand at attention to in military pose lest anyone in the audience think you’re unpatriotic and a terrorist spy from the neighbouring country. I can imagine my dream husband and dream babies singing next to me while I die a slow death on the inside.

7:22pm: The movie has still not started because we must learn about the harmful side-effects of smoking. My mind zones out to a vivid childhood memory in which my mother and I had gone to watch a movie and the man sitting next to my mother had Behaved Inappropriately.

I do a quick background check. Just like ordinary people look left and right before crossing the road, LFT’s have to do the left-right check before sitting anywhere because the chances of ending up dead on the highway are approximately the same. The people to my right consist of a family of husband, wife and son who probably have the dream life insurance and pest control advertised previously and maybe a Kent RO purifier as well. The husband is sitting next to me, but I know he won’t Behave Inappropriately because if he does, I’ll scream and his wife will be upset (at him hopefully).

Sitting to my left, is your standard just-married couple who’ve only bought the life insurance policy so far and still have a few years to go before pest control and a SUV. Again the husband sits on my immediate left but I know he won’t molest me either because he’s the OK Jaanu type whose face is permanently tilted towards his wife. As Mukesh dies a gory death for the umpteenth time, I muse about how the frequency of his sweet nothings will gradually diminish after she gets pregnant and fat and he cheats on her with his hot colleague. They will squabble over what to have for dinner while the same loansharks who gave them the life insurance policy circle their house looking for signs of failure to repay the mortgage. The guy tilts his head away even more, as if he can sense my nihilism disturbing his romantic fantasies.

7:25pm: The movie finally starts. Bali makes his grand entrance, flexing biceps the size of a small European country, while the broodingly handsome Saaho attempts to assassinate him. My brain switches off its panic button and quietly relinquishes control over to my endocrinal system.

8:00pm: I have had the life-changing epiphany that I like neither Bali nor Saaho, both of whom are blundering feudal jocks, but the character of Devi, Bali’s wife, who refuses to take shit from either of them throughout the movie. My ovaries ask my brain to shut its trap.

10:30pm: Since the mess ammas don’t love me enough to have kept my dinner in the fridge, I wander about the food court, looking for something that will still leave me capable of paying the law school fees next year. I settle for a stall that claims to be selling ‘authentic Bombay Pav Bhaji’, more out of love for my wallet than any sense of nostalgia. The server hands over my plate with a fake smile and I return the same, both of us mutually acknowledging that the real stuff in Bombay costs half the price and tastes better.

I am once again made to realize how much the world hates single people when the couple after me orders double the amount of food, along with soft drinks, secure in their knowledge that expenses will be divided. I’ll be honest-I don’t like being single. In fact I’m quite bitter about it. All I really want, more than a career or an independent existence, is to have that one, amazing person whose has intoxicating eyes I can stare into, and with whom I can split the bloody restaurant bill. I ignore the envious rumblings coming from my stomach and start zooming in on seating options.

10:33pm: The thing about being a LFT is-you can feel people constantly staring at you, and not because you’re Aishwarya Rai’s twin or anything. The men stare at you, well, because I guess men secretly miss the innocence and purity of their childhood, because there’s no other reason for them to devote so much attention to your mammary glands. The women stare at you because they’re curious about why their men are staring at you. (I mean really girls, let the poor guys be, they probably feel trapped by this consumerist society and want to return to the era when their basic nutrition was free and all of that)

Families stare at you because deep down on the inside, they feel the smugness of having found themselves a social unit to keep them company in passing their mundane existence, and they can’t convey their superiority complex effectively without giving you pitying glances every now and then. Poor girl, she still has so much time to go before she can entrap a husband and produce keetanu-fighting babies.

There is of course the curious grandma, who gives your dirty looks and puts a protective arm around her grandchildren if she catches your eyes glancing anywhere in their direction. This is a problem LMT’s (Lone Male Travellers) have to face as well. If you’re a LMT chances are the grandma will think you’re a paedophile or a rapist. If you’re a LFT chances are she’ll think you’re an immoral woman or plain psycho. There’s no escaping from the grandma’s death glare either way.

Of course it is entirely possible that nobody is really staring at you, because nobody has the freaking time. The dads are worrying about office, the moms are worrying about office and what to feed dad before he leaves for office, the kids are worrying about IIT-JEE and the grandma is probably wishing they’ll put her in an old age home already because nobody cares about her when she’s in the house anyway. Maybe the death glare is actually a cry for help, or just plain old jealousy.

11:00pm: I am surprised to learn that the Share system works at this hour as well. After ten minutes of ‘Hellaw’ and ‘Where are you Sir’ and ‘Madam, hum location pe hai’ I finally manage to get into the cab. All memories of Bali and Saaho engaging in war porn gradually fade while my brain starts doing its Please don’t let the cab driver/co-passenger be a rapist chant again. I breathe a sigh of relief when I discover that my co-passengers are a married couple. Everyone knows women with mangalsutras are the safest, second only to cows maybe. I pretend to be thoroughly engrossed in my music collection and ignore the side-eye the wife is giving me. For a moment I am tempted to make small talk and explain why I am out at this time of the night but then I decide I don’t owe anybody jackshit. This time I tilt my face away.

11:10pm: I am feeling stupid about the previous assumption I made about my co-passengers because the cab is now wandering in some dark alley and everyone is oddly quiet. I wonder whether the husband-wife and the cab driver are secretly involved with a gang of human traffickers and this is a ruse to pick up victims like me who are stupid enough to travel alone . I am imagining how the newspapers will break the news of my disappearance (Times of India will probably carry something along the lines of ‘She asked for the cab!!’) and feeling thoroughly sorry for myself when the driver’s navigational skills magically materialize and we reach the actual drop location, a wedding hall. Hardly the godown of horror I was imagining (As much as I would like to visit Thailand, I’m quite comfortable living in the Nilgiris hostel for now).

11:20pm: I am back on campus. Crickets are chirping. Stars are twinkling. Random couples are hooking up in the basketball court. I am alive. Did I discover the true meaning of life? Did I meet the Nomadic Manchild^TM who is my soulmate? Did I magically morph into a hottie overnight after swapping my imaginary glasses with contact lenses? Did I realize that my relentless pursuit of academics in the hopes of securing a law firm job is meaningless since ultimately the dark void will consume me the way it consumes everyone else? No.

The most thrilling part of being a LFT is the fact that it’s so ordinary. It’s not like the chances of being kidnapped, murdered, sold into slavery and struck by an asteroid, etc. magically increase or decrease. There really isn’t much hoopla about going somewhere alone. Sure you might suffer multiple panic attacks, have a constant running Creepo-mentary in your head, attract a few weird stares, pay double the price and eat half the quantity of what you would when you go out with a group of friends and feel like you’re in the Twilight Zone occasionally. But it reduces with time. So carpe diem ladies, and don’t hesitate to give yourself some me-time if you’re done dealing with your everyday young-adult bullshit.

Depending upon reader response and how jobless I feel in the coming days, this article is soon-to-be followed by a sequel situated in the stunning locales of Europe-LFT: The Conclusion (?)

I’ve been asking myself (and being asked by others) a lot lately: Am I allowed to forgive someone who I know has sexually harassed or assaulted someone?

I mean, we’ve all done it, haven’t we? Forgiven friends for doing questionable things. Remained friends with people when they said sexist things. Continued to enjoy Neruda’s poetry even when you know he’s written about raping an Indian woman.

All of these choices are easy to justify. After all, I’d never support someone sexually harassing someone but surely my forgiving a friend, or enjoying an author, is a personal choice?

However, the more I think about it the more difficult it becomes to justify. As a feminist woman responding to a person who has committed sexual assault or harassment (and for the purpose of simplifying an already complex issue, let’s assume that you are convinced that this happened and that it happened to someone other than you), your response comes with the following implications:

The first is, as unfair as it seems, that I am only too cognizant of the fact that my opinion is used to invalidate the opinion of other women and other feminists. Since this is a gendered crime, my forgiveness also takes gendered implications. I laughed, so it must be funny. I forgave him, so why don’t you? Why must you take it so seriously? Why must you be so unreasonable?

The second, as a friend pointed out, is the effect of such support or forgiveness, especially public, on the survivors of the sexual harassment or assault themselves. I feel betrayed when my close friends hang out with people I’ve had petty fights with and I can only imagine that a survivor of sexual assault in a system that is already very hostile to them feels this betrayal manifold. Can I reasonably and honestly say that any survivor of sexual assault should feel comfortable even talking to me about their experiences (let along expecting my support in any action that they choose to take) if at the same time they constantly see me hanging out, talking confidentially, or hugging the perpetrator?

The third is that I’m aware that forgiveness is colored strongly by my own biases. Who do I forgive, eventually? While I’d like to think there are several factors that motivate me to forgive based on the personal conduct of the person involved and the amount of responsibility they are taking for their actions and the remorse that they feel, at the end of the day I’m also aware that my forgiveness is colored by access. I forgive those that I cannot construct as ‘the other’. I’m more likely to forgive someone I talk to regularly, someone who is in my class or in my social circle, who is a ‘kid’ or a ‘mentee’, whose side of the story I have had a chance to hear.

This is especially important in the context of justice, whether through the criminal justice system or through an internal inquiry. There are a lot of people I wouldn’t like to see face year losses, or expulsion, or jail time. There are a lot of instances when I think to myself that that person has repented enough and should therefore not be subject to the consequences of their actions. I don’t believe in a retributive criminal justice system. I strongly believe that retributive criminal justice systems sometimes create a cycle of increasing violence and don’t always reduce the instance of the crime itself. However, I also feel deeply uncomfortable saying this on behalf of anyone else. Who am I to say that someone shouldn’t want retribution for what is a deeply personal violation? Who am I to say that it is unreasonable for a survivor to want the perpetrator to realize the consequences of their actions because they believe that if they do not face these consequences now they will believe that they can commit further crimes with impunity?

Who am I to forgive?  

It is very easy for me to say that he’s always been so nice to me, but what kind of feminist am I if I feel no empathy for anyone else?

I’ll become a full feminist cliché: my personal is political, and so is my forgiveness.

Does this mean that I am condemned to being an angry feminist stereotype, unable and unwilling to forgive?

I’m not willing to live in a world where people are not allowed to forgive each other, but I also refuse to live in a world where someone is forced to forgive someone who has committed such a horrendous crime against them because of peer pressure. As feminists, we have to find places on this spectrum where we feel comfortable.  

I’d like to believe that it is possible to ‘hate the sin, not the sinner’, to condemn specific actions even when they are done by the people that we love. I’d like to believe that it is possible for me to tell my friend, look, I adore you, but what you did was unconscionable. I want to believe that I can call out instances of sexism whether or not they’re by my friends. I want to believe that it is possible to say that he writes haunting poetry but is a horrible human being. I want to believe that there is a way to communicate to survivors of sexual assault that I’m on their side in this even if I cheer for the other person in a football game.

I realize that this may seem overly gray to a lot of you, a compromise that is not authentic to either my relationships or my politics. I also realize that this will require a constant tight rope of ensuring that my public stances come with caveats. It means never telling a survivor ‘but you will ruin his life’, no matter what I feel about the value of his life. It means never telling someone that he may have suffered enough or invalidating the suffering of the person who has been assaulted or harassed. It’s hard work and something that must inform every thought and action that you take.

In our defense, we never said feminism was easy.

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” they say, but for those studying at NLSIU, Nagarbhavi (“Nags”), there are perhaps two Romes: One within the protected walls of our ivory tower: where we preach free love and advocate safe sex, and where more skin doesn’t (usually) mean less morals. Step out of the gates that house these red walls, though, and everything that is a norm within becomes an aberration.

Outside rests a world where ‘Indian Culture’ still runs wild, and wearing shorts and smoking is looked down upon. As Vijay, who has been working in Nags for the past 12 years puts it, “this is not M.G. Road after all”. Where the people who ought to be selling you contraceptives think it’s okay to refuse them to you saying, “Do you come to college to study or to do all this?” (Well, at least you know you weren’t imagining the judgment.) Dinesh, who has been running a pharmacy store for the past 5 years, attributes the difference in thinking to a generation gap. The other people we spoke to explain our behavior as coming from “modern places like Delhi” or “imitating foreigners” and claim to be able to easily tell the difference between NLS students and BU students, “It’s the way you all speak English and your clothes”, they told us when asked.

For many of us, like those of us who come from sheltered backgrounds in metropolitan cities, and those of us who pride ourselves in having the freedom to do what we want, the environment in Nags can become extremely stifling and frustrating. Nivedita Mukhija (Class of 2016) calls it the ‘Nagarbhavi Paradox’,[1] where one moment you are “reading a treatise on women’s empowerment, and the next … changing into full sleeved clothes” (because you need to go out and buy groceries). This is far from being a new development. Alumni of NLS have recounted that the area around campus always made them feel unsafe and rather uncomfortable. “We go out only as a group. There have been several times when eve teasers have harassed girls. In fact, most of us have begun to carry safety weapons for self-defense,”[2] said an NLSIU student way back in 2006.

…

Ten years later, the situation has barely improved. We conducted a small survey within the law school community regarding instances of sexual harassment around campus. Out of the 53 people who responded, 33 said that they have had to deal with instances of harassment, while 19 said that they have witnessed it happen to someone else. Instances of verbal harassment and lewd gestures were the most common; there were also attempts to take pictures and unwelcome physical advances. Instances of stalking were also disturbingly frequent, with nine women claiming that it had happened to them. The culprits could be shopkeepers who we interact with on a regular basis: last year, a first year student got her phone recharged at a local store and had to deal with unwanted messages on WhatsApp from the man who worked there. The could also be the faceless bikers we see zooming past us as breakneck speed, who often sneer at, stare at, and sometimes even physically hit women pedestrians. People working in the numerous juice shops just outside our campus also told us that the number of outsiders hanging around with their bikes and smoking, significantly decreases when Law School is shut, all the while implying that they come only to ogle us Law School women.

Our survey also asked what the women were doing when they were harassed – a question similar to the oh-so-common “but what were you wearing?”– in order to gauge whether it was our ‘abhorrent behavior’ that was inviting hostility towards us. However, while quite a few women did say that they were wearing short or skimpy clothes/smoking/wandering around campus at night when they were harassed, an equal number of women weren’t doing any of the above.

Unsurprisingly, most of the victims ignored these incidents. A few of them shouted back and a couple of them even chose to complain at the nearby police station. The complaints were not taken seriously. In the face of the language constraints, the fact that sexual harassment is still not taken seriously, and that very often women have no idea who their harasser was, women are often simply helpless, often accepting it as a normal part of going to Nags. This apathy, which perhaps exists due to the frequency of this harassment, is evident in the 50% of the responders who say that these incidents have not changed their behavior. Other respondents say that they no longer smoke as freely, go running to Bangalore University, or leave campus unless accompanied by a male. More importantly, everyone can relate to the sense of paranoia that crops up, especially after sun down.

…

It was with this information that we went around Nagarbhavi, asking its many inhabitants why they think incidents of sexual harassment occur. Notably, with the exception of a few small shops immediately outside campus, most shop owners claim to have never witnessed instances of sexual harassment or what is usually trivialized as “eve teasing”. Unsurprisingly, while everyone we spoke to agreed that sexual harassment is wrong and bad, many thought it happens because girls wear short clothes and stand around smoking. While this is certainly a form of victim blaming, most of the times it came across less as judgment and more as concern– the same concern our parents show us when they don’t let us go alone to “unsafe” places at night. For instance, the ammas working on campus assured us that wearing shorts is fine but warned us against wearing them outside because they don’t want anything bad to happen to us. For all our fight to be able to wear shorts on campus, (in re Shortsgate) we ourselves, on countless occasions, have gone back to our rooms to change into something that would cover us up before venturing out of campus.

While it is easy to justify these opinions as well intentioned, it becomes a problem when women are punished for not following these prescribed safeguards­­– such as when the guards at Gate 0 don’t let us enter at night even when they can clearly see that there are drunk men right outside Roti Park because as they see it, we shouldn’t be out so late anyway. These instances might seem completely different. You may think that there is a difference when your mom tells you not to wear shorts and when the latest BJP MLA does the same, and you’d be right. But at the end of the day both attribute sexual harassment, not to the men who do it, but to the actions of the women who are harassed. The problem arises the moment you associate wearing shorts or drinking or smoking or going out alone as the cause of sexual harassment. That’s the base of the pyramid that is rape culture. A society which thinks rape happens because girls were alone at night, will necessarily produce people who think they can rape someone because she was alone at night. These two strains of thought are interdependent where each sustains the other.

To be clear rapists constitute only the ugliest manifestation of this rape culture. The bulk of it is filled with real estate agents who don’t allow men in women’s apartments, because the neighbors will think ‘otherwise’, or the law school students who dismiss sexual harassment as trivial, crack jokes like ‘all attention is good attention,’ think women are prone to overreactions and paranoia because lets face it, it could have been worse. At least nothing ‘really bad’ happened.

…

Except it did. This October will mark the fourth year of one of our students being gang raped by eight men in the forests of BU. It made national news: ‘Gang Rape in India’s Premier Law School.’ It was a horrific incident, with the rapists handing her ten rupees after the heinous act was over.[3]

Bangalore University’s response was equally horrific, where they threatened our college with the ultimatum of withdrawing their land grant unless we changed our behavior. “We are fed up with the way the students of NLSIU are behaving and also with the bad name our campus is getting because of them.”[4] It was us, therefore, who were the cause of the bad name – we were “too liberal”. If media reports are to be trusted, the locals blamed us for being too “bold and courageous.” Our own administration bought this narrative and instituted a curfew for all students. The student dropped out of NLS soon after this incident.

The student response was vastly different, where the shocked and angered community staged a protest at the Town Hall, and the security was ramped up, the police were more vigilant. But, as is often the case, 4 years later, when the anger is gone, the curfew is gone and the police are gone, the sexual harassment still remains.

…

Most locals will tell you that things are changing slowly for the better. Vijay tells us how he always asks girls to smoke inside his restaurant so they don’t attract unwelcome attention outside. On a few occasions when men follow them inside, he tells them that he personally knows the girl and asks them not to pass comments.

We also realized that people’s changing notions of ‘Indian Culture’ come at the heels of economic benefit. Mohini, who sells cigarettes nearby, thinks there is nothing wrong with women smoking, all the while vehemently opposing them wearing shorts. And Praveen, who sells bhaang in his shop around Holi, sheepishly tells us that bhaang in small quantities is okay because it is a part of Indian festivals and culture.

There were even locals around campus who thought that there was absolutely nothing wrong with anybody wearing what they wanted and smoking as and when they pleased. Their opinions certainly seemed a thousand times more progressive than that of the educated registrar of Bangalore University. But seeing that places like Roti Park still exist, which function as a no entry zone for most law school students, things clearly aren’t changing fast enough. Nagarbhavi has been, and still is, a rural area still in the process of urbanization, and the students of National Law School have always largely been the crème de le crème of the middle and upper middle classes. It’s easy to attribute sexual harassment to the mindset of rural India and class resentment but there are enough instances of sexual harassment in modern settings of offices and schools and colleges to know that the urge to harass is not an uneducated backward man’s affliction.

…

Given that the problem of sexual harassment isn’t unique to Nagarbhavi, and that even in Nagarbhavi it has been a persistent disease, it is all too easy to brush it aside as something that nothing can be done about. What we do notice, though, is that the problem in Nagarbhavi co-exists with a gigantic cultural rift, and it is, perhaps, by means of stepping into this rift, that it can be dealt with as well.[5] But the larger problem that needs to be solved is the relative silence that exists around these incidents that has continued to affect women in all of Law School’s glorious twenty-five years.

While most of us have been experiencing first hand the fear of violence and the restrictions imposed on us by the recent protests in Karnataka, let’s not forget that this dread and inconvenience is an “option” that far too many women have to choose, every day.

…

(We would like to thank Aditya Patel (Batch of 2016)  and Sharvari Kothawade (Batch of 2019) for helping us conduct the interviews).

[1] https://thefeministmarshmallow.wordpress.com/?s=nagarbhavi+paradox

[2]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/For-residents-Nagarbhavi-is-an-urban-slum/articleshow/1398668.cms

[3]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/National-Law-School-student-raped-on-Bangalore-University-campus/articleshow/16814554.cms

[4]http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report-bu-mulls-over-evicting-law-school-1752944

[5] This was also the principle with which the group ‘Blank Noise’ combated a similar problem in Yelahanka, where volunteers lined the streets with tables and chairs and invited passers-by to have a conversation with them, in a bid to understand each other.

]]> http://www.nlsquirks.in/when-in-nags/feed/ 8 http://www.nlsquirks.in/editorial/ http://www.nlsquirks.in/editorial/#respond Mon, 20 Jun 2016 11:09:30 +0000 http://www.nlsquirks.in/?p=1435 Continue readingEditorial, Issue III (June 2016)]]> Dear All,

Exciting things have been happening here at Quirk.

For starters, we’ve finally gotten with the times and moved the magazine online (watch out, Buzzfeed!).

We are introducing many new features in this edition of Quirk. In In our Bookshelves, we have Sakhi telling you why you need to read Worm, a fantasy web-serial. In Law School Legends, you can discover the truth behind the many exaggerated myths which are religiously relayed to First Years on Surya Terraces, Spadika has done her research on the Legend of the Flying Kharbanda (sneak peek: she got it right from the horse’s mouth). Next up: The myth of Roti Park.

We are continuing our Poetry section where among other great poems, Nupur gives you a practical guide to dating a Left-Wing non-conformist. Other categories include: Gyaan (which there is always an abundance of in Law School, fifth years or not), Life in Laa College (a testament to  what the various auto, OLA, uber drivers call our college, not a typo) and other features that we will be introducing in the coming days. (On a side note:  if you have an idea for a column – movie reviews, rants, things to do in Bangalore,  write to us maybe.)

But, coming to the burning question – why, you ask, will I read an article on Quirk, when I have thousands of pending articles to read, that aren’t actually written by that annoying know-it-all from my batch?

Because Quirk is, at the end of the day, a Law School Magazine. Even The New York Times or Scroll can’t give you stellar content about the issues that really matter to you – be it Osho’s take on the recent elections, or Aradhya’s analysis of the broken incentive structures we have for projects.These are things unique to Law School, things which form part of the collective culture we share during our five long years here. On the other hand, we have articles about larger issues – like Gyalten’s take on Trumpmania – written from the perspective of a LawSchoolite (Scroll hasn’t started using terms like faff and BT yet).

But more importantly, Quirk hopes to finally bring to an end the era of those never-ending, point getting lost somewhere after the first three messages email threads. (We’ll miss you too, Anirudh T.) Now if you think we need to introduce electives in 4th year (which we desperately need to) make your case here at Quirk, and get people talking about it. We also offer you a chance to have arguments with people that don’t ultimately boil down to ad hominem insults. Quirk was always intended to be a medium for discussion about important issues in Law School. This becomes much easier online, where both you and we can react to things instantaneously. This way, you won’t have to wait till the end of the trimester to have your say and nor will you be restricted to cribbing about our articles on Whatsapp groups.  

So yes – change is tough. And we only need to see the new Instagram logo to know how it can go terribly wrong. But done right, it can make Quirk something that we all cherish. So bear with our click-baity titles, the slightly buzzfeedy feel and  the continuous bombardment we hope to subject you to on facebook in the coming days.

Because underneath it all, we are still the same Quirk you know, love and only read in boring classes (at least now you have a good reason to look down at your crotch and grin).

Love,

The Quirk Team

P.S. If you are a strong, kannada speaking, risk taking, ass kicking individual, and are willing to join us for lunch at Roti Park, please drop us a mail. Just in case the horror stories about Roti Park are true. We’d like to delve into the ghosts of Law School, not become one.  

“The essence of policy lies in common human spaces. No matter how we differ, we all share common spaces within” – Aruna Roy

“Choice” was the big concern. I was arguing with our professor for alternatives in MPP fieldwork. We were all going to MKSS (Majdoor Kissan Shakti Sanghatan). I was perhaps the most consistent opponent to this idea. I did not want to go to arid and saline rural Rajasthan, but to the vibrant urban life of a metropolitan city. I believed that would be the best way to understand public policy, to know the intricacies of actors, ideas and institutions, to find what exactly fails when the implementation fails, to know how the government actually works, to build and be aware of perspective… I came across all of it, but only with MKSS. I am rather thankful for losing arguments and embracing this once in a lifetime opportunity. I am not saying it was all a rosy picture. I didn’t find MKSS perfect or my fieldwork completely successful. What I appreciate is the open space! This whole experience, if at all has changed anything, has made me a better listener. I am learning to see the hypocrisies within myself and around, I can critique some, can accept some and face the reality. I have become aware of possibility of a common human space, that I share with others. In this small discussion, I will make an attempt to share my personal reflections, not necessarily the experiences or learnings in any order. Perhaps, this might look fragmented, inadequately corroborated, may not make a good story, may be incomplete; but that’s not the point. 

One hall for men, other for women and common unisex washrooms was the first surprise living in SFD (School for Democracy) followed by ‘Shramadan’ (donation through physical labour) and hectic day ­long lectures. A lot of activities done here are based on certain principles or ideas. Let’s talk about Shramadan. There is no division of labour in SFD. All of us do all the work­ cleaning utensils, rooms, toilets, campus, cooking etc. Every day, your group is assigned one task and rotation makes sure that you do all sorts within a week. There is no division of labour. I didn’t like this initially. A lot of jobless people around could do it. We, if not SFD, would be happy to pay for it. What’s the point if you’re all tired throughout the day, can hardly concentrate in class or do something creative? It didn’t take long to realize that this whole exercise was about dignity of labour. I talk of equality, dignity; do I mean it? Wasn’t there shame and disgust in cleaning toilets? Did I value physical labour­ really equally­ as desk work? I probably didn’t. Working with my group, getting out of comfort zone and putting effort for community­ I think I got closer to reality. Shramadan­ however discomforting and tiring­ somewhat worked.

Sometimes, living in SFD with the community could be a funny task. Here, you do good work and expect that people will do good for you. Your self-interest is brought closer to community interest. The reason why I call this funny is twofold­ first, this altruism doesn’t work in your favour, second­ paradoxically, you start liking the concept of private property. Let’s take an example of washing plates after lunch. You wash your own plate and keep it in rack. You expect that you will get a clean plate next time. I know several people who never cleaned their plate carefully and enjoyed other clean plates next day, whereas those (like me!) cleaning it every day sometimes had hard luck finding one. So, you tend to believe in the concept of private property. You want to own the plate, you want the same every time, you want the same mattress every night, you want to claim ownership, but you can’t. So, what do you rely on? You then rely on the State. You want SFD to ensure that everyone washes their plate well. But, accountability doesn’t necessarily always work.

Although MKSS has every justifiable reason to advocate pro-poor policy, I could not understand certain practices. We cannot wear shorts on fieldwork, but we drop pants and poop in the open. We wilfully pollute. When there are toilets available in rich village houses, we don’t ask for their help. When there is a vehicle available, we don’t take lifts. Whenever there is some comfort, something that adds to our efficiency, we deliberately choose a more difficult way­ all in the name of experiencing reality. Is suffering ourselves so essential to understand the suffering? What’s the logical limit of ‘experiencing’? To answer this question, I quote one of our lecturers at SFD.

“If the world really needs to be only understood through experience, science would not exist. Social science won’t exist at all.” -­ Satish Deshpande

We are very different from the people living here. It is obvious that we will notice differences; there would be tremendous pressure on them to practice the ideal. Every small thing will create questions, expose hypocrisies or build a new perspective. I have observed that people who have joined MKSS­ barring a few exceptions­ are those who personally faced injustice. Unless you are denied basic facilities and deprived of what you deserve minimum, you probably would not enter the lifestyle of MKSS. They have been impoverished and are often indifferent to luxuries. Most of them are distant from conventional materialistic pleasures. They fight on principles, not just for benefits. They have compelling reasons to do so. So, I ask­ is it about being indifferent to pleasures indeed? Am I missing the point? I guess I am. Naurti Devi­ the courageous superwoman Sarpanch­ said something that clarifies­ this:

“I might have learnt, got literate. Not my education, but my courage and passion make me what I am. We (herself and many other activists and supporters) are in pain. So we understand the pain of others. Pain alone drives us to bring change.­”-Naurti Devi

There couldn’t be a better answer to why I am living here. SFD life is not perfect, not ideal. It is not meant to be. It is an attempt, a step to draw inspiration from their stories. I don’t need to be extremely uncomfortable, but this little lack of luxury­ which makes me at least work for myself with my community­ is a driver for the change. There is significant difference between feeling sympathetic to “them” and feeling what drives them and why. There are hypocrisies, but living here is a step forward.

I was born a Chitpavan Brahmin, supposedly the highest caste and sub-caste in our Maharashtrian community. Although financially weak, I enjoyed certain privileges because of social status. At the same time, I believed in equality and talked about it. It was always about ‘they should not be discriminated against’, ‘we are all equal’ stands. Elsewhere-ization of caste existed vividly. Living in Dalit Bastis, eating in Bunkar and Rajput houses, I heard stories. I witnessed the brutality and ruthlessness of the so-called upper caste, upper class. Feudal forces, lying with bureaucracy and political leadership, were cruel to the extent of using violence­ merely to stop a Dalit wedding, deny someone food or cut someone’s water supply. I often coated caste with its cultural aspect, but it is essentially a socio-political identity. Learning through their real-life experiences, I hope I not only believe in, but also try to practice equality. I have privileges and I should acknowledge them. If I do not discriminate, I need to not only avoid it in particular incidences, but also in thoughts, in assumptions and in relationships. I note what Satish Deshpande said in class­:

“Discrimination presupposes that you are not being discriminated on justifiable grounds. It is difficult to prove, as evidence is difficult. Discrimination is a relational concept. Discrimination presupposes social support based on popular prejudice. It is not some event observed just once, it is something in practice.”-­ Satish Deshpande

The other day, we were ‘taken’ to the MGNREGA site and given a task of digging around 40­ by 60 feet cubicle pit. Although for just four hours, we worked arduously. Working with axe and shovel, with dust and dirt, with sweat and blood, I felt ‘useless’ throughout. I don’t have the physical capability, manual skill or the spirit of working in community. It re­affirmed, rather asserted my beliefs towards dignity of labour, skill in physical work and decency in work. Unlike a typical office job, we developed a sense of compassion and belongingness naturally in the process. It was not competitive (however, we made it so) but an accommodative, collective work. We all felt the same pain, same level of belongingness. Perhaps, this is a reason why impoverished, neglected and exploited people come together more often than white-collar middle­ class. Tragedy brings people together and gives them strength to fight.

Beyond physical pain, this was more of a learning experience for me. MGNREGA workers are one of the exploited workers we came across. Unlike any other work I have heard of, their work is measured dually­ task completion as well as time commitment. They hardly get full payment, have to do intense physical work, lack any insurance or medical aid, are given absolutely zero facilities at workplace and have no decision making power in the use of technology. Well, I understand that MGNREGA is not an employment generation program, but more of a short-term solution to the crisis. Yet, if this government run program exploits them so much, doesn’t it legitimize private contractors to follow the same? Isn’t the government legitimizing the brutality of an employer who pays no more than minimum possible wage? Talking of minimum wages, I have noticed that some of worst policy problems here are also with definitions. Wage, poverty level, compensation, pension, relief, grant­ all are measured in absolute terms. Most of the figures are not inflation proof and hold no value in today’s times. Isn’t it more desirable as well as practicable to define them in ratio? If we have pay commission and dearness allowances to revise salary of government employees, why can’t we take realistic stand on transfer payments as well? Although MGNREGA is not creating assets, although it suffers from corrupt practices etc., it is unjust to take it off without assuring an equivalent alternative­ through state policy or market. Poor people working on MGNREGA are not there for side income, but for survival. Even when we say labour may get paid better in industry or as migrated labour, it is untrue. If they do, we won’t see private players crying over the paltry amount government spends on MGNREGA. Unlike private or PPP entities, the state has ultimate responsibility and is accountable to people. People are not mere beneficiaries of these policies, but they own the resources. State is in the business of facilitating this ownership in a just fashion. That is why, state must ensure basic right to food, healthcare and work to life.

Through various lectures and the ideas being imposed at SFD, there is substantial reason to believe that MKSS and SFD are pro-poor organizations. There is a conspiracy theory that these kind of fieldworks are attempts to brainwash us. It was very popular for some time and looked very attractive. Again, Aruna Roy clarified and I agree with her­

“The right-wing, pro-capitalist agenda is anyway prevalent. We are doing a conscious attempt to show you the other side. We may sound left sympathizing, but we are essentially pro-poor. MKSS and SFD are not stubborn close­ minded groups, but they are making consistent effort towards equality and egalitarianism. It is all about being open-minded!”-­ Aruna Roy

I appreciate this clarity. I have seen the so called pro-capitalist ones as well. I have not seen same level of clarity, honesty and humility in any right-wing agent. Even if SFD tells you only one side, it is worth it. Satish Deshpande, Kamla Bhasin, Vrinda Grover and many such eminent speakers have enriched this journey remarkably. I learn to take pride and say confidently that I believe in and mean equality. I can say that I am a feminist. As speakers like Prabhat Patnaik, Aruna Roy make us aware of the other side­ which is equally justifiable­ I tend to believe that there is hardly any correct or wrong, right or left position. Labelling is bad and destructive. The real social and political positions are nuanced, so is the public policy.

Well, I have crossed the 2000 word limit for personal reflections. I have not written a comprehensive essay or a story. I did not want to write one. It’s a long journey and there is so much more to write, so many experiences and so much of learning. For the little space, I just remember something Satish Deshpande told us, that was written on back of a new rickshaw. It says a lot about the process of development and learning.

जल मत, किश्तोमे आयी हूँ ! : Don’t be jealous, I came in installments!

“Donald Trump cannot win”, “he is not ready”, “he doesn’t understand”, “he has no policies”, “he is not Presidential” (whatever the hell that means) so said (and continue to say) the political pundits and designated ‘experts’ on all the ‘respectable media outlets’. It is now obvious that not only can Trump win, he has a better than even chance of pulling it off. Why did all the negative media coverage in the world fail to stop him, why so much hate for Trump in the media and the political establishment, why were the ‘experts’ so wrong on Trump, were they ever right on anything?

There is a tendency among people to get bedazzled by authoritative sounding titles and credentials, this is not a new phenomenon, in old days ‘serious’ and ‘authoritative’ sounding people used to dress up in fancy robes claiming to hear the “will of God”, people with titles like ‘Archduke of Badassery and son of human Lion’ were widely seen as especially competent in warfare. Nowadays, most people do not accept those old Bullsh*ts but it is a fact that at the time these were the designated ‘experts’ who ‘knew what they were doing’ and it took massive and repeated show of incompetence by these ‘experts’ along with more workable alternatives for people to see the whole game of charades for the scam it was. It took medical breakthroughs for people to see the obvious incompetence of witchdoctors and the repeated a*s-whooping of ‘nobles’ and ‘brave-bloodlines’ by Napoleon’s ‘peasant-army’ to break off from the cozy delusion that common people could not fight against ‘nobles’.

We are currently at very interesting times, we are seeing the unraveling of one of the biggest scams of modern times: the belief in the competence of talking heads and empty suits on TV and papers. These are the same people who declared that Vietcong and NVA would be “wiped-out” in 8 weeks, they again declared that Iraq was a “masterstroke” by Dubya and Americans would be greeted as “liberators”, these people never saw the financial crisis coming (or for that matter any crisis), these same people cannot stop gushing about the strength of American  military when in reality this overrated mercenary group cannot defeat a bunch of barefoot Afghan goat herders after spending 70% of the planet’s military budget. I can go on and on but just open any back issue of ‘Time’ (or any other American publication) and see how these people never got anything right.

“All that is fine”, you say, “but what does that have to do anything with Trump’s rise and is Trump not a racist-bigot who speaks in code-words of hate.” First of all this is America we are talking about, here EVERYTHING is about race and EVERYONE speaks in code-words. Here “law and order” means giving police a free hand to kill and jail minorities, “personal responsibility” means f**k you to the poor (again mostly minorities), “HOPE AND CHANGE” means swapping one group of sociopathic self-serving powerful people with another group of sociopathic self-serving powerful people (albeit with different skin pigmentation or gender), “war on terror” means bombing and terrorizing brown people in far-off lands and “model-minority” means striving losers who are expected to work for chump-change and shut-up for an intermediary place between Whites and Blacks (at least in their minds). So Trump is certainly not unique in his race-baiting and usage of code-language, it is an American tradition that everyone follows. So there is something else that explains the supposedly “inexplicable” Trump phenomenon and the frothing at the mouth hatred he gets from media-political industrial complex and it has nothing to do with “values”, or “principles”, those two things are as alien to American life as ET is to Earth.

So what exactly has caused Trump’s rise, there have been many articles written about how it is his media savvy, showmanship and celebrity culture that causes people to follow him, but is that really so? While I do not question Trump’s talent in handling the media, it is a minor and insignificant part of his rise, remember America has always had wealthy dudes with Trump’s personality and fame but no one could pull off a Trump. So let us try to understand the real reasons behind this phenomenon:

Loss of faith in competence of professional politicians: The modern nation-state is a relatively new creation and derived its legitimacy by explicitly promising and delivering increase in living standards. In exchange the state demanded absolute loyalty from its subjects. In western countries, white men in pants and suits replaced white men in robes and garments because they delivered the goods for the people. Now, most of that wealth was stolen from rest of the world but that did not stop the west from believing in their own Bullsh*it about “exceptionalism”, “superior culture and work-ethic”, “better governance” and “superior institutions”. However that gravy train of colonialism left the station long time back and Western countries can no longer loot and plunder black and brown countries to satisfy their home populations.

The belief in competence of professional politicians has been a cornerstone of western democracies (esp. America), it however has taken an unusually large hit in the last decade or two. It took repeated military failures, financial crisis and inability of the political class to do anything about these to erode the faith of a significant portion (if not majority) of the people living in America of their child-like faith in the competence of their leaders and institution.  Add to that the repeated financial sodomy committed by Corporations, screwing of workers, bad experiences with the ever growing law and order industry has left a very bad taste with a lot of Americans. Many Americans (mostly younger ones) no longer believe that people in position of power have their best interest in hearts and are widely seen as corporate stooges working only for the benefit of the uber-rich, add to that there is also substantial number of people who have (correctly) lost all faith in the competence of government to get anything done. Trump seems to have grasped this massive dissonance that the political establishment in America has spent 50 years to create.

You see, no President in living memory has fulfilled even a small part of their campaign promises and people have rightly learnt to tune out whenever a politician comes up with a 20-point policy plan, Trump seems to understand how much (or little) public cares about these policy proposals and his reluctance to divulge policy details is likely a way to be seen as more authentic than other politicians. BTW I am in no way implying that Trump is any more competent than the politicians he is replacing or that he would follow up with his proposals because let’s face it when was the last time any elected official did what was promised. What I am saying is that a substantial number of the electorate is ready to give the benefit of doubt to an unusual looking reality star billionaire because they have lost all faith in the political establishment.

Internet: Why did the West become so militarily impotent after WW2, why can they not beat rag-tag groups of black and brown insurgents even after spending more money on weaponry than at any time in history? Now many of the self-serving explanations given by western ‘thinkers’ centers around west suddenly “learning from the carnage of WW2” or “rise of compassion” or “going soft on enemies” but is that really so? West and especially America has never shied away from killing non-whites, USA dropped more explosives in Vietnam than was dropped on Germany in WW2 but still they lost, what happened?

The single biggest reason for West’s military impotence was the invention of AK-47. Western countries were no longer facing natives armed with spears and arrows, in short the invader could no longer exploit in peace and safety. Widespread dissemination of small arms and loss of overwhelming technological superiority took away the real reason West was so dominant for 200 years and suddenly lost its edge. In modern warfare the ‘big-guns’ are just not decisive as shown repeatedly by the NVA, Taliban and ISIS. What really changed was that West could no longer translate body counts to meaningful and lasting victory.

A similar thing has happened in the communication sphere. There was a time not long back when publications like NYT, WP, Time, CNN, FOX and other assorted court scribes collectively called the Main Stream Media (MSM) enjoyed overwhelming advantage over dissenting opinions, they could effectively ostracize dissenting viewpoints to the fringes and declare their proponents modern day heretics (kooks and cranks). The invention of internet irreversibly changed that, the Big Media is no longer decisive. Add to that most American people have now come to realize that the talking heads and journalists are mostly careerist-strivers who are in it for themselves and are not especially competent at what they do.  The media landscape (thanks to the internet) resembles more like insurgency where everyone is armed and the big guns do not decide the war. But that still does not explain the hatred Trump gets from the MSM

You see political media has always been a scam that was based on guild dynamics and run on patronage. The various media people owe their cozy lifestyle to the belief of political and ruling class in their ability to shape public opinion. This is why Trump’s candidacy threatens them so much, he bypasses the middle man. The hatred of media is no different than that of a retailer for Amazon/Flipkart and if Trump pulls this feat off then these journos and other consultants are in a very real threat of being rendered irrelevant. Sadly (or Fortunately), no matter what happens to Trump’s candidacy the dynamics that allowed the power enjoyed by the MSM is gone irreversibly as the media and communications steadily become more democratic, flatter and un-hierarchical due to the Internet.

USA is a (sorta) prosperous Third World Banana Republic:  Now this one would be the most difficult for people to grasp. Isn’t USA the “shining city on the Hill”, “the last best hope for mankind”, “the greatest political experiment in history”? A short answer to all that is No, USA is and has always been a Third world Banana Republic that hit the jackpot and believed that they earned it.

You see America has never been good to its citizens. This obvious reality was always understood by Blacks but as long as the good times were rolling (1950s-1980s) it was overlooked by Whites. What has changed now is that even the Whites can no longer ignore the obvious dysfunctionality and  inherent suckiness of life in USA. This is a country where a CEO can jack up the price of a 50 year old drug by 6000% and suffer no consequences, this is also the country that incarcerates more people than North Korea, China and Russia and where judges routinely give out 80 years prison sentence like they were handing cookies. This is the country where buying and selling of politicians to the biggest bidder (i.e. lobbying) is not only acceptable but also bragged about. This is the country where most people are one serious illness away from financial ruin.This is the country where a sociopathic CEO can fire thousands of people, ruin whole communities, steal investors’ money, get government bailout for his incompetence and still be on the cover of Time magazine to the adulation of suckers whose lives he destroyed. This is the country where even the lowest of low flunkies responsible for the debacle in Iraq and Economy has not and will not be punished.

You see Americans are almost exceptional in their delusions of grandeur, it amazes me no end when a White American claims to be worried about how an American President would be received by ‘the WORLD’ while his social-security gets cut to bare bones, job outsourced to far off lands and desperate wannabe Americans imported to do his job for half the cost. America has never been good to its non-whites but now it is starting to squeeze even its White population and only geriatrics, White Conservatives and Asian strivers are foolish enough to believe in the American Dream. Blacks and Hispanics always knew that American Dreamzzzz is and has always been bullsh*t told by white people who were born on the third base and thought they hit a home run.

Things have become so unusually sucky in America in the last two decades that even the biggest Patriotard cannot overlook the fact that whole country is a gigantic scam run by and for the super wealthy and no amount of PR can fix that. Tell me, in which country is a cop more likely to get away scot free after extrajudicial killing of unarmed person caught on TAPE: America or India? In which country is a repeated failure and financial scam artist more likely to become the Treasury chief: America or India? In which country are the higher ups more likely punish lower bureaucrats for abuse of power: America or China? In which country is the police response more likely to resemble that of Gaddaffi and Assad to peaceful mass protests: America or any of the ‘Third World’ countries? In which country is a politician more likely to pass a public screwing legislation and then cash in with a cushy job at an MNC: America or any of the failed state of the week put up by Time Magazine? In which country is your retirement fund more likely to be raided by shysters and government’s response be to suck it up: America or China? In which country is a disabled war-veteran more likely to be scrounging the streets for food and dying due to lack of medical care: America or India? Where are you more likely to be shot at random by a bitter burnouts: America or the rest of the World?

If the definition of a banana republic is that you can feel an inherent instability in the way the system functions, if you can reasonably foresee the unviability of the status quo and where most of the population believes in one conspiracy theory or the other to explain the difference between PR and reality then America is far closer to being a Banana republic than any of the countries Americans give lecture to.

What everyone got wrong this election is that the fastest growing demographic in America is not Hispanics, it is cynical burnouts who have a very accurate understanding of how much the country sucks. This demographic may not be the majority right now but it will soon be. One of the oft repeated phrases is that “Hope is the strongest force in the Universe” like most conventional wisdom it gets the reality exactly wrong. In reality, it is when people lose all hope that they become the strongest, cynicism and bad faith are far stronger agents of change than HOPE and FAITH could ever be. Trumpmania is the latest and till date the most prominent manifestation of that loss of sucker hope and will only grow stronger whether he wins or loses.

This article is not about how to write a good project, nor is it about how to scam it well. Instead, this article is about how to make sure that project writing becomes an ‘activity’ in law school, beyond a mere ‘course component’. 68 exams, 37 projects, 4 internships, and a few conventional law school competitions later, I have realised that the best way to learn and understand law is to write about it. Though a lot of ink has been spent on why academic writing is important, this analysis can be left to some other piece on some other day. However, this article proceeds with the assumptions that project writing per se (not necessarily in the current format) is an important activity, so much so that we need to actively promote it. In the first part of the piece, I explore the seemingly obvious reasons for the failure of the current incentive structure. In the second part, I argue for generating some incentives (and subsequently, culture) from within the student community, instead of waiting for systemic reforms (apologies for sounding like a research methodology at this point). Obviously, many things can be done from the side of the administration and faculty to make project writing more meaningful. However, in this piece, I am only concerned with what we (the students) can do.

Project Writing as a Course Component: Why our Incentive Structures are Broken

Arguably, project writing lies at the heart of academics at NLS. Projects, by design, are actually meant to be the part of our coursework that allows us at least a modicum of autonomy and an opportunity to be creative. One can make innovative arguments, and use projects as a means to getting a grasp on some interesting ideas. In some cases, one can even choose their own project topic for a given course. Then why are projects that should ideally be the most exciting part of our coursework still such a burden for most? I believe, the reason lies in broken incentive structures, and consequently, a lost culture of academic writing.

Better Projects, Better Marks?

First, perhaps, is the absent correlation between quality of projects and the marks awarded, the most tangible of all benefits to us. Most of the teachers mark us within a defined band – so, the difference between an excellent project and a below-average project only translates into a difference of a few marks. For many of us, getting those extra marks is not worth the effort required to make an excellent projects. Even if those marks are relevant for some, they are often fooled by the randomness in marking of projects. Many teachers mark projects without even glancing through them, judging you based on your ability to sound impressive for five minutes. Sometimes it’s plain favoritism. Therefore, the most obvious of the incentives, i.e., ‘more marks’ has clearly failed to be a good incentive.

So why should we still think projects are worth sweating over? Because, there may be other incentives beyond your course. Let’s explore the other incentives that may motivate some of us to write good projects.

Personal Satisfaction

One such incentive can be personal satisfaction. Writing good projects improves your research and writing skills. These skills may be relevant to you in the long-term. In the short term, it only gives you personal satisfaction. What does ‘personal satisfaction’ mean here?

For many of us, there is a loss of confidence in our intelligence over time, if we don’t satisfy ourselves of our capacity to produce good work. Sustained progression of courses where project making is a painful, uninspiring process and coursework which is sub-par often blot out inspiration to produce something we can be proud of. And without it, we have limited avenues to enhance our legal thinking, research and writing skills (our soon to be bread and butter). This mixture of growth, actual learning, and confidence is what I mean by personal satisfaction.

So, can the sinking boat of legal writing survive on this incentive? I believe not. Incentives like this are very personal, and may not work with a majority of students. If we believe that project-writing has to sustain successfully at an institutional level, it is probably not a good idea to rely on this essentially personal incentive.

A Pat on the Back

For many of us, there is another very important incentive – honest appreciation by the professor. Let’s call it ‘appreciation incentive’. However, central to generating these opinions/appreciation, lies a basic requirement – for appreciating a paper, one has to read it. Unfortunately, 45 compulsory courses and 37 projects later, I won’t even exhaust ten fingers to count the number of teachers who actually read my projects. For the subjects where we are aware that teachers actually read and care about the projects, this ‘appreciation’ incentive clearly worked for me, as well as a significant number of my batchmates. Several of them outdid themselves, put in honest hours at the library, and made projects they were excited to present and defend before these handful of teachers who read them and engaged with them.

For some other subjects, I relied on a mixture of ‘personal satisfaction’ incentive and ‘more marks’ incentive. For the ones left, I couldn’t care much. This is the story of another broken incentive.

Getting Published

There can be another important incentive – that of getting published. It is not only one of the most coveted things you can have on your CV, but will also be something which will permanently contribute to the literature on that issue. Ideally, at least this incentive should work with a large number of students, but it doesn’t. There are, again, obvious reasons for the failure of this incentive. In an environment where every second day the Lawctopus feed gives you a list of 10 scam journals, publishing per se doesn’t seem to be a difficult task. But, publishing worth achievement requires much more than writing a good project. There are very few good journals at national level. Most of these journals are either annual or bi-annual, so they automatically limit the number of slots. Further, the effort required for an international journal is way more than what is required even for an excellent project. Finally, the selection of an article for publishing is also hurdled by a bunch of random factors like the relevance of topic, your position, etc. Due to sheer lack of opportunities and due to the amount of hard work that is required, publishing does not work as a strong enough incentive for a large section of students.

Therefore, my conclusion at this point is that though the aforementioned incentives at play may work with certain individuals, they are not sufficient to promote project writing at the institutional level.

So, what do we do?

What do we talk about when we talk about legal writing as an ‘activity’

Simply put, an activity, as opposed to course component, is something that does not form part of curriculum. Hence, the primary incentives that make students involve themselves in activities are external to curriculum. Barring a few exceptions, we have largely excelled at such activities at NLS. According to me, at least in part, these successes can be attributed to them being activities, that is, their incentives are beyond curriculum.

Moot courts can prove to be a good comparison.They are also academic in nature, most of the major moots requiring as much or probably more hard work than a good project would require. What can be the reason that students at law school are continuously striving towards producing high quality moot memorials (without their exemption marks really dependent on the quality of arguments in the memorial), and not projects?

Arguably, it may be because some may find researching for moot courts more intellectually stimulating than projects. But that is not universally true. Unlike in moot courts, where the issues are already identified for you in most cases, a good academic argument requires you to also identify the issues yourself. This act of problematising a seemingly simple legal provision or principle is often more challenging and interesting for some individuals than working on a given set of problems. Therefore, the importance given to moot court as an activity over legal writing in law school is not merely due to characteristics inherent to mooting, but because of an institutional predisposition to consider and promote it as a highly valuable activity.

What makes it a highly valuable activity? Apart from the fact that you learn a new area of law and the CV value (which the humble academic paper can also deliver), other factors such as immediate peer appreciation, travelling, etc truly make it a valued activity. This immediate peer appreciation goes a long way in creating a culture where moot memorials are not seen as mere replacement of projects. Therefore, though there is a curricular incentive with moot courts, i.e., project marks, our attitude towards moot courts is not that of ‘course component’, but that of an ‘activity’.

The challenge that lies ahead of us, as students, is – can we, as a student body, make academic writing a thriving activity at NLS?

The erstwhile Student Advocate

Before we explore what we can do, it’s important to know what used to exist. What we know now as ‘NLSIR’ was earlier known as Student Advocate. In its early days, it did not comprise of articles by area experts, but articles by students at NLS. Therefore, getting your article selected for Student Advocate and subsequent publication used to be a ‘thing’. It not only got you published but also got you some immediate peer appreciation. However, Student Advocate later became a leading law review of the country. It was no longer restricted to students at NLS. With its transformation into a law review, it ceased to provide a viable avenue of publishing to current students at NLS.

SBA Working Paper Series

Therefore, while we are no longer have Student Advocate, there is probably a need to fill that void. Starting an SBA Working Paper Series, either under the SBA or by relevant committees/research centers, that provides students with an avenue to publish their projects can be one such solution. It may also incentivize students to write better projects, so that they can get published in the next series of Student Working Papers. In fact, after every trimester, it should be one thing that students look out for. Apart from the purpose of promoting project writing, it can also serve another purpose beneficial to our institution – that of contribution of knowledge to outside world.

Students produce knowledge by writing good projects, but once those projects are marked,they often turn into paper waste. Some of these projects contain very valuable research that may be relevant for people looking for such knowledge, may it be for research, for policy or for something else. The SBA Working Paper series is a good way of ensuring that the knowledge that is produced within the confines of project writing is also managed properly. As compared to IIMs and IITs, the studies by whom are continuously reported about and published publicly, NLS as an institution produces little knowledge for the public. We have the benefit of being the best law school of the country (isn’t that what the rankings say?). Good research work by the students on any area of law has to be taken seriously by outsiders. SBA Working Paper Series can be one such way where the knowledge produced within the boundaries of NLS is thrown out in public. This further incentivizes the students to work on their projects with the incentive of being published in mind.

Culture of Academic Writing

While the incentives definitely play an important role in promoting an activity, we need to generate a culture of academic writing. Generating such a culture will require us to take multiple steps – such as seniors organizing legal writing sessions for juniors (like we have debate training sessions) and having paper discussion groups, wherein one can discuss her paper with her peers (part of what PLDG currently seeks to do). Above all, it is important for younger batches to not treat project writing just as a course component that has to completed for those 35 marks, but start taking them as lessons for learning legal writing.
Perhaps, we all agree that glass house libraries and classes in law school do not equip us with everything that a professional lawyer requires, may it be in litigation, corporate job, teaching or policy work. To be fair, we don’t even expect such training from law schools. However, the bare minimum that law school environment successfully does, or at least is supposed to do, is to teach us to research and write well. Through the system of written project assignments, law schools aim at achieving that purpose.

The author would like to thank Sharwari Pandit and Akshat Agarwal for their inputs and discussions without which this article would not be possible. 

Over the past two months, many incidents have brought to our notice the debate over the question of whether it is right to publicly name and shame the perpetrator of an instance of harassment, whether or not the victim has chosen to file a complaint. Let me disclose my own bias before I proceed further. My own personal encounter with this question, as some of the readers might be aware, stemmed from an instance of verbal sexual harassment I faced as a participant at the 55th Triannual public meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. In the absence of proper mechanisms for dealing with this kind of incident – to the extent that a global body of the stature of ICANN did not have a definition of what amounted to sexual harassment – I ultimately felt like my complaint was not being heard, and therefore in a final bid to ensure that the issue did not die down, I issued a public statement where I named the perpetrator at the outset. I was the complainant, and I had chosen to waive my confidentiality. To my bewilderment, this pushed me to the centre of a controversy that took a direction I had not been anticipating at all. I found myself the target of harsh criticism for breaching the confidentiality of the perpetrator. Men and women who had hitherto been on my side turned against me, and told me in no uncertain terms that the damage I had caused was not fixable. The focus of the issue shifted entirely from the pressing problem that I, as a female student from India, faced sexual harassment from Mr. Khaled Fattal (woops, named him again), the global chairman of the Multilingual Internet Group. Instead, I became the target of much flak because I had breached some abstract duty of confidentiality I apparently owed. I had to make it clear that because of the failure of the process to give me a satisfactory outcome, or indeed even a satisfactory hearing, I was constrained to call him out, as otherwise my case would have been shut without further analysis. The ICANN ombudsman had the dubious authority of investigating this case, and his final report shut down my case on grounds that confidentiality had been breached, and that somehow mysteriously tampers with the fairness of procedure. I appealed this decision, and that is where the matter stands.

After almost a month, I find myself witnessing a controversy of a similar nature with respect to the case of a certain faculty member who had allegedly directed sexist comments towards a student of the NLSIU community. In the media storm that erupted, he has been named in each and every report, kicking up the question of whether this is fair, whether this violates natural justice and the dignity of the professor in question, and whether he is entitled to his privacy pending investigation.

These two instances I have cited above depict two different scenarios. In the first, there was an acute lack of procedure, due to which the victim felt as though all channels of justice had been exhausted, and naming the perpetrator was the only route available to ensure that at least something would be done. In the second, the naming was not by the victim, but by some outraged member of the student community who perhaps believed that naming would be an effective way to ensure an adequate response from the authorities as well as have the effect of censuring the professor in question. In this light, I appreciate that it is difficult to achieve the balance between the rights of the accused and the freedom of expression of those who feel targeted by his alleged actions. There is no sole gold standard that can be achieved. Is it justified to expect someone who is a victim to stay silent if he or she feels that his or her case will fade away into oblivion in the event that it is not brought to public light? On the other hand, is it fair to expose the alleged perpetrator to a trial by public opinion, especially if that call has not been taken by the victim?

Confidentiality, as per our campus sexual harassment rules, is mandatory for all proceedings of harassment, and is a duty vested upon all parties to the proceeding. However, in the absence of initiation of proceedings – which is solely the victim’s call to take – or in the event that the procedures prove inadequate or unjust, what recourse does the victim have?

There can be divided opinion on the effectiveness of naming and shaming. On one hand, it does prove as an awareness raising mechanism, and in the event that all other remedies have failed, can often be the only tool that the victim has. It is certainly not an easy task to speak out about this, and the person who does name and shame often faces the backlash for it. On the other hand, however, it might seem like there is an unjust association now being made in the mind of the public about the alleged perpetrator, and there may not always be a forum for him or her to present his or her side of the story, especially if proceedings have not been initiated.

At the end of the day, this is a choice that has to be exercised with caution. If there is an investigation underway, it is wiser to respect the process – but only until the victim does not feel as if the process is failing him or her. In the event that there is no investigation, again, naming and shaming can be used as a deterrence tool, but those who do name and shame must be prepared to justify their need for doing so, with sound reason and logic, and also be prepared to respond to possible counter statements on the part of the alleged perpetrator. At the end of the day, the real question is one of how best to attain justice in the least painful and most effective way possible. In my personal opinion, only if there is truly no other recourse that appears meaningful to those who have been affected, should this be resorted to, lest we get caught up in a campaign of demonizing, which can often detract from the focus of the problem.

All agreements and disagreements with this piece are welcome. Write back at [email protected].

The featured image has been taken from Hatecopy.

One morning, if you were to summon the courage to wake up early (or if you were to involuntarily wake up after a late night alcohol binge), and stand in front of your mirror and tilt it at an angle so that the first rays of sunlight hit your reflection, you might happen to see a gaping hole in the center of your chest. It won’t be a perfect circle, but a mass of raw, gaping tissue, as if somebody had clawed their way through your sternum. You would be shocked that you were still alive. This hole had begun innocently enough, as a discolored bruise. One day you noticed it had assumed the texture of a scratch. Two mornings earlier it was an incised wound, and you were seriously considering going to the doctor. Now you look at yourself and expect to faint, but somehow you’re still standing and everything around you is just as ordinary as ever.

The doctor at the hospital doesn’t think anything’s wrong. Your blood pressure, temperature, all vital stats came normal. You repeatedly point to your chest and he gives a slight leery glance, adjusts his spectacles and says, “Really dear, there’s nothing there. The X Rays don’t show anything. Maybe you should take some rest. It will be alright, eventually.” So you put down your hole to an early morning hallucination because really, if you were that hurt you would have bled to death by now.

You carry on with the motions, going to class, going to lunch, going out with friends, going to bed, repeat, ad nauseum. You consciously avoid looking at the hole when you dress in the morning, but its presence haunts you in the form of a dull, throbbing pain which refuses to subside. You watch your favourite music videos, read your favourite books, binge-eat, crack the same stupid jokes you do in every conversation. Nobody notices your wound. It occurs to you that maybe some supernatural spirit crept into your bedroom at night and ripped out your heart, replacing it with some imposter organ. Blood doesn’t flows in your veins anymore. It has been replaced by a bitter, corrosive poison. You cannot summon the energy to do anything, not even cry. The melancholy of not being able to share your predicament has been replaced by a strange listlessness that makes you want to sleep all the time.

This time, the doctor sends you to a ‘specialist’, one who claims to know all about such holes. He personally thinks it is hogwash, but suggests you give it a try. The specialist scientifically explains the different types of holes she has encountered over the years-splinters left by heartbreaks, cracks from years of abuse, valleys carved out by professional failure. “I haven’t experienced any of these,” you say numbly. Your own voice sounds alien to you now, so do your body and your mannerisms.

“Try yoga,” she says helpfully, with the all too bright smile of someone who knows she has a lost case on her hands, but tries anyway. “Or exercise. I have some books you can read-”

“Tried all of that. Thanks.”

“Well darling, you can’t be like this forever, you know, it isn’t normal.”

“I know,” you say helplessly.

“Well I have these, err, toffees, they are really good,” she says, her eyes flashing.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t worry these things happen. It will be alright, eventually.”

So you take her toffees, and they taste okay enough, and they dull your senses even more and make you want to sleep all the time, but you’re like ‘whatever, she said it would help patch up the hole.’ Instead it only widens, so now you can see all the blood vessels inside, and how they’ve been corrupted.

When you tell your mother, she expresses disbelief at first, and then advises you to go to a priest. “This is all because of the absence of God,” she says wisely, a bit too wisely. “Turn to prayer, and it will be alright, eventually.” You say thanks and put down the phone. You are old enough and smart enough to know how your predecessors had turned to religion or communism or art or fanaticism, that most people with holes end up becoming radicals or revolutionaries of some sort, and those who can’t turn to other, different kinds of toffees to solve their problems.

You often surmise why is it that in a world with billions of people, you had to be the only one with this ailment. Are you some kind of Chosen One? You know that isn’t true though, there have been people before you, and people after you, and many of them have gone on to become successful professionals, artists, doctors, businessmen and criminals. You watch their documentaries, watch at how they laugh and talk about how it’s all okay now, how they’ve managed to assimilate with the crowd, and wonder how is it that they can lie so convincingly.

You know that this is an epidemic spreading across the students of the world, and that while it cuts across barriers of caste, class, religion and gender, it affects some communities more than it does others. You think back upon your past and wonder if it was always there in you, even as a child, this inability to reconcile yourself with the world and the people who inhabit it. You read about a boy who loved science and stars and nature, and wonder why his words resonate with you so much. When you tell your friends, they will laugh and say, “You’re so silly yaar, you worry about such silly things.” Your spouse pats your head comfortingly and says, “It’s the office stress, I know it. Let’s go on a trip to Switzerland. My friend told me about this amazing offer-”

Needles knit up your lips, a curtain of nonchalance drapes your eyes, and just like that a mask is constructed. The corruption is finally complete. Your entire body is now hollow. Your in-laws will express their approval at your transformation and say, “See we knew, having children would solve it. Things always become alright, eventually.”

Years from now on, activists will politicize your hole and journalists will write tell-all articles about it and reams of medical opinion will be published on the diagnosis of holes and how proper treatment could have saved you. Strangers on Facebook will make your hole their public property, as if they had always known it was there and had lived with it, in fact, were best friends with it. Those who claimed to be closest to you will express confusion and distaste and sorrow and say, “Well, we had no idea they were that sick! They never said anything! They were always so hale and hearty, not even a common cold. I swear to god, right up till that day-they were-”

Right up till that day, you will see it in the mirror, that abyss inside you. You will shrug and walk out, with a last glance at your reflection. It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself, before closing the door. It will be alright, eventually.