What Women's Commissions Were Meant to Do, and What They Are Doing Now

In the last decade of the 20th century, National Commission for Women member Padma Seth, who is a lawyer and the daughter of Ananthasayanam Iyengar, the first speaker of Lok Sabha, explained to the country the NCW Act, 1990. 

These lines are being written against that background. 

At the time, Mohini Giri, Padma Seth and Syeda Hameed were members of the National Commission for Women. The NCW and the state women’s commissions used to be nationally acclaimed for the way they fearlessly questioned people sitting in the highest citadels of power on gender issues. 

Now, an apex body that has been constituted to safeguard the rights of women chose to single out a Muslim academician who pointed out the symbolism or ‘optics’ that was used by the government in showcasing a Muslim woman as upholder of ‘Operation Sindoor’. He was speaking truth to power by saying that you have singled out a woman and Muslim woman to show your ‘tehzeeb’ but what have you done for the millions of Muslim women (and men) who are being abused, tormented and vilified in your state and all over the country? 

One wonders if the Haryana State Commission for Women has even understood the compelling provisions of ‘Chapter 111’ of the NCW Act. The National Commission for Women Act, 1990 (Haryana State Commission for Women Act 2012) in ‘Chapter 111’ lists Functions of the Commission in fourteen provisions meant to protect the lives and rights of all women. 

The piece by professor Ali Khan Mahmoodabad praises people across the country who stood for victims of Baisaran. He hails the two women from two religious backgrounds, Wing Commander Vyomika Singh and Colonel Sofiya Qureshi. He states that a Muslim woman’s role in this regard is laudable but should the powers who shower praises on her not extend all the way down to millions of Muslim women? The very Muslim women who have in the last decade been victims of ‘zulm’, persecution and injustice? 

The Haryana SCW pounced on two words of the professor’s statement without even understanding their import. In keeping with its mandate, however, it could have equally pounced upon the lynchings and killings in the state. Muslim women who, post destruction and death, are left to gather wreckage of lives of their families, need the unwavering support of the National and state Commissions for Women. This was the fulcrum of the NCW Act, 1990. The NCRB shows that in 2022 Haryana had a reported rate of 118.7 per 100,000 crimes against women making it the second highest in India. 

The Haryana SCW chair, Renu Bhatia issued summons to Ali Khan and immediately visited the campus. There was an urgency in the demeanour of SCW, and I wonder why. There was a parallel activity going on. One Yogesh Jatheri Sarpanch of Jatheri village and member of the Yuva Morcha of BJP was following in the footsteps of SCW. Comments and actions of the two public entities reveal not only deep-rooted prejudices and biases but would go down in history as how institutions are becoming sand castles to keep alive the semblance of democracy. 

Also read: The Curious Crusade of Renu Bhatia Against Ashoka Professor Mahmudabad

The NCW was once a powerful body that took up cudgels with the ruling powers to ensure justice to women. We recall the power of NCW and SCW who never bowed their heads before those in power. One prime example of this is when in 1996 Mohini Giri, the chair of the NCW gave her resignation letter to prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda in protest against being dictated to by ministers and ministries. The prime minister declined to accept her resignation and sent social justice and empowerment minister Balwant Singh Ramoowalia to reassure the NCW. During the same period, the director general of Doordarshan was summoned by the NCW for dismissing older women newsreaders. He submitted that ‘log unse ub gaye hain (people are bored with them)’ and later appeared before the NCW and rectified the matter. 

In 1998, the chairperson of NCW summoned the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Kalyan Singh, for his remark on the parliament in the context of the Women's Reservation Bill. The women who would come to the parliament, he said, would be ‘baal kati’ and ‘parkati mahilayein (short-haired women)’. He could not appear but sent his closest aide Amar Singh to depose before NCW. 

Many other instances have been recorded of NCW questioning the highest levels of government – individual ministers and  secretaries – across the country when it came to the violation of women's rights. So the question needs to be asked: are SCW (in this case Haryana) formed to play politics of the ruling regime? Does the Haryana SCW give any attention to the fact that Haryana is among top charts in violence against women? Was it dignified for the SCW to latch on to an incident that has nothing to do with gender, and nothing to do with any form of sexist biases? Has it become 'new normal' to use commissions to target dissenting voices and curb academic freedom? 

The Supreme Court has granted interim bail to Ali Khan Mahmoodabad. In granting the bail, the apex court was of the opinion that his post was published to garner “cheap publicity” at a “precarious time”. The opinion stands in stark contrast when compared to the order passed by the same court, in response to a vitriolic comment made by the minister of the ruling party. 

Lines of the poet Amir Minai come to mind.

Qareeb hai yaar roz e mahshar chhupe ga kushton ka khoon kyunkar
Jo chup rahe gi zuban e khanjar lahu pukare ga aasteen ka 

The Day of Judgment nears, how will the blood of our wounds be hidden?
If the dagger’s voice is silenced the blood on the sleeve will speak.

Syeda Hameed is a writer and the founder chair of the Muslim Women’s Forum.

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