Karma is not a happy word

In 2015 I did some pre-PhD fieldwork which was also a part of a project on access to justice in India that I was involved in. I was, and in fact still remain, very curious about non-state systems of justice. What does ‘non-state’ even mean? Can there be ‘justice’ without a State? Or is life “short, nasty and brutish” as Hobbes would have us think? But then, what is Karma if not the eternal cycle of Justice?

Eager as a worker bee, I made a few phone calls and before I knew it, I had an invite to visit a Mahila Adalat, a community court in Khatima, a distant village— not because it is far, but because it was and is remote from every version of my reality and yes, the State. Located in Uttrakhand, this small village town is in the northern hilly region of India. Not too far from Haldwani, where sooted and blackened industrial and power plants laid the landscape ghostly and opaque. I would have enjoyed the view of wildly green trees if I could have avoided a concussion on that long bumpy bus ride. Turns out, I took the long route in, and my host who had traveled out to pick me from the bus stop had given up. An uncertain journey on the tuk-tuk gave me my first view of the wide emptiness of Khatima. But it was not hard to spot the Mahila Adalat. A bare double story building with only the words painted on its terrace walls for everyone to see. Before the marginal surroundings, it didn’t look majestic but it definitely stood out.

The people of Khatima are diverse, just as in the rest of the country. Rajputs, Nepalis, indigenous, and a lot of the settlers from the ‘pahadi illaka’ or the mountains that now worked in the small plants and mills in the village town. As I got there, the office help Kishore showed me in past the porch and an empty room, which in another setting would have had sofas and a TV. I later wondered what brought Kishore into the organisation and he explained that he makes more money here. “On the farm, it wasn’t easy. We were two brothers, and the land gets divided even more.”

Kishore soon became an important informant about the ins and outs of the Mahila Adalat or ‘Women’s Courts’— a forum that was set up to replicate other community justice systems that were for, by and with the women and dealt with family matters — domestic violence, land disputes and rights of children and wives to inheritance. Women who engaged in social services and education led others within the community into a feminist dialogue about change that for once heard the voices of women and knew the pulse of their needs and contexts. The women leading the movement had worked with local crisis centers, health and welfare organisations, and in social work in the state.

They would meet, protest, drag in policemen and journalists. TV Journalists! with big cameras that matched the ambitions of the women and the challenges they faced. Even when they were few, they would get together and plan, conspiring against patriarchy, laughing at the men, whose limitations and egos of vulnerabilities they were acutely conscious of. I know the western feminist scholarship would consider their attempts inadequate, and rooted in inequality, but the women valued their family and identity too. Kandiyoti’s ‘bargaining with patriarchy’ finally made sense to me. Having a bit of both the worlds, they were being strategic and making change processual — the only way it can actually be achieved.

I stayed those nights at a small bed and breakfast; unfortunately, there were no families that could house me. My host who ran the Mahila Adalat had had an emergency and I didn’t want to burden her more. So while I managed on tuk-tuks and buses, for the most part, come sunset, I continued to be dependent on Kishore. Late one evening Kishore gave me a ride from office on his bike to the BnB, taking me deeper into the town and then to its outer-limits, as men and women alike stared. I tore my gaze away. Looked at the things, their networks of being, the people as agents and not those who were gawking at me, to whom I was an entity — an object to study. But then, had I not come to study them, their lives, their ideas of justice and violence?

Me: there are so many women who have joined the movement here!

K: yeah, but they are all like that.

Me: What do you mean?

K: They only come for the free lunch — the tea and samosa.

How deeply rooted and closely seated to the movement was pernicious patriarchal contempt!

While the theatrics of law in Khatima were the font of an intellectual journey for me, the people, the poverty, the silence and darkness of the village was a thorn in my side for my time there. It is also funny though, that while they made me uncomfortable, it is the people of Khatima who kept me from risk and stuck their neck out for me. I was safe. In fact, did I ever keep them safe? Have I ever done enough for them? Will I?

Before I caught up with the rhythm of these combatants against patriarchy, the farmworkers and homemakers were interviewing with journalists about alcoholism, police failures and family violence. Their lives were always abuzz. My visit had coincided with the 10 year anniversary of the Domestic Violence Act and they were organizing streets protesting to commemorate it. Laws had changed, but social realities — not. The constant ‘gap problem’ of law in action that I was to read more about with Prof. David Nelken in the years to come, was here again!

That sweltering afternoon, over 150 women marched from the office in Khatima to the police station at the district centre at Uddham Singh Nagar. For once they would be loud, visible and heard by the Law. Yet here they were, sitting on the floor of a police station, while a man looked down from his comfortable chair, instructing them about the law — as if it was the women who need to be told! I wondered how much of it was actually going to be remembered. I was teaching courses on law at the time at University and had been a student until about seven years before. If memory served me right, only 20% of anything ever percolated into a student’s mind. And if teaching experience taught me anything, it was that half of this was often all wrong.

I sat among the women at the back, haunched on our knees, their scarves and sarees hiding their face from the unforgiving sun, and not sharam — a word that does not easily translate to English. A feminine shyness that should be preserved for dignity or face in society. The litany of laws carried on as women shuffled on their feet their bangles and anklets adding a squeak to a soft gossip that was beginning to rear its head.

I parted from the session which had been going on for hours unabated to take notes on my sound recorder and to give my body a rest. I had been surviving on a few hours of sleep and little food, and lesser water. There were no stops for a washroom. I wondered how the women survived. Yet, looking back, that was the most productive time of my life. As I walked through the dirt streets, with dryness under my nails and dust in my hair, I was always making notes, even if I had defeatedly accepted the vacancy that had rapt everything and everyone. A sentiment that echoed with a research participant who had come to the Mahila Adalat for advice about her run-away husband and abusive in-laws.

Me: When he has made you unhappy, why do you want to go back to him?

B: I want him to take me back, and give me the status I deserve. He married me at a temple, and now he has gone and left me with my parents!

Me: do you not want to work and make a living? Why not focus on that?

B: What are the chances for me. (It wasn’t a question.)

Me: What if there were?

B: I don’t want to think of it. I don’t want to think of things that won’t -can’t be.

Thus far, this has been both the most self-correcting interview I had with a research participant and the one that made me question my positionality, ethics and yes, my humanity. And though I was forgiven, at least within that context and moment, I have never entirely moved on or let myself forget.

That interview made me realise that though I went for my fieldwork on the Mahila Adalats or ‘women’s courts’, there was no way to extricate feminism, women’s rights and agency from the economy. Nor could these women’s ‘feminism’ be easily translated into decontextualised concepts about gender, agency or empowerment. It was a world in which culture became justice and the means to justice. The state, the law, the ideals of freedom, they were all too far to be known. These ideals were, are, misplaced.

The Adalats and the women had been alive! When they met, there were shouting matches, and somehow, everyone was heard, and felt heard. Over the din, the leading women in the forums, would keep an ear for the dissenting voices that steered away from the popular opinion, or would add contrarian positions for women to consider and debate, slowly changing minds, language and ways of thinking, creating new traditions and precedents.

Today, though the women were listening to the male official drone on about the domestic violence law and the reporting procedures, they were seeking solidarity with the official. Could he, having just told these women their rights, refuse to enforce them tomorrow? The workshop was for the officials to see that women were keen to know more, and could now enter spaces of the State without a man to accompany them. They had the support of a network if their citizenship was doubted. If their rights were violated. They came to show that they weren’t alone.

I went to buy some Parle-G biscuits, the staple back home to dip with chai at a small kiosk run by a man. Soon, even this break would become an exercise in fieldwork. I got another chance to spend some time wandering the town. Looking around, I saw that there were no women other than the Naris/women I was accompanying. No female sellers, pedestrians, drivers, traffic officers. No mothers with children either. Later that evening I did meet a woman, who was accompanied by her husband and son. And a young girl who was on a Vespa. Kishore had then told me, it was not right for a girl to be outside late at night. It was 6 o clock.

At the kiosk, men stood around chatting, sharing smokes and banter. I didn’t know how to break into the conversation. As a woman this was harder, especially for one who doesn’t belong — visibly a foreigner, my short hair and skin stood out. Even though I wore the Indian shirt, the Kurta with jeans, covering myself up, I knew I didn’t walk or sound like the local women. I didn’t watch like the women in Khatima. I was suddenly conscious that it was one thing talking to women on the street and quite obviously another, approaching men. I could smell their suspicion as I lingered bringing their chatter to a lull.

With all eyes on me, and emboldened by social anxiety, I asked them what I thought was the most innocuous question: if they had heard of the Adalat. No luck. I explained to them what it was. A social mistake, an ethnographic need! So I tried to explore their thoughts about women’s rights and domestic violence.

Most of them nodded: they seemed uninterested, but only because they thought me inconsequential and their ideologies valid. They were curious to know who I was, why I was there. Some shuffled away. The shop keeper was annoyed I was making him lose business. I bought more peanuts for the women and for later, tucking it into my bag, buying my right to be there on the footpath.

As the women sat on the other side of the road on the pavilion of the police station listening to the male officials drone on about the law as if they were fools, the man expounded his truths.

“these (domestic violence, human rights) are just words.

“I will tell you, my nephew’s wife, she wanted to leave. She didn’t want to take care of his parents and his family. She would refuse. She took her place and threw him out of the house. (He added matter of factly), She is dead now. It was an accident. Par uska karma tha. (‘It was her Karma’). She is no more.”

While the girl referred to above may have had an accident, the man wished that death upon her and thought it just.

***

Separation violence is a common form of domestic violence. It exists because it is considered normal (or is normalized within society). It is socially and even legally condoned (through the partial defense of provocation) in several jurisdictions. In 2010, the UK abolished the partial defense of provocation and replaced it with ‘loss of control’. The defense, however, persists in India, (See Section 300 Indian Penal Code) and is used in relation to male abusive behaviour at the choice of a female partner to leave a relationship or her community. More on this soon.

The Adalats are no longer being funded by the government, and the women are currently at risk of losing their jobs. A movement that gave them identity and economic support is being slowly eroded. Your contributions and support to the organisations would go a long way. Leave a text or write to me if you want to assist them in any way.

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Acknowledgements: I am grateful to all the women and men who spoke to me and took out time for me from their busy lives in Khatima. I am also grateful to Monika for her comments and the conversations that called me out and made me confront more publicly what actually transpired in my mind when I was in the field.