‘All the coverage of sexual violence involves fear…we need to talk fearlessly about real issues’
Nisha Susan is the founder-editor of the feminist website The Ladies Finger
Journalist and writer Nisha Susan has a problem with how the Indian media treat sexual violence — the images of cowering women, the subtly accusatory headlines, the stories that begin and end with the commission of a crime and then fade away.
Post Nirbhaya, she says, “We asked ourselves why we could not fearlessly talk about the real issues that women from all castes and classes are going through”. And with this thought was born The Ladies Finger, a feminist website that has earned accolades for pushing the boundaries with journalism that is “alive to absurdity, admiring of adventure… coloured with humour, serious in its pleasures and witty in its anger”.
We met Nisha — who is also the founder-editor of Grist Media — on an unusually cool afternoon at her house in a quiet neighbourhood in Bangalore. With zany feminist posters on the walls and her baby never out of eyeshot, she spoke to us about politics, rape culture, medical practice, media and how we can make a positive difference to how sexual violence is reported. Excerpts from the conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell us the story behind The Ladies Finger (TLF).
The people behind TLF are all journalists from different walks of life who felt the need to create an online magazine to highlight issues through the lens of gender. This was immediately post-Nirbhaya, and we started by writing about small insights we had about changing the tone in which men spoke about women’s issues.
WHEN WE REPORT RAPE, WE DON’T CONCLUDE OUR COVERAGE WITHOUT WRITING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THAT. THE AFTERMATH OF RAPE IS A VERY CRUCIAL PART OF EVERY RAPE STORY.
An aspect of rape that worried us was that it defined who you are. Whatever you’ve achieved in life or whatever your profession may be, the fact that you’re a rape victim remains constant.
What changes did you expect to initiate by starting this magazine?
When we started TLF, there was so much coverage of rape, sexual violence and gender issues, but it all involved fear. We asked ourselves why we could not fearlessly talk about the real issues that women from all castes and classes are going through.
TLF wants to reach out to whoever we can. We encountered an issue that journalists working for Khabar Lahariya, a women-run rural publication, were facing. They were being harassed by a man who would make relentless threatening calls, which had begun to affect them deeply. In spite of complaining to all the possible authorities, the police only contributed to the harassment by asking them inappropriate and humiliating questions. Eight months later, we published an article about this, and the social media outrage it created led the office of the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister to take notice. The culprit was caught two days later.
This is the kind of change we want to bring about, by using the power of media for a good cause.
How does TLF report rape?
The way we report rape differs from newspaper rape reports. Newspapers fail to report certain important aspects of sexual violence, but I don’t blame them. The frequency of rape in our country is very high and newspapers have time constraints… but the way it is reported can definitely change.
A STEP WE [THE MEDIA] ALSO NEED TO TAKE IS NOT FORGET ABOUT ISSUES, TO ADVOCATE.
We have this policy where when we report rape, we don’t conclude our coverage without writing about what happens after that. The aftermath of rape is a very crucial part of every rape story. It varies widely and is influenced strongly by class and caste.
The statistics of rape can never be trusted. Some of the ‘rapes’ are not even rapes. They are breach of promise cases deployed by parents of girls who have eloped to incriminate the boys. Also, cases where rape is followed by murder are recorded as homicide cases. These are the ‘invisible’ rapes which are not counted.
All the social media power — websites, online magazines, blogs — we have as digital citizens is limited to the elite educated middle class.
Even if we reach some part of the middle class, that’s fine… it’s fine.
In my opinion, some of the most ignorant people in this whole process are doctors. My dad’s a doc. I grew up around docs.
We worked with these friends of ours who do sex education in Mumbai. One of the contributors to their website is a doctor, a graduate of what we can call an enlightened college with liberal views. She wrote anonymously about the shock of hanging out at pan-India medical conferences where she hears doctors talk in a sexist way about everything, from rape to women to pregnancy to health, and she literally asked, “Where do I start their education?”
And we had thought it was just our prejudices, but here was an insider confirming them. Doctors must start thinking about how they approach these issues.
The way women are treated in labour wards is like rape. Many women have told me that while they waited to have their babies, they have been probed and left naked with absolutely no dignity in a half-corridor. This is if you are middle class. If you are poor and in labour in a government ward, if you cry during labour, people hit you. And they are told, “Crying now? You didn’t cry when you were having sex”. I can attest that this is not an isolated incident — this is a national phenomenon.
THE WAY WOMEN ARE TREATED IN LABOUR WARDS IS LIKE RAPE… IF YOU FOCUS ON REACHING OUT TO A 1,000 MEDICAL STUDENTS, IMAGINE THE IMPACT YOU CAN MAKE ON THIS CULTURE.
If you focus on reaching out to a 1,000 medical students, imagine the impact you can make on this culture. Think: if you had one class in forensic medicine on rape, and if you were a teacher, how would you teach it? Think doctors like Dr Jagadeesh N, the go-to guy for protocols during examination of rape victims. He has helped formulate medico-legal guidelines for the Ministry of Health and is an active advocate for doctors to follow them.
What would you like to change about rape reportage? Can we initiate a social response by adding research and detail to significant stories?
A very simple thing I’d like to change: the stock images that go with rape. We have written an article about it. The usual dark hand, the woman crying in a corner: it shows the man coming up to rape, omnipotent, while the woman is a helpless, beautiful victim. It’s a violent reinforcing of the idea of women as fragile. How about instead using pictures of a man being interrogated, being handcuffed, or of a protest against rape?
ANOTHER THING I’D LIKE TO CHANGE IS THE HEADLINES: SO AND SO RAPED FOR… THE WAY IT’S CONSTRUCTED IS LIKE SHE WAS VIOLATED FOR SOMETHING.
And of course I don’t know what to feel about politicians and their rape justifications. TLF runs them as jokes: once we collected a lot of images, ran their quotes and published them. I think we must stop reporting them at some point.
Another thing I’d like to change is the headlines: so and so raped for… the way it’s constructed is like she was violated for something.
A step we also need to take is to not forget about issues, to advocate. Come back after a year because people take different paths. For instance, a couple in Pune broke up and she filed for breach of promise. She didn’t know breach of promise is filed under rape allegations.
Later, when she found that her ex had been booked for rape, they got together and filed a public interest litigation in the Mumbai High Court to change the law. This country is full of ridiculous stories like these.
After I read about the Kathua case where an eight-year-old was raped and murdered this January, I could not figure out life for a few days. Or the Handwara case where a minor withdrew her charges of molestation against an army man after being detained for three weeks: my lawyer friend in Srinagar said it was mind-numbing because you want to be only on the child’s side, and not on the army or Kashmiri side, but there is no room for that because immediately you become a toy in this game of whose country, whose Kashmir, is this.
Kashmir girls haven’t the option of calling out Kashmir men for their behaviour because you have to be on the same side. You can’t attack your own people because that’s a sign of weakness. I follow the Kashmir Women’s Collective on Facebook and you can discern that there’s this fight happening between men and women there… just like on any women’s Facebook page where men come and give their gyan. For instance, there were pictures of girls lying down in a park, with Kashmiri men commenting that these are Western notions and that Kashmiri women don’t need to go to a park. It becomes so complicated, because of militarisation, to have any sort of conversation.
Did the Nirbhaya case change the way rape was reported?
I feel the conversation has shifted in the last five or six years and I’m hopeful in the next decade there will be a definite social movement.
To give credit to the women in this country, the last five years post-Nirbhaya, people have worked really hard, including older generations. Women have been consistently at it, all kinds of women from all castes and classes.
We are reaching the social response level, but the government response is still inadequate.
There will come a shift, a reaction, if there is no government response. How is it that someone like Soumya Reddy — woman, eco-activist, liberal — won in a conservative constituency like Bangalore’s Jayanagar last month?
Nisha Susan is on Twitter @chasingiamb
