The legal world. None of us who have not really interacted with the judicial and the policing system of our country on a personal basis will have a very positive experience to narrate. Not unless you have someone who knows to navigate it – politicians, high officials. Or you have more money and muscle power than the individual/organization you have issues with.
If there’s any sort of abuse police should have been notified right away. Realistically, most women, especially in India, are so trained to put up with trash that we just lump it. Neighbors, relatives, parents, friends, religious leaders, elders, therapists… Almost every person is an option before the word police comes to mind. And no wonder. Few people with any sense of self preservation would make that attempt.
From my experience with one police station, every new complaint is viewed with the vulgar avidity shown by the vampirish people who take a perverted joy in watching the suffering-woman-mega-soaps. My divorce case was in court. My son was 2 – legally supposed to be with the Mum (as are all kids below 5). My ex and his brother came over one late night to say that they were going to abduct Ken and I could do what I wanted about it. I went to lodge a complaint.
There was little interest in taking down the issue at hand. As I see it, “Case in court, child under 5 with mum, dad threatening abduction, nothing doing”. That’s all they need to know. A child of 2 can’t be just carried away by his father when there’s a divorce case going on. But they wanted to know why I was getting a divorce.
What he did to me? Did he drink? Did he have another woman? “Really? And before that what happened?” with a shake-head-and-look-at-each-other-sympathetically-and-sigh was the general reaction. They all sat around – for lack of anything better to do and listened like a bunch of kids to a bedtime story. I can imagine what they’d have made of a rape case. Made her act out a scene-by-scene? They seemed very much inclined to take my part.
Until, they called him, discovered that he was working in a higher position in a rival paper to the one I was at, called me to tell me that he was not a very bad guy and perhaps I should reform and get back with him. As for threats to abduct my son, after all, what did it matter? He was willing to abduct me as well…Ha ha ha! We could all be one happy family anyway. Wasn’t I a lucky one to have a man who loved me so much (even if there was a little abuse here and there.) What was this? The F$%&*g village panchayat in some pathetic Tamil movie?
Experiences with the judiciary were not much better. The court is not this spacious-seating-with leg room place of the movies. It’s as cramped as a public bus in peak time traffic in Chennai, or the Mumbai metro trains. There is so much jostling, someone would think they were giving away free rations. There is one small bench and several pregnant women and women with infants and young kids.
They come in at 9:00 and wait until 12:00 or 1:00, only to be given a hearing two months from there, because of some small excuse. The women as a rule look haggard and poor. The place doesn’t even have a loo. If the kids want to go, the Mums (who usually have no supporters) need to walk to the public loo across the road from the vast court. People spend whole days here. They didn’t think it necessary to provide washrooms?
The men look well-fed. The kids are almost always with the women. I never saw a man with one. These women get as low an alimony as 500 rupees per month and have to come to court for a year since it hasn’t been paid. The man, who looks quite comfortably off in any case, comes in and says that he has no job and cannot pay. The 6,000 rupees in unpaid alimony is haggled over for another 3-4 months. In the end he agrees to pay 1500 in 5 installments. In a society that has no welfare system and the most of the women of the lower and lower-middle class and of certain communities as well have little education and little means to support themselves.
Apparently only 3% of all potential divorce cases come to Indian courts. And of this 3%, 1% lasts it out till the end of the case. Most give up the fight. 6 hearings or so a year. Filing, two months later, an “I’m the plaintiff, I’m the defendant” sort of attendance roll. Another two months. A talk with some obscure government official or jobless retired lawyer in the name of counselling (one of the biggest farces I have ever seen). Then begin the actual accusations and counter-accusations.
This for a divorce. I dread to think what a rape or a murder trial would look like. There is often little evidence available. Whatever is presented is a butt of jokes. A trauma of human emotions, of life and death, of a marriage gone wrong is played out in court. To the keepers of the law, this is just another episode. They laugh at people’s hurts. And pun on people’s pain.
Two unforgettable memories out of all of these…..
Four or five people – men and women – were crouching by the side of one wall. One of the constables dropped a big bottle of gum and got one of these suspects to clean it up with her hands. It all makes your flesh creep. If I looked less prosperous and didn’t have a job at the big newspaper to back me up, I’d have been the one to wipe that gum off the floor.
“I have a video of my husband’s second marriage to prove he’s committed bigamy. Request Your Honor to please see it,” I saw a woman beg once. “Is this a theatre or a Court,” His Honour laughed. The court laughed with him, including the bigamist bastard. I bowed my head in shame and said nothing. Didn’t do to antogonise the self satisfied prick. My case was in his bloody hands.
Point I wanted to make. I'm out of this, so don't feel sorry for me. It's more like a travelog. "I've been here. this is what it's like," kind of blog. I'm one of the lucky ones. There are a lot of people with no money, no connections and no backup whatsoever who have to deal with this. Lots of women who were fighting cases before I began mine. They are still there in that courtroom waiting for justice and a way to live.
