Tag: Workplace harassment

POSH Act Cases Have Risen Over the Last Decade, But Where Did They Come From?

What is striking is that the bulk of the sexual harassment cases are being reported only by a small share of companies – In fact, 50% of cases were reported across just eight companies out of 300 listed companies analysed.

This article was originally published by CEDA.

Safe workspaces free of harassment, bullying and abuse are necessary for workers to be able to work with dignity. Sexual harassment at the workplace is a serious violation of dignity and fundamental rights, and for women who already face a multitude of barriers that prevent them from participating in the economy on an equal footing, poses a severe obstruction to their ability to participate in the workforce.

In February 2013, the Indian parliament passed the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act in short), marking an important milestone for women’s right to safety and equal participation in the workforce.

The Act, which came into effect on December 9, 2013, seeks to protect women from sexual harassment at the workplace, and provides for grievance and redressal mechanisms in case any such incident takes place.

The POSH Act lists down the duties of employers in this context, including the disclosure of data on complaints in their annual reports.

Additionally, in 2018 the Securities and Exchange Board of India mandated all listed companies to disclose data on cases of sexual harassment in their annual reports each year.

This mandatory disclosure of data related to the implementation of the Act is a valuable inclusion in the law. It can serve as an important accountability measure, and also enable effective tracking of how the law has fared.

However, more than a decade down the line, we do not have any publicly available repository collating data across employers and companies. The data remains scattered across individual company reports, often in difficult-to-use formats, making it challenging to identify industry-wide trends and patterns.

For this analysis, we compile data for a select sample of listed companies for ten years to identify broad trends and patterns. We find a growth in the number of cases being reported by India Inc. over the years.

However, most of these cases continue to be reported by only a small number of companies, raising concerns of possibly poor awareness and compliance at large.

Methodology

This analysis is based on data for 300 listed companies on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

The NSE is one of India’s premier stock exchanges. As of March 31, 2023, 2,137 companies were listed on the exchange, but 124 were listed as “not available for trading”, leaving the full pool of companies at 2,013.

While it would have been ideal to analyse the numbers of all of these, manual collection for all companies for ten years can be extremely cumbersome and resource-consuming. However, to ensure a diverse and representative sample of companies, our set of 300 companies includes 100 companies with the highest market capitalisation (from rank 1 to 100), another 100 in the middle (from rank 957 to 1,056) and the rest of the 100 ranked from 1,914 to 2,013.

This allows us to go beyond focussing only on a handful of well-known and large corporations. For the purpose of this analysis, the three sets are referred to as large, mid-range and small respectively.

The data used in this analysis has been collected based on the disclosures made by the companies in their annual and business responsibility reports (BRR). The data spans a period of 11 years (from FY 2012-13, a year before the Act was implemented, to FY 2022-23, the latest year for which data for all companies is available).

It must be noted that the companies on the NSE and their ranks by market capitalisation vary by year. However, for the purpose of consistency of the sample, the set of companies was chosen based on the rankings as of March 31, 2023.

While most Indian companies report their data for financial years, a handful of companies report it by calendar year. For ease of analysis, the data for a calendar year has been listed under the financial year, with which most of its months overlap (so, data for calendar year 2022 has been counted as part of data for FY 2022-23).

The following sections list some key findings from the data.

The number of cases reported by companies in their annual reports has increased over the years

Over this period, there has been an increase in the number of cases reported in India Inc. under the POSH Act. Even before the POSH Act came into effect, a few companies were reporting the number of complaints of sexual harassment they had received through the year as part of their business responsibility reports. In FY 2012-13, for example, 71 cases were reported by 12 companies.

Figure 1. Chart by CEDA.

In FY 2013-14, the first year when the POSH Act came into force, the companies in focus together reported 161 cases. Within a year, this number jumped to 465.

The numbers grew in each subsequent year till FY 2020-21, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 586 cases were reported across the 300 companies, as compared to 961 cases a year ago.

This number increased to 767 in FY 2021-22, and then jumped by 51.2% in the subsequent year to 1,160.

The resolution of cases has not grown at the same pace as number of complaints

In FY 2013-14, 109 complaints of sexual harassment were resolved across these companies. This jumped to 406 in FY 2014-15.

However, over the years, the number of resolved cases has mostly trailed the number of complaints. In FY 2016-17, even as the number of reported cases saw a 12.9% increase vis-a-vis the previous year, 2.1% fewer complaints were resolved as compared to a year ago.

Similarly, while the number of complaints has seen a surge post FY 2020-21, the first year of the pandemic, the number of resolved cases has trailed significantly (Figure 1).

Figure 2. Chart by CEDA.

Companies are also required to disclose the number of complaints that were unresolved and were pending at the end of each financial year. The Act mandates that inquiries into complaints should be completed within 90 days.

The number of pending cases for this set of companies has also been growing over the years (Figure 2). However, it is noteworthy that the number of pending cases is smaller than the gap between reported and resolved cases. This could be likely due to a number of factors, including the complainant withdrawing their complaint, and/or either the complainant or the accused leaving the company.

What the numbers tell us, and what they don’t

At the outset, the increasing numbers can appear alarming, indicating that incidents of sexual harassment at the workplace are growing. While this can be true, the numbers on cases of sexual violence always need to be read with caution.

As the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has noted, the “lack of reported cases of sexual harassment in no way implies that there have been no such incidents”. Reported cases often reflect only a certain fraction of all cases, since all survivors may not always feel comfortable or safe to report such cases for various reasons – from privacy concerns, to concerns of social sanction and stigma, to the fear of backlash and retribution, especially if the perpetrator is someone in a position of power.

One factor that makes a clear difference is how easy and safe it is to report such cases, and how much the survivor can trust the process (see for example ILO, Lorenz and Jacobsen, 2021; Stanek et al, 2023).

In principle, a higher number of reported cases could be an indicator of higher incidence or improved awareness and better complaints and redressal mechanisms and cultures in organisations, or both. However, in this case it is reasonable to believe that installing transparent mechanisms for safe reporting and resolution would enable better reporting.

Cases are being reported only by a handful of companies

What is striking is that the bulk of sexual harassment cases are being reported only by a small share of companies.

For instance, the 1,160 cases reported in FY 2022-23 were across just 81 companies of the 300 companies in our dataset, i.e. 219 companies did not report any case under the POSH Act that year. In fact, 50% of cases were reported across just eight companies.

Figure 3. Chart by CEDA.

This trend was not specific to 2022-23. Right from FY 2013-14, the year when the POSH Act came into force, only a handful of companies have been reporting complaints under the POSH Act (Figure 3). The majority of the companies have been reporting zero complaints, often across years.

Further, there are companies that have not reported any numbers in their annual reports even though this is a mandatory requirement. This is despite the fact that companies face financial penalties for not making these disclosures.

Figure 4. Chart by CEDA.

Further, between 98% and 100% percent of reported cases were reported by the “large” companies in our dataset, i.e. companies ranked among the top 100 by market capitalisation on the NSE. About 1% to 2% percent of the cases came from the “mid-range” companies, and the “small” companies reported no cases of POSH in any of the years (Figure 4).

It is plausible that since bigger companies have more employees, including more women, they are likely to have more incidents of sexual harassment than smaller companies with fewer employees.

Additionally, bigger firms may also have more resources to invest in creating the right infrastructure, trainings and mechanisms for the prevention of sexual harassment and redressal in cases where such harassment occurs.

Further, since the Act is applicable only to organisations that have ten or more employees, some smaller companies may not fall under the purview of the Act, and therefore, may not report any cases.

But the data reveals that firm size is not the only explanation for the low number of cases. Indeed, the companies belonging to the “small” category in our dataset have not reported any cases. But several companies listed among the top 100 have also reported zero cases, often for multiple years.

In FY 2022-23, 27 companies among the top 100 reported zero cases of sexual harassment. Further, 14 of these did not report any cases in any year since the Act came into force.

Policy implications

When it comes to policies that can enable women to be part of formal employment, corporate India’s focus largely tends to be on maternity and childcare benefits (including leaves, financial support, flexibility etc). These are extremely important policies – however, if the day-to-day experience of women at workplaces has the shadow of sexual harassment looming large, it is a continuous emotional and psychological burden that takes a severe toll on the well-being of women, and significantly diminishes their ability to work productively.

Further, if not addressed adequately and in a timely manner, sexual harassment could take the form of routine experiences, impacting women on an everyday basis. Unlike policies that are specific to women at certain life-stages, effectively implementing the POSH Act benefits all female employees regardless of their age, nature of employment, marital status, whether or not they have children.

Implementing the POSH Act in letter and spirit is critical to enabling women’s participation in organisations, and also in cultivating safe and healthy workplaces and work cultures. And yet, various research studies, news and field reports (examples here and here) have highlighted compliance on the requirements of the POSH Act remains poor.

In 2023, while hearing a case, even the Supreme Court of India lamented that there were “serious lapses in the enforcement of the Act” even after a decade of the law being implemented. The court observed further that no matter how valuable the enactment of the law might be, it would only succeed in providing the dignity and respect that women deserve at the workplace if all state and non-state actors were to enforce it proactively.

Thus, the low numbers reported by several companies should serve a note of caution, and not necessarily one to take heart from. It is likely that several companies in our dataset have not made sufficient efforts in complying with the requirements of the POSH Act. The fact that many of the companies have not even made the mandatory disclosures in their annual reports for multiple years is an ample indication of that.

In the same vein, companies that have consistently reported complaints across the years may not necessarily be the only ones where such incidents are happening, but could possibly be also those that have more awareness and better reporting mechanisms.

We surveyed 200 senior human resource officers for another study that we conducted as part of CEDA’s ongoing project investigating demand-side barriers to women’s participation in paid work in India. More than half (59%) of respondents said that their organisations had not set up internal complaints committees that are mandated by POSH Act.

New research by Anisha Sharma and her colleagues currently in the field (see here and here) seeks to understand why compliance by firms is so low, and whether it is an outcome of financial and informational constraints that prevent them from implementing the law to the fullest extent, or simply regressive gender attitudes on the part of senior management.

This research also seeks to examine whether the constraints faced by larger firms are different from those faced by smaller firms.

Ongoing research by Kanika Mahajan and her colleagues finds that after the introduction of the POSH Act, smaller regulated firms became reluctant to hire women. The research argues that this is because (given a high baseline share of men) each additional woman employee hired elevates the risk of the firm having to deal with a sexual harassment case.

For smaller regulated firms, the increased compliance costs matter, and therefore, less profitable firms are more likely to employ fewer women relative to men after the passage of the Act.

Lastly, the Act’s requirement of proactive reporting of the numbers on POSH complaints can serve as an important accountability measure, and can enable effective evaluation of the policy.

However, the limited and scattered availability of the data currently makes it difficult to use these numbers to effectively identify gaps and/or track progress.

Given that companies release data in different formats, compiling data for multiple companies becomes an extremely tardy and manual process, prone to errors and gaps. Consequently, most efforts to manually compile the data remain limited to a handful of big and well-known firms, with smaller firms inadvertently escaping scrutiny.

Making numbers from all companies available in a common and publicly available dataset can enable proactive tracking and early detection of gaps.

Acknowledgments: Data for this analysis was collected by a team of interns that was led by Arshia Kohli and included (in alphabetical order): Aditi Inamdar, Aryika Mehrotra, Isha Dhar, Jaanya Wadhwa, Joy Mehta, Kiah Mehta, Rishika Kayan, Sidharth Wagle and Tanya Mehra

Akshi Chawla is director at CEDA.

This article was originally published by CEDA.

#MeToo and ‘Monsters’: The Banality of Violence and Willful Blindness 

Failure to understand sexual violence as part of a continuum means that it comes to our notice only when it is particularly horrific or brutal and committed by persons viewed as ‘monsters’.

She needed to learn that anger is not an inherently bad emotion. She needed to know that it is powerful, justified, necessary. That she is responding correctly to injustice or someone trying to hurt her or harm done to people she loves. That so much of what makes her angry is worthy of that anger. 

Sarah Kuhn 

It was November 2017. The 31st day ritual after my father’s death. I went to Mutwal accompanied by a person who had knowledge of the rituals I had to perform. In a damp, dreary and depressing large room I performed rituals replicating those I had performed at the funeral. I then walked to the beach to dissolve his ashes. I was walking back to the vehicle alone. The person who accompanied me was a few metres ahead of me. A policeman standing by the road made a couple of comments directed at me. I was in a daze at the time and what he said did not really register. It was only a couple of hours later that it dawned on me that he had made comments about my appearance.

When I realised what he had said, I was angry at the policeman, but angrier at myself, a member of the Human Rights Commission, for not doing what I would have normally done; stopped, asked for his name, noted his badge number, and written a complaint to the inspector general of police. I was angry with myself for not challenging him. I was embarrassed by what I felt was my failure in not confronting him. It bothered me for days. The embarrassment, which should have been his bear, had wrongly become mine.

Sexual harassment is common, it is pervasive and no woman is immune from it. Due to social conditioning, sometimes, women who are harassed feel guilty for not challenging it. As women in Sri Lanka share their experiences of harassment, friends tell me they are angry with themselves or regret not complaining of workplace sexual harassment at the time, because, perhaps then, others would not have been harassed by the same person years later. They are angry at themselves for finding coping mechanisms through avoidance tactics that consumed time and energy. Our self-anger shows that, most often, women bear the emotional burden of protecting other women from harassment even while struggling with their own pain and trauma.

The known abuser and maintaining social peace

The stranger on the street, the unknown abuser is always easier to demonise, but how is the known harasser/abuser within our own social circles treated? Most often, the issue is simply avoided. The phrase, ‘it’s not nice no?’, which is commonly used to avoid social confrontation and awkwardness and maintain social peace, is employed to prevent any discussion on the issue.

The powerful boys’ club closing ranks to protect alleged abusers, though unsurprising is nevertheless disturbing. This is particularly so when the men appear or claim to be politically progressive. Their progressiveness does not seem to extend to issues of sexual and gender-based violence when it involves their colleagues or friends, pointing to the deep-seated misogyny and sexism within even supposedly progressive circles.

Subha Wijesiriwardena, a feminist activist, in an insightful piece, discusses how women of privileged social classes who are connected by family, school and other networks grapple (or do not grapple) with allegations of sexual harassment and abuse by those known to them, and suggests means to address them in a principled manner.

While women from privileged social classes may choose to be silent for fear of disrupting social peace, many women do not speak of violence for fear of fatal reprisals. When even those with a duty of care, such as teachers and principals, are prone to victim-blaming, to whom can a teenage girl in a rural community complain about being sexually abused by her uncle?

Why are men violent towards women? 

Philosopher and legal scholar Martha Nussbaum uses the term ‘gender pride’ to explain the reason for men’s violence against women. She says, ‘More or less what all men have for long centuries been raised to have is a sense they do not need to take the woman’s autonomy and her full subjective reality seriously. She is there as something to serve their interest’. When a man refuses to see women as autonomous persons with equal rights it leads to objectification, i.e. the woman becomes a thing that can be harassed, abused and subjected to lewd jokes. Anthropologist Veena Das states that violence, particularly sexual violence, directed at women and children tends to be the dominant form of communication to assert the right to claim the entitlements the male body has been promised. If she objects, she faces reprisals. The reprisals women face range, from being ridiculed for not having a sense of humour and labelled a man-hater, to being killed for resisting rape and sexual harassment.

To understand and address violence against women, we must inquire into the construction of masculinity. What does our notion of masculinity expect/demand of men? What are the direct and indirect means through which this is taught and normalised? How does it impact men? Toxic masculinity adversely impacts men too, as described by Veena Das thus, ‘The blows of the sculptor’s chisel which define the outlines of the manhood, leave many scars which cannot be smothered over by the unrealizable dreams of future rewards as part of male dominion’.

People carry signs against a gang rape that occurred along a highway and to condemn violence against women and girls, during a protest in Karachi, September 12, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Akhtar Soomro/File Photo

The ‘angry woman’ and the normalisation of misogyny

Social perceptions of what is considered to be appropriate behaviour of women shape public reaction to women’s responses to violence. Generally, women’s anger is perceived to be dangerous and undesirable, and women who show anger are labelled hysterical, unstable or emotional. Women’s anger as a response to casual everyday sexism, normally encountered in the form of sexist jokes, or men speaking over women, is met with derision and viewed as ‘over-reaction’.

Author Sarah Kuhn says that during childhood she was taught that her anger was a monster she had to control. It is only much later that she came to realise her anger stemmed from the fact ‘I was also fighting daily battles that were invisible to me, wars I did not realise were wars…microaggressions, macroaggressions…just plain old aggressions’.

Women are taught and told, in direct and indirect ways, to tolerate causal sexism and everyday acts of discrimination and disrespect, which only serves to normalise it. Kuhn recalls the ‘everyday moments. The things that are supposedly inconsequential. The moments where I’d laughed something off or acted like it wasn’t a big deal because I was so used to it’. Even supposedly liberal and progressive circles are not exceptions to the normalisation of casual sexism, which is tolerated, sometimes even indulged because ‘boys will be boys’.

Sexual harassment is hence on a spectrum of different forms of sex discrimination and diminishes a person’s life chances and opportunities. Some women who spoke of the harassment they experienced said they left their jobs or careers as a result. This marginalises women and places them in a socially and economically disadvantaged position, which in turn exacerbates their vulnerability to violence. Sexual violence, therefore, does not exist in a vacuum but is part of a continuum. It is part of ‘every day violence’, which we often fail to recognise or even if we recognise, refuse to acknowledge and address.

Failure to understand sexual violence as part of a continuum means that sexual violence comes to our notice only when it is particularly horrific or brutal and committed by persons viewed as monsters. There are two reasons perpetrators are portrayed as evil monsters. Firstly, it makes it easier for people to deal with the fact another human being is capable of such brutality and inhumanity. Secondly, thinking that only monsters are capable of committing acts of violence makes it easier to deny the entrenched, everyday nature of violence, especially violence committed by those within our social circles. It helps people distance themselves from it by saying ‘a monster did it. No one I know would ever do such a thing’. The logic is, if no one we know engages in such acts, how can we be complicit?

You become complicit by what you ignore, what you tolerate and what you accept because it is convenient or beneficial to you. Examples of this are prominent women who function as foot soldiers of patriarchy by, for instance, questioning why only women ‘shout sexual harassment’ and advising women to use the 64 wiles, which are supposedly ‘inherent’ to them, to ‘benevolently’ to get what they want.

Boys will be boys: the need to move beyond legal remedies 

Discussions on how #MeToo allegations should be addressed have focused mainly on institutional and procedural changes, such as laws, anti-sexual harassment policies and the establishment of independent panels in each institution to inquire into allegations of sexual harassment. The deep-seated structural and systemic elephant in the room, i.e. patriarchy, is yet to be mentioned as the root cause of sexual harassment.

Discussions on solutions that ignore patriarchy are destined to fail in addressing harassment in a meaningful way. Why? Because patriarchy means that in many workspaces, those in positions of power are mostly men. While many of these men may not harass, they do still think that women who demand equality and recognition of their autonomy or complain about sexist jokes or gender discrimination are being too sensitive or strident. For instance, women are repeatedly told, ‘Don’t take it seriously’, ‘relax’ and ‘have a sense of humour’. The entrenched, yet unacknowledged sexism which has been normalised in a patriarchal society, is the reason anti-sexual harassment policies or inquiry panels may not work effectively even if/when institutions establish them.

A truth often denied but is evidenced by historical practice, is that the application of a law or policy is shaped, unfortunately, by the biases and prejudices of those applying them. Sure, we need rules and processes and everyone needs to know of them, but they have to be followed and implemented. Sri Lanka is the perfect illustration of how the lack of respect for the rule of law only serves to weaken the law and entrench impunity.

#MeToo protests. Credit: Reuters/Issei Kato

Points of tension and points of cohesion

Women have resorted to social media campaigns of shaming without naming since institutional and legal structures and processes have failed them. While this method is powerful, we should remember that throughout history shame has been weaponised against women to control their bodies, sexuality, lives and even burn them at the stake. It is undeniable there is tension between the need for due process and shaming without naming, which can be resolved only through extensive and sometimes uncomfortable dialogue.

Another point of tension is likely to be the law-and-order carceral approach to violence against women adopted in past struggles and the increasingly abolitionist position of present activists. Acknowledging that the carceral approach of locking people up and throwing away the key is most often preferred because it absolves society of any responsibility, will enable more meaningful and honest solutions. Such acknowledgement is part of ensuring our actions do not validate and entrench the oppressive structures of a discriminatory, militarised and violent state. Instead, our interventions should be founded upon the recognition of the banality and normalization of the spectrum of everyday violence women experience that is embedded in institutional structures and social processes.

Building community and solidarity when systems have failed 

Women use social media and anonymise experiences to sometimes, as feminist Sachini Perera says, only to share and be heard. Some women may want justice, but not immediately, as they may not feel ready to face reprisals and the enormous emotional and financial price they will have to pay for it. Some may do it to warn others against known predators. In the midst of multiple, and sometimes contradictory voices with multiple competing intentions and needs, it is possible to get caught in the maelstrom and feel overwhelmed. Within this turmoil, the challenge is to create space for these voices and stand in solidarity with survivors and those resisting attempts to silence survivors.

Building solidarity across generations is also an important part of efforts to create space for multiple voices.  Since women’s struggles for autonomy and equality will continue long after the #MeToo moment there is benefit in learning from the successes and failures of women before us who struggled for women’s autonomy. It is guaranteed we will not see eye-to-eye and there will most certainly be disagreements, but talk we must.

Ambika Satkunanathan is a fellow at the Open Society Foundations and was a Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka from 2015-2020.

Bollywood’s First ‘Intimacy Coordinator’ Wants Safe Standards for Sex Scenes

Production crews have normally been responsible for the well-being of actors on Bollywood sets. But now India’s film industry has its first certified intimacy coordinator.


When Sakshi Bhatia was a director’s assistant on the set of a Bollywood murder mystery a few years ago, the director of the film called for an intimate scene between the accused killer and the victim.

However, the victim was a 14-year-old female actor and the killer character was played by a 45-year-old male actor.

“It made me a bit uncomfortable, and I wondered if anyone had explained to her how the scene would be choreographed? A professional was needed to navigate the actors through the production, both when they were being filmed and when the studio lights were off,” Bhatia told DW.

Production crews have normally been responsible for the well-being of actors on Bollywood sets. But now India’s film industry has its first certified intimacy coordinator.

Aastha Khanna says she wants to create a safe space for actors on set while choreographing sex scenes. She is putting together a collective of intimacy professionals and is drawing up guidelines for Bollywood film producers.

She is hired for scenes involving nudity, simulated sexual intimacy and sexual violence.

“It was absolutely bizarre to see that while there were stunt coordinators for action sequences, and dance choreographers for Indian song-and-dance sequences, there were none for filming intimate scenes,” Khanna told DW.

“Culturally, intimacy is not discussed. It is considered scandalous or provocative. Because it is taboo even behind the screen, it is extremely important for us to constantly have conversations about it.”

While Khanna’s role is new, there has long been a need for guidelines on filming intimate scenes in India’s entertainment industry.

What does an ‘intimacy coordinator’ do?

“My role entails talking about consent and boundaries with the actors first, understanding the scene and choreographing it according to the director’s vision. I also make sure new changes are not made post-production,” Khanna told DW.

During her training at the Intimacy Professionals Association in Los Angeles, Khanna learned a variety of techniques using props like pillows, crotch guards, nipples pasties, tapes and modesty garments to create barriers while filming the simulated sex scenes.

She also learned about international intimacy protocols, nudity clauses in contracts, and power dynamics, during her training.

“Traumas and triggers are a huge aspect of what can get derailed during an intimate scene. It can flout somebody’s boundaries and add trauma to their lives,” she said.

However, hiring a professional intimacy coordinator adds to a film’s budget, and is still largely unheard of in India’s film industry.

In India, “intimacy coordination is largely a foreign concept and actors are mostly left to figure it out for themselves and are expected to be comfortable on their own.” Amit Kaur, a director’s assistant who worked on Indian films for a decade, told DW.

The role of #MeToo and intimacy consent

Two years ago, the HBO network made it mandatory to have intimacy coordinators on every set filming sexually intimate scenes. Soon, other big producers, including Netflix and Amazon Prime, followed suit.

In India, intimacy coordination has been increasingly talked about after several incidents.

“There have been many infamous incidents, where an actor kept kissing or inappropriately touching the actress long after the director shouted ‘cut,'” Indian entertainment journalist Rohit Khilnani told DW.

“This constitutes workplace harassment, and an intimacy coordinator is paramount for safety,” he added.

With more content being served on on-demand platforms, Khilnani says having an intimacy coordinator should be a standard on set.

“I was deeply affected by the #MeToo movement. I faced it myself as part of the crew and it was too commonplace. I decided to combine my passion for safety with my love for films,” said Khanna.

She added that many young newcomers to the film industry are vulnerable to exploitation and conversations about consent need to take place outside of the set.

“MeToo in India has fizzled out. The people who were named are back to working with movies and directors. While the talk of intimacy coordinators is a welcome step, how do you ensure safety at all times? Some of these stories have come from the time actors first went for casting calls,” Khilnani told DW.

The Indian entertainment industry is one of the largest in the world. This conversation will take time to reach all areas of the industry. Sakshi Bhatia said she thinks there is a long way to go.

“Intimacy coordinators are here to choreograph and make simulated sex look good on screen. If they are drawing salaries from the production houses, they might not have a lot of say on how a director wants to film intimacy. These scenes are a big draw for the audience and guidelines can be easily violated,” she said.

This article was first published on DW.

MP Lawyer, in Jail for Sending Indecent Message to Woman Judge, Gets Bail

While granting bail to Vijay Singh Yadav, the court said that if he is found to approach the woman judge directly or indirectly or tries to stalk her, then the bail order shall stand cancelled.

Indore: The Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court has granted bail to a lawyer, who has been in jail for over last four months for allegedly sending an indecent message to a woman judge in Ratlam on her birthday earlier this year.

While granting bail to the lawyer – Vijay Singh Yadav – the court said that if he is found to approach the woman judge directly or indirectly or tries to stalk her, then the bail order shall stand cancelled.

A single bench of Justice Subodh Abhyankar passed the order during a virtual hearing of Yadav’s second bail application on June 14.

The lawyer had been booked by Ratlam police under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forging documents) and others besides relevant sections of the IT Act on a complaint lodged by a district court official. The complaint alleged that he had sent an indecent birthday wish to the woman judge on January 29 on her official email address.

As per the complaint, the lawyer had allegedly downloaded the display picture of the judge from her Facebook account and used it for fraudulently making a greeting card. He was arrested on February 9.

On April 27, the high court had dismissed his first bail application.

In the June 14 order, the high court said, “The application filed by the applicant (lawyer) is allowed, subject to the condition that if it is found that the applicant in any manner directly or indirectly tried to approach the concerned judge (the victim) and tries to stalk her in any manner, this order shall stand cancelled without further reference to the court and the police shall be entitled to arrest the applicant in the present case.”

Yadav’s counsel K.K. Gupta submitted that the chargesheet in the case has already been filed and his client has been in the jail since February 9.

Gupta said that his client is an advocate and there are no criminal antecedents against him. Besides, he has tendered an unconditional apology and has undertaken that he would never try to approach the concerned judge and would not practice in her court in future. Hence, it is submitted that his bail application should be allowed.

However, state’s counsel Kushagra Jain opposed Yadav’s bail plea in view of his conduct .

After hearing the applicant and the respondent, the court allowed Yadav’s bail application on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 with one solvent surety of the like amount to the satisfaction of the trial court .

Having considered the rival submissions, on perusal of the case diary including the message sent by the applicant, this court is of the considered opinion that since the charge sheet has already been filed and the applicant in jail since February 9, 2021, he has also tendered unconditional apology and the final conclusion of the trial is likely to take sufficient long time due to fresh spread of COVID-19, in the considered opinion of this court, the applicant’s application deserves to be allowed, the court said.

Earlier, the high court had ordered a medical examination of Yadav to check his mental health. It had said that the accused lawyer indulged in an “unethical activity” despite being a married person with four children and that his action caused embarrassment to the woman judge.

‘Rewards’ and Punishment: How Air India SATS Deals With Sexual Harassment Cases

Currently in the news due to the Kerala diplomatic baggage gold smuggling case, the organisation has a murky history when it comes to sexual harassment.

Mumbai: At a time when Binoy Jacob, the former vice president of Air India-SATS, has come under the scanner in the sensational gold smuggling case in Kerala, a former junior employee has accused the premier ground and cargo handling agency of protecting him in a sexual harassment complaint filed by her in 2016.

The AI-SATS, a joint venture between the Central government-owned Air India Limited and SATS Limited, handles the ground and cargo at airports. The Air India chairman is the ex-officio chairman of AI-SATS.

Merin Mathew, a former employee of AI-SATS, had filed a police complaint against Jacob for sexual harassment in 2016 after the Internal Complaints Committee – set up by her employer to handle her complaint – had rejected her allegations against the top official. Mathew said, based on the ICC report, AI-SATS had instead initiated a disciplinary inquiry against her, alleging that she had instigated the staff against the management.

“When I learned that this was to happen to me, I resigned. My resignation was accepted in October 2017. In the year between the release of the ICC report and my resignation, I was ostracised by most of my colleagues,” she told The Wire.

When Mathew had lodged the complaint against Jacob with the AI-SATS management in 2016, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered a case against him under the Prevention of Corruption Act for cheating the Airports Authority of India and causing a huge financial loss to the government. Later though, the CBI gave him a clean chit in that case.

Prior to that, in 2006, Jacob was an accused in a visa fraud case probed by the Kerala crime branch. “He was facing trial in this case when he was appointed by AI-SATS. Without disclosing this criminal case against him, he obtained police clearance certificate from Kottayam. He further obtained Airport Entry Permit from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security,” a top state police source stated. The case was settled in the Delhi high court on April 1, 2014 after Jacob paid a sum of Rs 1,25,000 that he was accused of swindling from the aggrieved persons.

Mathew, relating her complaint against Jacob and the ongoing police case, claimed that working in AI-SATS “was a nightmare then”.

“When I joined the organisation as an administrative officer in 2015, I immediately discovered that there did not appear to be any functioning of ‘due process’. I had not got an offer letter. My cost to company (full salary and benefits) had been discussed with me, but had not been confirmed since there was no offer letter issued to me. Everything appeared to depend on an evaluation by the organisation’s vice president Binoy Jacob. This ‘evaluation’, I soon learned, was sexual harassment,” Mathew told The Wire.

Also read: ‘I Was Sexually Harassed By a Senior Advisor to the Maldives President. This is My Story.’

An accused in the present gold smuggling case, Swapna (Swapnaprabha) Suresh, who is now in police custody, was appointed by AI-SATS during Jacob’s tenure. The case has come to light after the customs department seized 30 kg of gold from diplomatic baggage belonging to the United Arab Emirates consulate in Thiruvananthapuram.

Mathew has been widely quoted in the state’s media reports claiming that Jacob had put pressure on the staff then to smuggle in gold into the country, calling it to have an “underworld-like environment” at that time. She has also said that not only Swapna but several persons were appointed by AI-SATS in less than meritorious way.

As per media reports, NIA has said that it would call some senior AI-SATS officials for interrogation.

Binoy Jacob.

On July 16, Jacob was asked to leave his present job by the ground handling agency Bhadra International following the allegations against him in the case.

While the investigation in the present case is on, Mathew has stated to The Wire that after Jacob’s sexual advances to her in 2016, she didn’t know how to take action as she knew nothing about the Sexual Harassment Act of 2013 and its rule that all workplaces should have an ICC for sexual harassment. “I had no faith in the then human resources (HR) manager, who I knew to be a close friend of the perpetrator. So I sent my complaint of sexual harassment to the then assistant vice president of AI-SATS, Gerald Lim, who forwarded it to Mike Chew, the then CEO, on July 2, 2016,” she said.

Mathew’s email to Lim had said:

“Gerald, this job is very important to me and the salary that I get is what helps me run my family of two kids. Else I would have resigned at the first instance forgetting the Rs 25,000 I furnished as a bond during joining however hard it was for me to arrange that money. I feel I am being exploited and harassed because I didn’t bend to the whims and fancies of one person (sic).”

‘Lose weight or our tummies will touch’

When the company received her complaint, it did not have an ICC – a clear violation of the Sexual Harassment Act of 2013. This is evident from the report that Mathew received from them after her case was heard, which stated that they formed an ICC on July 8, 2016, after they received her complaint.

Mathew said the ICC was based in Delhi. It is not clear why there was no ICC for the Thiruvananthapuram office and why one was not formed there after Mathew’s complaint. An email to Valerian Ferreira, head of HR at AI-SATS, which raised questions about the sexual harassment case, was not answered.

Also read: Scared Workers at Amma Canteens Allege Sexual Harassment, Poor Working Conditions

Sheeba Prathap, who is currently the HR manager at AI-SATS in Thiruvananthapuram, refused to answer questions regarding the case and the ICC.

Even Binoy Jacob, when contacted by The Wire, refused to comment, stating that he no longer works at AI-SATS.

The ICC report says the committee was formed on July 8, 2016 after an employee made a complaint of sexual harassment on July 2, 2016.

According to Mathew, from that point onwards, the work environment became doubly hostile for her. As per the rules of the Sexual Harassment Act of 2013, the ICC should convene at the complainant’s workplace and all procedures should be designed to make the process as easy as possible for the complainant. However, the management summoned Mathew to Delhi for a hearing.

“When I refused to go to Delhi, they sent a team from Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram. Four hearings were held in Thiruvananthapuram – on July 11, 28 and 29, 2016, and August 23, 2016. Later, another hearing was held in Gurugram on September 14, 2016, and one in Delhi on September 16, 2016.”

She added, “The Gurugram and Delhi hearings happened without me being present. They convened and conducted interviews via phone calls. I got to know of this when I received the ICC report stating the details.”

Mathew was asked during her hearing if she would like to be transferred to another department or would like to go on leave. She went on leave for three months.

She recalled that during the first ICC hearing on July 11, she was asked to formally submit her complaint to the ICC. She did so on July 27, 2016, whereupon she went for the ICC hearings on July 27 and 28.

Mathew’s formal complaint to the ICC stated that “It is against great personal cost that I am seeking justice from the ICC, not just for myself, but for all women and men who have been harassed by this man.”

“He made repeated comments on female subordinates’ bodies, weight and clothes. He would ask them to wear certain clothes, tell them to lose weight, guess their vital statistics,” Mathew told The Wire. Her complaint to the ICC also mentioned a detailed account of a meeting where she was asked to be present, alone, by Jacob at a five star hotel where she claimed that she was asked about her vital statistics too.

“I complained that once, after asking my weight, Jacob had said I had to reduce or else our tummies would touch.”

She had stated to the ICC:

“…In the beginning I ignored his (Binoy Jacob’s) solicitation for sexual favours and lewd remarks about my ‘vital statistics’ because a common family friend had introduced me to Mr Binoy, who had then given me the job. Despite this, when the VP persistently kept asking me to go away with him at every occasion he got, I stopped ignoring it and said ‘No’, explicitly but politely. Once, he even apologised for an inappropriate request to go to Thekkady with him. I thought it may end with this but unfortunately not. He solicited me again in the cabin a few days later. Taken aback that he was persisting, I told him angrily that I was not going anywhere with him and that he should maintain the dignity of a VP. He asked me whether I knew to whom I was speaking, implicitly threatening me about his power over matters related to my employment. Since then, he stopped his sexual harassment but has gone out of his way to create a very offensive and intimidating environment for me in the workplace and elsewhere.”

After the ICC hearings, Mathew was transferred from the corporate city office to the airport office. But she refused to join the airport office and continued to go to the city office. They did not object, but she said she was not given the computer she required for work.

“However, I continued to go to the city office and sit at my desk without a computer for one week, after which I was sent from my original department (HR) to the learning and development department in the adjacent room, where I was given fewer responsibilities.”

Also read: Of Men Like Mice: The Legal System’s Historic Apathy Towards Gender Justice

Importantly, Mathew had held the post that Swapna Suresh, the accused in the gold smuggling case, had resigned from, after L.S. Sibu, an officer at AI-SATS, had complained to the CBI and the Central Vigilance Commission about irregularities in the contract with the ground handling agency. As mentioned earlier, the CBI had named Jacob, and also finance manager P.K. Anandan, as suspects in the case then. Later, Swapna had accused Sibu of sexual harassment because of which he was transferred to Hyderabad.

Investigating a complaint filed by Sibu in 2016, the state crime branch had but found evidence of involvement of Swapna Suresh in forging signatures of 16 female employees of AI-SATS to implicate him in the sexual harassment case. By then, the Crime Branch had reportedly arraigned Jacob as the first accused in that case.

According to a top source at the state crime branch investigating the case, the crime branch “faced resistance from AI-SATS ICC when it was summoned in the case and it was through a court order that they were questioned. Both Jacob and Swapna Suresh were questioned in the case too apart from the ICC.” The source said, “The investigation is ongoing and Jacob, who procured anticipatory bail  in the case, is to be questioned again.”

Mathew said, “The AI-SATS knew that Jacob was an accused in the CBI case then. The ICC report itself mentions the CBI raid that had happened in connection with that case. Even without the CBI probe, the Kerala crime branch had records of Jacob as the main accused in a visa fraud case from 2006. But all these years later, Jacob continued to hold his position at AI-SATS. He frequently told me and other employees then that he was highly influential.”

Mathew was not the only female employee to face sexual harassment at AI-SATS. She mentioned another female employee who had accused Jacob of sexual harassment while deposing as a witness for Mathew before the ICC.

“The HR manager threatened and intimidated her in the presence of Binoy Jacob. The two of them had made it clear to her that if she testified against Jacob and in my favour, she would face consequences. However, she deposed before the ICC against Jacob in my case and in one of the hearings, she also submitted a written complaint of sexual harassment against Jacob,” Mathew stated.

The ICC, though, did not take up this woman’s case. She then filed a police complaint which went to court, but did not pursue it. “Her co-workers had started becoming more and more hostile towards her, so she gave up,” claimed Mathew. The Wire attempted to get in touch with this woman, but was not able to do so.

Mathew said the woman received two show cause notices regarding the clothes she wore to work and was also transferred from the corporate city office to the airport office after the ICC report came out. “By then, she had withdrawn her police case against Jacob,” she added.

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Mathew’s complaint also mentioned a complaint of sexual harassment that had been filed with the HR department in 2013 when Jacob was an assistant vice president. That complaint had detailed late night calls, inappropriate invitations to hotels and the harassment of candidates during job interviews. “Despite the details in this complaint, Jacob was later made vice president of the organisation,” Mathew pointed out.

Mathew also said that some female colleagues who deposed before the ICC in her case described her clothes and sitting postures in the office as ‘inappropriate’. “I was transferred without reason and my probation period was extended. I was not given the salary I was promised. Most of the people who heard about my complaint wondered why I was doing it when I had ‘not even been raped’,” she told The Wire.

The ICC report itself had a detailed description of Mathew’s personal life, where special emphasis was laid on the fact that she is a single mother. During the hearing, Mathew was asked about her marital status. When she said she was divorced, she was asked if it was she or her husband who had initiated the divorce proceedings. When she asked the relevance of the question, she was asked to answer it.

Mathew said she was not allowed to cross question Jacob or his witnesses. “I only learnt who Jacob’s witnesses were when I received the ICC report on October 13, 2016, which said that sexual harassment had not taken place.” The report said: “There are no evidences in the form of CCTV footage, recordings or witnesses which are available to prove the claims of sexual harassment.”

“That was because there were no CCTV cameras in or near the places I was sexually harassed.” She also claimed that CCTV cameras were installed in and around the office only after her original complaint, though The Wire couldn’t independently verify this.

The report also said that though there might have been procedural lapses on the part of HR department, they could not be attributed to Binoy Jacob. Mathew’s screenshots of Jacob apologising to her via WhatsApp messages for having asked her to go with him on ‘tours’ and repeatedly asking her if she was ‘free’ to tour with him were not considered evidence. Neither were the statements of co-workers to whom she had spoken about the harassment she was facing.

Jacob, in his statement to the ICC, questioned Mathew’s character. He asked why she had waited nine months to file a complaint. He also said that he had received complaints about the clothes Mathew’s colleague who filed the other complaint wore. He accused Mathew of instigating the second woman to file a complaint against him. He also accused her of spending time with a male employee.

Based on the ICC report, AI-SATS initiated a disciplinary inquiry against Mathew for instigating the staff against the management, following which Mathew put in her papers.

Mathew challenged the ICC report in the Kerala high court while being an AI-SATS employee. “I was determined to fight for justice. Someone had to do it. I wanted to know where this thing called neethi (justice) was,” she told The Wire.

A search for justice

The high court directed her to the Central Government Industrial Tribunal (CGIT), as it was the appellate authority. When she approached the CGIT, her appeal was challenged in court and she was told that the real appellate authority was the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) and Deputy Labour Commissioner (Central).

Before she had received the ICC report, she had gone to the Museum police station in Thiruvananthapuram to lodge a complaint along with the second woman. Mathew also wrote to the Office of the District Social Justice, Thiruvananthapuram, who said that even though the implementation of the Sexual Harassment Act 2013 was their responsibility, since AI-SATS came under the central government, they could not intervene.

The social justice department said the complainants had to approach the Central government for justice.

Mathew’s last remaining hope was the complaint she had lodged with the police. “The police were reluctant to accept the case. I met Director General of Police (DGP) Loknath Behera, who incidentally, is also accused of being one of Swapna Suresh’s acquaintances,” she said.

“Even without reading my complaint, he asked me, ‘What proof do you have?’” Mathew recalled. She asked him to read the complaint and spoke about the Sexual Harassment Act which makes it a point that emphasis must not be laid on ‘proof’ of sexual harassment.

Mathew thereafter approached Sakhi, an NGO that supports women. When members of Sakhi met the DGP, he repeated even to them that Mathew was ‘lying’.

Dr Gita Gopal, former lead evaluation expert, World Bank, who was also the honorary advisor, gender and protection, of the government of Kerala, was one of the members of Sakhi who spoke with DGP Behera. She remembers Mathew’s case as one that shook her belief in the justice system and described it as a “horrendous case” where there was a “complete violation of justice”. She said she wrote to AI-SATS pointing this out, but did not receive even an acknowledgement.

“When we went to see Behera, he asked us, ‘Why should I believe you?’ Mathew could be lying,” Gopal told The Wire.

Members of Sakhi then told Behera that it appeared that it was he who had asked the local police to stall the case and asked him to make the call to move the case forward.

Gopal recalled that Behera made the call in front of them. “He did an elaborate act of asking the officer on the other end if he had ever asked them to stall the case, to which the officer replied, ‘Never’,” she said.

A sub-inspector at the Museum police station lodged a first information report on September 9, 2016.

Chargesheet excerpt where the police testify that their investigation proved the guilt of Binoy Jacob in the sexual harassment case Mathew filed against him.

Mathew said the expenses of challenging an order and travelling to various appellate authorities had been draining her limited finances. “The cost of my sexual harassment complaint has been more than Rs two lakh, given the number of follow-ups I had to do. I had to borrow money in my search for justice.”

Still not the end

Though on July 16, Jacob was asked to resign from his position by Bhadra International in light of the gold smuggling scandal and his association with Swapna Suresh, Mathew stated, “AI-SATS, till date, has not taken any punitive action against him on the grounds of sexual harassment.”

Mathew still awaits justice in the police case she had filed at the Museum police station, Thiruvananthapuram. She said she has visited the assistant public prosecutor (APP) twice to confirm that she does not intend to drop the case.

“But the APPs in the case keep changing and I have already repeated my story to two of them.”

When contacted, then Museum SI G. Sunil, said that he had filed the chargesheet in the case accusing Jacob of committing the crime. However, the current Museum SI said he would have to check the records to know the status of the case in the court.

Kunjila Mascillamani is a freelance writer and filmmaker from Kerala. She lives in Bombay.

Scared Workers at Amma Canteens Allege Sexual Harassment, Poor Working Conditions

Amma canteen workers with low wages and no weekly off dare not complain for the fear of losing their jobs.

Chennai: On April 19, 2020, an Amma canteen outlet at Old Washermenpet in north Chennai was temporarily shut after two patrons tested positive for COVID-19. Soon after, one patron died. On May 3, a canteen worker at Triplicane’s Ice House tested positive and was admitted to the Government Medical College at Omandurar Estate. The canteen was shut later that day, and all staff were tested for COVID-19.

All through the several lockdowns imposed to control the steady spread of the novel coronavirus in Chennai and the capital city’s neighbouring districts in northern Tamil Nadu, the Amma canteens have been a saving grace, serving cheap meals to thousands of poor people who have borne the brunt of the lockdown-hit economy. The Amma Unavagam scheme of subsidised food outlets, popularly called Amma canteens, was launched on February 24, 2013 by former Tamil Nadu chief minister late ‘Amma’ J. Jayalalithaa, of the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party.

The Amma Canteens, where meals can be had for as little as Rs 1 to Rs 5, have become a role model for replication in other states. The scheme was followed by NTR Anna canteens in Andhra Pradesh, Indira canteens in Karnataka, Annapurna Rasoi Yojana in Rajasthan, Deendayal canteens in Madhya Pradesh and Aam Aadmi canteens in Delhi.

But a darker side to ‘Amma’s’ pet scheme has emerged, with some of the workers who cook and serve thousands everyday across Tamil Nadu telling disturbing stories of poor quality of food and exploitative working conditions. Worse, several workers have complained of sexual harassment, mostly at the hands of municipal corporation officials.

The canteen workers are daily wagers – largely women from self help groups (SHGs) – while the scheme itself is run by municipal corporations under the auspices of the state health department. Many women continue to suffer such harassment in silence for fear of losing their jobs should they make a formal complaint, due to intimidation of those who dared to speak up.

Fired for supporting a complainant who was sexually harassed

Over a year ago, a canteen leader Mallika (name changed), who worked at one of the busiest areas in Chennai, was told by the assistant health officer that she was being relieved of her job. The reason? She had raised a complaint on behalf of a victim of sexual harassment, who was allegedly assaulted by the sanitary officer. Ironically, Mallika was sacked on March 8, 2019 – International Women’s Day. She fought back and eventually regained her livelihood, but not without great personal cost.

The Wire met a weary Mallika at her home, after she had completed her morning shift at the canteen. Still fearful, she nevertheless narrated the ordeal of her fight to retain her livelihood, and some justice. “I can’t speak freely about what happens in the canteens as my co-workers may report me to the authorities,” she says. The struggle to retain her job left Mallika unwell, with increased blood pressure and unable to look for another job. A widow, she was supported by her three married daughters until she recovered.

Also read: Out of Work, Weavers of Famed Banarasi Silk Sarees Forced to Push Kids into Child Labour

In February 2019, Rajeshwari (name changed), one of the workers at the canteen led by Mallika, complained to her about continuous harassment that she was facing at the hands of the sanitary officer of the ward. “Rajeshwari often complained that the officer had offered her a promotion and salary hike in return for an illicit relationship, misbehaviour and inappropriate suggestions to go out with him,” recounts Mallika. As Rajeshwari’s complaints increased, Mallika raised the issue with the health department.

A resultant inquiry panel transferred the sanitary officer to another zone. However, a few days later, Mallika was told by a health department official that her services were no longer needed, without ascribing any reason. Mallika was suddenly left without a livelihood, without having received even an official order. After repeated pleas to the Greater Chennai Corporation, showing her work records at the canteen, Mallika regained her job, but at a different canteen located further away from her house, and at a lower position than she held earlier.

Where she used to be the leader of the canteen workers, she was now just one among them, and earning a slightly lower wage than earlier. She adds that the alleged perpetrator, on the other hand, has maintained both his position and authority in the Amma canteen scheme, free of the mental trauma that the women concerned have gone through. When The Wire tried to contact the officer, he was unreachable.

“All the efforts that I had to put in to regain my job for merely raising a complaint against misconduct, have caused mental agony,” recalls Mallika. Till date, the victim of harassment has taken pains to keep her identity anonymous, and has not told her husband and children about what happened at her workplace, for fear of being shamed. She left the Amma canteen and is looking for another job. “Had Amma been alive, such atrocities would not have taken place on women,” says Mallika.

Retaliation for questioning corruption

The Amma canteen scheme has been beset with allegations of corruption in hiring, raw material and equipment procurement. According to a compliance audit conducted in 2014-15 , the canteens suffered a loss of Rs 63.40 crore. The Wire has been unable to access more recent audits of the Amma canteen scheme.

In February 2014, Shakunthala (name changed), began working at an Amma canteen in a government hospital. After questioning discrepancies in the accounts of that canteen, which is jointly maintained by the sanitary inspector and the canteen leader, Shakunthala was harassed and eventually terminated. Using her request to change her shift, a dispute broke out between the inspector and four workers including Shakunthala, after which she was subjected to longer work hours, frequently being given responsibilities even after her shift was over.

The issue was escalated to the mayor’s office, when the inspector alleged that the workers physically assaulted him. A compromise was reached and the issue was purportedly settled. However, three weeks later, all four workers were dismissed, without any reason being cited. “When we approached the Corporation and denied any allegations made against us, we were promised we would get our jobs back, but only on condition of apologising to the officials and paying them a bribe,” alleged Shakunthala.

Shakunthala and her colleagues finally appealed to Tamil Nadu’s minister of municipal administration S.P. Velumani, who intervened, and they were reinstated after three months. While three resumed work, one refused to rejoin. “All these months of trauma and financial constraint I have suffered, for no mistake of mine, has caused too much mental agony,” she says.

Exploitative, dangerous working conditions at Amma canteens

Women from SHGs are employed at the canteens as contract workers at a daily wage of a mere Rs 300. They get no employee benefits, such as insurance in case of accidents at the workplace. They do not even get a weekly day off. The canteen workers can get a day off only in exchange for loss of the day’s wage. Workers also complain of poor infrastructure at unsafe and unkempt kitchens, and the poor quality raw food provided. They have been demanding that canteen facilities be improved.

Watch: How Essential Workers Are Braving COVID-19, Ensuring Supplies and Doing Their Jobs

One worker, wishing to remain anonymous, told The Wire over the phone about the risky conditions at the kitchen where she cooks. “I am not sure when the stove may fall on us as it has worn out completely and needs maintenance,” she says. “Poor quality, adulterated ingredients are given to us to make the food with,” alleges Shakuntala. She adds that her canteen is often plagued by drunken customers who refuse to pay after eating, adding to losses.

Now, the Tamil Nadu government has allocated Rs 100 crore in its budget for 2020-21 to make the canteens mobile, with the aim of transporting food to work sites. Workers say not every woman is comfortable about working in the proposed mobile canteens, especially when the infrastructure provided in the existing kitchens are not up to standard.

Difficulties of unionising informal workers

Speaking about the harassment that women face at Amma canteens and other workplaces, P. Suganthi, Tamil Nadu general secretary of the All India Democratic Women’s Association, says, “It is very true that sexual harassment is prevalent in all workplaces, in both the organised and unorganised sectors. However, it is more rampant in the unorganised sector due to lack of unions and committees to take up such issues.”

Emphasising the importance of unions, Suganthi says these empower workers to raise complaints about issues like sexual harassment, as in most cases, the perpetrators are usually men in a position of authority over the victims.

“Lack of unions in the unorganised sector means women can complain only to a committee headed by the collector,” adds Suganthi. “Though we have not heard of any complaints from Amma canteens so far, we must take the initiative to start unionising these workers, so they can share their grievances without fearing for their job or safety.”

However, despite all problems, the canteen workers firmly believe that the scheme itself, aimed at the double benefit of providing subsidised food to the poor and employment to women from SHGs, will be successful if run well, as envisaged by Jayalalithaa.

Anusha Sundar is a Tamil Nadu-based journalist who writes on environment, gender, culture and mental health issues. 

Because of ‘Sex’: The US and India on Workplace Discrimination Against LGBTQI Persons

When the US Supreme Court’s ruling is compared with the Indian court’s opinions, although India does not have an anti-discrimination statute, the jurisprudence is far more substantive.

The recent US Supreme Court judgment, Bostock v Clayton County, declared that employers cannot fire employees on the basis of their sexual orientation and self-determined gender identity, because this is prohibited by the protection against discrimination based on ‘sex’ in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Bostock dealt with the interpretation of statutory provisions that offer protection against discrimination, whereas India currently has none. But when the ruling is compared with the Indian Supreme Court’s opinions, one observes that although India does not currently have an anti-discrimination statute, Indian jurisprudence is far more substantive on anti-discrimination principles and in its acknowledgement of the historical disadvantage of LGBTQI individuals than Bostock, which took a formal, textualist and a conservative interpretive method to a progressive end.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a US federal law that disallows employment discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex and national origin. The employers in Bostock had abruptly terminated the long-term employment of three individuals after discovering they were gay or transpersons. The employers defended their actions by arguing that ‘sex’ in Title VII, as the drafters originally intended, only protected biological sex, and did not cover sexual orientation or gender identity.

The court rejected this argument by holding that termination of employment because of sexual orientation and gender identity necessarily involved a preliminary classification on the basis of ‘sex’. To illustrate its line of reasoning, the court laid out examples of how discrimination because of sex was at play.

Also Read: Law Forbidding Workplace Discrimination Applies to LGBT Too, US Supreme Court Rules

Here is the court’s own demonstration of how sexual orientation involves the question of ‘sex’: An employer has two employees, both of whom are attracted to men. If the employer fires the man for being attracted to men, it is solely on the fact of his male ‘sex’. He is fired for a trait arising from his sex that his employer finds intolerable in him, but not in his heteronormative female colleague who is also attracted to men.

Similarly, an employer who fires a transwoman is unfairly singling her out for a trait (her sex assigned at birth) that is not an issue when it came to other cis female employees because they continue to retain the sex assigned at birth. The transwoman’s employment is terminated because her choice of gender-determination and change is a decision that directly pertains to her biological sex.

Thus, the differential and disadvantageous termination of employment of both the gay and transwoman employees began with an impermissible classification based on their biological sex – and thus fell afoul of Title VII.

Interestingly, the majority opinion in Bostock was led by Neil Gorsuch, a judge nominated by President Donald Trump in 2017. Gorsuch is a known textualist; this means that, in matters of interpreting statutes, he often sticks to the “ordinary meaning” of words as they stood at the time of drafting. The Bostock judgment is very much grounded in the text of the Act: the employees’ termination was an informed choice driven by the fact of their gay and transgender identities, which are inextricable from their biological sex. Discrimination based on ‘sex’ was part of the reason for termination of each individual – and is thus barred by Title VII.

Judge Neil Gorsuch is sworn in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Photo: Reuters/Carlos Barria

Comparing Bostock with Indian jurisprudence

How does the Bostock ruling compare with anti-discrimination jurisprudence in Indian courts? Under the Indian Constitution, Article 14 is the general equality provision guaranteeing equality before the law for all persons in India, with Articles 15 and 16 understood as particular articulations of the general equality guarantee.

In earlier days, the Indian Supreme Court, infamously interpreted Article 15 to mean that only classification based solely on one out of the five enumerated grounds (sex, religion, place of birth, caste, and race) is prohibited. This meant that the state could, for example, justify discriminatory employment conditions of air hostesses on the grounds that the classification was based on sex and “national welfare”.

Thankfully, the court has made great strides beyond these initial howlers. Examples include Anuj Garg, where the court struck down a law that prohibited the employment of women in public bars and emphasised that the test for discrimination should not be the number of grounds behind the classificatory intent of legislators, but the effect that the provision has on the personal autonomy and liberty of individuals.

In National Legal Services Authority of India (NALSA) held that the expression ‘sex’ in Article 15 includes self-determined gender identity. Navtej Singh Johar, which read down Section 377 of the IPC, emphasised that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was prohibited by the anti-discrimination guarantee based on ‘sex’. Both were premised on moral stereotypes about gender roles and thus prohibited by Article 15(1) due to the pernicious impact on non-heteronormative communities’ liberties and their dignity. The state can no longer claim ‘sex’ and additional reasons as justification for laws that disproportionately impact individual liberties – this is antithetical to the true meaning and content of the anti-discrimination clause.

People celebrate after the Supreme Court revoked Section 377 on September 6, 2018. Photo: REUTERS

In other words, the Indian Supreme Court went further than the US Court in Bostock. As scholars of discrimination law have pointed out, it does not simply manifest in deliberately exclusionary or maliciously hostile intent but also is often unintentional and inconspicuous in operation. Let us imagine that an employer fires any or all employees for having the wrong taste in music, and suppose that historically, queer women are wont to enjoy that particular genre of music. Debarring listeners of that brand of music in considering recruitment or termination would necessarily have a disproportionate and disparate impact on queer women applicants and employees. The form of discrimination here is indirect in operation and has not arisen from the intent that directly pertains to a person’s sex. Is any legal course of action available? The US Supreme Court in Bostock says no, as Title VII’s protection offers protection only to instances of direct and intentional discrimination because of sex.

Also Read: Notes From the Courtroom: Watching the SC Dump Section 377

The limitations of a textualist approach

This demonstrates the limitations of the textualist approach. Discrimination comes in versatile forms. The emphasis on the effect of discriminatory laws by the Indian Supreme Court overcomes this limitation: Section 377 was struck down, despite being “facially neutral”, because of its indirect and disproportionate impact upon the lives and dignity of LGBTQI individuals. Additionally, one’s self-determined gender identity is a ground equally protected in the constitutional guarantee on non-discrimination; in assessing discrimination based on gender identity, no necessary exercise is required to gauge whether it ever involved ‘sex’ at the outset.

Does this mean that LGBTQI individuals have comparable actions, like in Bostock, against workplace discrimination in India? Unfortunately, we have a long way to go. Article 15(1), and all the jurisprudence that builds upon it, is limited to actions against the Indian state. Bostock dealt with an anti-discrimination statute that was enforceable against both state and private actors. India remains one of the few countries without a comprehensive and robust legislative mechanism that crystallises this protection against social discrimination.

The rightfully criticised Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, for example, does broadly prohibit unfair treatment and termination of transgender persons in employment matters but is silent on any concrete remedies that transgender persons may have when faced with discriminatory treatment. The Act does not specify whom such claims can be made against nor the kinds of actions available (civil or criminal) to aggrieved persons.

File photo of a protest against the Trans Bill. Photo: PTI

A comprehensive effort was mounted in the form of the Anti-Discrimination and Equality Bill 2017, introduced in 16th Lok Sabha on March 10, 2017 by Shashi Tharoor. The Bill’s expansive scope of protected grounds – which included, among other, sexual orientation, disability, skin tone, marital status and food habits – was reflective of the multifaceted and intersectional axes of discrimination and exclusion in the Indian social milieu. The Bill (which lapsed with the dissolution of the 16th Lok Sabha), appreciably, included both direct and indirect instances of discrimination within its ambit. The thrust of progressive civil society demands must continue to foreground this major legislative gap, which stops us from fully realising the transformative vision of our constitutional jurisprudence.

Ruchi Chaudhury and Arunima Nair are postgraduates in anthropology and current LLB candidates at OP Jindal Global University. They would like to thank Ninni Susan Thomas and Nitika Khaitan for their comments on an earlier draft.

My First Visit to a Dance Bar

When you enter new spaces, you should ideally leave your insecurities, biases and judgements behind. This is one rule that has always served me well.

Have you been to a dance bar?

I hadn’t. And I discovered that it was not as ‘immoral’ as I thought it would be. I tried to look at it objectively – as just another establishment trying to profit from whatever it is that people are willing to pay for. If people are willing to pay to watch women dance while getting progressively drunk, why not profit from it? Basic capitalism, really.

Are dance bars different from other industries profiting off of peoples’ vulnerabilities and suppressed desires? Are they different from a therapist trying to help you make sense of the world in exchange for a sizeable fee? Or even from the luxury goods industry profiting from your vanity?

Are dance bars an ideal workplace for women?

The short answer is no. I don’t think they are. To say the least, there are no health or tax benefits and no incentives apart from tips and admiration from a pleased audience.

It can get violent in the absence of security. While the violence could be similar to domestic or societal violence that many women face, the main difference is that in a dance bar, they may have a better chance of recourse against it.

Also read: At Delhi’s Red Light Area, Sex Workers Plead For Help

Since the relationship between the women and bar owners is that of profit, it’s in the management’s best interest to keep their employees safe. When I spoke to the security guard/bouncer, he seemed to be extremely concerned about the women’s wellbeing. I saw him throw out some men who were being disrespectful and I high-fived him for it. We struck up a conversation. He was a nice man, albeit with a slightly intimidating stature and presence befitting his job! We became friends for the night.

Is there sexual violence/harassment in the environment of a dance bar?

While I wasn’t there long enough to speak to the women in depth about this, I am certain there is. Sexual harassment is prevalent, even in the most formal workplaces and I’m sure an industry that primarily sells sex cannot be devoid of it. I don’t need to read research papers to draw that conclusion. As far as violence or exploitation from the management goes, I am not sure what recourse the women would have. However, in this case of harassment perpetrated by the customers, there is the basic level of protection offered by the presence of the security guard.

Does this mean I condone bar owners and this industry and think they are ‘good’ or ‘ok’?

Not at all. I am simply not placing moral judgment on the people involved in this industry per se. They may be anywhere between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, they may exploit their employees, or not. Employees may be subjected to violence. Or not. It depends on the particular bar, really. Ultimately, it depends on the people involved.

What I’m trying to say is that this is not hugely different from most workplaces, since issues of harassment and exploitation are common in our country. The toxic culture exists way beyond dance bars, so we should not pretend otherwise.

Do the dancers have job security?

Not really. But then again neither do many people, once their contracts expire. The pandemic has highlighted just how little job security most people have.

Would I visit again?

To be honest, I don’t know.

I’m not a huge fan of loud, crowded places. The reason for me not going is not going to be my moral compass or a fear of the crowd, though.

When you enter new spaces you should ideally leave your insecurities, biases and judgements behind. This is one rule that has always served me well.

The people I encountered at the bar seemed to be just ordinary, decent folk. A soldier passing the time as he waited for his train back to Hyderabad. A government official who had had a fight with his superior. A man who claimed to be a scientist working with DRDO. I guess you can be anyone in these places. I pretended to be myself.

When the time came to leave, I hugged the (rather tuneless) in-house singer goodbye and conveyed my regards to the dancers who responded to my attempt to hug them goodbye with politely extended hands. I think it was a ‘No Touch’ policy. I didn’t take it personally, of course, and expressed my admiration for their dance moves as I shook their hands. Some of them were really good dancers!

I forgot my bag on the way out and the friendly bouncer came rushing up and handed it over. I hugged him too, and he invited us to return. It was probably because we were paying customers, after all, but I’d like to believe we had a connection.

I have, of course, oversimplified the answers to the questions that I pose. I never intended a complex analyses of dance bars, and just wanted to offer my experience. You can by all means read up and research further if you’re interested in the culture of dance bars.

Better yet, visit one and speak to the people involved to try and understand their lives. If there was ever a time for empathy, it’s now.

Aman Ashesh is a lawyer currently working as a research associate with a reputed research organisation.

Featured image credit: Christian Chen/Unsplash

The Hustle

Rumination on the years ahead and the idea of a ‘life well lived’.

This poem was in part a reaction to an earlier post published on LiveWire titled ‘Indian Law Firms and Burnt-Out Meat Robots: Savagery at Its Finest’.

§

It’s been a while
Since I’ve cleaned
The bathroom mirror,
That greets me every morning.
As I scratch the grimy surface
And spray some blue cleaner,
It shines, looking squeaky clean and new.

But what it reflects is a stranger,
A mere shadow at best
Of my former self.

My luscious chestnut brown hair
Now has roots of grey,
My forehead sports a perpetual frown
As if searching for whatever’s amiss,
And my deep seated eyes seem to say,
But you signed up for the hustle!

Half my life, as I know it
Has passed before my eyes;
While I’ve given up the joys of my todays,
For the fleeting chance of a better tomorrow.
I’ve lost many a friendship to distance
And trips to mountains and oceans
Have had to wait,
Because my board meetings wouldn’t.

But as I smile, reminiscing my former glory
Noticing the laugh lines and crinkly eyes,
I wonder if I really seek another chance –
A chance to stop to smell a daisy,
A chance to lean on another shoulder,
A chance to relive my girlhood,
A chance to do it all differently.

And then, like the fog that clears
Off a mirror, with the mere
Brush of a hand,
I let the fog lift from my faculties.
And brush it all off, thinking
It’s simply impending senility
Masquerading as a childish fantasy.

For, on some days
You need only to be reminded,
Of why you started
To hustle in the first place.

You didn’t dream
For it all to be written off,
I remind myself;
And neither did your family.

You didn’t build sandcastles in the air.
You didn’t walk into a room full of men,
Only to have them acknowledge
Your pretty face or
Your severely tailored suit.
You weren’t raised to be docile
And compliant, going gently into the night.

You have your mother’s resilience,
And your father’s stubbornness.
The man you admired secretly from afar,
Is who you wake up to, every morning.
As to a vista of the ocean,
That had once seemed so elusive.

Whoever said, money can’t buy happiness
Has never ridden a Harley, untamed –
Letting the wind dry their tears,
When their pillows were soaked.

Would I have done it differently?
Probably not.
For, when the day of reckoning
Were here, and I were weighed,
Would I be found lacking?
Most certainly not.

For they say, hustle until
You no longer have to.
While I say, hustle because
Your life knows no other way.

Andrea Kent is a 29-year-old lawyer working at Lower Parel, Mumbai, for one of the largest law firms in India. While she genuinely believes that law is a noble pursuit, necessary to sustain life, literature and art are what she truly lives for.

Featured image credit: Pariplab Chakraborty

Indian Law Firms and Burnt-Out Meat Robots: Savagery at Its Finest

A graduate from a top-tier NLU recounts her experience at law firms in India.

I scrambled into my Fort-bound Uber at 9:50 am today, almost out of breath, with the hem of my new A-line from Vero Moda sticking out of the cab, and managed to mumble: “Bhaiya, thoda jaldi chalaaoge, please? Bahut late ho gaya hai!” 

To give you some insight into the panic plaguing the contours of my anxiety-ridden brain, if I reach my law firm even a minute later than 10:30 am, they dock half my day’s pay.

No, sir, no clemency shall be granted here!

I wish I was exaggerating. It murders my will to live every single time I punch my biometrics at 10:31 a.m. 

Sure, rules are rules. But their brazen systemic hypocrisy manifests itself in the fact that no attorney gets any over-time pay for working till 2 am, or 5 am, or even 8 am. And, trust me, that happens about 2,000 times more often than you would like to believe. Of course, it’s way beyond the official ‘out-time’ of around 6:30 pm. But ‘out-time’ is an alien concept at law firms.

In essence, even if I work 20 hours straight on any given day I was a minute late (which is well within the realm of possibilities at an Indian law firm), not only am I not getting any extra pay, but I’m also being denied 50% of the day’s pay. 

In case you were curious, I reached office well on time today. The roads were deserted. Turns out, the IMD had issued a ‘red alert’ forecasting torrential rains across the city and the government declared a public holiday.

While my law firm couldn’t be bothered to relax the in-time rules even on a day like this, I heard through the grapevine that a couple of law firms did circulate mass emails informing their employees that they may work from home (sub-text: at the risk of incurring the wrath of their bosses, obviously). But this was deliberately, and quite strategically, sent out post 11 am, by which time, 90-95% of their employees would already have braved the weather to reach office.   

Well, forget floods, or elections even, I have worked through Independence Day, Ganesh Chaturthi, Diwali, and many, many weekends. On paper, of course, the firm was shut. But its employees were working. Around the clock. Tirelessly. In the office; because akin to ‘out-time’, ‘work-from-home’ is also an alien concept at law firms, and essentially counts as a leave.

Oh, and taking leaves are, to put it mildly, frowned upon at these Satanic vestibules. Oh, you’re sick and dying? Sorry, dying can wait; work can’t.

Because real face-time trumps everything else: productivity, efficiency, you name it. 

It is hardly surprising, then, that mental health disorders are rampant amongst law firm employees; as is drug use. Within merely six months of graduating from college, and joining the banking and finance team at a Tier I firm, I burnt out completely.

Just six months.

I distinctly remember narrowly avoiding a major accident with a truck on my way back from work one (mid)night, where my brain’s immediate reaction wasn’t an elated –  “Phew! What a save! I could’ve died!”; but was a decidedly dejected – “Damn it! Now, I’ll have to go back to work tomorrow.”

Also read: We Need to Talk About Toxic Work Environments

Recently, I overheard an associate tell another, “Dude, can I just kill you so that I can be arrested and put in jail? I can, at least, sleep peacefully there, and not be woken up by calls from seniors/clients at ungodly hours.”

These hallowed edifices that claim to foster and hone the brightest of legal minds, in reality, stunt one’s intellectual growth by denying any form of respite to the brain, thereby impairing promising legal acumen, and reducing one to a thoroughly, and devastatingly, burnt-out meat robot.

That’s a win-win for the law firms, actually. The longer an associate lasts at the firm, the closer they get to becoming an equity partner. Law firms don’t want that, of course. For every associate that gets burnt out and quits, there are a hundred fresh-faced law grads vying for the position because the pay sounds great – although it’s actually pretty terrible given how disturbingly demanding these jobs (of essentially being a glorified clerk) are.  

For the sake of preserving my sanity, and upon my therapist’s advice, I had to quit being a transactional lawyer. Nope, I could not do seven-day work weeks anymore. My former boss, whom I still hold in tremendously high regard, was not only empathetic to my state, but also spent his billable hours helping me figure out career choices, and extended me his support and guidance while I transitioned into a relatively less taxing role in the organisation.

My current boss, au contraire, reminiscent partly of a dung beetle, and partly of the Grim Reaper himself, believes that anxiety and depression are just terms bandied about by millennials. Perhaps, he would get along like a house on fire with our finance minister (I should, perhaps, find out what he thinks of the slowdown in the Indian automobile industry).

In case I forgot to mention, law firms are also a cesspool of misogyny – boys’ clubs, if I may. I have seen, and been subjected to, numerous instances of sexual harassment that have been hushed up, saying, “He was just too drunk ya!”

Yeah, that totally justifies him spanking the asses of female employees despite them asking him to leave them alone. 

Under the Grim Reaper’s crackerjack tutelage, recently, a workplace superior, without batting an eyelid, had the audacity to tell me something as inappropriate and as sexist as: “We hired you because you were profiled as an unmarried woman with no kids. Naturally, you wouldn’t have any other commitments besides the job, you know.” 

Still, this may not be the worst thing I’ve been told by a superior at a law firm. In 2018, when the partner I was working with found out (after some awfully sneaky, and acutely ardent, online-stalking) that I’m vocal about mental health issues on social media, she berated me till I was reduced to tears.

No, I had not discussed any facet of my work-life online. But perhaps I had signed every other facet of my life away to the law firm when I chose to work there. It appears that butchering my self-worth, sucking my spirit, and wreaking havoc on my rapidly crumbling mental health wasn’t nearly enough to satiate the sadistic souls of my corporate overlords. 

Their swanky corridors, lined with plush interiors ranging from antiques to prized paintings – in a bid to wow their elite clientele, and to inspire aspiring lawyers to pledge their souls to a lifetime of what-feels-like bonded labour until an untimely heart attack in their late 20s or early 30s bestows upon them the sweet release of death – are built upon the foundations of more exploitative practices than you can possibly fathom.

The probabilities of me running out of surfaces to slit on my body, of India truly becoming a secular country, and of Shloka Mehta Ambani holding a press-conference announcing that she does not want to have children – are, perhaps, moderately higher than Indian law firms treating their employees as humans.

I kid you not, Trump might actually start respecting women before law firms introspectively acknowledge their despotism and savagery.

Elle Woods is a Bombay-dwelling meat-robot in her late 20s. Having graduated from a top-tier NLU, she surrendered her soul to an industry ruled by Dementors from Azkaban. Mostly drained of her élan vital, she is currently having an affair with depression. 

Featured image credit: Pariplab Chakraborty