Why an airport official sexually harassing a woman is so infuriating
It is in the aftermath of watching NH10, starring Anushka Sharma and Neil Bhoopalam, that I sat down to write this piece. I had, of course, read about the immigration officer at the New Delhi airport harassing a single woman travelling to Hong Kong from Bangalore via Delhi. The incident had riled me up but the movie rallied the point home.
The woman alleged that she was asked offending questions and sexually leading questions. Sample some queries?
How many children do you have? Where have you left them? You young girls have children and then don't care and leave them with parents and do "majja" with men; do you drink, do you smoke, do you eat chicken, do you have fun with men when your husband is not there, have you had surgery for birth control? (this was asked four times); do you sleep with other men when your husband is at work? Would you like to have the third child with me because my wife doesn’t want to have the third child? Why are you going to Hong Kong alone, to have fun with your husband, or someone else? Will you have fun with me? Are you staying with anyone else in Hong Kong? Give me your personal number, which I could call you on when your husband isn't at home.
The woman, along with her husband, had reported the actions of the officer, Vinod Kumar, to the AFRRO (Assistant Foreigners Regional Registration Officer) Alok Kumar Verma on their return to Delhi from Hong Kong, but the officer-in-charge allegedly said he could not file a complaint and just handed over a leaflet with the contact information for complaints.
The incident came to light after the woman’s family filed an e-complaint, which went unanswered, and was then released to the media. Soon enough, the home ministry decided to act and ordered suspension of the erring official.
Coming as it is after a whole lot of other incidents, the women’s commission must be tired responding. The National Commission for Women (NCW) chief "condemned" the incident, instead of demanding stringent rules and creating awareness for better treatment of women. The chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam then goes on to apologise on behalf of the government and states that she is just a small cog in the very big wheel. Maybe we need a women’s commission that has teeth to bite. If it is just another lifeless body, bury it.
For those still puzzled about the linkage, the movie and the incident are twined in ways that are far from mysterious. The movie, which set out to be a travelogue, is for those who have the stomach to endure the two-hour gruesome treatment of women in our backyard. A police officer in the movie asks the protagonist’s husband, "How could he have let her drive alone at night?". That is the beginning of the regressive attitudes in full flourish for us to view in comfort.
And the recall value of the movie stayed intact because it was about a woman on the road, going about her way. So was this Bengaluru woman who was on her way alone to Hong Kong. It was nobody’s business to interrogate her in a way that borders molestation. But, for those brought up with the notions of "teaching women who stray a lesson" these questions are nothing but normal.
Doesn’t it ring a bell with what one of the convicts in the December 16, 2012 rape case said in the documentary India’s Daughter? Mukesh Singh’s brother and friends wanted to teach Jyoti Singh a lesson because she had dared to step out at night with a male friend. They had to put her in place.
Where is that outrage now? It’s almost become normal to wait until such heinous acts are committed before we cry out loud. That shouldn’t be the case. These seemingly daily activities are the ones that chisel away at our strength, one piece at a time. It is the right time to direct those protests here. Those women, including Kavita Krishnan, who believe they can make themselves heard in this chaotic world, should ensure that the officer pays for it with his job. He should be terminated and that will remain as an example for those people who believe they can get away with such behaviour.
It was a woman, like you or me, travelling. It must have never occurred to her that she is a single woman travelling and in her case, she technically wasn’t. According to reports, she was going to meet her husband in Hong Kong and this Delhi leg of the journey was the only "single" bit. I do not want to be worried every time I pack my bags to hit the road alone and I have done it quite a few times. The solace, so far, was that such incidents wouldn’t happen to me or to those around me, because it is far removed from my reality. That’s not the case any longer.
Just putting my faith in an invisible being is not how I would want to function. I want to be able to trust people on the road and most importantly, the police officers, who should be sensitised towards women or anyone in need of assistance. Why aren’t the noise-creators advocating for such lessons to be made a part of every government training academy, including the Army?
A movie or this post of mine is not going to do much to change these deep-rooted notions of ownership of women. Even women, sometimes, tread the same patriarchal mindset and believe they must uphold "tradition and culture". This malaise is entrenched and more needs to be done root it out. It is no one’s business to teach anyone a lesson – chauvinist or not. It has to be inculcated.