Looking beyond the backwaters
By Shashi Tharoor
"The Hindu", Online edition of India's National Newspaper
January 29, 2006

Literate and educated: But how safe are women in Kerala? Photo: Vipin Chandran

FEW articles of mine have provoked such a storm of a reaction from Keralites as my piece on Kerala's women ("Kalyanikutty's Kerala", Magazine, November 6, 2005). Strikingly, the letters I received came not from the usual sources — outraged chauvinists rising to defend their homeland from insults real and imagined — but rather from the opposite: disillusioned Malayalis attacking their own state's prevailing culture in relation to women.

Unsafe

Two of these stand out. The poet Thachom Poyil Rajeevan puts it bluntly: "It's true that Kerala women can read and write (and) are doing better than Bihari women or the women in the neighbouring states in the professional and social spheres. There may be pilots, doctors, ambassadors, and Supreme Court judges among them. But they cannot come out of their houses after six in the evening. If anyone dares to do so, she is not safe outside in the dark. Any man she comes upon on the way is a potential intruder into her modesty. I don't know whether women in Bihar face a similar threat in public places. But I have seen girls in Madurai Kamaraj University in Tamil Nadu walk fearlessly and safely to hostels late at night after completing their work in libraries and laboratories. Yet I cannot expect (to see) a girl after six or seven on the campus of the university where I work. I have seen many Malayali women walk with confidence in Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi. But when they come to Calicut or Trichur, they become timid. Kalyanikuttys," he concludes, "despite all their claims to literacy and empowerment, are not safe in their home state."

That is a sad enough indictment coming from a man, but even more searing are the words of a Malayali woman reader, Prema Nair. "Oh dear, oh dear!!" she begins. "Are you one of those who have seen everything through the tinted lens of the acclaimed `Kerala model'? Nobody is disputing the favourable development and lifestyle indicators this state has, but please do not confuse well-being with an empowered and independent sense of being. Do we not often also confuse literacy with education?"

Fair point, Ms. Nair. She goes on to assail what she ironically calls the "other glories" of Kerala — of a state where women become regular victims of dowry harassment ("unlike in the north of India, this is prolonged mental harassment leading to suicides") and of domestic violence (she cites scholarly studies from INCLEN and Sakhi confirming the "increasing and alarming rise of domestic violence" in Kerala). "Yes," Prema Nair goes on, "animated arguments are a regular feature of daily life in Kerala. But what happens after? Political parties and politicians play their games; women suffer. The elected women representatives are expected to toe the party line; women's concerns are always given a back seat, except when it can be a means of increasing votes. Women's groups and the autonomous women's network have to consistently intervene (with) regular gender-sensitising and training programmes (in order to) support women and equip them to withstand this masculinisation of public spaces."

I am already feeling the tell-tale symptoms of male inadequacy, but Ms. Nair goes on: "Isn't this the very State that produced the infamous sex rackets, or should we look the other way? Isn't this God's own country and the devil's own people who waltz their way into organised sex-racket gangs (a special feature of Kerala, by the way) victimising teenage girls, luring them into jobs and then sexually exploiting them? This is done by the VIPs... politicians, civil service officials, businessmen, film stars. Along with the distinction of having women `doctors, pilots, supreme court justices, ambassadors of India', we also have the women of Suryanelly, the Ice Cream parlour sex racket in Kozhikode, the Vithura sex racket in Kiliroor; the list is endless."

Driving the point home

And Prema Nair drives the point home: "Isn't this the Sate where rape happens to a six-month-old baby girl as well as to an 80-year-old female corpse? Isn't this the State where the latest sex racket victim breathed her last in a private nursing home, under very suspicious circumstances? Isn't this the State where one of the latest sex racket victim's brothers killed her, and gave the reason as `honour killing' (that is another first for Kerala, or maybe not?) Or maybe we should just look the other way; away from the muddy fields to the beautiful backwaters. After all isn't that what we see when we just pass by?"

Citing my reference to the longer life spans of girls born in Kerala, Prema Nair argues that fewer girls are being born now, since studies have shown a declining female birth rate.

My other points also get short shrift: "Oh, she `makes the decisions', yet she cannot choose her own contraceptive. And when she works (`men's work' maybe) she gets paid less than men do. What about the high rate of dowry here, in all communities — one of the highest in the country? `Enlightened modern figure' who stoops to be trampled? Have we missed something here...?"

I clearly have. "Dear Mr. Shashi Tharoor," Prema Nair concludes, "We are proud of you. But please do get your facts and fiction right, sir — or Kalyanikutty would get angry, for she does know how to read."

She does indeed. I am suitably chastened. But at least I was right about one thing. You can always trust a Kerala woman to put you in your place for praising the lot of Kerala women!