Channel Surf CNN-IBN

Poor research and a very loud, dogmatic Sagarika Ghose dilute a much-needed debate on the NCW.

WrittenBy:Aastha Manocha
Date:
Article image
  • Share this article on whatsapp

It all began with a tweet. When Sagarika Ghose tweeted that women’s issues were badly served by “state-sponsored feminism” and the National Commission for Women (NCW), and that she would take it up on Face The Nation, it piqued my curiosity. State-sponsored feminism? I’d never heard of it before. What did it even mean? Well I never got to find out, because she didn’t mention it on the Face The Nation episode.

subscription-appeal-image

Support Independent Media

The media must be free and fair, uninfluenced by corporate or state interests. That's why you, the public, need to pay to keep news free.

Contribute

The debate on the functioning of the NCW and its efficacy was triggered by the actions of NCW member Alka Lamba, who announced the name of the recent Assam molestation victim at a press conference in Guwahati. The question being asked on the debate was “Is the NCW incapable of handling new challenges?”. The functioning of the NCW and the fact that most of its members are politicians was to be discussed as well. (Like many NCW members, including its Chairperson Mamta Sharma, Alka Lamba too has political affiliations and is part of the AICC. The AICC website lists her as its Secretary.)

The panelists included Flavia Agnes, lawyers Madhu Mehra and Malvika Rajkotia, and former NCW chairperson Poornima Advani. Sadly, as usually happens on Face the Nation, Sagarika Ghose did not deviate from her usual style of hosting the programme. So, she ran through sentences, interrupted her panelists, spoke louder than them and simply kept reiterating her point – despite the panelists having valid and strong arguments of their own.

Ms Ghose’s arguments and statements weren’t incorrect or ill-informed, they just happened to be vociferously and loudly put across.

Except Advani, most of the panelists placed some good arguments on why the NCW seemed useless. Advani did tick off Ghose for misleading the audience by saying that all the NCW chairpersons were career-politicians. Advani pointed out that she has remained a practicing lawyer even while she was Chairperson of NCW and is still practicing law. Not that Ghose looked too perturbed at having her facts corrected.

While Ghose asked early on whether NCW should be having experts who have some specialisation in the field as members, Rajkotia hit the nail on the head when she said what was needed was not specialisation but basic competence. She also recounted an incident where she was a petitioner to a sexual harassment case and the NCW’s involvement actually hampered the case. That time too, the Commission in all its wisdom decided to hold a press conference and brought unwanted attention to the case. Although they were against scrapping of the Commission, the panelists did seem to agree that in its current form the NCW was not doing anything.

Of course, all of this was from the panelists. The host, at one point simply stated that the NCW is a “resounding failure”. There was no backing of this statement by any facts. Although she did in the course of the programme refer to one solitary article, written by Lalita Panicker in the Hindustan Times on February 29, 2012 after Mamta Sharma’s frivolous statements about being “sexy” and NRI grooms. The points made in the article were extremely relevant. http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/ColumnsOthers/It-s-just-a-kitty-party/Article1-819031.aspx

“The NCW as it stands today should be scrapped. It serves no purpose other than provide comfortable sinecures for out-of-work politicians. No doubt, many on its rolls have their heart in the right place but they are rarely heard. Barring a few exceptions, it has never had a chairperson who commanded enough respect or authority for the government to take the commission’s recommendations seriously.

It is conspicuous by its absence or its insensitivity when women are at real risk or have suffered grave violations. Ten years after the Gujarat riots, it would have been appropriate of the NCW to look into the condition of women molested or otherwise harmed during those fateful days. Or it could have been directed its energies to the plight of women molested or otherwise harmed during those fateful days. Or it could have directed its energies to the plight of women in Kashmir. Instead, we get Ms Sharma warning against marrying NRI grooms.”

A number of relevant points were raised by the guests: addressing policy vacuums, creating outreach programs, the need for victim protection and a fantastic suggestion of women’s groups conducting an audit of the NCW. The need of the hour was for a balanced and informative discussion on the NCW and its working. Yet, Ghose had no input to add and seemed to have almost no research at hand except the Panniker article.

After going to town tweeting about her programme from the afternoon onwards, it would have been nice if similar effort could have been placed by Ghose in collecting some research as well as her thoughts on the issue. In the meantime, I’m still waiting to learn about “state-sponsored feminism”. Seems Ghose knows that it’s always good to keep the audience guessing and waiting.

imageby :
subscription-appeal-image

Power NL-TNM Election Fund

General elections are around the corner, and Newslaundry and The News Minute have ambitious plans together to focus on the issues that really matter to the voter. From political funding to battleground states, media coverage to 10 years of Modi, choose a project you would like to support and power our journalism.

Ground reportage is central to public interest journalism. Only readers like you can make it possible. Will you?

Support now

You may also like