We, women and men, condemn the brutal and unprovoked assault by
self-appointed moral police on young women having lunch in a pub in
the coastal city of Mangalore, Karnataka, during the afternoon of
Saturday, 24 January 2009. We are saddened by the inaction of the
public who looked on and simply watched the attack unfold. But we
appreciate the attitude and actions of the staff of the pub who tried
to intervene and the few young men who stood up to the attackers.

We are shocked by the tardy action of the State administration,
police, and political leadership, some of whom have dismissed this is
as a 'minor incident'. We do not believe that violent threats to the
democratic freedoms and human rights of all citizens, including women,
can be treated as minor.

We are deeply disturbed by the sharply escalating trend of political
and social violence against women in public and private spaces as
means to enforce a particularly regressive interpretation of culture
in the name of 'religion and country' that has been taking place in
several parts of India. We condemn all such forms of gender-based
violence against women and also children (girls and boys) and the
attitudes that make such violence acceptable, whether in the family,
social or public spheres.

We believe this was not an isolated assault by a bunch of hooligans
but part of the profoundly contested political struggle over what
constitutes Indian traditions, religions and cultures. It is evident
that in this instance the attackers were emboldened to carry out the
unprovoked assault in a political environment that supports a
particularly narrow and fanatical view of Indian culture as also a
repressive attitude to women.

We recognise the role of the media in bringing this to public notice
and the media's unrelenting efforts to get the State to act against
those immediately responsible for the assault. However, we are
troubled by the ethical question of why those members of the media who
had prior knowledge of this did not inform the police, which was their
duty as citizens.

Sumi Krishna, Bangalore
Ammu Joseph, Bangalore
Soma K.P., New Delhi
U. Vindhya, Hyderabad
Joy Ranadive, Ahmedabad
Mary E. John, New Delhi
Gopa Samanta, Burdwan (West Bengal)
Anuradha Prasad, Bangalore
Sharad Lele, Bangalore
Prajval Shastri, Bangalore
Ajit Menon, Chennai
Cynthia Stephen, Bangalore

--
We have to start looking at the world through women's eyes' how are human rights, peace and development defined from the perspective of the lives of women? It's also important to look at the world from the perspective of the lives of diverse women, because there is not single women's view, any more than there is a single men's view."
-- Charlotte Bunch

Adv  Kamayani Bali Mahabal
South Asia Advocacy Coordinator
Women's Health and Rights Advocacy Partnership (WHRAP)
Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre For Women (ARROW)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia