So they Tested Tasted our Pinki
This is how our govt treats an un-ordinary citizen: one who got 1 Commonwealth Silver + 6 International Golds (including Asian Games) — this was Pinki for them — though for us, she means something else too: (1) she is a member (employee) of our railwaymen's large million-strong family (and it certainly is a disturbing question: what our fellow railway-persons' leaders were doing when Pinki was being tortured),(2) she belongs to a poor lower-caste Bengali village family who had a marathon zeal to show up in international arena. Her 'partner' of long-time one day complained to police that she got raped by Pinki — and without waiting for any judicial procedure the police behaved in such a way and the 'court' — well, they prefer not to 'know' such things until "brought to their lordships' notice" if it is not some worthy thing to take up a case 'suo moto', to demonstrate their "judicial activism"! So they did not need to 'know' that a 'scintillating' video MMS clip showing Pinki's sex test was being circulated among millions. They did not need to know what persons even in foreign countries watched through a newspaper photo — "I was infuriated to see a photo published in a UK daily where Pramanik was seen being escorted by a policeman whose right hand was groping her right breast" [Gender Call: Male, female and the third option, Payoshni Mitra, June 23, 2012, Times Crest].
But, well, just forget Pinki for a moment — have the policemen who maltreated Ms Mamata Banerjee at the Writers Building in Calcutta or at Singur (remember the night of 25 Sept 2006?) or ...have they got any punishment? Let alone punishment — have any formal enquiry action against them started yet?
This is democratic state, MAN, this is the largest democracy and perhaps the largest patriarchal-state too. Therefore Pinki during her stay at custody was put in male-cell all the way for nearly a month! We heard that for her 'sex-test' she was forced to lie down with her hands and feet tied with rope, was stripped and she was left like that, in a corridor of a hospital! Throughout the period our 'educators' — the media — filled the mental-space of millions of citizens with lewd, libidinous 'news', although the great 'media-watcher' HOOT didn't see those, so vulgar that even from within the media community Garga Chatterjee protested (Crossing Norms of Decency, in The echo of India, 26 June, 2012): "Couching our worst prejudices as a simple search for the resolution of a law and order technicality, we are being fed Pinky's day in custody, Pinky's medical report, her past life, in amazing detail, in bits and pieces — anything short of a high-resolution photo of Pinky's genitalia. This competitive detailing of Pinky's life day by day reminds me of another dark episode of journalism in the Subcontinent when the daily life of Dhananjay Chattopadhyay (who was sentenced to death in a rape case), condemned to hanging by death, was printed day after day for the voyeuristic consumption of the worst kind." And this is the cultural capital [sic] Kolkata, from where originated such 'joke' like "If Caught Dhananjay / If Not Enjoy"!!
That India is a very backward country is such a fact which needs not be proved by India's position or rank in the per-capita GDP (PPP) list or per capita energy consumed (KwH/year) or etc techno-economic indicators. Here lascivious pointers to sex are sold like attractive 'chutney' that, if added 'free', makes otherwise drab samosa-news saleable. So you cannot expect people here to acknowledge some third (or fourth) alternative to man-woman dichotomy can exist in nature. Here LGBT are perversions, they invite contempt (remember — ek machchar, ek machchar sala aadmi ko hijrha bana deta hai ...?) but such perversions are of course marketable here. Here reporters do not bother to know about Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome or more irregular (but not unnatural) patterns. They did not bother to be acquainted with what Prof Nivedita Menon has to say regarding this — that "But would anyone pass a gender test? Three sets of characteristics are said to determine sexual identity: genetic — the XX female and XY male chromosomal pattern, hormonal — estrogen (female), androgen/testosterone (male), and genitalia. .... Scientists are also coming to the conclusion that the three characteristics of sexual identity are not necessarily linked. Thus, if a body has female genitals, it would not necessarily have preponderantly female chromosomes and female hormones. Most bodies marked male and female would not pass "gender tests" if the perfect congruence of these three factors is being examined." (Indian Express Jul 12 2012)
Ultimately Pinki could get out of lock-up when the judges said that she was 'unable to rape'! And the Railway reinstated her in her job lifting the suspension.
The case against her will continue. But has any court yet taken up any case regarding the maltreatment met by her, the maltreatment committed by media, by police, that video making and circulation and etc?
Pinki's sufferings came at a time when internationally too girls are facing a new male-chauvinist dictat, that of the International Olympic Committee: Maya Rupert wrote in Huffington Post "According to the new IOC rules, the test won't be administered to all female athletes and instead will be given only when "the chief medical officer of a national Olympic committee or a member of the IOC's medical commission requests it." While this may have been designed to make the process less onerous, it creates an entirely new problem that will disadvantage any woman who is perceived as not being sufficiently feminine." That means — if some girl doesn't seem sufficiently girlish she may have to undergo a 'sex-test' if the 'high priests' of our modern Olympus ask so! Though Pinki may feel assured, in that case the victim 'not-so-girlish' girl would not be as much man-handled as suffered by Pinki in India.
We are ending our short protest that we want to lodge regarding Pinki's suffering by repeating what Subcommandante Marcos of the Japatista National Liberation Front (Mexico) said years ago when some persons tried to abuse him saying he had been a gay waiter in a San Fransisco bar, "Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a gang member in Neza, a rocker in the National University, a Jew in Germany, an ombudsman in the Defence Ministry, a communist in the post-Cold War era, an artist without gallery or portfolio.... A pacifist in Bosnia, a housewife alone on Saturday night in any neighbourhood in any city in Mexico, a striker in the CTM, a reporter writing filler stories for the back pages, a single woman on the subway at 10 pm, a peasant without land, an unemployed worker... an unhappy student, a dissident amid free market economics, a writer without books or readers, and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains of southeast Mexico. So Marcos is a human being, any human being, in this world. Marcos is all the exploited, marginalized and oppressed minorities, resisting and saying, 'Enough'!"
Comments:
No Comments for View