Mangaluru: Supreme Court lawyer and former additional solicitor general of India, Indira Jaising set the stage for an engaging discussion with the audience after she asserted, during her keynote lecture, at the ’B V Kakkillaya Inspired Orations 2018’ programme, that the Supreme Court of India upheld the concept of constitutional morality over public morality in the judgement in the Sabarimala case. The event was organised by Hosatu, Bengaluru, M S Krishnan Memorial Trust, Bengaluru and Samadarshi Vedike, Mangaluru at Ravindra Kala Bhavan in University College, Mangaluru on Monday, December 17.
Indira Jaising said she was part of the courtroom which heard the Sabarimala case and pointed out that the issue was based on the Constitutional rights of women.
“The highest court has also considered the point that the discrimination against menstruating women amounts to accountability. The Supreme Court noted that the Devaswom Board’s argument that women were seductive elements harming the celibacy of the presiding deity as stereotypical,” the former additional solicitor general of India said. Speaking on the taboo surrounding menstruation and on menstruating women in Indian society, she said that almost all religious texts have discrimination against menstruating women.
Stating that the Supreme Court has been batting for Constitutional morality in legislature, executive and judiciary, she said that true gender justice is giving agency to women to exercise their liberty.
“The true liberation is to enable women to earn a livelihood of their choice and to be economically empowered. In India, gender is a sociological construct and patriarchy and misogyny have become the elements in deciding the role of women in society,” she said.
Despite the Supreme Court’s direction to the Central government to prevent vigilantism on women, the atrocities on women, especially, domestic violence, are on the rise, she noted.
“According to the latest survey by the UN, most of the women deaths in 2017, were due to domestic violence. Right wing ideology which confines women to homes, has been encouraging domestic violence,” she added.
Jaising said, “The present government has not shown any interest in spending the Nirbhaya fund instituted by the earlier government, dedicated to the cause of women. A large amount of the fund remains unspent.”
The positives must, however, be highlighted she said. The ministry of women and child welfare has set up an online portal to register the grievances of women and children, she informed.
No role of govt in Triple talaq’
The central government has been portraying that it has played a decisive role in getting the judgement on triple talaq. In fact, it was the women victims who fought for their rights. Even though the court has said that triple talaq is unconstitutional, the Central government is preparing to pass a bill to consider triple talaq as a crime.
In answer to a query from the audience, she said that secularism is not defined in the constitution and therefore it is interpreted differently but it must be viewed in relation to the constitutional principles of equality, liberty and fraternity.
