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Out of Focus by Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham

With the coming of a New Year, it is important to also reflect on whether changes for women have become momentous and far-reaching. It seems that globalization has definitely affected our capacity for movement. Boundaries that have kept communities isolated or separated from other communities have supposedly fallen away, leaving all citizens with the capacity for greater mobility.

Definitely it seems that people move around the world, work and live as they have never done before. Being an Indian or a Sri Lankan does not matter for a certain class, and they can live, and work anywhere.

Yet, to make such bold statements seems more than na News is not always simply good. For example, a good friend of mine who is also a Belgian, and a fellow feminist, while studying with me, had started seriously going out with an Indian boy. Their relationship garnered a great deal of comment, as it was inter cultural, despite them living in metropolitan New Delhi.

There was great speculation that suggested he was only going out with her because she was white and so obviously easy. Then others commented that she merely wanted to have a fling with a local, "slumming" while she was in India. Inter cultural mixing, still seems taboo and society is still reluctant to accept people who desire to breakthrough boundaries of caste, race and religion.

Here is another example of how women have to constantly live under censorship. When I moved to India, I had decided with two other friends to move to a flat of our own. My first memories of living in Delhi are of trudging through the neighbourhood looking for flats to move into. Constantly an agent showed us a flat, but when we met the landlord, he was extremely reluctant to allow three women move in. It took us nearly two months to find accommodation where we were allowed a measure of space, and that too because the landlord lived miles away and wasn't really concerned with what was happening at his flat.

Of course there are many other ways in which women's movement is still restricted in this part of the world and globally. We cannot still wear what we want in the streets, we are restricted from various kinds of actions, and living alone for a South Asian woman can still be an issue.

Yet, what gains have we obtained in the last few years? In India I found that the feminist front was active, vociferous and extremely intense. Living there has been inspirational to me rather than disappointing. I found that if I looked beyond the clich,s and obvious restrictions, a whole new world of women doing good work opened up to me.

I would like to refer to the first and only Indian women's publishing house that has been established in Delhi. The publishing house 'Kali for Women,' headed by Ritu Menon and Urvashi Butalia was started in one of their garages two decades ago, but today has transformed to publishing excellent work of South Asian feminists and others.

The need for such publishing houses is paramount. How else will women writers obtain a voice to convey their opinions and attitudes? Mainstream publishing houses have started today to consider women writers seriously, but this has not always been the case. Furthermore, Kali publishes work that is not necessarily popular and saleable, but books that contribute towards a feminist consciousness.

There have also been other enormous changes that we cannot ignore. Since independence Indian feminists have inspired the South Asian region in various activities. Recently at the University I had studied at, the Jawaharlal Nehru University, (JNU) a commission called GSCASH was established. No, this is not an ATM machine for fast cash withdrawals.

GSCASH stands for Gender Sensitization Committee Against Sexual Harassment. It has been set up under the guidance of the dynamic Ayesha Kidwai, a linguist and feminist who teaches there. GSCASH is unique as it is the first of its kind in India, and possibly even globally. It deals with sexual harassment cases within the university premises, and concerns not only students, but faculty and all staff that work in JNU. It makes strong recommendations to the university when cases are reported and it negotiates between students, the faculty, the staff, and the administration.

Often I have heard comments where men protest that such committees merely privilege women, and are automatically biased against men. GSCASH is a good example of how a committee can work neutrally to assuage problems on both sides.

It has often mediated cases where men have also complained of harassment and have questioned the parties concerned. The term gender instead of women is used to denote the fact that both sides of the story are relevant. What is an extremely important element of this committee is that it helps many men and women who work in JNU no matter what their job may be. It does not take into account hierarchies when dealing with harassment. There have been instances where "minor staff' or to be blunt the sweepers of JNU have been harassed and where GSCASH has appealed to the university for support and have backed these women.

One such woman was Munni, who cleaned the hostel that I lived in. She had been staying in JNU accommodation provided for non-academic staff. The man of the house, her in-law, made advances to her, and when she refused him, he kicked her out.

GSCASH found temporary accommodation for her, helped her look for a place to stay and assured her that no further harassment towards her would be tolerated. This is but one instance when it has worked towards empowering both men and women.

So, yes, perhaps feminists can complain, as I certainly do, that things have not moved as far as we would like, and changes are too slow in coming, that women's movements have disintegrated and mass protest is no longer possible. Yet, to simply do this is to ignore the enormous gains made in our region, and to ignore some of the dynamic women who work at home and around making many differences in our world today.

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