Opinion President Obama’s Visit

Sexual Harassment

In August 1997,our Supreme Court in its judgment in the Vishakha case,grappled with the pernicious problem of sexual harassment of women at workplaces. It defined sexual harassment,prescribed penalties for the offence and devised machinery for implementation. This salutary judgment was ad-hoc judicial legislation but was sorely needed. Justice JS Verma aptly pointed out that the judgment would have binding effect until Parliament enacted requisite legislation. After more than three years,the draft bill has been cleared by the Cabinet. The Bill is quite comprehensive. It proposes to bring within its ambit both private and public as well as organised and unorganised sectors. It covers inter alia NGOs,hospitals and nursing homes and brings students,research scholars,patients within its ambit. Regrettably,domestic helps are not covered. The reasons given are the difficulty of proof and the anxiety to avoid intrusion into the privacy of households. In big households there is acute sexual harassment of women and there should be no special difficulty in proving it. Besides invocation of the right of privacy is totally untenable. The Bill defines sexual harassment widely. However the inclusion of “sexually coloured remarks” in the definition will impart untrammelled subjectivity and can convey different meanings to different individuals depending on the colour of their mind. Let us hope Parliament in the winter session enacts the much needed legislation.

Blot on army’s image

Scams involving political leaders,bureaucrats and ministers do not surprise us because,unfortunately,we have become used to them. When corruption scams involve high personages in the armed forces we are outraged because the army is one institution which people admire and are proud of. That is the terrible aspect of the Adarsh land scam in Mumbai. How could army chiefs and other big-wigs be allotted flats in a building which it is reported was constructed to provide homes for families of soldiers who died defending the nation in the Kargil War? It is not the monetary value of the flats but the brazen complicity in wrong doing with a sense of impunity which is nauseating. Have values completely collapsed and sense of right and wrong disappeared in every institution? Some army chiefs pleading ignorance of the purpose for which the building was constructed have relinquished their flats. Would they have done so if media had not exposed the scam? People doubt it because they have lost faith in institutions which they respected. This feeling of distrust and cynicism is deleterious to our polity. Army Chief General VK Singh’s reported determination to take suitable action after investigation against members of the armed forces,however high they be,who have sullied the army’s image is reassuring. However that will have meaningful credibility only if the investigation is swift and the follow-up action is exemplary. The army must redeem itself at the earliest.