Open letter from women in media

In the recent case involving the return of a POW, Arif, of Mundali village, and the village Panchayat and Ulema’s decision that his wife, Gudiya, who had in the meantime married another man, Taufiq, return to Arif, we are appalled at the media’s coverage of the issue, particularly the visual media. We strongly resent the growing instances of trial by media, the media’s self-appointed role as resolvers of conflict, and the use of people’s personal tragedies to increase network ratings.

Zee’s advertisement for its show, "A man gets his life back….( photo of panchayat)… "a family gets its future: A soldier at Kargil spends 5 years as POW. His newly wed wife waits in futility and then re-marries. The soldier returns to find his life turned upside down. ... At Zee news we are happy to be the forum where the issue was resolved. As India's largest media house, its our duty to the nation” is particularly tasteless, but the other channels like NDTV and Aaj Tak fared little better. It is bad enough having village panchayats and Pandits and Ulema’s deciding on what should be a personal choice for the parties involved, without having the media push their own views as well.

Second, the terms of the ‘debate’ were regressive to say the least. Television anchors repeatedly asked Arif and Taufiq what they wanted, while Gudiya was rarely given a chance. The ‘public’ at large, which has no locus standi in the case, was asked for their opinion, and again the terms of the debate were set as a choice of which of the two men should get her. The media thus repeatedly reinforced the idea of a woman as an object to be handed around between various men.

One of the questions concerned the status of the child – i.e. whether Arif should keep the child or if Taufiq should take it back once it is born. The modus vivendi worked out by the Deoband Ulema – that Arif should keep the child, but Taufiq should pay for its upkeep also reduces parenting to a question of money and ‘ownership’. But most of all, one got no sense in all this, that it is Gudiya’s child as well, or rather, Gudiya’s child most of all. Far from displaying any sense of social responsibility, the media have reinforced the idea that women should have no control over their fertility, bodies, or lives and that these can be controlled by the husband, family, panchayat and now the media. Given that the census figures released barely a couple of weeks ago revealed a sharply unequal sex ratio in North India, this is a major disservice to ‘the nation’.

The media claims in its defence that no-one forced the parties to come to the media. However, in tense situations of this kind, people will use any avenue they feel might give them some slight benefit, including invoking public sympathy through the media. In fact, the media enhanced conflict in this case by forcing relatives to give public statements against one another (like Gudiya’s aunt who blamed Gudiya’s father for the situation). When Arif’s sisters defended his decision, the NDTV anchor sanctimoniously informed us that “women in this area are very backward and lack the capacity to abstract from concrete instances.” Gudiya and other family members have since complained of the media’s violation of their privacy (HT, 26.9.04).

We also note a communal subtext to the coverage, given that the parties involved were Muslim, and the decision was made by the Ulema. We wish to point out that retrogressive caste panchayats/religious panchayats are a common feature of both Hindu and Muslim life, and that should have been the focus, if any, not Gudiya’s ‘human interest’ dilemma.

While one may have every sympathy for Arif’s trauma as a Kargil POW, this does not mean that ‘the nation’ owes him a wife. Nor does Taufiq become a hero because he ‘accepted soiled goods’ as one interviewee graciously informed us on television. If anyone is the real heroine, it is Gudiya, who has endured both her village panchayat, clerics and Arif’s unreasonable demands that she abandon her child with firm dignity and faith in the shariat.

We also object to the way in which a woman who is eight months pregnant and reportedly ill due to the pressure of decision-making was virtually ‘kidnapped’ and subjected to long hours in the studio.

Finally, we believe that Gudiya must be given the space to make her decision, away from the media and the contending families, villages, ulemas etc. The legal procedures should be resolved according to her wishes.

Signed by:
Members of the NWMI and other individuals
Laxmi Murthy, Ammu Joseph, Soumi Das, Parvathi Devi, Rajashri Dasgupta, Anjali Mathur, Sonal Kellogg, Priyanka Trehan, Sunita Menon, R. Parvathy Devi , Sameera Khan, Aditi Bhaduri, Ranjita Biswas,Uttara Gangopadhyay,Shoma Chatterjee, Deepa Dhanraj, Uma V Chandru, Dr. Vijaya Chandru. Sujata Patel, Prabha Nagaraj, Neha Sood, Nivedita Menon, Aditya Nigam, Rakhee Timothy, K. Johnson, Malini Ghose, Farah Naqvi, Ujjwal Singh, Anupama Roy, Vineeta Bal, Paramjeet Singh, Prateeksha Baxi, Vikram Vyas, Janaki Abraham, Nandini Sundar, Dipta Bhog, Shahana Bhattacharya, Sharmila Purkayastha, Jaya Sharma, Mosuhumi Basu, Sucharita, Manjeer, Poornima Gupta, Shalini Joshi, Deepika Tandon, Sarojini, Nischint, Kumud, Yasmeen, Nandita Gandhi, Shivanand Kanvi, Kalyani Menon, Bina Srinivas, Veenu, Malika Virdi, Soma KP

Some organisations that have endorsed this letter
PUDR, Nirantar, Saheli, Lok Raj Sanghatan, Sama, CREA, Tarshi, Centre for Development and Human Rights, PRISM, Sahrwaru, Delhi University GCash, Purogami Mahila Sanghatan, Akshara, Awaz - e- Niswan, Vacha, Forum Against Oppression of Women, Ashray Adhikar Manch, Rahi, Jagori, Mati Munsiari, Ankur, Anandi, Olakh, Sanlaap, Swayam, Gramya Resource Centre, Majlis,
Labia

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