According to an article in the Hindustan Times, a 17-year old woman gave birth to a baby boy in her dormitory early morning on Tuesday March 5. She was a student in 11th grade in a government run residential girls school in northwestern India. She delivered a baby boy in the bathroom of her dormitory to avoid attracting attention. But the cries of the new born infant awakened other girls living in the dorm.
It was a school for girls. It was a residential school and so the young woman lived at the school dorm, a women-only facility. So the young woman had no opportunity to be with men either at the school or at the dorm. The young woman remained pregnant by choice and hid her condition from other women at her dorm and the school. She delivered her child herself. Even after the delivery, she does not seem to have claimed rape as the reason for her pregnancy. So it is reasonable to assume that the young woman exercised her free rights to carry her pregnancy to term and to deliver her child.
Now responsibility is the other side of freedom. So in any semi-civilized society with even rudimentary legal fairness, the young woman would be deemed solely responsible for the pregnancy and the delivery. Since sex as a minor is illegal, she could be sentenced probably lightly and the infant’s care would perhaps be supervised by an adult relative or a a social services type agency.
But not in Incredible India. Guess what happened when the Indian criminal justice system got into action after the fact. The female warden of the dorm was suspended for negligence and the principal of the school was removed. But the young mother was held blameless.
This literally boggles the mind. How on earth can the warden of the dorm be held liable? The warden of the dorm can be held liable IF the conception or relationship took place in the physical premises of the dorm. This is highly unlikely because men are simply not allowed inside the doors of a women’s dorm. How is the principal of the school liable? It was a women’s school and so the conception or relationship did not occur in the physical premises of the school.
What were the dorm warden and the principal supposed to do? Lock up all the young women students inside the dorm like in a harem? Forbid them to venture out of the dorm/school without female chaperons? Or should the warden or the principal have installed medieval style chastity belts on all young women students? These crazy, jail-like or harem-like conditions are the only way you can forcibly prevent a young woman of 17 from having sex outside the dorm or school.
This seems utterly elementary to us. But not to the criminal justice system in Incredible India. In that system, a woman is never legally responsible for her own consensual sexual activity. That is why the young woman who got pregnant and delivered her baby was held legally blameless even though she was guilty of sex as a minor. But blame has to be placed on someone. So the Incredible Indian system blamed the female warden of the dorm and the principal of the school.
What this case demonstrates beyond any shade of doubt is the utterly backward, worse than medieval nature of Indian thinking. The Indian legal system considers women as a “victim” class of individuals incapable of making decisions for themselves in sexual matters. That is why they are never held liable for their sexual activity. This is just as true of adult and married women. A married woman engaged in adultery is held as non-responsible and legally blameless for that sexual activity. Only the man involved in that adulterous relationship is held legally responsible and can be imprisoned for that activity.
This is as anti-feminist as a society can get. The essence of feminism is that women are equal to men in every conceivable sphere of life. And you cannot be equal without an equal share of responsibility. So the objective of feminism is to make women self-confident, capable, independent and completely responsible for their own actions.
Any society that respects women should welcome the right of a woman to engage in sexual activity of her free choice with a partner of her choice and assign to that woman total responsibility for the free choices she makes.
Today’s thoroughly screwed up Indian system is at the other extreme of independent feminism. This case teaches every female warden of every single women’s dorm to virtually lock up all the women in her care and perhaps to forcibly & constantly check every resident woman student for pregnancy. That is the only way a female warden of a woman’s dorm can protect herself legally even though these actions would be condemned in every semi-civilized society.
Getting back to the story, what happened to the 17-year young woman who delivered her baby in the bathroom of her dorm? Surely, her baby and she were given proper medical care to make sure both mother and child were safe. How can you even ask that question in “modern” India? The young woman’s grandfather was summoned and he took the young woman back to his village with the infant. The infant died the next day according to the Hindustan Times article.
Now you know why they call it Incredible India!
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