Gendered violence and the search for justice
The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library invites you to a Panel Discussion
at 5.00 pm on Thursday, 14 March, 2013 in the Auditorium, Library Building
Gendered violence and the search for justice
Ms. Vrinda Grover, Fellow, NMML,
Dr. Uma Chakravarti, Former Professor, University of Delhi, Delhi,
Ms. Rosemary Dzuvichu, Nagaland University, Nagaland
Concept Note: The issue of sexual violence has been central to the women’s movement in India beginning with the Mathura case in 1980. Legal activism has been an important arena for the women’s movement’s engagement with the state from then onwards culminating recently with the significant discussion between the Verma Committee and women’s rights activists in January 2013. This discussion has expanded the understanding of civil society on the continuum of sexual violence going from the home to the field to the street and to the frontiers of the nation. We stand today at a critical juncture wherein a feminist jurisprudence can inform state legislation that can completely transform the archaic and outmoded ways in which sexual violence has been defined under existing law. The panel of speakers will first provide a historical framework for legal activism, its slow and hesitant beginnings in the 1980’s. It will then widen the scope of our understanding through dialogues and interventions by women’s fact-finding groups who have documented sexual violence in a range of locations that have experienced caste/communal or ethnic conflict. Finally, it will outline the recent conceptual and definitional advances made by feminists to spearhead a law that can translate feminist jurisprudence into legal rights for women in India.
Speakers:
Dr. Uma Chakravarti is a former Fellow, NMML and a feminist historian who taught history at Miranda House, University of Delhi for more than three decades. She has been associated with the movement for women's rights and democratic rights since the 1970s and in that capacity has been on many fact-finding teams investigating communal, caste and ethnic violence and state repression. She writes on gender, caste and labour in early India, the 19th century and on contemporary society. She is now an independent researcher who lives and works from Delhi.
Ms. Vrinda Grover is a lawyer, researcher and human rights activist based in Delhi. She graduated from St. Stephen’s College, obtained her law degree from Delhi University and her Masters in Law from New York
University, School of Law. As a lawyer she has appeared in landmark human rights cases. Her research and writing includes examining the role of law in the subordination of women and interrogating the impunity of the State for targeted crimes and in conflict zones.
Ms. Rosemary Dzuvichu graduated from St. Mary’s College, Shillong and did her post graduation from the North Eastern Hill University. Worked in media as Radio broadcasting commentator, news reader, western music section in All India Radio Kohima. She is a Senior Faculty in Nagaland University, teaches American Literature and British Drama and was also the co-ordinator, Centre for Mass Communication, Nagaland University.
High Tea : 4-30 pm.
All are welcome.
at 5.00 pm on Thursday, 14 March, 2013 in the Auditorium, Library Building
Gendered violence and the search for justice
Ms. Vrinda Grover, Fellow, NMML,
Dr. Uma Chakravarti, Former Professor, University of Delhi, Delhi,
Ms. Rosemary Dzuvichu, Nagaland University, Nagaland
Concept Note: The issue of sexual violence has been central to the women’s movement in India beginning with the Mathura case in 1980. Legal activism has been an important arena for the women’s movement’s engagement with the state from then onwards culminating recently with the significant discussion between the Verma Committee and women’s rights activists in January 2013. This discussion has expanded the understanding of civil society on the continuum of sexual violence going from the home to the field to the street and to the frontiers of the nation. We stand today at a critical juncture wherein a feminist jurisprudence can inform state legislation that can completely transform the archaic and outmoded ways in which sexual violence has been defined under existing law. The panel of speakers will first provide a historical framework for legal activism, its slow and hesitant beginnings in the 1980’s. It will then widen the scope of our understanding through dialogues and interventions by women’s fact-finding groups who have documented sexual violence in a range of locations that have experienced caste/communal or ethnic conflict. Finally, it will outline the recent conceptual and definitional advances made by feminists to spearhead a law that can translate feminist jurisprudence into legal rights for women in India.
Speakers:
Dr. Uma Chakravarti is a former Fellow, NMML and a feminist historian who taught history at Miranda House, University of Delhi for more than three decades. She has been associated with the movement for women's rights and democratic rights since the 1970s and in that capacity has been on many fact-finding teams investigating communal, caste and ethnic violence and state repression. She writes on gender, caste and labour in early India, the 19th century and on contemporary society. She is now an independent researcher who lives and works from Delhi.
Ms. Vrinda Grover is a lawyer, researcher and human rights activist based in Delhi. She graduated from St. Stephen’s College, obtained her law degree from Delhi University and her Masters in Law from New York
University, School of Law. As a lawyer she has appeared in landmark human rights cases. Her research and writing includes examining the role of law in the subordination of women and interrogating the impunity of the State for targeted crimes and in conflict zones.
Ms. Rosemary Dzuvichu graduated from St. Mary’s College, Shillong and did her post graduation from the North Eastern Hill University. Worked in media as Radio broadcasting commentator, news reader, western music section in All India Radio Kohima. She is a Senior Faculty in Nagaland University, teaches American Literature and British Drama and was also the co-ordinator, Centre for Mass Communication, Nagaland University.
High Tea : 4-30 pm.
All are welcome.
