Eve teasing is not ‘OK’: SC

Even though our constitution assures the right to live with dignity and the right to equality, the Indian women often suffer the heat of male chauvinism in the form of the eve teasing. The stalking and eve teasing are often used as a weapon by the male chauvinists to show and establish their dominance. This aggressive behaviour has victimised many innocent women time and then.

On the wake of this unfortunate developments, the Supreme Court of India, while upholding a verdict of the Himachal Pradesh High Court that gave a seven-year imprisonment for a man who had abetted the commission of suicide by a women through a kind of physiological harassment similar to the stalking and eve teasing, has asserted that a civilised society never provides any space to any kind of the male chauvinism.

The bench headed by Justice Dipak Mishra, Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice M M Shantanagoudar has identified that the women are subjected to this kind of harassment in public spaces like parks, bus stations, and railway stations and even in the educational institutions it is been practised. The three-member bench has asked why we can’t let the women enjoy their rights gifted to them by our constitution.

The court has come heavily on the uncivilised attitude of the male chauvinists, highlighting the importance of the equality, women empowerment and gender freedom. It is an unfortunate fact that even if we are one of the first developing countries which took a progressive measure of the Universal Adult Franchise highlighting the importance of the equality, no serious policy has been taken to carry forward that progressive thought process by eliminating all kind of the male chauvinism and ensuring the gender equality to its core.

It is not good to forget that we, Indians, possess a great, progressive, rich, tradition in which the women holds equal importance as that of the men.

Vignesh

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