A 6000 day wait on justice: The Uphaar tragedy commiserations

Krishnamurthy

A mother always remembers, Neelam Krishnamurthy had said two years – 730 days – ago. She had been talking about the 1997 Uphaar cinema fire in which her teenage daughter and her son died. It’s been 18 years since that fateful day but she still counts the days like an imprisoned person. “6570 days.” 

Krishnamurthy is one of many awaiting closure while Supreme Court deliberates the sentence to be given out to the real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal – the owners of Uphaar who were convicted for willful negligence causing death on March 5 last year. 

Another evidence tampering case against the Ansal brothers is pending before the Patiala House Courts Complex Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanangal. The 56-year-old Krishnamurthy has never missed a single hearing in the case that’s stretched on for nine years.

“You would be my daughter’s age,” she can be heard telling the younger reporters who perchance upon her in the district courts.

Meanwhile SC continues to deliberate on the question of quantum of punishment to be given to the Ansal Brothers. It was sent to a larger Bench for determination last year.

The fire in Uphaar cinema located in South Delhi broke out during the screening of the movie Border. Fifty-nine corpses were recovered. Corners’ reports show that they suffocated to their deaths. During investigation it was revealed that the Ansals’ building did not comply with fire safety standards. One of the Fire Exits was blocked by extra seats, so the trapped victims could not get out of the burning hall.

“Members of the Association hope that the larger Bench would consider the enormity of the tragedy before deciding on the quantum of sentence. It is very evident from the findings of the Supreme Court that 59 invaluable lives were snuffed out due to wanton disregard of the statutes with the intention of making extra money rather than ensuring the safety of patrons. We also hope that the decision on the quantum of punishment is such that it would send a strong message to the occupiers and owners of public spaces that they cannot endanger human lives to fill their coffers,” AVUT (Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy) president Krishnamurthy said.

On Saturday June 13, the AVUT will hold held a prayer meeting marking the 18 years which have passed since they lost their loved ones. 

They are demanding the sentence of the Ansal Brothers be decided by SC in an expeditious manner; they want the evidence tampering case in the district court to be finally heard. 

“It’s been “6570 days,” says Krishnamurthy speaking for all the living victims of the tragedy  “Don’t we deserve justice?”

(A shorter, modified, version of this article appeared in an edition of the Hindustan Times June 13, 2015 papers)

Bahadur Aur Beghar: No help for the Patiala House Court Complex's Nepali staff after Earthquake

Kishan Bahadur was a jolly, carefree soul. He's the first one telling a vakeelji who's lost his files to chill; the first to smile as you enter Patiala House court complex’s tension-drenched filing room. But since April 25, this year, Kishan Bahadur has become a different person.

He’s from Pokhara Village in Nepal, where a 7.8 Ritcher scale earthquake that hit the country last month destroyed 90% of the buildings. Kishan’s house — where his wife and two small children reside — was demolished he tells me. With a sigh of relief, he adds, no one was home at the time.

“My wife was at the neighbors, and the kids were in school. It’s only by pure luck and gods’ grace that I still have a family,” he explains.

He adds, "they don’t have a house to live in anymore and are staying with the neighnours.” He shrugs, but one can tell his pride is hurt -- he's the sort of man who believes in taking from no one.

Having no home to go back to is not the end of Kishan’s woes. Due to the sudden force majure, he also has no money for the trip home, or to fix the broken down building once he gets to his destination.

Being a proud Bahadur and has not yet asked the district judge in charge Amar Nath for help as of yet. Truth told, he confesses, he did not know asking the DJ for help was an option.

In fact, Kishan and others like him are worried that their pay will be affected if they go to Nepal during court working days. At the moment, lower court staff is only given a certain number of leaves, and anyone exceeding those gets a pay-cut.

Those Nepalis who have already used their limited number of paid holidays are not getting any concession to visit their homeland post-Earthquake.  With the typical Bahadur sense of humour he adds, the only good thing is that this happened at the beginning of the year, so not many have taken holidays yet.

Strapped for cash themselves, Kishan’s colleagues in the filing room are collecting money on his behalf. So far, ten people have contributed, and they have Rs. 2000 to give towards rebuilding a house whose value in memories cannot be quantified.

“Not a lot of the staff is being generous as well. I’ve contributed, some others have. Some know Kishan needs the money but ignore us. I mean how much can one go door to door also na?” one Reader tells me under the condition of anonymity.

There are at least 20 Pokhara villagers working as junior staff or menial labour in various district courts in Delhi. The overall count of Nepali workers within the city’s judicial system exceeds 100.

Tis Hazari court, which has about 50 Nepalis working in it has the largest number, closely followed by Saket court that employs 20 and Patiala House Court that employs 18-20 persons.

I spoke to a number of them from various district courts, and their situation was found to be similar, if not exactly, like Kishan’s story.

(This reportage is entirely in my personal capacity, has nothing to do with my employer, and was done on my own time. Any liability stemming from the same should be placed on me, and no one else.)

Ps- If you want to help Kishan and others like him, please go to the Court Staff Secretaries at the various district courts, and donate what you comfortably can to their cause. 

The courts must be crazy

Since leaving the legal profession, I’ve found myself defending Indian judgments more than ever before. Sometimes it is much needed; legal orders are easily misinterpreted and misquoted by the media, leading an average person to think all judges are crazy. Other times, the average person is spot on- the judgment put forth is as close to crazy as can be. Today, I find myself wishing I could call the latest spate of supposedly women-friendly judgments passed by the Delhi High Court, and most recently the Madras High Court, crazy. I really, really wish I could. Crazy would be better than insidious.

In case you haven’t read, last week the Delhi High Court ruled (albeit in a matter of anticipatory bail) that promising a woman marriage to obtain sex is tantamount to rape- an archaic sentiment that was reasonably overturned by the Supreme Court this year. Today, the Hindu carries news of a Madras High Court order stating that pre-marital sex is all one needs to establish the relationship of marriage. Even if these observations are obiter dicta, some lawyer, some lower court is going to bring this up again, for sure. For a brief moment, let's put aside the legal implications of these judgments - those are mind-numbing, to say the least.

On the face of it one might think that these judgments have been passed to protect a woman but let’s call a spade a spade, shall we? In two fell swoops, the court has made its message quite clear: “Women need protection from licentious men, and women only have sex in order to get married to the man.” To follow the thought to its logical conclusion, women are so desperate to get married that they are being easily duped by men into having sex with them on the basis of just a promise. Follow it a bit further; a sexually active woman who doesn’t want or expect marriage is a bad woman, a loose woman, a woman who is asking for it.

Both judgments are examples of a type of sexism: Benevolent sexism; particularly difficult to counter purely because, as the name suggests, it appears to be so affable.

The term was coined in 1996 by Peter Glick and Susan Fiske. In 2012, the University of Florida conducted an in-depth study into the theory, and found that both men and women are equally prone to benevolent sexism. The idea was summed up perfectly by Dr. Kathleen Connelly, PhD the lead author of this study, as the perception that "women are wonderful, but weak" It’s inbuilt into social norms that feminists have long fought against, without much help from (even) other women.

When faced with top level judges enforcing this idea by insisting that women need protection from men who make false promises; by insinuating that sex between two people is anything more than that because it automatically leads to the women assuming there’s a deeper, long-lasting commitment, what are we to think?

Connelly states that “several studies have shown that when women read benevolently sexist comments, for example, they tend to perform more poorly on cognitive tests, express feelings of incompetence and weakness, and even experience greater dissatisfaction with their physical appearance. Not to mention, it might even perpetuate current inequalities—disparities in pay, for instance—that women still experience.”

An excellent example of the hazard of this kind of sexism was given in the Scientific American blog. It’s such a good example that I’m quoting it verbatim below:

“For a very recent example of how benevolent sexism might play out in our everyday lives, take a look at this satirical piece, which jokingly re-writes Albert Einstein’s obituary.

To quote: He made sure he shopped for groceries every night on the way home from work, took the garbage out, and hand washed the antimacassars. But to his step daughters he was just Dad. ”He was always there for us,” said his step daughter and first cousin once removed Margo.

Albert Einstein, who died on Tuesday, had another life at work, where he sometimes slipped away to peck at projects like showing that atoms really exist. His discovery of something called the photoelectric effect won him a coveted Nobel Prize.

Looks weird, right? Kind of like something you would never actually see in print?

Yet the author of rocket scientist Yvonne Brill’s obituary didn’t hesitate before writing the following about her last week: She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job, and took eight years off from work to raise three children. “The world’s best mom,” her son Matthew said.

But Yvonne Brill, who died on Wednesday at 88 in Princeton, N.J., was also a brilliant rocket scientist, who in the early 1970s invented a propulsion system to help keep communications satellites from slipping out of their orbits.”

Sometimes, I wish I was making this shit up.

Recently upon joining a new work-place, I was told by someone to reign in my enthusiasm, to be a quieter, more subtle version of myself. “Don’t talk so much, don’t be so loud-mouthed with your opinions,” is what I was told. The example of a much quieter woman was given to me as the epitome of how a female should behave in an office. Never mind that the example/ epitome and I are totally different people. I’m not a quiet person, I am opinionated. I know a lot of men who are quite similar, and receive no criticism about it. In fact the person telling me so was pretty much, even if he didn’t realize it, foisting his opinion of what is correct behavior unto me- making him not very different from what he was telling me not to be. Had his mother told him to behave like an entirely different person, she’d be smothering; but when a man says these kinds of things to me, he’s being protective, he’s offering advice- never mind that I didn’t ask for any advice from him.

The sad truth behind this kind of benign sexism is that it’s not just the men that exercise it, but women as well. Think about the last time a friend of yours bemoaned that she earns more than her spouse, or Carrie Bradshaw cried over the lack of chivalry in this world without so much as a thought to how this so-called chivalry came about? What is the point of me lifting weights in a gym if I can’t even open the door for myself? Why am I working to make money, if the man is supposed to pay for my dinner?

To be honest, I’m plain ol’ riled up. I did wonder briefly if I would have been less irritated had these same courts stood up for the Verma Committee suggestions, and not buckled under pressure like they did. It might have been easier to stomach some of this, if India wasn't one of the only countries where marital rape isn't a crime. If the court didn't have the authority to rule on intimate matters between people then, I can't believe they think they do now. I certainly don’t need Justice Easwar to protect my hurt feelings or pride from every guy out there who lies. To put a rest to this line of thinking, let me be honest, women lie too. Oh, yes we do; and we lie to get sex too. Take a breath Judge- People, in general, sometimes lie to get what they want; the world is not a fair place, pretending that it is will only help prolong a stereotype that’s both insulting and condescending.