On one issue the usually brain dead scriptwriters and directors of Bollywood and its regional avatars are bang on target: women are the worst enemies of women. In reel life, the greatest persecutors of heroines and indeed any woman endowed with half-good looks, are the scheming mother or sister in-law, and often the neighbourhood killjoy sworn to uphold Brit-Victorian interpretation of Indian culture. A case in point is the National Commission for Women (NCW, estb.1992), promoted with the objectives of reviewing consti-tutional and legal safeguards for women and advising government on all policy matters affecting women. Alas, over the past two decades the national and state commissions have degenerated into Bollywood-style mother-in-law institutions given to faulting women rather than speaking up for them. So when a teenager emerging from a pub was sexually molested in public by a gang of goons and the incident was filmed by a regional television channel, a Delhi socialite sent by NCW to investigate, unhesitatingly disclosed — instead of protecting — the name and identity of the victim. On another occasion, an NCW chairperson advised women that being referred to as “sexy” by strangers should be regarded as a compliment even as she routinely advises them to tone down their dressing to discourage sexual molestation. Moreover, following an attack and sexual assault on a group of young people — including women — on July 28 in Mangalore by Hindutva activists for the crime of staging a birthday party, C. Manjula, chairperson of the NCW (Karnataka), refused to condemn the attackers, who she said were justifiably provoked by the “immoral activities” of the partying youth, ignorant of “the values of this soil”. Never having experienced romance and probably having ‘purchased’ their husbands, these frustrated harridans are hell-bent on ensuring that Gen Next doesn’t enjoy any of the freedoms they themselves were too timorous to demand. The public interest demands that the regressives who dominate NCW and its branches are sent back to mind kinder, kuche, kirche (children, kitchen and church — the role of women decreed by the late and unlamented Adolf Hitler). Academia inertia In these depressing times of scam upon scam, unrelenting inflation and internal displacement of innocent people, a sliver of good news which has uplifted your dejected editor has come from XLRI, Jamshedpur, the reputed B-school which perhaps because it’s run by men of the cloth, has never quite been bestowed the public esteem conferred upon the IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management). Yet XLRI is lengths ahead of the IIMs whose academics preach business management, but seldom practice it, in fundraising. According to a report in the Economic Times (August 14), the reverend fathers who double as faculty at the institute, have accumulated an endowment corpus of Rs.2.5 crore by systematically tapping their alumni for donations. The top management of XLRI (estb.1949) has now set itself a target of raising Rs.100 crore over the next five years to construct a new campus in Delhi, and to endow new chairs in Jamshedpur. For…
