The Jasleen Kaur incident sparked a heated
debate in India for reasons more than one. The initial outrage was against the
man that she accused of harassing her sexually, after she posted her incident
on Facebook. She reported the incident to the police but also uploaded a
picture of the man, which has since been shared more than 1,30,000 times.
Unusually, the Delhi Police, which has been rather infamous thanks to its
failure in controlling the increasing crime rate against women in the capital
city, acted on Jasleen’s post and arrested a man, Sarvjeet Singh, charging him
with sexual harassment, criminal intimidation, and insulting the modesty of a
woman, according to local reports. News channels initially commended her
boldness and the chief minister of Delhi and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader
Arvind Kejriwal was quick enough to praise her “bravery”. While the public mood
initially seemed to be in Jasleen’s support, things soon took a drastic turn
and then came a twist in the story. The alleged harasser, Singh, who has been
released on bail, denied the allegations and went public too, to accuse Kaur of
courting publicity and using the incident to further her own political causes.
Much like the photo that Kaur had posted to
shame Singh, photos and screenshots began to circulate online showing Kaur at
AAP events, and the debate over the issue quickly broke down into political
camps. This incident comes at a time when a similar incident involving the
Rohtak sisters is still afresh in the minds of the people. A still from a video
of two sisters beating up three men who allegedly harassed them on a bus was
one of the many videos showing alleged harassment that have gone viral in India
recently. It was later observed that the sisters had a penchant for entering
into fights with boys. Soon enough, in February this year, the sisters failed
the polygraph test thereby validating the latter theory.
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The rise of the use of social media to name
and shame alleged sexual harassers in particular has coincided with the brutal
rape and murder of a student on a bus in 2012, a case that brought the issue of
sexual violence in India to international attention. Amanda Fernandes from
Panjim says, “Young men and women who may not be familiar with the rules on how
to file a police complaint decide to post on Facebook or tweet to seek justice.
But they forget that a tweet is not a proof. The police might take action but
one cannot know for sure if it is the right action. Justice depends on what happens
if and when these cases reach the courts.”
Roshni Adpaikar from Aldona feels that,
“feminism is a movement for equal rights and girls like Jasleen Kaur are
hurting feminism by misusing those rights. Crime has no gender and it’s high
time we stop generalising that the culprit will be the guy all the time. Girls
like Kaur should not make it difficult for other girls just for their
publicity.” Commenting on a more appropriate step to take, Niranjan Purohit
from Ponda says, “I don’t know about the rest of India, but I think the cops in
Goa are quite efficient. I think the best thing to do is to file a complaint in
case of an untoward incident like sexual harassment and have faith in the
system to deliver justice to the complainant. Shaming the alleged culprit on
social media would be akin to delivering mob justice.”
