Gender and judgments: ‘In the Body of a Woman: Essays on Law, Gender and Society’ by Aaliya Waziri – Book Review

The book begins with the horrific gangrape of a 23-year-old woman in 2012 in New Delhi, reiterating the degree of horror that can be perpetrated on a woman. “Nirbhaya was a watershed moment in terms of highlighting the procedural lapses in our legal framework,” Waziri tells FE in an interview. Despite the ghastly crime stoking widespread anger and protests, the gruesome act continues to happen every day. The judiciary’s act here warrants a mention, whose responses have swayed from extremely regressive to progressive, as the writer highlights in her book. For example, while one particular high court ordered the victim to tie a rakhi on her perpetrator, another, while dealing with the rape of a four-year-old child, observed that the “accused was at least kind enough to leave the prosecutrix alive, (and thus) this court is of the opinion that the life imprisonment can be reduced to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment.” Often, the stance of courts gets hidden behind the crime, and should be scrutinised sharply, the author writes.

Beyond legality and the physical act, the writer delves into the social element behind rape, which adds more depth to understanding a crime that impacts thousands of women in India annually. “At the risk of a seeming oversimplification, a rape, in essence, is an expression of power—an act of violence emanating from a perverse sense of entitlement and ownership over a woman’s body,” she writes.

This is followed by an in-depth essay on marital rape, which highlights the legal challenge associated with this crime when the victim and perpetrator have had been in a physical relationship. “There is data to show that the average Indian woman is 17 times more likely to face sexual violence from her husband than from others,” said Waziri. Despite the enormity of the issue, India is among the few nations to not have legislation against it.

Here, too, the writer highlights the distinct stands taken by high courts of different states. “In August 2021, the Chhattisgarh High Court ruled that sexual intercourse or any sexual act by a husband with his legally wedded wife is not rape. At the same time, Kerala High Court made marital rape a valid ground for divorce. The latter judgment goes on to say that, ‘Treating wife’s body as something owing to the husband and committing sexual act against her will is marital rape’.”

While Waziri delves deep into this pressing issue, the book is not restricted to rape, and also includes challenges as diverse as witch-hunting and cyber-harassment, both of which affect women disproportionately. “The laws in place are insufficient to deal with the enormity of the practice that is witch-hunting,” she writes, adding that with films like Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, which “toy with the notion of women as witches, the superstition is pushed deeper in the psyche of the general viewing public”. Such analysis of the topic from multiple angles adds to the overall understanding of the problem.

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While every essay stands out, the most poignant one is on the Bulli Bai case, in which several prominent Muslim women were allegedly auctioned online as bais. Waziri’s mother, a literary historian, was one of them. “When I was first approached to write on this, people expected me to be horrified or at least enraged. To be honest, I was neither. I was numb. Numbness is a strange, almost comforting thing. Doctors say it is our body’s way of protecting us from harm,” she writes.

Although the writer has approached every issue with rationality and balance, here is where a certain amount of anger and sadness is evident. However, she quickly goes on to again analyse the issue from multiple angles, seeing the case as more than that of cyber harassment but “the unfortunate converging of communalism and sexism”. It is, in fact, a toxic mix of “minority oppression, systemic sexism, and gender-based violence”.

In the remaining essays, she also writes about maternity, abortion rights, and employment inequality.

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“To be honest, I wrote about what came naturally to me,” says Waziri on the idea behind the book. “In here, a lot of the chapters are on topics that are personal to me, such as cyber harassment and the lack of gender-responsive support infrastructure in courts.” While she began writing to fill a void that had emerged with a lack of gender-responsive literature addressing loopholes within the laws, “I must confess that this book was never intended to be a book at all.”

While the book was “never intended”, In the Body of a Woman: Essays on Law, Gender and Society is a crucial read to understand the challenges and horrors faced by women of this country every day.

In the Body of a Woman: Essays on Law, Gender and Society

Aaliya Waziri

Simon & Schuster

Pp 232, Rs 499