---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kavita Krishnan <[email protected]> Date: Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 1:13 AM Subject: Fwd: AIPWA Statement against SC Comments on Khushboo's 'virginity' remarks To:
*Press Statement * *Supreme Court has no basis to question Khushboo’s remarks on virginity * New Delhi, January 20, 2010 It has been reported in several papers that the a Supreme Court Bench comprising the Chief Justice and two other Justices have deemed Khushboo’s remarks that enlightened men should not demand virginity from brides to be irresponsible and unnecessary. The Justices apparently asked why she needed to make “extensive wise comment” on virginity. The Justices have made the remarks while hearing the actress Khushboo’s appeal against 23 cases filed against her following several attacks on her the publication of her remarks in a newspaper interview four years ago. The actress had appealed that the cases violated her right to free speech. The Supreme Court’s judgement in the matter is pending. It is shocking that the Supreme Court should choose to question a woman’s right to challenge the demeaning and sexist premium placed on women’s virginity. Any woman, not Khushboo alone, would hold the double standards on ‘virginity’ in marriage to be abhorrent and discriminatory. It is clear that the fuss over Khushboo’s remarks is mainly because she, *as a woman* is being condemned for challenging the double standard. There is no fuss and no outcry by the morality brigade or by the Supreme Court when, to take on instance, sexologist Dr. Prakash Kothari in an interview in the Outlook magazine dated December 14 2009 calls virginity “a big issue over a small tissue.” The Supreme Court, moreover, has no legal basis whatsoever to comment on Khushboo’s views on virginity or to dictate how she chooses to answer questions in a newspaper interview. The Supreme Court’s brief is to uphold the constitutional right to free speech. Here the Supreme Court should uphold the principles spelt out by the landmark Delhi HC verdict calling for revision of Section 377 IPC, which said that “popular morality or public disapproval of certain acts is not a valid justification for restriction of the fundamental rights.” Khushboo’s remarks on virginity might not be to the personal approval of various groups and even the Supreme Court justices; many may be uncomfortable when women challenge conservative codes of conduct; but this can be no ground to question the rights of women to challenge such codes openly and publicly. The Supreme Court should withdraw its remarks which will be seen as a shot in the arm for the anti-woman forces who attacked Khushboo and who, all over India, attack women who defy codes of conduct prescribed for women by self-appointed guardians of morality. Kavita Krishnan, National Secretary, AIPWA ** -- You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the foundations of caste will crack and will never be a whole. -AMBEDKAR http://venukm.blogspot.com http://www.shelfari.com/kmvenuannur http://kmvenuannur.livejournal.com--
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