Tag: Police

Another Women’s Day offering…

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In the continuing spirit of Women (and Men who Care about Women)’s Day, an announcement. The Gender Sensitisation and People-friendly Police Project – a joint partnership of the Karnataka State Police and UNICEF – has now got a web log of its own: http://www.peoplefriendlypolice.wordpress.com/

The site is still very much under construction, but please do drop by, give us your suggestions, and pass the message on. We hope that it will be a comprehensive resource on violence against women and children, as well as a platform for sharing opinions on the experiences that women, young people and children – in particular – have, when dealing with the police. The police need to be continually challenged as well as supported in their efforts to become more ‘people friendly’: we encourage you to share your positive as well as not-so-positive stories, as the experiences of pro-active, sensitive policing (they do exist) rarely make it to the front pages of our newspapers.

And then there was silence…?

My apologies. Between bouts of flu and flying (well, a euphemism for travel that included slow buses, never-available autos, cockroach-flicked trains and a couple of cloud-jumping flights), I’ve been off-line. Some of the travel was for pleasure – like my news de-addiction drive, austerely followed in Goa (visual proof attached), and abandoned immediately on return to Bangalore – but most of it on work. Fulfilling, but not necessarily pleasurable.

Ashwin was saying the other day that it was interesting that I hardly – if ever – write about my work. I think my fear is that if I begin, I will never stop… the moving finger writes and what if, having writ, none of my tears will wash out a word of it (despite WordPress’ excellent editing tools)?

Why the awkwardness? Because the work I do is not necessarily seen in the feminist/social justice world as being radical enough; it might even be called – brace yourselves – co-option. And yet I do it: because real life is hard to classify, and allies and enemies so often merge into one another, that it seems more honest to dare to dance on the margins, in the interstices of spaces and communities, searching for allies in an enemy or watchful for enemies in an ally.

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