H D Kumaraswamy charged with insulting dignity of a woman

BENGALURU: On Sunday after the remarks to the farmer leader Jayashree Gurannavar, the opposition had charged the chief minister HD Kumaraswamy of insulting the dignity of a woman.

The jury might be out on the merit of this allegation, but the records show that one woman belonging to Karnataka goes to the National Commission for Women (NCW) every five days demanding the “right to live with dignity”.

Karnataka has recorded 300 complaints in the 1,419 days from January 1, 2015 to November 20, 2018, there are more cases than in any other states in the south, with as many as 90 in 2017, the highest on the record for a year.

Tamil Nadu is the second with 231 cases within the same period, which is followed by Andhra Pradesh (134) and Kerala (113).

“While there are a lot of complaints under this category, they are often a combination of issues because multiple things can affect a woman’s right to dignity,” a source said.

“High reporting indicates that there is awareness and an environment that allows women to step forward and make the complaint. Yet, since not more than one in 10 women are prepared to lodge any kind of complaint, it is likely that many more cases have gone unreported,” the source said. 

Samata Deshmane a sociologist says that the problem has grown stems from the way society by being a whole treats a women. “It is common to find women being ill-treated in everyday transactions, and that is largely because parents still don’t teach their children that women are not objects,” she said.