March 10, 2013
Punish trafficker, safeguard prostitute
Ruchira Gupta in The Telegraph:
India is on the brink of a paradigm shift in its legal framework to deal with human trafficking based on the Justice Verma Committee recommendations set up after the December 16 rape in Delhi. Through the current Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013 and the proposed changes to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill and the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1956, India has finally broadened the definition of trafficking to include all forms of enslavement — from servitude to prostitution. These amendments will bring India on a par with the UN Protocol to End Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. The trafficking definition legally explains exploitation, the exploiter and the exploited for the first time in India’s Independent history. Exploitation is defined as forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude, the forced removal of organs and prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation.
...These recommendations pave the way for our country to create a contemporary, democratic society where women and girls can live lives free of male violence. It addresses both the urgency of the crisis in India, where 17 women are raped “officially” everyday, and hopefully sets the stage for legislation that will recognise that any society that claims to defend principles of legal, political, economic and social equality for women and girls must reject the idea that women and children, mostly girls, are commodities that can be bought, sold and sexually exploited by men. To do otherwise is to allow that a separate class of female human beings, especially women and girls who are economically and caste-wise marginalised, is excluded from measures being set in place for women’s security. As well as from the universal protection of human dignity enshrined in our Constitution and the body of international human rights instruments developed during the past 60 years.
More here. (Note: Dear friend Ruchira Gupta is the founder president of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, a grassroots movement to end sex trafficking.)
Posted by Azra Raza at 08:09 AM | Permalink
Comments
I don't know much about the problem of sex trafficking, but I am struck by the strong faith these people have in the power of laws, conventions, protocols etc. to actually change behavior.
Take education for example. The rule book in India is "on par" with the regulations in the wealthiest countries: they even specify the size of playgrounds, teacher student ratios etc. In reality, these laws are mainly used by government employees to shake down private schools that have no hope of satisfying these regulations.
I feel a bit bad saying this, but my guess is that all this ordinance, amendment, law and protocol creation is really about (a) people feeling good about themselves (b) corrupt government employees exploiting these laws (c) NGOs getting more funding.
Classic line from the article: "These amendments will bring India on a par with the UN Protocol to End Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children."
Mission Accomplished
Posted by: Sundar | Mar 10, 2013 9:12:32 AM
I reread my message and it sounds churlish. So I went to the apne aap website to learn more about what they do.
I was looking for an evaluation of their own activities. Did the organization's activities actually help anyone? If so how? (Not to mention that many well intentioned activities frequently end up hurting the intended beneficiaries).
After spending 15 minutes on the website, I couldn't find any such evaluation.
Posted by: Sundar | Mar 10, 2013 9:19:17 AM
P.S.
The website is missing Financials. (the page is blank). http://apneaap.org/financials-annual-reports/financials-annual-reports
To someone who is coming across this NGO for the first time, this raises a red flag. Please pass on this comment to your friend.
Posted by: Sundar | Mar 10, 2013 9:44:05 AM
People should be very cautious about these wild claims about sex trafficking. Especially in the USA (yes, yes, I know that Paul works in India). Here is a good set of articles on why we should be skeptical:
http://www.villagevoice.com/sex-trafficking/
One of the articles explains how people like Nick Kristof (unintentionally) end up harming the very women they want to help.
Can we start a fund raising drive to buy Ms. Paul a copy of "Seeing like a state"? http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Like-State-Institution-University/dp/0300078153
Posted by: Sundar | Mar 10, 2013 10:12:08 AM
Ha, Sundar! I just took a cursory look at the page.
Who is Paul?
Posted by: Ruchira | Mar 10, 2013 10:35:53 AM
My mistake. I mean Gupta.
Posted by: Sundar | Mar 10, 2013 10:48:45 AM
Here is what two Harvard undergraduate donors thought about Apne Aap after visiting a site in 2010
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/11/2/apne-aap-women-organization/
Here is a critical view of Ruchira Gupta and her statistics:
http://apnsw.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/life-of-a-sex-worker-at-the-interface-where-she-belongs-consulting-with-stakeholders/
Since Gupta is a friend of 3qd, would it be possible to get her to comment on these allegations?
Posted by: Sundar | Mar 10, 2013 11:05:19 AM
MATERIALLY INACCURATE STATEMENTS in the article by the two Harvard students
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 1
: we were loath to think our $12,000 contribution had been misused,
• Correction # 1: Apne Aap has not misused the money. The money was spent on salaries, rent, electricity, a small library, transport, stationary, sowing, art and craft material, slates, chalk, training workshops and electricity. The organization has provided detailed accounting of project expenses and has allowed Ms Suri to personally go through Apne Aap’s books and receipts, providing proof of payment to vendors and employees. The authors have signed off on expense accounts presented by Apne Aap for the $ 12,000 they donated.
Materially Inaccurate Statement #2
…the reports Apne Aap was sending us were blatant misrepresentations. Our quixotism was shattered when we finally visited Najafgarh. The “Community Centre” that Apne Aap claims to run is a dank two-room building accompanied by a weathered eight-feet-wide by 10-feet-wide rug placed on the dirt where the children sit.
Correction # 4: Apne Aap has never misrepresented itself or its work. This is a value judgment based on expectations of the community center, not of any misrepresentation by Apne Aap. Ms Suri had seen our project sites on her previous visit and knew what our community centers look like. It was only after seeing our community centers first-hand that she decided to proceed with the donation from Turn Your World Around. We have a number of photographs of the site up on our Picasa web album posted November 2009 (http://picasaweb.google.com/apneaap.resourcecentre/AmbassadorVerveerSVisit#) and February 2010 (http://picasaweb.google.com/apneaap.resourcecentre/MusicWorkshop# and http://picasaweb.google.com/apneaap.resourcecentre/INDIA2010NewDelhiApneaap#), available for public view. The center at issue in the Article is not a secret Apne Aap seeks to hide. The photographs referenced above include one of the United States’ State Department Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer, visiting the program and sitting on the same “10-foot-wide rug” the children sit on.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 3: More than half of the children do not attend school, and the informal education “class” for the children has no teacher or curriculum; instead, the kids sprawl themselves on the rug, drawing on slate boards and occasionally chucking pieces of chalk.
• Correction # 3: As most of Apne Aap’s students are first time and first generation learners, Apne Aap works to socialize the children to a classroom setting. The claim that there were no teachers or curriculum is untrue. The classes are based on a government curriculum. Again, drawing on slate boards and throwing chalk isn’t something Apne Aap lied about, it’s the reality faced in working with first-time learners. They are in the classroom space to be socialized into a safe learning environment.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 4: The vocational training program is a daily sewing lesson taught by a 15-year-old village girl to five of her peers, instead of to the 19 girls and women Apne Aap claimed were attending.
• Correction # 4: the vocation training programs Apne Aap’s runs always start with sewing classes as a way to teach the women to focus, sit still, pay attention, commit to completing the work, and be patient and creative all while dealing with the severe psycho-social trauma they have lived through. It is true that most come sporadically, not every day, but that was never something hidden from our donors.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 5: The women are completely disillusioned and continue to work in the sex trade.
• Correction # 5: This sentence implies causation that does not exist – the women are occasionally disillusioned, and the women do continue to work in the sex trade, but the first does not cause the second. The women work in the sex trade because they are afforded no other options. 102 women are controlled by 98 pimps. As part of a caste which practices inter-generational prostitution and as first-time learners they have no other options or skills which they can exercise to generate income. There are innumerable reasons these women would be disillusioned, including the fact that (i) legal authorities believe that the forced prostitution of the Perna community is inevitable which allows pimps to operate with impunity; (ii) education is a process, not an instantaneous occurrence; and (iii) society will continue to exhibit prejudices towards the women of this community despite their efforts to better themselves.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 6: Indeed, after spending several weeks working in Najafgarh, we found that Apne Aap had nearly no presence there, apart from a few foreign interns it sporadically stationed there to “teach English.”
• Correction # 6: Ms Suri and Ms Jain did not work on any regular schedule at the community center, did not come everyday, and certainly not on a full-time basis as implied by the assertion that they spent several weeks working at the center. Our work is among 22 villages.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 7: After applying significant pressure upon the organization, we were granted a meeting with the founder, who offered to return $4,000, an offer that remains unfulfilled.
• Correction # 7: No significant pressure was applied to Apne Aap in order to find out more about the way the money had been spent or to set up meetings. In fact, the Authors requested and were given letters of invitation by Apne Aap to obtain visas and university support for their visit. On their arrival in India they were sent a letter welcoming them, even before contacting Apne Aap, asking if they would like to find a time for a meeting with the Apne Aap accountant and project manager to go over the project expenses and progress to date prior to any concerns being raised by the Authors. When the Authors asked for a follow-up meeting with the Founder, Ms Gupta responded the very next day and offered to have a meeting that very week and set up subsequent meetings with the programme manager and , accountant, and others at Apne Aap.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 8: We deeply lament the lack of transparency and integrity in an organization that the social-change community has held in such high regard.
Correction # 8: Apne Aap has been honest and transparent in its work with Turn Your World Around. Monthly progress reports were provided, detailed expense forms submitted, and all doors opened to access the project site and staff. Apne Aap’s integrity is demonstrated in the genuine and ongoing offer to return the unused funds as soon as the Authors expressed disagreement with Apne Aap’s grassroots approach of slow, systemic change. Apne Aap does deliver clear impact to the communities it works in and the insinuation that the change provided is not “meaningful” is libelous.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 9: At all levels, we need to engage in greater dialogue about what “impact” means, and we need to recognize and not be afraid to discuss failure, while simultaneously working to maximize success. We must focus on honesty, integrity, and transparency if we hope to effect meaningful change
Correction # 9: The author’s assessment of impact differs from the organizations assessment of impact. The fact 45 women have formed 3 self-help groups in Prem Nagar Basti is an impact for us. The fact that the girls have formed a girls group in a community where 102 women are controlled by 98 pimps is our impact.
Posted by: Ruchira Gupta | Mar 10, 2013 1:02:33 PM
See the article in Times of India about how one of our groups has started another business. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-03-08/kolkata/37560555_1_red-light-area-international-women-s-day-new-life
We are saying prostitution is an absence of choice and not a choice and that states are obligated to provide its poor female citizens more choices by helping them access education and sustainable jobs. The law is simply a tool , which we want to use along with our grassroots work. We have put 814 children from red light areas into school. But with the help of the governemt we can certainly scale up the efforts t oreach all the 3 million women and girls trapped in prostitution with incomes not based on violence and school education which will prevent their trafficking.
Posted by: Ruchira Gupta | Mar 10, 2013 1:13:26 PM
MATERIALLY INACCURATE STATEMENTS in the article by the two Harvard students
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 1
: we were loath to think our $12,000 contribution had been misused,
• Correction # 1: Apne Aap has not misused the money. The money was spent on salaries, rent, electricity, a small library, transport, stationary, sowing, art and craft material, slates, chalk, training workshops and electricity. The organization has provided detailed accounting of project expenses and has allowed Ms Suri to personally go through Apne Aap’s books and receipts, providing proof of payment to vendors and employees. The authors have signed off on expense accounts presented by Apne Aap for the $ 12,000 they donated.
Materially Inaccurate Statement #2
…the reports Apne Aap was sending us were blatant misrepresentations. Our quixotism was shattered when we finally visited Najafgarh. The “Community Centre” that Apne Aap claims to run is a dank two-room building accompanied by a weathered eight-feet-wide by 10-feet-wide rug placed on the dirt where the children sit.
Correction # 2: Apne Aap has never misrepresented itself or its work. This is a value judgment based on expectations of the community center, not of any misrepresentation by Apne Aap. Ms Suri had seen our project sites on her previous visit and knew what our community centers look like. It was only after seeing our community centers first-hand that she decided to proceed with the donation from Turn Your World Around. We have a number of photographs of the site up on our Picasa web album posted November 2009 (http://picasaweb.google.com/apneaap.resourcecentre/AmbassadorVerveerSVisit#) and February 2010 (http://picasaweb.google.com/apneaap.resourcecentre/MusicWorkshop# and http://picasaweb.google.com/apneaap.resourcecentre/INDIA2010NewDelhiApneaap#), available for public view. The center at issue in the Article is not a secret Apne Aap seeks to hide. The photographs referenced above include one of the United States’ State Department Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer, visiting the program and sitting on the same “10-foot-wide rug” the children sit on.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 3: More than half of the children do not attend school, and the informal education “class” for the children has no teacher or curriculum; instead, the kids sprawl themselves on the rug, drawing on slate boards and occasionally chucking pieces of chalk.
• Correction # 3: As most of Apne Aap’s students are first time and first generation learners, Apne Aap works to socialize the children to a classroom setting. The claim that there were no teachers or curriculum is untrue. The classes are based on a government curriculum. Again, drawing on slate boards and throwing chalk isn’t something Apne Aap lied about, it’s the reality faced in working with first-time learners. They are in the classroom space to be socialized into a safe learning environment.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 4: The vocational training program is a daily sewing lesson taught by a 15-year-old village girl to five of her peers, instead of to the 19 girls and women Apne Aap claimed were attending.
• Correction # 4: the vocation training programs Apne Aap’s runs always start with sewing classes as a way to teach the women to focus, sit still, pay attention, commit to completing the work, and be patient and creative all while dealing with the severe psycho-social trauma they have lived through. It is true that most come sporadically, not every day, but that was never something hidden from our donors.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 5: The women are completely disillusioned and continue to work in the sex trade.
• Correction # 5: This sentence implies causation that does not exist – the women are occasionally disillusioned, and the women do continue to work in the sex trade, but the first does not cause the second. The women work in the sex trade because they are afforded no other options. 102 women are controlled by 98 pimps. As part of a caste which practices inter-generational prostitution and as first-time learners they have no other options or skills which they can exercise to generate income. There are innumerable reasons these women would be disillusioned, including the fact that (i) legal authorities believe that the forced prostitution of the Perna community is inevitable which allows pimps to operate with impunity; (ii) education is a process, not an instantaneous occurrence; and (iii) society will continue to exhibit prejudices towards the women of this community despite their efforts to better themselves.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 6: Indeed, after spending several weeks working in Najafgarh, we found that Apne Aap had nearly no presence there, apart from a few foreign interns it sporadically stationed there to “teach English.”
• Correction # 6: Ms Suri and Ms Jain did not work on any regular schedule at the community center, did not come everyday, and certainly not on a full-time basis as implied by the assertion that they spent several weeks working at the center. Our work is among 22 villages.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 7: After applying significant pressure upon the organization, we were granted a meeting with the founder, who offered to return $4,000, an offer that remains unfulfilled.
• Correction # 7: No significant pressure was applied to Apne Aap in order to find out more about the way the money had been spent or to set up meetings. In fact, the Authors requested and were given letters of invitation by Apne Aap to obtain visas and university support for their visit. On their arrival in India they were sent a letter welcoming them, even before contacting Apne Aap, asking if they would like to find a time for a meeting with the Apne Aap accountant and project manager to go over the project expenses and progress to date prior to any concerns being raised by the Authors. When the Authors asked for a follow-up meeting with the Founder, Ms Gupta responded the very next day and offered to have a meeting that very week and set up subsequent meetings with the programme manager and , accountant, and others at Apne Aap.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 8: We deeply lament the lack of transparency and integrity in an organization that the social-change community has held in such high regard.
Correction # 8: Apne Aap has been honest and transparent in its work with Turn Your World Around. Monthly progress reports were provided, detailed expense forms submitted, and all doors opened to access the project site and staff. Apne Aap’s integrity is demonstrated in the genuine and ongoing offer to return the unused funds as soon as the Authors expressed disagreement with Apne Aap’s grassroots approach of slow, systemic change. Apne Aap does deliver clear impact to the communities it works in and the insinuation that the change provided is not “meaningful” is libelous.
Materially Inaccurate Statement # 9: At all levels, we need to engage in greater dialogue about what “impact” means, and we need to recognize and not be afraid to discuss failure, while simultaneously working to maximize success. We must focus on honesty, integrity, and transparency if we hope to effect meaningful change
Correction # 9: The author’s assessment of impact differs from the organizations assessment of impact. The fact 45 women have formed 3 self-help groups in Prem Nagar Basti is an impact for us. The fact that the girls have formed a girls group in a community where 102 women are controlled by 98 pimps is our impact.
Posted by: Ruchira Gupta | Mar 10, 2013 1:17:32 PM
In every struggle for equality and justice, a paradigm shift in relevant law--and its full implementation--has been essential to achieving the goals of that movement. The movement to end the enslavement of human beings and their reduction to merchandise--sexual and otherwise--is no exception. As far as the global human rights crisis of sex trafficking is concerned, we now have model laws that have been implemented and work. I'm referring to laws in Scandinavia and elsewhere that have led to a reduction in the incidence of sex trafficking and prostitution, as well as a shift in attitudes of the general public. These laws demonstrate that it is possible to effect the paradigm shift that is so urgently needed by holding accountable the perpetrators who line their pockets and stuff their bank accounts with profits reaped from sexual slavery and rape as well as those responsible for those profits--the customers whose demand for prostitution fuels the brutal sex trafficking industry. Recognizing that for too long criminal laws and systems have persecuted and stigmatized victims, many if not most of whom are trafficking victims, this model opposes the criminalization of any person in prostitution. I suspect that the attacks on Apne Aap, which has been championing this common sense and rights-based approach and whose ground breaking work I've observed up close, come from those who have a stake in the perpetuation of this brutal industry.
Posted by: Dorchen | Mar 10, 2013 2:56:26 PM
I am well aware that there are NGOs and there are NGOs. However few will dispute that many of them do very good work in very difficult areas. But those who doubt will continue to doubt. It is also easier to doubt when actually you are not out there. Apne Aap has never made tall claims we never show great numbers because each day is a struggle to sustain and build on what we do achieve. But to say that trafficking is not an issue is indeed cruel, to those thousands of parents whose children are never traced please refer to the missing children of India. If you have ever worked in the field for any social welfare activity laws provide the framework for us to defend and protect victims of violence, they give us space to question the criminalization of the victim and ask for her rehabilitation.
I would not ask you to support the work we do but please do come and see what we do and share our experiences. It is difficult to feel good about ones self when so much is to be done we just take one step at time and try to do as much as we can to make the women we work with speak for themselves and make real choices which benefit them. Abhilasha Kumari, Director Apne Aap
Posted by: Abhilasha | Mar 11, 2013 6:12:19 AM
I appreciate the response from Ruchira Gupta and Abhilasha Kumari. Thank you.
Posted by: Sundar | Mar 11, 2013 8:37:34 AM
Apologies, our new site is about to be launched, so the site you see temporarily is missing certain data. Please find Apne Aap's financial reports from 2008 at this link:
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B27dRFj0wROad2hxTVFMUGhGaXc/edit?usp=sharing
If you have any problems viewing these documents, please send an email to Development@apneaap.org, and Apne Aap staff will email you these Financial Reports.
Posted by: Apne Aap | Mar 11, 2013 10:53:51 AM
The Financial Report available at the link above contains data from the 2007 - 2008 fiscal year onwards to last year.
We are in the process of compiling the latest financial Report for the 2012-2013 fiscal year which is about to end. Once that report is complete, we will upload it to this Folder, as well as adding it to the financial section of our new website.
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B27dRFj0wROad2hxTVFMUGhGaXc/edit?usp=sharing
Thank-you.
Posted by: Apne Aap | Mar 11, 2013 11:00:20 AM
Again, I appreciate the prompt and courteous response from the Apne Aap team. Thanks
Posted by: Sundar | Mar 11, 2013 12:03:42 PM
Regarding the reference to the Harvard Crimson article, Apne Aap asked the newspaper to publish the following letter of response numerous times. Unfortunately, they stopped answering our emails and phone calls and those of our supporters and donors who had also written letters to the editor. Apne Aap will continue to respond with transparency to any questions that are raised.
"To the editors:
On behalf of the staff and members of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, we would like to point out that the accusations presented in your Nov. 2 op-ed “Lack of Transparency” are based on the authors’ own illusions rather than misrepresentations by our organization. As editors you have failed to follow the tenets of good journalism by neither fact checking nor getting quotes from the organization or the individuals being maligned.
The authors first mislead readers into believing that $20,000 was donated to Apne Aap, when in fact the sum total of their funding was $12,000. They then defame Apne Aap, stating that the $12,000 was misused. After reviewing the detailed financial records of the Najafargh center, the authors saw that all $12,000 of their donation had contributed to art and music workshops, slates, chalk, stationary, books, transport, salaries, rent, mats, tables and chairs, sewing and craft material and excursions for the girls and women. In fact, the organization has invested an additional $12,000 in the center for the same period bringing in experts and resource staff from all over India to train, heal, and empower community members.
The authors state that the organization offered and did not return $4,000 of this $12,000. Apne Aap offered to return the percentage of funds that the authors felt were spent on activities not of their choosing. This was contingent on the authors sending a letter spelling out the amount they wanted returned and the reason for requesting the funds. Apne Aap needed this letter for its accounting and auditing records. The letter was never received.
The authors have similarly lied about the pressure that they applied to meet the Founder and President, Ruchira Gupta. In reality, Ms. Gupta signed the letters of invitation to visit Najafargh this summer so that the authors could obtain visas and sent emails welcoming the authors on arrival. She set up meetings with the accountant and project manager to update the authors on all activities. And as soon as the authors requested a follow-up meeting with her, she responded immediately and met them that very week.
The authors go on to allege that Apne Aap has misrepresented its work to donors. The organization has never claimed its community centers are fancy buildings. We have hundreds of photographs of our centers in our Picasa gallery. (http://picasaweb.google.com/Apneaapwomenworldwide)
At the heart of our philosophy is the idea that each center should serve as accessible and safe spaces within exploited communities and can take many non-traditional forms, a mud hut in Bihar, a room above a brothel in Kolkata, etc. One of the authors even visited two of our centers in Kolkata before making the donation.
Similarly, the organization has never claimed in any of its reports that all the children in the Najafgarh center were going to school. In fact, we have stated clearly that the community classroom in our center is to prepare the children for school. They do sit on mats and they do throw chalk around. They are first generation learners and our classrooms slowly socialize them for school.
The fact that the sewing class is run by a 15 year old girl from the community assisted by a professional tailor who comes twice a week was clearly stated in our reports to the author when the girl was recruited. And yes, of the 19 girls —who would otherwise not be in class at all—some do come daily and the rest come intermittently. This is because the girls and the women in the Prem Nagar Basti are controlled by pimps who groom them for prostitution from their birth.
The sole Apne Aap employee the authors cite was in fact on probation at the time he communicated with the authors (and subsequently was asked to leave the organization), and therefore was not an unbiased source.
The authors disillusionment is founded on their own preconceptions about what a community center should look like, that first generational learners should be disciplined and enrolled in school with a year of joining a program, that girls in caste communities living off intergenerational prostitution have the freedom attend training regularly, and that an NGO has the magic wand to transform a prostituted woman’s life with great speed.
As if the author’s own disillusionment were not bad enough, they also ask funders of social change to agree with them just because they don’t have the ability to see our impact. As a result of our work in Najafgarh, 45 women have formed three self-help groups and have started saving and inter-loaning. The community is watching this gradual transformation, and it is transforming what they believe to be possible for themselves. Apne Aap’s strategy is to change entire communities by bringing about women’s empowerment.
Our impact is clear in the fact that 2,500 women we have worked with have been able to escape their pimps and brothel keepers and form their own small groups, many with their own bank accounts.
Our impact is demonstrated in one group of women demonstrating and winning their entitled government subsidy for cooking oil from a corrupt dealer, another group working together to obtain voting cards, and yet another running a soup kitchen for sisters thrown out of brothels.
The social value of the work we are doing is in fact unique. It is grassroots community organizing based not on services but empowerment. Our goal is to make women independent, not dependent, and our notion of agency is the capability to resist injustice and the capability to claim government rights and entitlements. This was initially based on Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum’s capability argument but later broadened through Catherine MacKinnon and Gayatri Spivak’s understanding of agency operating in a context."
Posted by: Apne Aap | Mar 11, 2013 12:08:53 PM
Sundar -
Reading your comments about Apne Aap made me think about your strong support for the late Bal Thackeray and his Shiv Sena in November 2012.
Wonder if the same kind of "due diligence" was carried out about that organization, or, perhaps, only organizations that promote liberal views qualify for such scrutiny.
Posted by: waqnis | Mar 11, 2013 4:34:12 PM
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