{"id":6759,"date":"2015-07-16T08:14:23","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T08:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/indialegalonline.com\/?p=6759"},"modified":"2015-07-16T08:21:29","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T08:21:29","slug":"the-verdict-is-a-breath-of-fresh-air-for-women-shackled-by-patriarchal-barriers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/constitutional-law-news\/supreme-court-news\/the-verdict-is-a-breath-of-fresh-air-for-women-shackled-by-patriarchal-barriers\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe verdict is a breath of fresh air for women shackled by patriarchal barriers\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Communist Party of India (Marxist)\u2019s BRINDA KARAT hails the landmark judgment delivered by the Supreme Court \u00a0granting guardianship rights to unwed mothers. <\/span><\/p>\n

She spoke to SHANTANU GUHA RAY<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

ON July 7, the Supreme Court had to ask India to grow up and accept the fact that a woman can take good care of a child all by herself. And then it pronounced a judgment on an unwed mother\u2019s guardianship of a child born out of wedlock. While declaring this, Justice Vikramjit Sen also overturned a judgment by the Delhi High Court, which held a contrary opinion. <\/span><\/p>\n

Across the country, the SC judgment has been hailed as a landmark one. It is a breath of fresh air for thousands of women who continue to live behind old, suffocating patriarchal barriers.<\/span>
\nBeing a single mother in India always touches the raw nerve, the woman is ridiculed and harassed. She is often the subject of pity and criticism. And to have a biological child out of wedlock, comes with loads of unwanted social stigma and shame. <\/span><\/p>\n

I am happy that the court recognised the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think what is very encouraging and interesting is the fact that the country\u2019s apex court has understood the predicament of a woman who is unable to put the name of her son or daughter as nominee to<\/span> her savings and insurance policies. The social media, Facebook and Twitter, are full of such examples of women who have tremendous financial liquidity and need no men to groom their wards. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are cases where daughters and sons have rued how their passports and college certificates have names of the father and not the mother. I think it\u2019s cruel, inhuman. India\u2019s convoluted system insisted that the child\u2019s biological father must be identified in official documents. Why? No one had an answer.<\/span><\/p>\n

The court has allowed women their right to privacy. What is ironical is the fact that the court observed a lot of women were choosing to bring up children alone. It means a change has already set into the Indian society. I think the Indian political system should now wake up and elaborate on the need for the Indian society to evolve, so that such fears don\u2019t stalk women. Ideally, having a child should not lead to severe complications. Actually, it does not in many countries. Why should it happen in India?<\/span><\/p>\n

The time has come to change ourselves. We\u2014as a society\u2014must evolve. Don\u2019t we know a mother is best-suited to take care of a child born out of wedlock? The Supreme Court, brilliantly, identified \u201caffection\u201d or \u201cmamata\u201d as the reason why the mother should have the right to a child born out of wedlock. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Communist Party of India (Marxist)\u2019s BRINDA KARAT hails the landmark judgment delivered by the Supreme Court \u00a0granting guardianship rights to unwed mothers. She spoke to SHANTANU GUHA RAY ON July 7, the Supreme Court had to ask India to grow up and accept the fact that a woman can take good care of a child […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[64],"tags":[746,128,743],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/brinda-karat1-fubb.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6759"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}