Opinion On Gabriella Pasqualotto

The IPL cheerleader Gabriella Pasqualotto raised a set of questions which in our very alert civil society would have raised a storm. But she went unnoticed. She had detailed a number of very specific and graphic events of sexual abuse and in fact said that they,the cheerleaders,were treated as pieces of meat and words to that effect but her statements went largely unnoticed. The fact that she said that Indian cricketers are not a part of her experience is a nice compliment to the civilizational strength of our boys but does not explain the deafening silence of the paparazzi,for it all happened in India. Mandira Bedi was an exception and gave her a mention in her column and of course reflected a particular point of view somewhat expectedly by saying for Ms. Pasqualotto ‘that when one gets invited into an inner circle,priveleges like that should not be abused.’ She was commenting on ‘her journey,her story and her blog were halted in their tracks.’

My first born is a girl and I rebel at the thought that society is organized to make life difficult for women for as the poster says they are also the half that holds up the sky. Anything that hinders their work,play and ambitions on account of them being women is abhorrent. The only society I lived in India where this is practiced is JNU at least as long as I was there as its VC. In fact JNU was extraordinarily sensitive to the gender question and treated even the slightest transgression very severely. It was a problem to see to it that the law was not taken in hand by a crowd and the local DSP built up a case for training in the Police Academy detailing how a VC and a lady warden,this was Prof. Ms. Chenoy,saved a culprit from vigilante justice with patient persuasion and promise of justice by the authorities.

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There is an aspect to Ms. Pasqualotto case which is intriguing. Is it possible that our civil society organizations,particularly those who are funded from outside the country tend to ignore or at least soft peddle transgressions by upper middle class groups and particularly those where multi country experiences are involved. If so that would be a weakness to be remedied by a more inclusive set up.