“I am not here for any kind of political bullshit”: An interview with Swati Maliwal

08 August, 2015

Last month, on 17 July, Swati Maliwal, the former advisor to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on public grievances and the wife of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Navin Jaihind, was appointed as the chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) by the Delhi government. Her appointment triggered a bitter war of words between the AAP andother political parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) that wrote off Maliwal’s selection as politically motivated and indicative of nepotism within the AAP. The matter was further politicised when Delhi’s Governor Najeeb Jung rejected Maliwal’s appointment because he said that his approval had not been sought on the matter. On 28 July, eleven days after the AAP government had first announced her selection; Jung approved her appointment. On 4 August, a day after the Delhi Assembly’s special session on women’s safety, Nikhil Pandhi, an intern at The Caravan, met Maliwal at her office in New Delhi. Maliwal spoke to Pandhi about why she thinks the DCW should not become a “political battleground”, the case pending against AAP leader Somnath Bharti and the role of the police in making Delhi a safer city for women.

NP: Now that you are chairperson of the DCW what are some of the immediate issues that you are taking up?

SM: Our first and foremost priority is women’s safety. We have zero tolerance for rapes, acid attacks and sexual harassment and will work with the victims to ensure that Delhi becomes a rape-free capital. There are so many women begging on the streets and so many young girls who are forced to sleep on the streets of Delhi. Then there are disabled women, blind girls, widows, divorcees and all kinds of women who are much more disadvantaged than the rest of us. We want to work with them. We also want to work with inmates of female protection homes, such as Nari Niketans, because even if a lady gets rescued from GB Road [a red light district in Delhi] she often ends up in Nari Niketan where the situation is worse. Similarly, we want to work with the inmates of Tihar Jail. Recently, I also visited GB Road and found out that almost 6 lakh condoms are being used per month; so in a way you are allowing 6 lakh rapes in the centre of Delhi! I understand that it is not a black and white issue but we will also work towards creating a solution to this very complicated problem.

NP: In the past, there have beenallegationsagainst the DCW for being used by the Congress to target the AAP. How will you ensure that the DCW remains apolitical given that you were appointed by the AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal?

SM: I totally understand why these doubts arise in the minds of people. There are two reasons. Firstly, my work is not really known to people. I have been working on the grassroots for the past ten years. I have never really come out in the media so obviously people feel kahan se aagayi—where has she suddenly come from! But I am a social activist. I was the youngest member of the core committee of the Anna Hazare movement and could have easily gone on to become a member of the national executive of the AAP. I chose not to do that because at that moment in my life itself I decided I was going to remain apolitical. And I continued with that despite the fact that everybody knew the AAP was going to be big! I am a righteous person and I have maintained this stand from the very beginning. My work will show. If somebody does anything wrong I am not going to spare that person regardless of whichever party he or she might be from. I am not here for any kind of political bullshit and I very strongly believe that this place [DCW] should not remain a political battleground.

NP: There are several cases pending before the Delhi DCW and one of them has been filed by Lipika Mitra, the wife of Somnath Bharti, the former law minister of Delhi and an AAP leader. Mitra has leveled serious charges of domestic abuse against Bharti. Is the AAP expecting you to act on these cases in a specific way?

SM: Barkha Shukla Singh [the former chairperson of DCW] has closed this case and gone. Yet, I am using the media and other channels to make it clear that we are totally for reopening the cases. If there is anything else remaining in the case that the DCW can do, please let the complainant come to us. I don’t know what the AAP is expecting me to do but I know that if they have got somebody who is much more neutral that any other person has ever been on this post, they must mean business. I have never acted under pressure. That’s not who I am. There is absolutely no pressure, abhi tak nahin hai—not until now, at least.

NP: You recently wrotetwo letters to the Delhi Police CommissionerBS Bassi seeking details on crime against women along with the strength of women police officers in Delhi. Was this data not previously available with the commission, for which it is being sought? On what other issues is the DCW seeking assistance from the Delhi police?

SM: Firstly, this data is not available. It is shocking that when I asked my office I realised there has been no data on police. That itself shows the sorry situation of the DCW because anybody would expect this data to be available. Secondly, there are two letters. The first letter is more generic, demanding data from the police. The second letter is very crucial because it is for a pilot study in Anand Parbat Police Station in Delhi where Meenakshi’s [a 19-year-old woman who was stabbed to death in the area] murder took place.

We have asked the police to share data for all the complaints they received between 2013 and 2014. These complaints can be in any format, whether through a letter or a phone call. We want to understand in how many complaints were FIRs [first information reports] actually registered, how many charge sheets were actually generated and what the present status of the case is. If you look at Meenakshi’s case itself, it is very clear that there was a police complaint and numerous calls were made, yet an FIR was not filed! Probably if that FIR had been filed Meenakshi could have been saved.

I am contacting institutions such as the Delhi School of Social Work and Jamia Milia Islamia to create a team of independent people and very good researchers who will go down and study that entire data. We will also work with the police on this pilot study. If there is anything else on which the police feels we must do research, we are going to be doing that.

NP: There was recently a special session in the Delhi Assembly during which a resolution that demanded the creation of a commission of enquiry to look into complaints of crimes against women was passed. How will you as chairperson of DCW ensure that such commissions move to the next level beyond the optics and rhetoric? Have there been such commissions in the past?

SM: Frankly, I am not aware of the commissions in the past. But I welcome the move. I was myself present through the entire six and a half hours of the session and felt there were certain important takeaways. For one, I am extremely happy that for the first time we had a special session wherein everybody actually spoke about how unsafe Delhi has become. Two out of six lady MLAs [members of legislative assembly] also said that they have been complaining to the police but no action has been taken on their complaints. That is scary. If MLAs feel they are being harassed and their complaints not being acted on, one can only imagine what it is like for women outside the political spectrum.

We have also been trying to get time from Sumitra Mahajan [the Lok Sabha Speaker], since we want the parliament also to do a similar session since the Delhi police and issues of safety, law and order come directly under the central government. Unfortunately we have not been given time by her office yet but that is probably because of the manner in which parliament is functioning. Anyhow, I feel that the parliament must take this issue up as well.  As far as the commission is concerned, I think it is very important to set accountability of institutions. If through this commission we are able to make the police more accountable, I totally welcome it. I think the more the commissions, the more there are people dedicatedly working on women’s safety and the better the situation of women’s safety is going to be in Delhi.

NP: Do you think bringing the police under the Delhi government will enhance the accountability of the Police?

SM: My main aim is that women should be safe and I would like to work towards that. I don’t care if the chief minister makes it happen or the prime minister does. The sad part is that right now it is not happening. I am going to meet the PM also, I am going to meet the LG also, I am going to meet the minister of home affairs also. I am going to meet all of these people in the next coming months and I am going to try and ensure that the women of Delhi feel safer. Yesterday also somebody asked me, “Do you think the CM has the right to make this commission on women’s safety?” My answer is, I don’t care who has the right to make the commission as long as some mechanism is set up through which the police can be made more accountable. So, I don’t want to get into the politics of the situation—that is not for me to decide. What the CM is doing is his job, what the LG is doing is his job and what the PM is doing is his job. But I want to know who is doing what for women’s safety. Suppose an FIR is not filed on a complaint, what is the action that is taken? That is my prerogative and I will work around that.

NP: The Supreme Court has not heard the case regarding the gang rape that took place in Delhi on 16 December 2012 for a year now. For many, this may have led to disappointment and disillusionment with the justice system of the country. As the chairperson of the DCW, how do you respond to women who fear that their complaints will go unheard and their violators unpunished? More importantly, is there a role that DCW can play in acting as a pressure group for fast tracking such cases?

SM: The DCW has a Rape Crisis Cell (RCC). It has six lawyers but the quality and the quantity really needs to be improved. I want very senior people to be fighting these cases. We are setting up a procedure to determine which cases we will pick up and actually be standing for, to ensure that the victim’s point is heard. We are trying to create a proper mechanism for this and involving highly experienced lawyers in Delhi such as Colinji [Gonsalves] and Indiraji [Jaising] to draft the procedures and represent these cases in court. As far as the Nirbhaya case is concerned, once this mechanism is drafted we will definitely consider that as well.

As regards the role of the DCW in fighting these cases, firstly, there is a clause in our powers, which says that we can fund litigations and that we have the authority to take women’s issues to court. We will try and use that to the fullest. Second, the HC [high court] had itself mandated the Rape Crisis Cell (RCC) and the Crisis Intervention Centres (CIC); they were formed after an HC order. While I don’t think we are party to it, we are there to assist the public prosecutor and to support the victims to ensure that the victim’s point is heard. We are now working with eminent lawyers to both improve the quality and functioning of the RCC, and to set up optimum protocols for monitoring these cases.

NP: In February this year, the Supreme Courtdismissed a Delhi-based executive’s plea against marital rapeon the grounds that “it wasn't possible to order a change in the law for one person.” Colin Gonsalves,who represented the woman, told the Hindustan Times“We would move the court again on the issue....maybe through a women's organisation.” Has the DCW been approached about this issue?

SM: I am in touch with Colinji. In fact, in the past eight or nine days we have contacted as many lawyers as possible, including Indira Jaising [the former additional solicitor general of India]. We have met all of them. On this issue [marital rape], I believe there have been many parliamentary committees, which have given different views. We are going to be studying this and once the study is completed we will take a call. Marital rape is definitely an issue, but at the end of the day I don’t want to comment on anything on which I don’t have all perspectives. At the moment, we already have a lot on our plate and I would like to concentrate on that first but definitely at some point in my tenure I will take up the issue of marital rape.