Inclusion and diversity are becoming buzzwords in today’s social and business sectors as they prove to raise not only the ethical value and goodwill of organisations but also the economic value. However, in the discussions of inclusion and diversity, intersectionalities within diversity are often overlooked. A panel discussion on intersectionality, inclusivity and safety was organised by Schools of Equality, a Chennai-based not-for-profit organization which works towards sensitising people, especially students to various inequalities prevalent in Indian society. The participants were gently asked to kick-start the session by sharing their thoughts on what safety meant for them and their responses ranging from freedom to non-judgmentality were expressed in a word cloud. As the session progressed further with the insights of the five panelists from different organisations aiming for the empowerment of diverse target audiences and through diverse methods, the session’s closure gradually unfurled the intersectionalities folded within the diversities.
The panel discussion started with an overview of the panelists and their organisations’ work such as Vidya Sagar’s efforts to empower children with disability and support in any way possible, the parents of children with disabilities, The Banyan’s accomplishment in building compact communities for the mentally challenged people under their care, Prajnya’s efforts to protect and empower girl children and sensitise people about toxic masculinity, especially the young boys, Tulir- Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (CPHCSA)’s constant battles to prevent child sexual abuse and aid their healing and Mithra’s welcoming events to normalise talks on mental health and build a healing community gives an impression of social work and impact in different spokes of the society through different rotations. However, the challenges that they and their target audience face converged at the point of exclusion that bars the possibility of normal life functioning for them.
On the other hand, while we look at inclusion and intersectionality from the lens of oppressed and vulnerable populations, we have dangerously forgotten a faction which is not only an exclusion that threatens the sustainability of inclusive and safe practices but an upside-down flip of the vulnerability which is just a different oppression and not a solution. As Sannuthi Suresh from Tulir- Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (CPHCSA) was taking the audience through a case that the organisation was working on, the exclusion hidden in plain sight started becoming visible. The POCSO Act which was passed to prevent child sexual abuse, on the contrary, became a cause for the emotional abuse of two children.
A boy who was found tying the sacred yellow thread on a girl’s neck in public became a POCSO case due to moral policing. The same society which glorifies marriage and even child marriage was extremely disturbed and enraged by this act just because it was in public. The actual threat that the culture protectors faced was not the marriage, for, they are more than happy to force couples to get married on Valentine’s Day in public, but, the display of autonomy of those children. While the boy was sent to a Juvenile home, the girl was shamed in her own community and was forced to visit the Police station along with her parents for interrogation. This is a treatment similar to that of criminals.
A boy who has to be considered a child is charged with a POCSO case (which by law, is gender-neutral) for a simple childish act of tying the yellow thread on a girl’s neck in public. Even after the judges laughed at the ridiculous charge and dismissed the case, the troubles for both the boy and the girl are ongoing. At this point, it is evident that a boy, who according to the patriarchal society is not weak or on the top of the class order, unoppressed etc is charged unfairly with a POCSO case because of the exclusion in the law implementation. Patriarchal society’s positioning of men and boys also keeps them at stereotypical risks that they can’t be the victims at all or their approaches towards the other genders are always harmful. While we dissect and demystify all the intersectionalities and plan for inclusive systems, we are also at the risk of completely excluding a faction, who especially will have to be the drivers of change in the systems and whose mindset when channelised towards allyship will actually enable the equitable functioning of the system.
As the above incident has more clearly clarified the stances of an important ally (boys and men), a question from the audience later led to the realisation of the exclusion of allies. The education system is something that is always under questioning, the fair reason being, it is the system which can initiate changes from the early stages of human growth and development and can be long-lasting (which is what Schools of Equality believes in too). However, an answer from the same audience crowd, who was a part of the education system also revealed that teachers with a menu of anything non-academic, sensitive or taboo are excluded from the teaching space by the parents, especially.
Amidst these challenges and gaps that were brought up in the panel discussion, the perfect closure lay in the simple solutions and steps that we can take up to make this place a tad bit better. Potholes are an everlasting concern and a hot cake topic every morning in an urban setting. However, Ms Poonam Natarajan’s appeal to cover potholes and increase accessibility for disabled people suddenly brought into light the difficulties that increased by many folds for people with disabilities when encountering potholes.
Deepika simply requested eye contact with homeless people to give them a feeling of existence. When we think about it, that simple act could make a lot of meaning and impact on the person who has faced ignorance too often. Bhairavi’s suggestion came from the foundation of her personal work. It was her mantra to mental health which was to have open minds and open hearts. As we can imagine, how much better the world would be if everyone could open their minds and hearts, just 1% more. Magically, all of these solutions were simple to implement and follow. Eventually, all converged into building a community or a feeling of community, for after all, humans are social animals.