by GARGA CHATTERJEE
My maternal grandmother, who I used to call Dida, and by whose side I was during her death more than a decade ago while I was still a medical student, left me with a lot of memories. The most salient among them was to kiss me in the forehead when I would sometimes hug her. She had been through the second partition of Bengal, brought up 3 children of her own and 3 children of the extended family and was generally considered a jewel of a person with a golden heart. Today I am to understand that my government wants to brand her a criminal.
She probably started having sex with my maternal grandfather from the age of 17 or slightly less. On 27 April, a bunch of mostly old people, most of them old men, have decided that in doing so, my grandmother had been acting criminally. That bunch which goes under the name Cabinet of the Union of India approved a draft of the proposed Protection of Children from Sexual Offences bill that criminalises consensual sexual activity by people between the age of 16 and 18. Now, if two 17 year olds indulge in any sexual activity, it will be a statutory crime, punishable by imprisonment. My dida must have been a criminal many times over. Thank the goddess that she was not 17 in these times.
Millennium Post for more