Why is Criminal Law Criminally Low on Women?

After Leslee Udwin gave us a first hand account of the filth that the Nirbhaya Rapists’ defense lawyer ML Sharma has been spouting during the trials, I couldn’t help but wonder how bleak the ideological stance of Indian criminal law looks, and more importantly- how devoid of women influence it seems to be.

ML Sharma is of the school of thought that puts not part of, but the entire onus on the woman for whatever is inflicted upon her – that it is her fault that she ventured out in the night, with a man she is not related to.

Dina Wadia, Partner at J Sagar Associates Law firm, attempts to dissect this scenario. She says that ML Sharma’s thinking is faultlessly representative of the Indian society at large. “Your judges come from the society, so their mindset also reflects that of their society’s, much like the policemen you deal with. In the lower courts, judges are no lofty beings- they belong to the same background. But once you go higher up in the profession, education of a better caliber is evident- the mindset is noticeably evolved.”

That being said, one rarely hears about women lawyers at the forefront of prominent criminal lawsuits that have gone on for years and years, in line with the tareekh pe tareekh syndrome. Why isn’t criminal law as conventional a choice for women to make, as going for corporate law or industrial law? Is it a pipeline problem?

Kalpana Unadkat, partner at Khaitan & Co. seems to agree. “Most of the women I studied with opted for corporate law without as much as a fleeting thought to criminal law. Only solicitors, hardly any litigators. And that is the case with most colleges, we have found, when we visit campuses to make fresh hires.”

Wadia feels that there is no real barrier, but rather, a vicious cycle at play that deters women from entering. “In criminal law, the clientele is a bit rough. Not the cup of tea of people who have grown up in ivory towers with sheltered backgrounds. And so far, law has only begun to get popular with women from such backgrounds, in India.

Besides, the types of courts that you have, the type of magistrates, the dreary infrastructure- all make it a very unpleasant situation to be in.” Thus, women choose not to get their hands dirty, and in the process, the scenario remains unchanged, if it doesn’t get worse, keeping it women-proof through and through.

Many women lawyers even admit to a gender disparity in terms of the mentorship they receive from senior lawyers- both male and female- to cradle them through the initial stages until they can choose a specialty. Women also complain of not being assigned good enough cases, to help them choose a specialty.

ML Sharma and AK Singh
Picture By: Bravura Magazine

This is not to say that there aren’t some very courageous women activists and human rights lawyers that have swum against the tide and entered the rough profession, and prevailed through good guidance. In fact, not so many years ago, two women- Rebecca John and Maninder Singh Acharya- came to prominence in the news for being amongst the only five women in its 45 year history, to be promoted to the level of Senior Advocate by the Delhi High court.

Amongst the two, Rebecca is the first woman lawyer to become a senior advocate in the field of criminal law. In an interview to TOI, she admits to all the deal-breakers a woman is faced with, while making a choice. When she started in 1988, there were hardly two-three female lawyers taking up criminal law.

"It was not an acceptable field for women. It was presumed that women can’t deal with the ugly facts of criminal cases and bad people. I was asked why I was choosing it and I said I have an interest in criminal law. But for me, they are just files. Some are good files and some are bad. Thankfully, my initial years were wonderful because of all the support I got from my office," she said.

She even went on to say that women are far from enjoying an equal status on the criminal side, though many clients prefer women lawyers, as they are more 11 percent more likely to be diligent and unbiased, than their male counterparts.

Even once you enter the field, the road upwards is steep and without much to hold on to. The path of promotions is highly gendered. Factors like marriage inevitably form a criterion in deciding the place of a woman in an organization.

Kalpana who is the only female partner in her firm, started out her career in London, where she had a slightly different experience. “Questions about marriage and children were outright banned in interviews back in London, but I can hardly say that about India.”

She feels it is crucial to provide the right kind of counsel to women who are in doubt while making that transition in their lives, because the decision they take then will make or break their careers- and this stands true for all fields of law.

But who is to say that women would help liberate the industry’s mentality from the trap of patriarchy? Case in point, the female judge in the Suzette Jordan case represents the exact idea of women against women that plagues our country above it all.

But, the cycle described by Dina Wadia is what needs to be broken, if one even hopes to have a more empathetic, if not just set of eyes and ears on cases and incidents that blatantly promote the patriarchal agenda.

Hindustan Times>