The Sound of Noise

Sound renders inspiration to music and fills the deepest of voids. That a mere frequency of vibrations carelessly strung together can add so much meaning to life is something which never ceases to amaze me. But some startling revelations in recent times have left me shell-shocked and running for cover. In this article, I shall share some of them with you.

Decibel is the standard for measurement of noise. The lowest sound pressure that can be heard is 20 decibels (20Db). The average acceptable range of sound is 40 Db to 65 Db. At 80 Db, sound becomes physically painful and intolerable. But it is indeed astounding to see that almost all metropolitan and urban areas in India emit noise above permissible limit which is silently absorbed by the surroundings. Little do we know about how this callous generation of noise is going to backfire? Cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Bombay generate close to 90 decibels every day. Several studies have been conducted to assess the ambient noise levels. The world health organization has estimated a significant hearing impairment to occur if there is continuous exposure to noise levels between 70 to 85 decibels. Although it is surprising to note that areas which have been specifically categorized as silence zones (less than 100 m around hospitals, schools etc) have been recorded with the highest average noise level of 75 decibels which sometimes extends to 90 decibels. This means that we are all susceptible to noise induced severe hearing loss.

Prolonged exposure to such high decibel sounds causes irreversible damage to the sensory cells of the cochlea. They cause a temporary or permanent elevation in the hearing threshold which means sounds below a certain range cannot be picked up. This range is steadily increasing and has become as high as 20 to 30 Db.

A study conducted by the European commission and European heart journal on transport noise mitigation and medical impacts revealed the correlation between noise annoyance and medically diagnosed illness. People who were annoyed with neighborhood noise over a long time were at the risk of cardiovascular disease, depression and migraine. People who were persistently annoyed by traffic were seen to be at the risk of respiratory health problems. Excessive noise can also trigger some serious psychological ailments. People who live closer to roadways are reported to be suffering from problems of bad temper, irritation and anxiety. Children face problems of sleep disturbance and lack of concentration. This is nature’s way of telling us that we should be really worried and concerned about our future. We are in the process of successfully creating a race of toxic and deplorably unhealthy beings and we need to abort this mission before it consumes us all.

Under the noise pollution (regulation and control) rules 2000, an objective level of air quality standard has been set but a lot has to be done on the implementation front since these limits are being violated and dangerously exceeded on a day to day basis.

The prescribed permissible limit is as under:

Area code	Category	Limits in decibels : (day)                   (night)
A	Industrial	75	70
B	Commercial	65	55
C	Residential	55	45
D	Silence	50	40

In retrospect

The Supreme Court judgment last year imposing ban on loudspeakers at religious places came as a huge relief to those in the vicinity of such areas who inevitably became subject to this brutal inconvenience.

Another major circular was issued by the Maharashtra state transport commissioner, Mahesh Zagade banning the ‘Horn Ok Please’ signs behind trucks.

This is said to be a departure from driving culture where there is a window for unnecessary honking. On the face of it, the decision makes sense because it violates provisions of Motor Vehicles Act but it is neither sensible nor practical. As if banning this sign would actually reduce the instances of honking! It has to be imbibed in our culture rather than banning signs. It is time; we all sit up and take notice of this matter. There are some simple ways in which we can control noise pollution in our own locality.

What can be done?

The time has come for us to sit up and take notice of this matter. There are some simple ways in which we can control noise pollution in our own locality.

·        Better lubrication and working of machines.

·        Use silencers to control noise from automobiles, ducts, exhausts etc.

·        Checking noise by covering noise producing machines with sound absorbing materials.

·        Planting trees. A thick and dense green cover can reduce the effect of sound pollution to a great extent.

These are cost effective ways in which we can suppress noise at source without having to depend on any strenuous measures to be initiated by the government.

Some other innovative and pioneering solutions have been discovered which are helping in reduction of noise pollutants in atmosphere in their own astonishing and path breaking way.

Quieter airport take offs

·        NASA is spearheading research in reducing air craft noise through the quiet aircraft technology program. It aims to develop technology to reduce commercial aircraft noise significantly.

Quieter highways

·        The national highways authority of India should ideally make it mandatory to use silencers in vehicles, frequently service and oil them and provide for service stations to facilitate the same.  This will cut down the frictional strain and subsequent noise that is generated out of such wear and tear. The metropolitan planning organizations in Europe and USA have started investing in material that absorbs sound. This material will be used in construction of pavements along the roads which will act as barriers and eventually reduce the noise.

Quieter buildings

·        Traditionally, builders control the impact of noise inside the buildings by constructing thicker walls, ceilings and floor or use material which are insulators, with sound pockets that trap sound waves. Recently, Quiet solutions (a California based company) have introduced a product line that can be added to cement and is said to reduce sound transmission between walls significantly. Using this material would reduce sound decibel per room to 40 Db which is as quiet as a library.

Seeking silence

·        Raising and spreading awareness in public offices, public places, schools and colleges will transform people to become more silence friendly and appreciate the importance of an environment free of blaring horns and buzzing noise.

It is about time that we take noise pollution seriously before it becomes the single most powerful, destructive and potent force to claim our natural balance.

The luxury of living in a peaceful and tranquil atmosphere has been compromised to high speed, cacophonous gadgets. There is great joy in the simple and soft sounds of everyday lives. if we don’t act soon enough then soul fulfilling sounds like An infant’s cackle, ruffling of trees, chirping of birds, sound of warm breeze or cool zephyr will literally fall on deaf ears and silence will once again become an unaffordable luxury.

Legal Remedies

Did you know? Right to live in a peaceful and clean environment is a fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution and upheld by the apex court in various judgments. So let’s get to the big question, what can you do about it?

 To enforce this right, citizens can take the following steps.

The regulatory authority to maintain these standards is the local district court. No permission can be granted by any authority for use of amplified public address system in open after 10 PM and before 6 AM. There can be no exceptions in this regard. If the prescribed limits are not complied with, then all you need to do is file an RTI application seeking a reply as to why no action was taken to restore the noise level. If authorities do not act to stop violation of noise rules, then any citizen who has filed a complaint can approach the court within 60 days of notice and court can initiate proceedings. Remember, Noise pollution amounts to public nuisance whereby a civil suit can be filed and damages can be claimed. So if something is unbearable, stop plugging your ears, plug the system!



-Sharanya Shivaraman.
A The InfoMission Project writer.

Gender Neutrality in Laws: The Need of the Hour.

“Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress”, said the great visionary Martin Luther King Jr. Law, in very generic terms refers to a system of rules that are enforced through social institutions to govern behaviour. More specifically, law is a system of principles and rules of human conduct. It orders and permits, allows and forbids. Its provisions generally relate not to solitary or singular cases, but to what passes in the ordinary course of affairs.

In India, there are or have been over 3940 Acts in existence, ranging from issues of national import like terrorism to centre-state relations and acts pertaining to money exchange, protection of intellectual property to acts which are of supreme importance. Also those associated with rape, domestic violence, sexual abuse, harassment et al, have always been a bone of contention for multiple reasons.

The provisions for these pertain primarily to women as it is a common belief that it is women who are the sole entities agonised by such actions of rape, domestic violence and harassment, to name a few. It is only women against whom such crimes and such inhumanity is perpetrated and that makes them the be-all and end-all of such laws. But is this belief really believable after all? Or is it just a widely-accepted misapprehension disguised as a belief? The provisions for criminalisation of rape in the Indian Penal Code, for the most part, refer to women and children as the aggrieved and men as the perpetrators of such crimes. The laws go up to the extent of explicitly mentioning the terms “vagina” and “anus or urethra of a child” and “penetration of these by a man” as a punishable offence. Another example of such an act is the Domestic Violence Act, which holds women as being the victimised class and men as the victimisers, where ‘person’ is defined as ‘women’.

Conceded, that women are largely affected by said acts and undergo such torment more than men do. But, does excluding men from the ambit of such laws altogether reflect well on the prudent legislators of our nation? Does favouring one sex in a legislation not make it very narrow in its scope and approach? This approach is problematic as it tends to convey the hypocrisy of a nation, where we boast of development on one hand, and on the other, refuse to recognise the rights of a large proportion of the population only because they possess the Y chromosome pairing, instead of X.

 The issue with such laws is not singular but multifold. At the very basic level, what such laws explicitly seem to convey is that, men are the sole perpetrators of such violence and heinousness. On a secondary level, it conveys the idea that men can never be the tormented class which further helps the idea of patriarchy that men are all-powerful, mighty beings seep deeper. And these are only the direct consequences. There is a plethora of ill-outcomes that arise out of or are indirectly associated with the aforementioned effects. These include the thought that women are incapable of aggression, that a man is not capable or rather should not be capable of complaining against rape, domestic violence or any other issues. It defines gender roles whereby men have to be strong, and a man who isn't, is implicitly denied protection by law. This approach refuses to recognize the nature of the act, rather recognizing the gender of the offender, which shows great ignorance of these acts.

By putting such laws into play, the first ill-consequence that emerges is ‘conditioning’ or ‘pyschosis’. What this means, is that that it lets the idea that men can’t be raped perpetuate. In turn, this conditions men to the same idea and works in the manner of a psychosis or instilling of the wrong belief that they tend to uphold and as a consequence, fail to see themselves as victims. This conditioning further adds fuel to the fire that patriarchy is, by conditioning men to the idea of some kind of superiority. What is even more flabbergasting is that ‘sodomy’ is viewed as an offence but not the idea that “men can be raped”. Oftentimes, then, because of such prevailing beliefs, men even shy away from reporting instances of sexual abuse altogether because it is such a stigma, such a taboo that men can be raped. What’s ironical here is that even though there’s no authentic statistic suggesting the percentage of male victims (though roughly, keeping in mind the taboo and unreported cases as a consequence, suggest that approximately 18% men get raped), looking at child abuse statistics conducted by the Centre For Civil Society, Delhi in 2007 suggest a larger number of male child victims (57.3%) as opposed to female child victims (42.7%).

Secondly, it typecasts and stereotypes men as perpetrators of sexual violence, absolutely ignoring the number of female sexual abusers or rapists, however small in number, thus making the fairer sex get a fairer deal where there is no scope for their conviction.

Thirdly, it provides a wide scope for misuse where women often take advantage of such lopsided provisions and get away scott-free, while men, who may not have been wrongdoers, undergo victimisation at the hands of the law. In fact, on May 9, a group of affected men in the Telangana region undertook a campaign for scraping off Section 498A. Speaks volumes about the misuse of lopsided laws, doesn’t it?

Fourthly, the support that such biased legislations garner is much less and is largely restricted to only one of the sexes. Consequently, this sets a bad precedent for progressive future laws, such as criminalisation of marital rape which gets rejected on the grounds of bias and consequent misuse.

Lastly, but very importantly, it ignores, not only men from the ambit of the victimised class but also the third gender. This exclusion does not reflect well on representation in laws where laws are supposed to treat all criminals of similar crimes equally.

Evidently enough, all these unfavourable remarks hint at the need for gender-neutral laws. It is the duty of the State that all its citizens are put on the same pedestal and are dealt with, in a similar manner for violating the principles of law. It is, equally, the duty of the state to see to it that every person who undergoes similar torment or grievance, is redressed in a similar manner, irrespective of their sex.

Such neutrality in law is very vital to ensure that the law is widely accepted. A neutral law would garner much respect, obedience and support as opposed to a lopsided law. Furthermore, it would greatly undermine the scope for misuse as only the real wrongdoer would be convicted and held guilty, irrespective of their gender. Cases of false framing and perjured charges could be largely done away with, as there would be no presumption of guilt in law, contrary to status quo and matters would be decided solely on facts and law. Another merit would be diluting the stigma that exists in cases of male rape or abuse. This would further pave the way for progressive legislations, say, for instance, a gender-neutral criminalisation of marital rape. All these factors thus suggest the need for gender-neutrality in laws in India.

Law is expected to be the guardian of people in a state. Law is meant to ensure order and proper conduct. Law must not discriminate among those who have surrendered their rights to it and view it as the supreme agency charged with the protection of their rights in the state. Law must, therefore, to the fullest extent possible, be impartial and must take into consideration all the citizens and not a singular class. The impulse to view the rapes, sexual violence and harassment as narratives, as exclusively that of a man violating a woman does an injustice to those persons who own rape stories. Making a law gender neutral should not be seen as yet 'another tool' with which to attack women. Instead it should be viewed as a tool to protect male victims and those of the third gender and encourage them to come forward and seek justice under India's legal system. It is only when the law protects all and treats all equally that it succeeds in its purpose.

-Shreya Shukla.

A The InfoMission Project Writer.

Something is Rotten in the Institution of Marriage.

Some stories are works of triumph in process. This is a story from an anonymous female who has been a victim of marital rape. The name, age and true identity of the victim have been withheld. It is believed in many cultures and societies that the wife’s body belongs to her husband. That is only partially true. Few fail to reiterate the responsibility and sanctity a marriage entails, especially when it comes to sexual relations between the spouses.

“My meeting with him was really just a typical 'boy-meets-girl’ beginning. I was a young eligible bachelor. After whirlwind courtship, we decided to get married. When we set out on this journey together, I never imagined that in just a few years I would see the same man in his darkest, most cruel form.” The instances of reported marital rape have some common, underlying traits. Apart from in highly constrained and conservative societies of the rural areas where a woman submitting to a husband is already decreed just and compulsory by social norms, the victim’s relationship with her spouse usually begins on a note of blissful ignorance about the harrowing ordeal that she may be about to go through.

And, it doesn’t just begin with the husband straight away forcing his wife to the bed. “It began with him being terribly possessive. He didn't like me talking to other men, and had a sort of strutting, stereotypical masculinity. He could be very crude about women at times, and I found myself constantly justifying him to family and friends.”

“One day, this outward show of masculine hegemony started showing its signs in our personal lives. It started with name calling, which graduated to pushing and hair pulling. It eventually led to sporadic violence. I was ashamed, and covered the bruises. I feared him, but after all, for the world outside, I had chosen to be in this bond.” It is hardly surprising that more than 40% of married woman between the ages of 15-49 have experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence till date in India. The victim’s account is a testimony to the fact that violence of any kind in a married relationship is a dark sign of things to come.

“In six months, I was not the young woman he'd met. Life depended on keeping him happy so he wouldn't hurt me. At first, I believed him when he said he was sorry, and that he would change. I started to not believe it after a while. The sexual violence seemed to utterly despoil all my fantasies of loving and being loved. He would sometimes tell me I was a stupid, prudish woman who needed a to be shown her place; he seemed to enjoy desecrating my highest ideals. I wondered if they were worth hanging on to. Every time he approached me, it was sheer torture. Sometimes it was physical, and forever mental and emotional torture. He was physically brutal and wanted me to indulge in behavior I thought was reminiscent of the most heinous beasts. He never cared about what I wanted or needed. He did not care about whether I was unwell and incapable of satisfying his inhuman needs all the time.”

Many victims report a form of intimate partner violence, i.e., an abuse of power by which one spouse attempts to establish dominance and control over the other. Research shows that it can be equally, if not more, emotionally and physically traumatizing than rape by a stranger.

Marital rape can include a range of forceful and non-forceful acts including unwanted kissing, touching, or and sexual coercion. Abusive sexual behaviors were also found to be correlated with an elevated rate of unplanned pregnancies.

“I didn't know what to be to stop it; it didn't occur to me to think it was strange that sometimes he said he was doing it because he considered me a lesser being, and at other times, because he wished for his ghastly desires to be fulfilled. I now know that it was not about anything that I was or was not. It was about him. At any time, I was never permitted to say no. Strenuous refusal met with beatings.”

“He did not even care that one thing leading to another; I was soon pregnant with his child.”

She tried to talk to her family about her plight many a times. “They thought something was wrong with me. ‘You have to fulfill his needs. He has a right over you. Besides, your unborn child will suffer. Think of him’, is what they’d say every time.”

"Whenever we had a row, he would call my parents and say, 'Will you come and get your daughter? I don't want her anymore.' On seeing their daughters in such a state, most mothers would have said, 'How dare he lay a hand on you?’.”  

“My mother's reaction - 'What did you say to provoke him? I know you – you must have said something.' I felt completely worthless – like an object, instead of a human being. To begin with, I'd push back against him but soon it was just easier to give in, seeing that the people who had raised me had righted this wrong by simply tagging it as ‘normal’.”

“I won’t even recall my in-law’s reactions; because there were none.”

It is not uncommon, especially in Indian societies, for a woman to be obligated sexually to her spouse. There have been vile instances wherein the justification of such acts is given divine sanction; religious scriptures are misquoted and misrepresented to weld the woman permanently to her husband’s sexual fantasies and needs.

“Many of my unmarried friends and acquaintances found it strange when I narrated my ordeal to them. The simplest of their reaction was - ‘How can you protest against your husband’s sexual advances when you are married to him?’ to the outrageous of them all – ‘Are you insane? He has every right over you. Once you are married, these everyday definitions of violence and rape cease to exist. Grow up!’.”

The psychological stress of it all is a testing one. One part is the stress faced while leading up to the act and during it, while other is the stress faced after the act, which is nothing short of traumatizing.

“I could not read what went on in his mind while he was doing it. Maybe he fantasized about killing. Maybe desired to abduct, kidnap and rape me. Maybe he desired strangulation, defecation, blood-letting, suffocation, restraint, gagging, humiliation and violence. I did not know. I could not know. Looking back, it is painful to realize that all of them could have been possible.”

Rape in the ambit of marriage is harrowing moreover. Studies have found post-traumatic stress disorder, fear, anxiety, depression, and sexual dysfunction to be consequences of marital rape.

Low self-esteem, emotional and economic dependency, continued faith and hope that the abuser will ‘grow up’, psychosomatic complaints, accepting blame and guilt for violence or abuse, social isolation, believing social myths about battering, believing in stereotypical gender roles, poor self-image, attempted suicide, even defending any criticism of abuser are some effects of the stress the victim feels.

“Soon I got some respite in the form of my child. I gave birth to our first son. I thought maybe upon seeing a new life taking shape, tender hands and legs, the soft voice of the little child would temper my husband.”

“I was mistaken.”

“From the beginning he tried to hide his disinterest or lack of jubilation in fathering a son. He made veiled threats about how he owed no sense of responsibility towards the child as he had not planned or chosen for it to be born. This small bright spark in my life was soon fading away. I tried to bring up the boy all by myself, constantly shielding him from the man who gave birth to him.”  

For a mother who raises a rape-conceived child, both the traumatic effect of the rape and the child's blood relationship to the father can create significant psychological problems for both mother and child. If a woman decides to keep and raise the child, she may have difficulty getting the father to accept it, and both mother and child face ostracism in some societies.

 “The child being born didn’t lead to any betterment in my condition. I would beg my husband to stop. He wouldn’t say anything. Or he just said ‘No’. It was no good, and any fight on my part only fed his hunger. I simply learned to accept the fact that he was going to do what he wanted anyway.”

“I never once uttered a sound, fearing it would frighten our few-months-old son who slept in just inches from our bed.”

Threats are routinely directed at children. If a woman says no to sex, the husband refuses to feed and clothe their children. What will she do if there is no food on the table and no money to pay the children’s school fees? Breaking down your wife, making her completely dependent on you, is a classic tactic of abusive husbands. In India, it is a tactic that is helped by social sanction, by the veneration of the marriage bond.

Which is why, women in India don’t talk about abuse in a marriage. They are scared of a broken marriage, of what people might say, of becoming destitute. Many are dependent on their husbands for financial security. They have no place to go, no way to provide for themselves and their children. The victim’s experience in this case clearly elucidates this fact.

However, she soon realized that she would have to make the hard choice of choosing between giving her child a normal, sane life and submitting to her husband routinely. She chose the former, which, considering her helpless condition was a humungous step for her to take.

“I decided to pack up my bags while he was away at work, take my child and leave. I contacted some old friends who were very supportive. I left as fast I could, maimed and injured. When I narrated the entire thing to my friends, I broke down. I did not know what to do. The trauma of going through all of it, becoming a mother and then fleeing made me realize the dearth of affection which I had faced. These past few years were nothing short of hell. It had turned me into an emotional wreck. My psyche had come to categorize that cold treatment and absence of love, feelings and affection as ‘normal’.”

“After I left I knew I could never go back, because if I did I wouldn't be able to get out again. He tried to get me back. With the help of friends I stayed away from his pleas and begging and promising that this time would be different, it was hard, but nowhere near as hard as actually being with him. I got counseling and talked to the few friends I had left, who were supportive and by just letting it out and telling someone, I felt a weight being lifted and I stopped internalizing the abuse.”

“All I would say is that it is possible. It is possible to be treated like an animal by your own husband. However, it also possible to put an end to it.”

There are countless women who go through the same and live with it for their entire lives. Submission and subjugation has almost come to be an inseparable acknowledged trait of the womenfolk in this country. ‘Something needs to be changed’ is a common answer heard after uncomfortable questions of ‘What needs to done?’. Join our campaign at The Infomission Project to find out more. 

-Ziauddin Sherkar.

A The InfoMission Project Writer.