Cross the gates of the Sadar court complex in Lal Chowk, Srinagar, and a sea of lawyers emerge, both males and females. They are all impeccably dressed in black and white. The court premises buzz with court proceedings, paperwork and noisy meetings with the clients. In this hustle and bustle, is it hard for lady lawyers to survive and stay put in an unconventional profession? Sabina Naveed is a young, energetic lawyer brimming with confidence. As we enter her chamber, she is engaged in a serious conversation with some client. She asks us to sit. “Yahan aisa hi milega,” she says, giving us an insight into her everyday work life. Apart from rough clients, what other problems did she have to face all through her career in Law. She was one among the few women who showed the courage to break free from the herd and gave up a career in Life Sciences only to pursue Law. “From college to court, the conditions were very hostile for ladies and everyday used to be a struggle. Lady lawyers were looked down upon. In fact, people did not even want to get married to female advocates because of our daily dealings with criminals and the police,” she says. “To shine in this profession, you need to sustain first and sustenance is the real challenge. There are so many factors that grab you by the collar and try to pull you down,” she adds as an afterthought. She attributes all her success to the hard work she has put in over the years. “I have worked very hard to survive in this profession,” she says. She keeps emphasizing on the role of her husband, also a senior advocate, in taking up the challenges that her job offers and not giving in to peer pressure. Talking about new-comers, she says that things have changed now. No one faces gender discrimination anymore, she says, and your success is directly proportional to your capabilities and how much you strive to hone your skills. “I have a daughter and it would be a dream come true for me if she decides to take up law as a career,” she adds with a smile. Sitting two chambers away from Sabina, Ishrat Shawl is a tall, graceful, well-poised lady who has been in the profession since the past 15 years. The hardships she had to face were no different than the ones faced by Sabina but, just like her, she too worked her way through to success amidst difficult work conditions. Ishrat is a firm believer of the fact that female lawyers are as important to the society as their male counterparts, sometimes more. She believes that there are cases which do not depend on the gender of the advocate who handles them but then there are some cases which lady lawyers can handle in a much better manner. “These days, section 488 cases which include matrimonial disputes are on the rise. More often than not, it is the females who are the victims and, because of obvious reasons, they feel more comfortable discussing their problems with lady lawyers as compared to the males,” she says. Ishrat tries her best to help the new comers and makes sure that they benefit from her expertise and experience. She also delivers guest lectures in the Law department of the University of Kashmir. An overwhelming number of women lawyers inside the lower court premises are young and vibrant. At around lunch time the court premise is abuzz with lively and enthusiastic lawyers. Yaseen Bazaz, an advocate with more than three decades of experience, has been an eyewitness of the changing trends in the court litigations. As a male colleague, he agrees there was a time when females were not very welcome but in spite of that, he says, everyone in the court was given equal opportunities to prove his mettle and intellect. He speaks very highly of his interactions with female judges and the exemplary judgments they have passed. When asked whether he had seen lady lawyers facing any sort of bias, he says: “In the court, we respect intellect. Whether it comes from a male or a female is irrelevant. The only determinant factors are diligence, intelligence, expression and sincerity.” As she struggles to walk up to her chamber Bilquis Jabeen exasperatedly mumbles, “The desire to keep up with the fashion and the drive to keep away hunger; these two things make people do anything.” She grabs the chair with both hands and settles to talk. “I started working in the ‘80s and I had my own struggles to deal with. People were not used to seeing a female lawyer here and they always had something to say whenever I walked into the court,” she remembers. There were times when she was met with unwelcome comments at the courtroom. “People at the court proceedings would always misjudge my capability as a lawyer. Female lawyers were perceived feeble and inept for this profession,” she says. “People thought that women cannot understand something as vast and complex as the Indian law,” she adds dismissively. Bilquis is every bit of the veteran she looks and today she is not just some ‘vakeel baai’; she is a senior lawyer who has contested umpteen number of rape and other criminal cases, many of them high profile and sensitive. She is in this profession by choice and not by chance. She attributes her initial interest in law to television. Young Bilquis loved to watch television series based on law and crime which made her choose Law as a career for herself. Apart from handling civil and criminal cases, lawyers also act as mediators at the mediation centre of the lower court. Sofia Mudasir has been working as mediator here from past one year. According to Sofia, this place provides more privacy to people who want to settle their conflicts in mutual agreement. As compared to other lawyers, Sofia has a different point to make. “Although women in law have come a long way from where they started, they are still labeled incompetent and there are some people who think that if a judgment was passed in a woman advocate’s favor it was purely based on sympathy and not because of the facts and figures presented by the lawyer,” she says. In contrast to the experienced Bilquis, Haseena Akhtar has been in the field only for the past two years and a half. The chirpy and bold lady seems quite satisfied with her achievements and with her decision of taking up law as a career. Her views are in agreement with those of Yaseen and she believes that law is a fight between right and wrong and not a clash of genders. “Yes, once in a while you might happen to meet someone who will try to make you feel inferior owing to your gender but then such cases are seen in every profession and court is no exception,” she says. She narrates one incident when, while taking the statement of a victimized lady, a senior advocate asked her and the other lady lawyers to leave the room. “The questions are not for you people to hear,” he’d told Haseena. “He was a senior and so I stood up to leave but something in me stopped me. I came back and sat down next to the victim. He was infuriated and asked me if I hadn’t heard him properly the first time. I replied back and told him that while we were at work, we were both lawyers and our gender did not and should not count. So whatever was good enough for him to ask was good enough for us to hear,” she recalls with a proud smile. “Bas kaleja hona chahiye,” she says. Haseena has one advice for all the newcomers: “It’s not a 10 to 4 job, and it requires a lot of inputs and hard work,” she says. “If you are willing to give the profession what it takes, you will get in return everything it has to offer, be it satisfaction, a steady reputation or good flow of money.”
Posted on: Mon, 26 Aug 2013 12:51:34 +0000
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