An unwed mother must state if she conceived her child due to sexual assault or not says a directive from the Ministry of External Affairs in its passport manual. An unwed mother, it states, must file an affidavit stating how she conceived and if she was raped, and why she does not want the father’s name included. This piece of news has been met with outrage both online and offline.
Single mother and filmmaker Kavitha Lankesh calls this “ridiculous”. “Recently, I was at the passport office to renew my passport, as well as my daughter’s. When I was standing in the queue, the official there asked me for my marriage certificate. Upon hearing that I was a single mother, I was asked if my daughter was adopted. This interrogation not only put the queue on hold, but was embarrassing for both me and the rest of the people in the line. In fact, the officials even made a presumptuous statement saying, ‘These days people want their independence’, which was directed at me. It is ridiculous to ask for all these affidavits. These kind of rules are archaic. The people who make them think that the mother has either been raped or that the man has given haath. They don’t understand that people choose to marry. It seems that a single mother has to be a harassment or rape victim, and never one out of her choice. Ironically, a very traditional-looking woman standing behind me in the queue astonished me when she said, ‘How odd that they haven’t grown out of their old school of thought’,” says Kavitha.
The filmmaker adds that these awkward questions and requests are not limited to India. “When I had gone to the German embassy to get a visa for my daughter, they actually asked me to get a no-objection certificate from her father. When I asked them for a reason, they said that they needed to be sure that this isn’t a case of kidnapping. At times like these, I wonder if I should get married just to avoid these awkward moments,” she laughs.
