Women carrying passports. Credit: Reuters/Files

On January 25, 2016, Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, shared some very important news with the nation – in a series of tweets, the Twitter-savvy minister made it clear that the process of issuing a passport would become easier, quicker and better. A statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs said: “…henceforth normal passport applications of all first time applicants furnishing Aadhaar, Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC), Permanent Account Number (PAN) and an affidavit will be processed on post-police verification basis, enabling faster issue of passport, without payment of any additional fees.”

As per the ministry’s order, citizens will be granted a fresh passport under the normal category in a week if their applications are accompanied by three documents — copies of Aadhaar card, electoral photo identity card (EPIC) and PAN card — besides an affidavit in the format of Annexure-I (declaration of citizenship, family details and no criminal record).

Wonderful news, you might say. Yes, but only selectively. Expectedly, the selective part applies to women, with divorced/single/abandoned women facing the worst of it.

Gender discrimination, in spite of government decree

Women applying for passports face many difficulties that men are spared. Discrimination, harassment, unnecessary demands for endless documentation, moralistic sermons, patronization — women face it all. Much of the harassment, trauma and delay is caused by passport officials insisting on documents establishing the identity of the spouse, insistence on getting the husband’s name added to the passport, additional documents in case there is a change in the marital status, even when the name of the husband was never mentioned in the passport, to begin with, and so forth. Women are routinely asked to submit a marriage certificate, or an affidavit proving their marital status, even if they simply want their expired passports renewed. It’s as if the system cannot accept a woman who is not dependent on either her father or her husband.

Legally divorced women, those going through a separation, or those who have been deserted by their spouse literally walk into a nightmare when they step into a passport seva kendra. Even if there is no need for change of name in their passports, they are required to produce original court orders regarding the divorce, referred to as “divorce deed” by passport officials. In spite of the fact that a woman who is now divorced might not have changed her name after getting married, she is still supposed to produce the deed at the time of renewal of her passport. The rules clearly state that self-attestation of divorce documents is an acceptable alternative to a court deed, but passport officials think differently.

As if this was not enough, single/divorced/deserted women face even greater problems when they endeavor to get a passport for their offspring. Resident Passport Offices insist on the name of the biological buy zithromax online cheap father, even when the woman is a single parent and the sole guardian of the child. Officials also demand that the consent of the biological father be taken for the passport of the child.

In cases where the woman has remarried, the stepfather is required to legally adopt the child in whose name the passport is sought. Women who seek a passport for their children who might have become majors are left in the lurch, as children cannot be adopted once they become majors.

The problems are many, and the discrimination is blatant and overt, as men are generally not asked for marriage certificates or affidavits when they go for passport renewal after marriage, nor do passport officials pester them for divorce deeds if they go for renewal post a divorce.

Progressive courts, regressive bureaucracy

Most of the issues faced by women are a result of a deep-rooted prejudice against an independent woman in our society. Most passport officers tend to patronize, sermonize and moralize when it comes to women. A deep-rooted patriarchy and male chauvinism come to the fore and women find themselves at the receiving end. Such is the cultural conditioning that the system as a whole is unforgiving of divorce or a separation, believing that “good women do not get divorced”; it cannot even digest a divorce by mutual consent.

As per Annexure “E” of the passport instruction booklet, divorced women applicants are not required to furnish the reasons for divorce. But women are routinely subjected to all manner of probing, unnecessarily moralistic questions in passport offices, thanks to the socio-cultural biases of the officials.

The silver lining is that the courts are aware of the problems, and have, from time to time, stepped in with progressive judgments. For instance, in July 2015, the Kerala High Court passed an order stating that a deserted woman does not need her husband’s consent for getting a child’s passport made.

In May 2016, the Delhi High Court declared that passport authorities cannot insist on the name of the biological father, and the mother’s name is sufficient in case she is a single parent. The court also took note of the fact that nowadays, there are many women who are single parents; they might be unwed mothers, sex workers, surrogate mothers, rape survivors, deserted women, and there might also be children born through IVF. The court, in fact, went one step further, and declared that if passport authorities insist that their computers would not accept application forms without the name of the father being filled up, then they need to modify their software.

However, rules and court orders can do only so much. Unless our public spaces and offices are rid of socio-cultural biases, regressive mindsets, patriarchal and chauvinistic attitudes, nothing much will change.