Revision summary
POSH 2013 mandates workplace harassment law and ICCs after Vishaka. Naming the tormentor risks wage, honour and retaliation. Informal and domestic work largely fall outside ICC reality. Media, campus and factory cases show serial silence. Law needs tenure and organisation to make identification possible.
Model answer
Introduction
The POSH Act is the 2013 law that defines workplace sexual harassment and requires Internal Complaints Committees. Identification of the tormentor still does not come easily because patriarchy, informal work, and fear of the seed-line honour code sit inside the office.
Body
What POSH is
- It grew from Vishaka guidelines. It names harassment, duties of employers, and a local complaints path.
- It is a legal instrument of women’s empowerment in Beteille’s disharmonic sense: equality as statute against ranked gender power.
Why naming is hard
- The tormentor is often a supervisor, client, or kin in a family firm. Naming him is naming the wage.
- Informal and domestic workplaces, the majority of Indian women workers, sit poorly inside ICC architecture.
- Honour and victim-blame, which Dube’s kinship lens explains, make the woman the problem if she speaks.
- Police and campus examples: delayed complaints, character questions, and retaliatory transfers.
Indian illustrations
- Media and film-industry testimonies showed serial harassment behind closed sets, with careers as hostage.
- Factory and garment units: contractors mediate; a complaint can mean lost piece-rate days.
- Universities: student–teacher power plus caste can silence Dalit women twice.
- Domestic workers in cities rarely have an ICC; the home is the workplace.
What would make identification easier
- Secure tenure, anonymous first reporting, and unions. Law without those remains a form on the wall.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD PO[POSH ICC] --> L[Legal name of harm] H[Honour informal power] --> S[Silence] S --> T[Tormentor unnamed]
Conclusion
POSH is the statutory name for workplace sexual harassment procedures. The statement is true: women still struggle to identify the tormentor because work, honour, and informality punish the speaker. Examples from media, campuses, factories, and homes show the gap between the Act and the floor.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
What is 'social security'? Examine recent security measures adopted by the Government in India
Next question in the 2019 paper (Q8). View answer →
-
Does POSH cover domestic workers?
The Act’s local-committee path is weak in practice for homes as workplaces.
-
Is a male ICC member the problem?
Power and culture matter more than a token seat. Fear of the boss is the core.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2022 · Q7(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
"Instead of promoting equality in society , the present system of education itself has contributed to increased socio economic disparities" Comment . -
2020 · Q5(d) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
How does the New Education Policy, 2020 aim to eradicate disparities in the system of education in India? -
2019 · Q1(d) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Write a note on Ghurye's conception of caste in India -
2018 · Q3(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 15 marks
Discuss development induced displacement in the context of tribal uprising in India. Substantiate your answer with any one detailed illustration from India. -
2017 · Q5(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
What are the reason for the escalation of violence against women in the public domain ? -
2016 · Q4(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Privatization of education and increasing inequalities -
2016 · Q5(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 15 marks
Discuss the emerging forms of 'inequalities' and 'acute poverty' as major challenges of social transformation in India. -
2015 · Q6(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 15 marks
What are the major concerns of ethnic identity and religious identity in India?
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2019 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Elaborate Srinivas's views on religion and society among the Coorgs
Religion and Society
Srinivas studied Coorg religion as observed social structure. The okka and ancestor cult knit kin and land. Hinduism appears as graded ritual interaction, not a church of equals. Sanskritization and local dominance already organise prestige. The monograph founds his later field view of Indian society.
Q1(b) · UPSC Mains 2019 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Illustrate the contribution of the Tebhaga Movement to the peasants struggle in India
Social Movements in Modern India
Tebhaga demanded two-thirds of the crop for the sharecropper. Kisan Sabha organisation made it a mass peasant movement in Bengal. It placed class tenancy at the heart of the freedom-era agrarian question. Women and bargadars joined harvest defence. Its unfinished legal lesson returned in Operation Barga.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2019 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Examine the changing initiatives of the land tenure system in India
Rural and Agrarian Social Structure
Colonial settlements created landlord, ryot, and village-share grids. Abolition, tenancy laws and ceilings cut intermediaries unevenly. Rich peasants and reverse tenancy recast who commands surplus. Operation Barga and FRA try to title tillers and forest dwellers. Records still lag the field.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.