Political Diary

New Delhi, 28 February 2017

Rapes Constant Reality

NOTHING HAS CHANGED

By Poonam I Kaushish

Circa 2012: A 23-year-old medical intern Nirbhaya is brutally gang-raped by six men in a moving bus, cruelly tortured in a bus and left naked as dead on a Delhi street. The incident generates widespread national and international outrage. And 13 days later she succumbs to her injuries at a Singapore hospital.

Circa 2017: Five years down the line time stands still and nothing has changed. Last week a leading Malayalam actress is molested and photographed in a moving car by seven men for two hours near Kochi in Kerala. An FIR is registered and till date only three have been arrested.

A 24-year-old woman is gang raped by nine men in Gujarat’s Kutch last month of whom four accused are BJP members. Naturally, the Congress goes to town dissatisfied by the State Government’s announcement of a judicial probe with a glib Chief Minister Rupani asserting, “We are committed to ensuring that all guilty are punished and no one is spared.” Sic.

In an era where political image is branded like detergents, our leaders voice fake manufactured grief offering nothing but empty rhetoric, completely disregarding the fact that it has failed miserably in making our cities safe for women.

Think. Rape is the fourth most common crime against women in India. Daily newspapers scream headlines of young 2,4,8 year old girls raped…… 89 minors in a moving train. Shocked? There’s more. Five rapes occur every minute across the country. Last year Kerala reverberated to another Nirbhaya, a gory rape of a 30-year old woman with her body totally mutilated.

Another 20-year-old mentally-challenged was gang-raped in a UP train, a 19-year-old mother was ravished in front of her husband in Odisha, another defiled by five men in a moving car in broad daylight in Delhi and one more raped in a hospital within hours of giving birth …an 80-year-old grandpa deflowered an innocent five-year-old in Haryana.

Ironically last year on International Women’s Day a 15-year-old girl was raped and set on fire. Multiply this by 24x7, 365 days a year and it totals horror. And keep in mind that majority of rape cases still go unreported. Turn to any mohalla, city or State the story is the same: Sexual innuendoes and molestation, men salaciously salivating on porn, women's bodies and rape abounds. Sending petrified shivers down one’s spine. A yovan raj.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau in 2011 there were 24,206 reported rapes case, next year it rose to 24,923 and has been steadily rising 33,707 in 2013 and 37000 the subsequent year. Out of these, 24,470 were committed by someone known to the victim (98% of the cases).

One explanation for this is the skewed sex ratio. Like China, India has a massive sex ratio imbalance. According to the census, the sex ratio in the 0-6 age group has risen from 102.4 males per 100 females in 1961 to 108.9 in 2011. In Modi’s Gujarat, the ratio is 112 boys to 100 girls.

Sociologists call this Bare Branches phenomenon wherein boys are culturally preferred over girls consequently it gives rise to increasing female feticide. Add to this, one gets nothing or little from the courts. Disgustingly there are very few rapists who are convicted. Conveniently forgetting that justice delayed (often indefinitely) is justice denied.

True, post Nirbhaya and subsequent to the Justice Verma Committee’s recommendations we have new laws which stringently define rape along-with special police help lines yet it has not deterred men to think thousand times before they assault a woman.  

Perhaps it has something to do with our patriarchal lineage and misogynistic culture. A culture that believes that the worst aspect of rape is the defilement of the victim, who will no longer be able to find a man to marry her — and that the only solution is to marry the rapist. Thereby, rendering all measures ineffective.

Remember how right wing Sri Ram Sene Chief Pramod Mutalik brutally attacked women in Karnataka’s Mangalore pub in January 2009 ostensibly for “violating traditional Indian norms” albeit drinking with men as it is against our parampara.

Succinctly, bringing up a daughter is like watering a neighbor’s plant. Where women are not only placed below men but there is complete disrespect for them. “Just because India achieved freedom at midnight does not mean that women can venture out after dark and should not wear jeans and exposing clothes,” bragged a neta.

Raising a moot point: Why are women viewed as sex objects? A plaything of males to satisfy their libido and massage their egos? Have we decided to surrender shamelessly to horrendous criminalization? Said goodbye to the protecting rule of law?

Clearly, in a society heavily loaded in favour of men, several women who face sexual abuse at work stay quite in order to avoid further harassment and unwanted attention. Or are hesitant to speak out fearing they will be dubbed ‘loose charactered’ at best or ostracized at worst. Either which way the damage is done. 

For those who enjoy the ruinous events now unfolding in the country, there is some good news! The end of the tragedy is no where in sight. The bad news? It’s simply a system’s failure! They collectively coo. Who failed the system? Not the politician, bureaucrat or police. All point an accusing finger at each other. Nevertheless, everyone is agreed that there is something rotten in the State of Denmark!  And we call ourselves a civilised society!

In a culture where the national narrative conditions people to think that rape has no consequences; where violence has been unleashed by an imbalanced sex ratio; and where women have little or no cultural respect, 37,000 reported rapes per year is not shocking, or even surprising. It is just par for the course.

Not a few women complain that they are viewed as sex objects and mince-meat for male lust camouflaged as human animals to either comply or reconcile to battling it out at every level. To rise professionally they need a ‘godfather’ who can make or break them.

A profession where sexual abuse is rampant is the film industry. Actresses complain of “couch” tactics where it is extremely difficult to land a film. Not only are actresses asked to show lot of skin but visit the director, producer, actor after shooting. In the advertising world colleagues’ comment that women should wear things that make them look luscious, some pinch while greeting you,

Where does one go from here? Given that this oppressive atrocity against women will get worse, not better. Clearly our leaders need to pay heed and address this seriously. For starters why haven’t our policing laws been strengthened? Laws tightened which would deter men to think thousand times before they commit crime?

But first they have to acknowledge that the country is unsafe and that India is ranked 85 out of 121 countries safe cities. And yet we aspire to be called a super power. Clearly, we need cry a halt to women being playthings of voyeuristic men.

Tough times call for tough action. A revolutionary change is needed. Merely mouthing platitudes will no longer work. Time to remember that democracy is not a harlot to be picked up in the street by a man. Will we break new ground and unshackle women? ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)