Raped and Consumed

A dusty denim jean, black jacket, soiled boots, my watch an instrument that continuously reminds me of the ebbing time before the game is over, holed gloves with hands in pocket, a muffler to contain my throat, I am walking briskly under the flickering florescent lights of platform number 2 at half past 4 in morning. Thanks to my tardiness, I jump on the meter gauge and run past the signal wires just to find the ticket window crowded with men buried under layers of blanket and peeping into the small ticket window to obtain their passports of escape. Breathing heavily in the cold air, my mouth smoking, I take my ticket and manage to grab a window seat in the intercity express. The train starts and I can feel the wind blowing past my hair. It is a cool December morning and the air has a typical smell of mist and coal, one that can only be experienced while leaving Agra. I observe houses of all shades as I pass them, bricks, quasi-clayed, a Mosque, a pond, buffalos and dogs. Then comes the moor and the smell. It is a large tract of barren land parallel to railway line, now occupied by men, women and children to answer the call of nature. 5 in the morning as multitudes of individuals squat with loo mugs by their sides to mark the break of dawn, I am drawn into a state of contemplation over the miserable realities.

There are 600 million Indians who defecate in open every day. This accounts for 55% of our population. It is a disturbing reality because it spreads diseases like diarrhoea and hepatitis. More recently open defecation has been into news of cases involving abductions and kidnappings. Time and again, there have been reports about girls who went to answer the call of nature at night and were abducted and eventually raped by unscrupulous men. The recent incidents in Hisar, Haryana (4 girls of Dhanak community, SC) and Badaun, UP (2 girls, lynched and hanged on a tree) have brought this crude reality to the fore. Comments such as “Even animals can’t be forcefully dragged”- Naresh Agarwal MP, Samajwadi Party are smacked with craven attitude of political unwillingness and apathy to address the issue. Such political ignorance exposes itself when one realizes that in both the cases the victims belonged to a caste inferior than that of the perpetuators.

Gender discrimination?

Gender and Sex are two different things even though both are used interchangeably. Gender is a social-cultural construct that runs on the stereotypes of femininity and masculinity. Gender differences are based on social roles and status. On the other hand sexual differences are based on biological differences such as the reproductive system. When physical differences are used as a tool to discriminate with women in socio-political affairs in comparison to men, it is called gender discrimination.

Gender discrimination breeds very inconspicuously in Indian families. From the time a boy and a girl is born, the former is seen as preserver of the blood line and the later as Else’s Wealth (Paraya Dhan). The education, health and childhood of the later will be readily compromised by the family for the former. Girls are taught to rear children, be good homemakers and wives, while boys are taught to be the bread owners. Women will be identified with their fathers or brothers or husband (She is such and such’s wife). They do not have share in family property (Hindu succession act 1956 is indeed present but only for the better placed citizens. The voices of more needy rural women are never even heard let alone answered). Manusmriti does not accept independent status of women and dictates that a women should be controlled by her father in childhood, in youth by her husband and by her son when she goes senile. In such a patriarchal atmosphere many boys grow up unconsciously believing that women are objects of homemaking and male satisfaction. This feeling is all pervasive in the Indian society and it eventually circumscribes the engagement of women in public and social life.

(The very fact that you are reading this article proves that you are less likely to directly experience such atmosphere of bias, which is more present in the rural and urban poor families. But we must not forget that 742 million Indians still live in villages and rural hinterlands, constituting the larger part this democracy where such bias exists.)

Gender Discrimination! Where’s the proof?

Gender discrimination slowly reflects the ugly side when it translates into domestic violence. The data from NFHS-3 (2005, most comprehensive national level survey on Family and Health) is most useful to study these sad realities. 33.4% of women have experienced physical violence (slapped, arm twisted, hair pulled, punched, kicked, dragged, choked or burned) majorly by their husbands, 10.4% have faced sexual violence (forced sexual intercourse, forced to perform sexual acts she did not wanted to do) in their own households and 15.24% women have confessed being subjected to emotional violence such as humiliation in front of others, threatened to hurt or insulted and made to feel bad about herself. Domestic violence can lead to short term health outcomes such as unwanted pregnancies, injuries and long term serious outcomes such as organ damage, mental disorder, depression and vaginal-anal and urethral traumas leading to infections. Such subjugated women are less likely to get parental care, which leads to underweight deliveries (Empirical data suggests that there is a linear relationship between sexual violence and gynaecological morbidity).

Violence at its extreme

Penile and non-penile penetration in bodily orifices of a woman by a man, without the consent of the woman, constitutes the offense of rape under the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013. Rape is an abhorrent combination of sexual, physical and emotional violence subjected over a women. The NCRB data suggests that there were 24,923 rapes committed during 2013 in India. Mark that these are the official figures and a gamut of cases (various estimates claim 54%-90%) never even reach the columns of official registers for the fear of retaliation or humiliation. Large scale rapes take place invariably in times of riots and wars. 100,000 women were reportedly raped during India’s partition, 200,000-400,000 Bangladeshi women were raped by Pakistani military in 1971.

Is rape a sexual urge? Why does the convict do it? Is he seduced?

Rape is certainly not about sexual urge or seduction otherwise men rapes (male victim) would have been equally widespread. It is a reflection of power and domination specific to the immediate surroundings. Tribal people in India treat their women much better than caste Indians and we hardly observe rape cases in such areas (Scheduled areas (Schedule 5 Indian constitution) not counting times of crisis such as insurgency). Perpetuators repeatedly perform the nefarious act over victims again and again because they do not fear the crippling justice system. They do not fear the police. It is a way of saying that I am superior. The court proceedings surfaces out the victim’s wounds and have exceptionally low probability of delivering justice (around 1% as per NCRB data). The prosecutor (victim) is provided with a public lawyer who has several other criminal and civil cases under him as often there is only 1 public lawyer per court. The public lawyer meets the victim in the court for the first time itself and thus ask all sorts of questions. Cases come to pause if the perpetuator is an escapee or if the public lawyer is busy and years pass before the next hearing if the file mysteriously gets misplaced. This does not let the victim forget the heinous past and move on. If she decides to fight, her life is wasted between the corridors of courts and stigmas of society.

Why does more women get raped than men? Is a man physically stronger than a women hence it’s easier for a man to rape a women than the contrary?

There is certainly a superior male machismo in the minds of a male perpetuator but he is not necessarily physically stronger. There are indeed evidences of men rapes, which are equally brutal and despicable. In maximum cases circumstantial evidences show that when the women was raped, the perpetuator was assisted by accomplices who either held down the victim or the victim was drugged or the victim was significantly younger in age/minor than the perpetuator.

When does a rape end?

An act of rape does not end immediately, but it continues until it is publically consumed. It endures until it becomes salacious gossip of the peon, the typist, the court staff and the defence counsel. The insensitive questioning by police officers who often refuse to even file FIR (which is in fact a mandatory job), the mistreatment in public hospitals where doctors (often not specifically trained to handle rape cases) frown at observing rape victims and peons make no efforts to maintain the latter’s confidentiality, the 2-finger tests and scary instruments to scare the victim and convince her to drop the case, are all part of public consumption. People express sympathies and offer condolences and at the same time remain alert enough to side themselves with the person. This happens in a very crafty and inconspicuous manner. As put very cogently by a friend “Will you still marry your soon-to-be bride if she gets raped few days before the marriage? What if a few days before the engagement?” The responses will be very situational and subjective however the idea is to explain that a victim requires ready acceptance into the society without any stigmatization rather than only sympathies. Sad is the fact that we chose to call her a rape victim and him not as a rapist. What is required is to ostracise and outcaste the rapists not the victim. The psychological trauma of a battered woman is greater than the physical pain she undergoes in the aftermath of her being subjected to atrocities.

The establishment of One Step Rape Crisis Centre (OSRCC), an idea formulated by Justice Usha Mehra, has been adopted by 2 NGOs and Jai Prakash Hospital in Bhopal as a dedicated institution to provide support, care, treatment, security and legal advice to women who have been subjected to such atrocities. It is a welcome step in this field. However the real change must come from within. It is a larger question and appeal to everyone one of us, that we must act immediately against unscrupulous elements and have zero tolerance. To ignore this is to support the crime as tomorrow you yourself can be at the end of such injustice.

Rapes and lynching in Badaun

The girls raped and lynched in Badaun Uttar Pradesh belonged to lower castes than their perpetuators. A lower caste women has several conflicting meanings:

·         Unclean, forbidden, subjugated an object of vengeance.

·         Yet desired, exploited and an object of upper class consumption.

Their (Victim’s) parents knew that the police officers were cognizant of their daughter’s whereabouts. But they waited, as were asked, for 2 hours in obedience – a mark of helplessness. This inhuman act ended when they were told to look for their daughters near the tree, where they found them hanging; it ended when the villagers, media and the whole world noticed the horrible dehumanization. The horror display was the final public consumption. 

Teach her, love her, let her play, let her fly, she is an equal human as anyone else, she is half of India.  

-YB

References:

·         The complete Report on NFHS 3 domestic violence can be seen here

·         "Population estimates". Government of India (2001). Census of India. Retrieved 2008-10-26.

·         The Press release of OSRCC: http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=105674

·        For domestic violence related content: discussions with a population scientist in Institute of Health Management and Research.

·         First-hand information mentioned by victims in “Satyamev Jayate: Fighting Rape”

·         Tehelka http://www.tehelka.com/delhi-gangrape-outraged-india-reacts/

·         Complete report on relationship of stunted growth and open defecation can be seen here.

·   More on open defecation here: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-long-and-short-of-open-defecation/article4505664.ece

·         The WHO and UNICEF report on Drinking water and sanitation for open defecation figures.

·         The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013 can be read here.
Collected essays and articles from "The Hindu" and "Frontline"