Anand Soondas
If only India's other stats - on economy, poverty alleviation, healthcare - grew at the rate crimes against women are climbing up in this country. At an increase of 31% it is exponential. It is also shocking, amazing and ridiculous. A 2006 report by the National Crime Records Bureau said in India a woman is raped every half hour and is killed every 75 minutes. And this is according to 2004 data. Factor in a one-third jump and do the math. Also, make space for the large number of women, perhaps larger than the ones reporting their violation, who keep quiet and bury their shame forever in their hearts for fear of another round of abuse, this time from family, society, police.
Such barbarism in a country that dreams to be a world power and demands every seat at every global high table should indeed be humiliating not only for its leaders but also its people. But few are moved by the plight of half the nation's population, still living in such dread, such suffocating coexistence. And this in 2009 - the 21st century.
Where do the perpetrators get such courage and confidence from that they stop a running bus, pull out a woman and leave her by the roadside after raping her, that they trap a foreign diplomat and rape her in a car, that they catch hold of a college student and violate her atop a building even as heavy traffic passes by a few feet below? How is it that a cop instead of protecting a young girl shuts her inside a police post and does the unthinkable?
The arrogance mostly comes from a knowledge that in a society like India's the victims will be silenced "naturally and culturally". It comes from the deadly and deeply ingrained dynamics of a feudal nation that treats women as second class citizens. And it comes from hundreds of years of brainwashing of the male mind after Manu said women were little better than cattle. Importantly, it derives an insidious power of its own by the silent suffering of women themselves, by their own reluctance to fight for the space they rightly deserve and are perpetually denied.
Top police officers say the number of rape cases reported may not even be a fraction of the one that's actually committed. Social activists echo this. For every woman who reports her violation, there are 10 who will not speak up. Somehow, the Indian male - and a predominantly male-dominated police and administration - continues to put the onus of the crime, rather incredibly, on the victims: you must have sent some signal; you must have been dolled-up and dressed provocatively; maybe you are crying rape because you have been caught; why did you have to answer nature's call when you know there could be thugs lurking around; what shame you have brought on us; why you.
This is enough to kill the spirit of most women and for those that can transcend this psychological brutality there is the crude questioning by cops and lawyers, something many victims say is like going through a second rape. Not surprising that they prefer to seal their lips and kill their sense of dignity and honour. And we are not even talking about the numerous others subjected to molestation, groping, eve teasing and degrees of verbal and physical abuse - at the movie hall, in the bus, in crowded bylanes, markets, trains, almost everywhere. As one female colleague who used to take the metro in Kolkata to commute said, "The first time I was groped, I created a ruckus. And fought like mad. But after a few times, it got hard. In any case, the stares you get after that is almost, like, killing. If you are a working woman in India not rich enough to take your own car to office, groping is a routine reality."
A group of informed citizens have started a cyber campaign against rape, clamoring for stricter laws, including death sentence if it involves minors and handicapped. It's already got robust support and, clearly, many think it's a step in the right direction. The courts will have to get stringent - many still persuade the rapist to marry his victim - but there is urgent need for another three-pronged effort. One, investigating agencies will have to be sensitized on how to deal with such cases. Two, society at large will have to change its attitude towards victims and make the leap from judgemental censure to empathy. Finally, women themselves will have to fight their demons and come out in the open about their various abuses.
India, as an article in TOI recently said, is now one of the most dangerous places for women to be in. We can do without this dubious distinction.
Labels: Indian
