There was a lot of mixed views about this in my family as my dad was completely against me writing an article about 'rape' as he feels that I should focus on economics-related topics, but I felt very strongly about this topic and wanted to put my views out there.
But it is done!
In case you're interested, here is the article:
The Brutal Reality of Rape: the case of Nirbhaya (the Fearless)
Last month, India was plunged into shock following the gang-rape, torture and murder of a 23-year-old woman in the Indian capital, Delhi, on a public bus. The case of Nirbhaya (the Fearless), as the unnamed victim has come to be known, has brought shame and derision to the country and forced it to question its moral shortcomings. The extreme brutality of the act, where the victim suffered multiple organ failure and needed a gut transplant after being assaulted repeatedly by an iron rod, resulted in mass protests across the country and demands for a death penalty for the assailants.
But this is not an unusual crime. Another tragic story is that of 25-year-old Aruna Shanbaug, who was strangled with metal chains and left to die, after being sodomised by her attacker Sohanlal Bharta Walmiki, in 1973. Shanbaug barely survived the attack and has been in a vegetative state for the past 39 years, brain dead, while Walmiki was merely given a seven-year-sentence for robbery and attempted murder and has since been released. According to author Pinki Virani, who wrote Aruna's Story, the court did not keep a photo of Walmiki on file which makes him impossible to track.
Though a rape is reported every twenty-one minutes in India, nearly all go unpunished. Last year 632 cases of rape were reported in Delhi, of which only one led to a conviction. Reasons given for dismissal of cases include arguments that the accused committed the crime because they were drunk, or the accused was a high-caste man who could not rape a Dalit - low caste - woman.
Indeed, some have questioned the reaction of the public and many believe that it is unlikely that the same reaction would have resulted had the victim been a Dalit villager, or provocatively dressed. Uma Subramanian, an Indian social worker and blogger, suggested, “I believe this case has grabbed national attention not only because of the brutality but also because the girl was ‘spotless’ according to the moral brigade of India. She was a student, wearing Indian dress, it was 9:30 pm (not so late), she went to [the cinema] with a friend and she was returning home. She ticked all the boxes of the ideal Indian woman.”
This seems to be built on the foundation of archaic gender views and the crisis of Indian masculinity. The furore over whether or not the suspects should be given capital punishment masks a much deeper social problem. This is a country where marital rape is not considered rape and where the names of the rape victims are not revealed, lest they bring shame on the family. Women are treated as inferior, lower-class citizens, not only in the dirt-poor villages, but even in several metropolitan, middle-class families.
India needs a wider societal transformation. The most regressive attitudes to women in India are in the rural areas where rapes are suspected to be even more commonplace than Delhi, but are seldom reported due to social stigma. Several female foetuses are aborted after illegal sex determination tests because of the preference for a male child, seen to be more able to provide for the parents in old age. This has led to an abysmally skewed sex ratio. The figure for the official 2011 census was 940 women for every 1000 men, and many of those who survive face discrimination, prejudice, violence and neglect throughout their lifetime.
A hundred million women are ‘missing’ worldwide according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen. These women would have survived if they had received similar healthcare, medicine and nutrition as men. India is bottom of the class, and research shows more than two million are ‘missing’ in a given year. In 2011, India ranked 137th of 187 countries for women’s welfare, and TrustLaw, a news service run by Thomson Reuters, ranked India as the worst G20 country in which to be a woman. And yet, the government of India is missing the obvious red flags for the need for urgent action.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared on national TV to appease the public, promising to make India safer for women, after almost a week of protests. Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, considered to be the most powerful woman in India, concurred to meet a group of livid students only after massive public demonstrations had been widely broadcasted. Ironically, a report released in December 2012, found as many as twenty-seven Indian politicians in senior positions have rape or molestation cases pending against them, and six elected state legislators have charges of rape against them.
The optimists may hope that the intense pressure on the government will lead to swift laws being written and imposed against sexual assault and rape, promoting a safer India for the next generation of Indian women. However, misplaced hopes in a corrupt, hypocritical government are unlikely to lead to any effective long-term changes in the law without consistent will from the people. Law reforms in the area of rape have been taking place over three decades, with fluctuating urgency, but they do not seem to have abated the appalling levels of violence and indecent behaviour to which many Indian women are exposed.
For a country which has recorded a growth of over 200 times in per capita income in a period from 1947 (time of independence) to 2011, India remains painfully backward in terms of the equality between the sexes. Over the past several decades, women’s rights have started to take shape and Indian women are asserting their identity in the modern workplace. But, argues Ratna Kapur, writing for The Hindu, “With the opening up of the market, women are entering male bastions of power [which] has challenged the sense of superiority and entitlement of the traditional Indian male.” Instead of collectively welcoming the ideas and perspectives of the new participators of the economy, some men feel that women are intrusively trying to influence a part of society they have no right to.
“The grooming of young men to have a feeling of entitlement by Indian parents breeds a sense of masculinity and male privilege,” continues Kapur. This effectively erodes the respect for women, making girls often seem burdensome and unwanted to the family. These inequalities filter through the age and result in distrust and sometimes hatred against women in the public arena. Calls for a new law, perhaps named after Nirbhaya, may only serve to give a sense of action, without addressing the deeply ingrained social problem. What India needs is education.
The wider Indian society needs to be taught about women’s rights and women themselves should be given the opportunity and actively encouraged to confidently enter the work force. The responsibility also lies with parents to ensure that male children are not indoctrinated with a sense of superiority and privilege, and taught to respect women in their own right, not only as mothers, wives and sisters.
Another educational concern is related to social interaction between men and women. The strict social rules in place regarding open sexual contact with the opposite sex or dating rules which encourage relationships within castes prevent open interaction. Six states in India are said to have banned sex education because it is stated according to Hindu nationalists that it “has no place in Indian culture”. But this only fosters a mystical, unattainable image of the opposite sex, which may in part explain the fascination of the other, mostly men, to break the social norms and moral values when an opportunity, such as an unaccompanied girl travelling at night, arises.
Capital punishment for the perpetrators behind Nirbhaya’s case or amendment of current rape laws is not enough. The government needs to invest time and thought into changing the way these crimes and their victims are managed. They should establish sensitive screening procedures and outlaw the use of crude medical measures such as the ‘two-finger’ test used on rape victims to assess their claims. The practice of providing unscientific and degrading medical opinions about rape survivors only promotes the image of the animal-like treatment of victims, many of whom will never be able to rebuild their lives following the ‘shame’, with the blame placed squarely on their shoulders for a lifetime.
A ‘spiritual’ guru, Asaram Bapu, was quoted as commenting “Only 5-6 people are not the culprits. The victim is as guilty as her rapists. She should have called the culprits brothers and begged before them to stop. This could have saved her dignity and life.” Nevertheless, for every naïve fool, twice as many educated, young people understand the flaws of Indian morality and are taking to the streets in protest against the grave injustice that Nirbhaya, and others like her, have suffered.
Perhaps this is the wake-up call, or rather the slap in the face, for India. Under the watchful eye of the now alert public, five men have been charged with the abduction, gang-rape and murder of the Nirbhaya. Ironically, the hearing took place at the Delhi court across the road from the cinema where the 23-year-old student and her friend watched the film Life of Pi.
The sixth perpetrator, a youth, will be tried separately in a juvenile court. The fragile road to justice suffered another blow when it was revealed that he may go free within three years, as under Indian law juveniles cannot be tried for murder. Personally, though David Cameron and I have our differences, I can’t help but agree with the point he made in 2011 regarding the atrocious behaviour during the London riots, “If you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the consequences.” Here’s hoping that each of them faces the harsh consequences of their actions.
And here's hoping that it leads to a better India tomorrow.
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