Rape : Reality, Reasons, Responsibilities

We are very convenience loving people. We tend to discuss things which are easy to talk about but leave out topics which present tough glaring questions. And, conveniently so.

It’s not worth mentioning why this topic is hot now, but it’s worth pondering the kind of response and discussions it has led into.   

First, let’s look into some realities.

Realities

1.       The offenders of the rape are known to the victim in 92.5% cases of rape.  (National Crime Reports Bureau 2007 Report ). This again can be roughly divided as –

a.       In around 7% of all cases, its incest rape, meaning the rapist is the immediate family member. (mostly, fathers)

b.      In around 35% of all cases, it’s the neighbours.

c.       In around 50% of all cases, it’s the friends, co-workers, relatives and other people who remain in contact.

2.       52.94% of boys and 47.06% of girls in India have faced ‘child sexual abuse’. (Study on child abuse by govt of India, supported by UNICEF, 2007). This problem cannot be viewed in isolation from the problem of rape. They are inter-related.

a.       21% of total children have faced ‘severe form of child sexual abuse’. It includes rape, sodomy, touching private body parts, photographing nude.

b.      The prevalence of sexual abuse in upper and middle class was found to be proportionately higher than in lower or in lower middle class.( A study on Child Sexual Abuse carried out by Save the Children and Tulir in 2006)

c.       50% abuses are persons known to the child and are in a position of trust and responsibility.

3.       Some data regarding gender divide and prejudices.

a.       48.4% of girls wished they were boys. (Study on child abuse by govt of India, supported by UNICEF, 2007)

b.      More than 12 million girls have been aborted in India in the past three decades because parents prefer sons and do not want to pay a dowry, according to a study by medical journal the Lancet.

c.       As many as 57 per cent of male adolescents and 53 per cent of female adolescents believe a husband is justified in beating up his wife under certain circumstances, according to a UNICEF 2012 report.

d.      In 2007 a woman had filed a case of rape against her husband, who forced sex on her against her wishes.  Recently,  District Judge JR Aryan discharged the case, saying that forcing sex on one’s wife does not amount to rape. He said, “[the Indian Penal Code] IPC does not recognise any such concept of martial rape.  If complainant was a legally-wedded wife of accused, the sexual intercourse with her by accused would not constitute offence of rape even if it was by force or against her wishes.”

e.      In the Tehelka story, nearly 17 of the 30 policemen interviewed by the magazine believed that “real” rape cases are rare: “There are cases but 70 percent involve consensual sex. Only if someone sees, or the money is denied, it gets turned into rape”

4.       How many of you know the story of Soni Sori, from Chattisgarh. (Search in wikipidea). She wrote to her lawyer that she had been forced to stand naked while "(Superintendent of Police) Ankit Garg was watching me, sitting on his chair... While looking at my body, he abused me in filthy language and humiliated me.” She alleged that he then sent three men into the room to sexually assault her. Sori was subsequently hospitalized at Kolkata Medical College Hospital , where doctors removed stones that had been inserted into her vagina and rectum.

5.       When Shiney Ahuja, the bollywood actor raped his maid from Jharkhand, no one asked to hang him. The poor maid was blamed and the actor is now free and people continue to watch his cinema.

These realities are not just randomly picked facts. They speak volumes about our society, about what is the real problem and about how we need to proceed to remove this evil.

The following inferences can be drawn from the above mentioned facts.

1.       Rapes and sexual abuses and not the result of sudden rush of testosterone, but in almost all cases are pre-determined and pre-planned acts of sexual violence. People known to victim plan it before hand and just wait for the right opportunity. Even in 8% of the cases when the offender is complete stranger, it’s somehow planned. Take the recent Delhi bus case, the offenders decided to ‘teach the victim a lesson’ by raping her.

2.       Sexual violence does not arise out of provocative clothing or gestures, but out of filthy mindset. Except a very few cases, the victims are raped while they are going about with their usual day to day activities in known and comfortable surroundings with no reason to ‘provoke’ anyone. And what about 50% children of India who even do not know what is being a ‘slut’.

3.       Giving more protection to women and children do not help in reducing rapes and abuses. When more than 9 out of 10 cases are reported when victim is with the people who are supposed to protect them, such conclusion is evident.

4.       It is not possible for government alone to curb such crimes. We the people are more responsible for such crimes. The government cannot be present everywhere. It cannot watch you sleeping in your home, it cannot be present when you are travelling with a friend, and it cannot be a part of your conversation with your co-worker. But it’s we who are present everywhere always choosing to ignore rather than to help.

5.       Even basic understanding and apathy lacks in government setup. When police thinks that rape cases are the creation of victims to ‘extract money’ and when a person of the rank of SP interrogates the prisoner nude and his “men” fill the prisoner’s vagina and rectum with stones, not much can be expected. Even our great judiciary thinks that marriage gives the right to the husband to force himself upon his “wife” irrespective of her consent.

6.       Our society recognises women as secondary citizens and does not recognise children at all. When girls are killed in womb to avoid dowry, when half of India’s girls wish they were boys and when 50% of our children face sexual abuse, no other conclusion can be drawn.

7.       Response to sexual violence cases has class prejudice. People are not outraged by Shiney Ahuja raping his maid; people are not outraged by cases of rape by Maoists and police in tribal areas. People are outraged only when a middle or upper class girl is raped in big cities.

8.        Response to girl child sexual abuse is negligible while boy child sexual abuse is not even considered worth mentioning. Every second child in India faces sexual abuse which means half the kids you have met till date are victims and half of the people who are reading this have been responsible for some kind of child sexual abuse. But, who cares? If you will strain your brain a lot , you can remember case of baby Falak but I bet you do not remember any case of boy child sexual abuse.

Reasons

Why is our society like this? Why rapes happen? Why are we like this?

1.       Natural selection – Being a student of Anthropology, I cannot but ignore this point. In pre-historical eras and even till medieval ages of history, those men were able to procreate more who were able to force themselves upon women. Kingdoms were always looted and raped. Those who showed more “manly” characteristics rose in societal hierarchy. And those with higher status had more kids. So, basically our present day society has ‘rapist genes’ in plenty. We men are outcome of those men who could rape better.

2.       Objectification of women – Women are not considered ‘human’. They have always been considered objects of satisfying sexual desires of men. Forget about the kind of sculptures we find of women from ancient times, let’s look at our modern progressive time. Some 6 or 7 months ago, I saw a list of 10 most successful women of recent times given in indiatimes. A women loco driver running trains and entering into a traditional male bastion was ranked 10^th. The woman who topped the list was Sherlyn Chopra for posing nude in playboy. Be it movies, advertisement, stories, pornography etc., women are judged, appreciated, viewed and considered for their bodies only.

3.       No sex education – Sex is considered taboo in our society. See the irony in it! We do not talk sex but rape women, abuse children, after Pakistan we have the highest hits for ‘sex’ in google, Poonam Pandey was the most searched ‘item’ and so on. Children need to know what is right and wrong for them. Our children learn about sex from porn films, porn magazines and from ‘japani tel’ advertisements in newspapers.

4.       We are OK with it – I remember once in school, our teacher was asking what we read in newspapers to inculcate a good habit. I had answered, “ma’am, I love reading about murder, crime etc. They have good stories.” I was not a good kid. But, people seem to have remained like a bad kid who reads rape stories just for fun. In many villages in India when a rapist is caught and where the victim is an unmarried girl, he is asked to marry her. Wow! What a solution. Now, he can rape her at will.

5.       Trained incapacity of women – We consider women as vulnerable. They have been trained for centuries to not to react.  To protect own ‘maryada’, ‘ghar ki maryada’ and all sort of different maryadas, they have been habituated to not to raise voice. Our women consider themselves as vulnerable.

Responsibilities

Now, who has to take responsibility? What can be done?

1.       Government measures – A lot has been written about what government has to do. Let me skip it.

2.       Empowered women – It has been observed earlier that protection does not guarantee less sexual violence. So, idea should be to empower. Women should have equal access to education and work opportunity. They should come out of homes more and more. They should be able to stand up and fight. For India to get freedom, Chinese didn’t fight for us. We fought for ourselves. Many rape cases can be avoided if women are empowered to come out of ‘closet’.

3.       Sex education – Sex education is the only way to stop child abuse. They must know what’s wrong and right for them.

4.       We must get angry – Such incidents must enrage us. We should react in whatever good way we know. It shows humanity is alive.

5.       Men should be ashamed and must take responsibility – If every man in India decides to treat his children as equal, to treat his wife as a person equal to him and takes oath not to abuse his own family members and as a matter of fact no one then all problems will vanish.

6.       No drinking – Drinking doesn’t always directly lead to abuses. But most of the domestic violence cases are registered when the male member is drunk. This slowly becomes habit. Under pretext of being drunk, men are allowed to cross many lines. This enters the psyche that beating and abuses are common and this gets reflected on a larger scale as sexual violence.  

These measures are mainly about what we should do for ourselves rather than what others must do for us.

More analysis, suggestions and criticism are welcome. A little appreciation will also do not much harm  J

Delhi Diaries

Delhi is a monumentally stupid place. It has a ‘poverty of culture’. In simpler words, it’s randomly thrown in idiocies interwoven to drag it on.

The following four descriptions capture Delhi’s bitter-sweet aspects.

Rains, mall and India’s foreign policy

  

It was august 2010. After I had checked out of my hotel in the morning and had finished my work by noon, I still had a lot of time with me before my train to lucknow at 2200.

Thanks to my short stay at noida in NTPC during early 2009, I knew that Great India Place(GIP) at noida was a good ‘hang out’ place. So, with a travel bag on my shoulders I decided to spend rest of the day at GIP.

GIP is the usual “happ” mall of the metros. The window shoppers outnumber ‘some quick bite’ shoppers which in turn outnumber the real shoppers. People as usual do not act ‘usual’ in these places. If you are in a mood for fun some day, just try this. Start speaking in local dialect hindi in the mall. I have tried it at McDee.

 “Bhai saab, burger ka size kya hota hai?” “Excuse me” replied the counter boy. “Matlab ki size se hi to pata chalega ki kitna lena hai, ya ek se hi pet bhar jayega?” He looked at me in the same way as I had first looked at Tushar Kapoor wondering how he can be a hero, here of course he was wondering if I was human or not. After dropping my act for time being, I paid the money for a burger and coke. But, again when he was going inside to get the order, I shouted, “Badhiya garam burger layiega”. I will leave the rest of the description for you to experience. ( As if you want ! :P )

On that day, I had no mood for fun. I just sat outside the mall on a marble sit-on place and took out a book on India’s foreign policy. You can say I am weird in my own sort of way. But, when you have been declared unfit in the morning for most of the jobs of a major examination just because the power in one of your eye is more than 4, you tend to do such weird things. I sincerely thank centuries old medical policy of UPSC in the world of modern day healthcare for making my life even more interesting.

I was not much interested in reading, so it was more like look around and hide your face sort of thing. Not many people read in the lawns outside mall was the first thing I noticed. In fact there were less ‘people’ as such and more ‘couples’ out there. But these things hardly mattered when India was thinking of aggressively pursuing its quest for nuclear energy on the world stage. But again, all these things hardly matter when God decides that it’s time to rain. So, it started to drizzle. Going by the hearsay that Delhi rains hardly last, I took shelter beside the nearby billboard.

A little boy also came and stood by my side. I had seen him earlier playing around the place. I won’t describe his clothes and appearance to drive home the point that he was poor. Probably son of some street vendor across the road. We exchanged smiles.

It started to pour heavily. “Chal daud ke aander chalte hain” I suggested the boy that we must run inside the mall to avoid drenching further. “Kya?” he shouted. The noise of big raindrops falling on tiled surface made the conversation difficult. I caught hold of his hand and ran towards the mall entrance.“Ander jane nahi deta hai”. I ignored his words.

Panting and cleaning my specs of waterdrops, I pushed the boy to pass through the security check. “Saala! Fir aa gaya tu? M*#*d kitni baar bataya ki idhaar ghusega to tang tod dunga”. The security man hurled all types of abuses towards the boy and pushed him back into the rain. I again caught hold of his hand. “Ye mere saath hai”, I pleaded forgetting the fact that with a soaked travel bag, wet old formals and poor small town dressing sense, my own image was not much better than the boy. “Ye to chor hai, tu kya isse chori ki padhai padhata hai?” Security man tried to crack a smart joke as he had seen me with the book earlier. I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t. I just kept looking at them. I could feel the dampness inside my chest. “Bachche hain, jane de, kaise bheeng gaye hain”. One middle aged man requested on our part. The security men allowed us in with a command to remain close to the entrance and not to roam inside as it will make the floor of the mall dirty.

I took out a towel out of my bag and gave it to the boy to dry himself. I had no intention to dry myself up. People deliberately tried not to look towards us. Small kids were curious but parents were alert not to let young minds pollute. We stood for about half an hour, hand in hand. Water kept dripping out of my body onto the floor.

I had thought of ending it here only. ‘Water kept dripping out of my body onto the floor’. But it is too much emotion thrown into a single line. We talk of lot many things, how India is becoming a global power, how the lack of rain fail to cause famines anymore, how these modern shopping complexes reflect India’s rising fortunes. But beyond all these rains, mall and India’s foreign policy, lie a basic human value. Years of fighting with the divide of black and white and the divide of caste, we have created a new divide in our Indian society, the divide of class.

You may have noticed many times poor people, rickshaw and cycle walas helping the car wala when the car gives trouble. But how many times have you noticed a car wala helping a rickshaw wala to change the punctured tyre? Just ponder. 

Hum bihari hain

  

Delhi metro is like little Delhi. It shows all the character of the place. It shows how our population is concentrating towards the metropolitans. It shows how hawkish is our modern society towards women. I will dwell into something different.

I was coming from GTB nagar metro station on yellow line. The metro surprisingly was not much crowded. After few minutes of journey, I heard some commotion nearby. It involved two women. They were the eighth and the ninth passenger on the seat for eight, somehow managing to sit together on one and a half seat. Both women had small kids on their laps. One woman had husband with her, the other had her little daughter with her. The husband and the daughter were standing. I will name the women as h-woman and d-woman.

The h-woman had asked the daughter to stand up to make place for her as she had a child with her. Both women were blaming each other for the discomfort they were facing in sitting. The kind of languages and abuses they were using is left for your imagination. But I could easily make out that they were from Haryana side. Now, you can imagine wilder.

One thing that was easily observable was that the crowd loved it. I think watching women fight fascinates men. Everyone was all smiles and they were eager that the women must take the fight to next level, probably a WWE.

Till the time women were abusing each other with the usual mother-sister-daughter stuff, it was within the comfort zone of all people concerned. It was socially acceptable. Suddenly, the h-woman said something which was highly inflammable and totally unacceptable. “ Tere jaise BIHARI metro mein baith kaise jate!”

The effect of being blamed a bihari was catastrophic. The d-woman retaliated, “Saali, khud hogi bihari, mein bihari dikhti hun kya?” I checked my head; no I didn’t have horns unlike other people. Even till-now inert husband jumped into action. “#@#, bihari kaise boli?” The crowd also in-puted some expert comments. “Bihariyon ka kaam hi hai gandagi failana, metro bhi nahi chodda”. I looked around myself, no there were no dirt falling off me. I take bath almost daily, also I never speak in such language, nor have I heard people speaking in such abusive language in Bihar.

I think I alone was not deeply hurt by the scene. One fellow sitting fourth next to d-woman stood up and went up to her, “aap wanha us seat per baith jayie”. The fight subsided as both women got comfortable seats. That fellow then faced the women and crowd and said in a heavy tone, “aap log nahi, hum bihari hain”. He boarded off the next station of Chandni Chowk.

Chutki, Pinki and Blacky & Pinki

  

Teased by someone that I don’t watch girls from my balcony, I decided it was time to explore. It was not tough. I could find nine girls within my range of ‘watch’.

I zeroed in into three and a half girls. The half girl, I named – Chutki, she was a little girl of age around ten. Her parents were labourers working in the construction of a building next to mine. The other girl, I named – Pinki, she was the nanny in early twenties. She took care of the baby in the ground floor flat just opposite to my rented room. The other two girls, I named – Blacky & Pinki, they were girls in their twenties. Probably they were daughters of the landlord of the house diagonally opposite to mine.

I couldn’t help but repeat the name Pinki, the names depended on the colour of clothes they usually wore. And, girls seem to wear pink a lot. It’s not that I am complaining, I love them in pink.  ;)   

Chutki woke at nearly five, the same time as I woke up. While brushing my teeth, I could see chutki’s mother giving her a bath. They didn’t have a bathroom, as you can notice. She didn’t go anywhere during day, no school. Her mother prepared meal early in the morning itself; because she wouldn’t find time to cook as she would work till 6pm. Chutki helped her mother cook. She played with her little brothers on the chips and sand piled for the construction work. In evening, she would watch other kids of the colony, I mean the clean kids, play cricket. I knew the two worlds can never mix but I was curious if Chutki actually sometimes would ask them to include in the play. As long as my observation goes, she never asked. I think she was old enough to realise that she was the invisible half of India.

I could watch Blacky & pinki only in the evenings and on Sundays. They had bathrooms in their home and they had colleges or workplaces to attend. In the evening they would generally come to balcony with a mug of tea with each of them. They would have a packet of chips or biscuit also with them. They would talk and talk and look around. They were conscious that an idiot was watching them. Every Delhi middle class girl thinks that she is the centre of universe and every damn boy will die to have a look of her. I can’t blame them. I indeed was watching them. Sometimes when I returned late in evening from somewhere, I could see them taking an evening walk. They probably thought I was stalking them. I again can’t blame them. It seemed I was following them, in reality I wasn’t. So, these girls were fighting their own battle with daily work/study, with increasing waistline and with idiot strangers stalking them.    

The third girl, Pinki, she had really no routine. I think being a nanny to a newborn is real difficult task. From early morning to late night, she would come out of house any time with the kid in her hands. Most of the times, the kid would be crying and Pinki would do all sort of stuff to make the kid stop crying. It was strange that I never saw Pinki without the kid. It was stranger that I never saw the kid with the real mother. So, Pinki here had a challenge to ‘mother’ a child grow even though she was not the real mother.

I think you will agree that watching girls from balcony really helps to better understand the world around. I suggest you people also start doing the same thing. :) 

The fallen ice cream

  

Karol Bagh is one of the posh areas of Delhi. The population is predominantly Punjabi. You could see long cars standing in front of the beautiful houses.

In the evening, the streets of Karol Bagh become even more beautiful. That is the time when all the pretty Punjabi girls come out on streets for evening walk. I, less out of my pervertedness and more out of the need to walk through the street to go back to my house after studies, usually enjoyed the evening Karol Bagh street.

For one month initially, nothing unusual happened. I was conscious of the fact that there was a certain area in the 9A street where some really beautiful girls ganged up and talked. I tried to look smarter while passing in front of them. I still fail to understand how can you look smarter than you actually are by just thinking about it? Still, you know it helps psychologically.

But I was unaware that those certain girls were more conscious of the fact that I passed before them a few times a week.

So, it started with an ice cream. One day, I was walking back to my house through street 9A. When I was approaching that area, I found that those certain girls came down to the middle of the road. They were four in number, giggling and pushing each other. One of them was eating an ice cream. Suddenly, the ice cream fell out of her hand. She started yelling, “how you girls can do like this?” and some other blah.. blah. They stood in such a way that the path was blocked. I kept standing before them, waiting them to give some way. I find speaking before a new girl the hardest task of the world, so I didn’t speak ‘excuse me’ and just kept looking down pathetically. One of the girls spoke up on my behalf and said, “hey, you can go.” “ Dont worry, her ice cream falls when she.. (more  laughs)..” said other one. “Oh, you..*giggling*..” said the ice cream girl. The whole time I kept looking down, I could feel my heart beating very hard. They still hadn’t given me the way. “Oh, let him go” said one of them and they gave me the way. Feeling very embarrassed, I quickly galloped through, though the chatters continued at my back.

After few days, I again had to go through the same street. This time only the ice cream girl was standing there. I tried my best to act normal while passing in front of her. “Excuse me” her sweet voice paralysed my body. I turned around shyly and tried to murmur ‘yes’. “Can you please... oh shit..” Two books fell out of her hand which she was carrying. Out of my instinct, I picked up the books. They were accountancy books. “Thanks, so sweet of you”. Her green sandals were not matching with her red foot nail colour, I noticed. I tried to say ‘its ok’ though I don’t think it was audible enough. “You new here?” For the first time I looked upto the height of her hands and searched the cover of the book thoroughly, at a corner it was written ‘Class XI’. “Yes, I live in the next street. And you were asking something?” I don’t know from where I got so much courage to actually speak, I think her being in class XI only helped. “No, just wanted to say you are cute”.

Well, well, well, it’s too hard to criticize Delhi now. When young beautiful girl like the ice cream girl calls you cute, you have hardly any complains left with the world.

We exchanged numbers. But that was the last day I passed through 9A street. I messaged her at night – ‘Im 2 old fr u. U hv enf tym 2 grow up & realize dis bt u desrv mch betr in lyf’. I had to take a much longer route to reach my house for the rest of my stay.