A nation grieves over the brutal death of a young girl, gangraped and killed in a most savage fashion. We feel rage and revulsion at the brutal assault on an innocent person and that anger spilled out on the streets, an almost unprecedented outpouring of citizens who said enough is enough. But enough of what? Even while we hold candlelight vigils and demand tougher laws for rapists, this might be a good time to look around us and ask how we reached her and whether society itself has much to answer for.
Take popular culture, for example. Hindi films are a reasonably good barometer to social attitudes — they reflect what society thinks and often confirm prejudices and mindsets. In many of our films of an earlier era, whenever a girl was raped — and rape scenes were unfortunately quite common in the formulaic movies — she usually tried to commit suicide, declaring that she was not fit to live any more. “Main toh mooh dikhane ke kaabil nahin rah gayi,” was the most popular dialogue; the literal translation was that she could not show her face any more, but it meant much more — she was no longer an honourable member of society and thus her only destiny was to die.
Rape scenes have slowly disappeared from Hindi films of today; now there are heroines who live life in the fast lane, drinking, partying and — gasp —even indulging in pre-marital sex.
But in real life, our antediluvian attitudes continue and have only hardened. Modernity is still seen as un-Indian and just under the surface, we still hold on to some really old-fashioned ideas about women, their bodies and their place in society.
In the parliamentary debate that followed, Sushma Swaraj declared that the girl would now be a “zinda lash” (living corpse.) The charitable explanation is that she was simply pointing out that so terrible was the physical damage to the girl’s insides (her intestines had to be taken out) that she would now have to be fed intravenously. Even that suggests that the handicapped are somehow incomplete. But “zinda lash” is the kind of phrase that could easily come out of a Hindi potboiler, implying that the girl’s honour was now so violated that she would be physically alive but dead in every other way. Since Ms Swaraj has not yet clarified what she exactly meant we are free to draw either conclusion, but given the somewhat conservative attitudes she and her party have stood for, we can well imagine what she was saying.
Beneath Ms Swaraj’s off-hand phrase lies an entire social mindset — women are supposed to be “pure” and anything that muddies that purity — sex, a hint of a sexual scandal, willing or unwilling involvement with men, even widowhood and divorce — reflects poorly on her. Her reputation, which is her best attribute, is forever destroyed and her family shamed for all time to come. Her only way out to redeem that honour is suicide. Indian society does not believe in rehabilitation, apparently.
Attitude towards women — in the movies, in public life, in khap panchayats and among public figures — still remains stuck in some time warp and are downright offensive. A Mulayam Singh Yadav calls urban women “par kati” (short-haired) for their feminism; a Mukhtar Naqvi dismisses protesters as women wearing lipstick and powder, Narendra Modi talks of Shashi Tharoor’s 50-crore girlfriend, and now the President’s son, Abhijit Mukherjee, has invented the phrase “dented and painted women”, which is open to all kinds of sleazy interpretations. Rape is just the extreme form of the way men — and society at large — perceive women.
Police statistics that record rape have often shown that a large percentage of rapists happen to be known to the victim. Neighbours, uncles, friends, even, however ghastly this sounds, fathers have been accused. Clearly, it is a deep-rooted social problem and we can safely say that what is reported is only a percentage of what actually happens.
But there is another category of “rapists”, too. The police often books men who have sex with women by promising to marry them but then going back on that promise. In such cases the man is prosecuted under IPC Section 375 (rape) and Section 406 (criminal breach of trust.) Both these sections date back to the 19th century and fly in the face of social mores today. Consensual sex between adults is not a rarity and often relationships do not work out. Can this be termed rape? And does this come in the way of a proper understanding of the violence inherent in a rape? A rape is, after all, as much about power as about sexual assault.
It is obvious that there is much to be done to change our perceptions as well as our laws on rape. The agitated marchers in Delhi may be demanding death sentences for perpetrators of this crime, and much of this outrage at the unnamed girl’s plight is justified, but it is not so simple. The death sentence may not change anything unless there is a societal shift in attitudes towards women, relationships and sex. Empirical evidence suggests that we are going backward in our thinking or perhaps those with medieval attitudes are feeling emboldened in expressing themselves.
In the West, the debate has now shifted towards date rapes, non-consensual sex and even marital rape. The argument is now about the rights of the woman to control her own body. We, on the other hand, are still wondering how a rape victim will live among “normal, decent people”. It shows how behind the times we are.
The victim of the latest crime was sent to Singapore for treatment. The government at least showed some alacrity and compassion in responding to the anger of the people. But there are thousands of other women who have suffered a similar plight but do not arouse this kind of public ire. This incident should set us thinking about how we respond to rape — and sexual harassment — in a way that not only minimises the chances of it happening, but also strengthens and updates the legal responses, improves policing and most of all, changes the very way in which we perceive women. It will be a long haul, but in the end our women will be safer and India will be a more humane society. No woman will then become a zinda lash.