A Rapist Society

"Oh is it, was she molested? You know, it must be her fault. Her dresses were too modern and inviting".

"Yeah I tell you, these girls nowadays wear vulgar dresses and then blame it upon boys when they get raped."

"So true, in our days, we never faced such problems and neither heard of them."

"Was she from north-east India, oh then it must have been her fault. These chinkis, I tell you, always behave and dress like foreigners in India and invite troubles."

Do these statements sound familiar? If you say "No", then either you are not an Indian or you belong to the ultra rich or the ultra poor class in India who have other things to discuss about.

But if you belong to the so-called Indian middle class, of course that includes the upper and lower middle classes with annual incomes ranging from Rs.60000 to Rs.10000000 or may be more, then you have surely come across such instances of the "Great Indian Hypocrisy". There are greater chances of your encounter with such comments if you hail from any part north of the Godaveri River and west of the Brahmaputra. In the leftover region, though not absent but 'Hypocrisy' is a little less, at least in matters of sexual harassment.

Such comments come from both men and women, young and old, with mild variations depending on their status and stature. Whenever I hear such comments, I honestly wish to open the brains of all such people who believe in this and fix a few nuts and bolts inside it that have probably loosened due to what-so-ever reasons. I really wish to ask them, that do the maids who get harassed so often, wear swimsuits or mini skirts while washing dishes? Of course not. Then why do they get harassed? Or if I wear gold chain and it gets snatched and I am killed in the process, should I be held responsible for provocating the goons by wearing a gold chain? What logic explains their concept is hard to understand.

Again, how can one decide an inviting dress? For someone from a rural background who has probably never seen his mother's face without a pallu, even a normal salwar suit may be inviting, whereas for someone who has grown up with girls wearing mini skirts and probably whose mother and sisters wear western dresses, might not get his testosterone boiling unless he sees a nude girl. So whose standard are the girls supposed to follow and how do you set such standards? For some tribes in the Northeast, a sleeveless is not a big deal but exposing tummy when you wear sari is supposed to be vulgar. On the other hand, someone in Maharashtra might find a sari decent and a sleeveless top inviting. So what is the solution, of course, if you think 'Dress' to have any role in cases of eve-teasing? Well then I can see only two possibilities:

1) Follow Raj Thakaray's advice and be in your own state, a UP wala in UP, MP wala in MP and Punjabi in Punjab.

2) Be used to get raped as soon as you cross your state or regional boundary because cultures, norms and traditions vary from state to state and region to region.

But then the discoverers of the 'Dress' theory would have to ensure that ones dresses and regions are fixed, eve-teasing would not happen. Anyone out there to take the responsibility?

Rapes are not specific to India. They happen in Least Developed Economies and Most Developed Economies alike. This only goes to show that sexual harassment has nothing to do with modernity, development, underdevelopment, class, caste or dress. It is just another crime that needs to be severely punished to send across a strong message that one can't get away with this. While in the developed countries where this is followed, in India things get more complicated because of the so called 'Hypocrisy'. Punishment to criminals is alright. But what about those hundred tongues which eject venom when such a case happens. A girl is raped once by a rapist, but she is made to go through even worse experiences by the attitude of the society. How do we plan to punish this society which finds it so easy to convict the victim?

And again, I really wish to meet those people personally who lived in that "Golden Age" when sexual harassment did not happen. A basic knowledge would let anyone understand that number or statistics of such cases is of course directly proportional to population. More males, more females and hence more cases. As population has increased, obviously, such cases have increased. Also, in the olden days, a case of sexual harassment was never reported. The tears, the blood, the shame, the disgrace of the woman were all confined to herself in the dark dungeon of her shattered mind and ego or were blown away by the wind with her ashes or may be buried deep under the earth with her decomposed body. Another factor that has led to more cases of sexual harassment is the fact that today, women are not chained within the walls of their houses. They get educated, they move out and many a times outside the protective shield of their fathers or husbands. (Well, sometimes even fathers and husbands play the role of the dreaded monsters in their lives from whom they are supposed to protect her but such cases are comparatively less and can be ignored for the present discussion.) The women, therefore, are rendered more vulnerable and exposed to threats of eve-teasing and even more severe forms of sexual harassment. Well, to understand this, one needs a mind and one who comments as the ones with which I started this piece of writing, surely does not have one.

Suicides, depressions, trauma, psychological disorders and all other aftermaths of any form of sexual harassment is often caused less because of the incident itself and more due to the way the society reacts to it. So for all such people who think that the girl invited the innocent boy, I advise them, to surrender themselves to police when their money or jewelery or any valuables are stolen for the crime of inviting the thieves or dacoits by buying jewelery or earning money or carrying either, to get themselves arrested and convicted when their cars get stolen for the crime of buying or traveling in a car thereby inviting the thieves. And the most important reason why they should be put behind bars is to prevent crimes because one with such mentality surely does not have any strength of character or control over his organs. So the moment he feels a dress is beautiful or sexy or modern or traditional enough to invite him, he would definitely pounce on the girl wearing that and devour her. That's what they believe in right! If a girl's dress appeals them, raping her is their right or may be duty!

As far as the north-east is concerned, though economically it’s a backward region, but socially it’s far advanced than many other regions in India. Gender disparity is very low and females enjoy an equal status. In fact, some north-eastern tribes follow a matrilineal pattern of society. The female literacy rates and the sex ratios are much better than many other regions in India. This can be seen by comparing the India average and some of the north eastern states data as per 2001 census. While the India average for female literacy rate is 54.16, with few states like Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, MP and even economically advanced states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana have female Literacy rate much below 60%, north eastern states like Mizoram has above 86%, Nagaland, 62%, Tripura, 65%, Meghalaya, 60%, Sikkim, 61%, all of which are much above the national average. Similarly, comparing the sex ratio, shows that states like Manipur(978), Mizoram(938), Tripura(950), Meghalaya(975) etc have a much better sex ratio than the national avg of 933. So when those girls who enjoy social liberty in their regions get trapped by the gimmicky infrastructure and show-offs wrapping up a backward male dominating, women exploiting, hypocrite social mentality, its not those girls who are to be blamed for assuming the national capital 'Delhi' or for that matter, any other so-called ‘developed’ city in India to be socially more advanced than the economically plundered NE states.

Finally the one rapist who commits the crime due to momentary passion or animal instinct might or might not be reported, might or might not be caught, might or might not be convicted but the rapist, the molester, the women oppressor, hiding behind the innocent faces of this hypocrite middle class Indian Society is never reported, never caught and never convicted. We have no laws, no procedure, and no Constitutional provision to punish or amend the criminal social mentality towards women prevailing in India. Alas, after a heinous crime as rape is committed, we have so many senseless, conscienceless, heartless and mindless people finding faults with the victim instead of supporting a stringent punishment for the criminal. I wonder if we would need to wait until at least one daughter or sister in each Indian family is raped before the society learns that such crimes ruin the girl, her family and their lives and it’s not the victim but the perpetrator of the crime whose life needs to be made hell.

Aparajita Banerjee

Date: 26-Oct-2009