Why sexual violence is losing its shock value
A protectionist mindset validates a sexual hierarchy in which men are dominant and women submissive
Just days after Jyoti Singh’s killers were sentenced to death by the Supreme Court, on May 11, a similar case of gang rape and murder was reported from Rohtak in Haryana. Within the same week, another 10-year-old from the same area was found repeatedly raped by her stepfather and is now five months pregnant. On May 14 (ironically on Mothers’ Day), a young girl from Sikkim living in a hostel in Delhi, was forced late night into a car and gang raped by several men and on the very same day another young girl who was kidnapped while going to her school to collect her certificates, was rescued from a farm house in Meerut where she was being held forcibly and gang raped repeatedly.
What is happening here, you ask. To what do we owe this spate in sexual crimes against women and even little girls some as young as two months old ?
One needs to understand here how fundamental sexuality is to the basic concept of gender in Indian society. And in a semi feudal and genderised society like ours, sexuality remains central everywhere (from homes, schools and cinema screens to Parliament) to define males and females. Under this rubric, submissiveness and non assertion are female qualities while domineering and forceful behaviour is deemed proof of male power.
The relative silence over the Rohtak gang rape and murder of a young Dalit girl allegedly by a rejected suitor, surprises one after the nationwide protests that followed the Jyoti Singh case and finally led to amendments in our rape laws.
Indians are fast developing callousness on the subject of rampant sexual violence against women. Predictably the Haryana police having constituted a special investigative team is ‘looking into the matter’, the NCW has sent a two member team to meet the victim’s family and the Haryana government has announced a fat compensation for the victim’s family, but it is obvious that despite all the publicity over stringent new anti rape laws and “kadi se kadi saza” pronouncements from the System, not much has changed on the ground for women .
“Women continue to be raped daily”, writes Justice Leila Seth, one of India’s finest judicial minds and member of the celebrated Verma commission that rewrote India’s rape laws, but adds that the normal approach, remains protectionist. Protectionism says women need protection as matter of right as a citizen, but because they are weaker and more subordinate than men. Despite the major legal amendments the Verma committee report helped usher in, even today this protectionist mindset among most members of the executive, the judiciary and the public continues to reinforce and validate a sexualised hierarchy in which eroticised dominance (as in Bahubali) defines masculinity and submission eroticised (as in Baji Rao Mastani) defines feminity. The State created largely from the male point of view combines coercion with authority. It counsels and supports moral policing women and khap panchayats that say whenever they step out of their homes, girls must be accompanied by a male chaperone.
Some other details reveal the kind of world Indian men and women really inhabit socially and politically. Despite the recommendation of the Verma committee, the legislature chose to leave marital rape out of the list as a punishable crime. And more recently when the courts took up the triple talaq matter, the related issues of halala and polygamy had been neatly excised. It is obvious to women that at this point the State will not contradict the socially constructed and legally validated terms of men’s entitlement and access to women, never mind how they affect the lives of millions of Indian women.
Real equality of sexes under the law can only be realised first by accepting that gender inequality is a shrewd socio-political construct of a society which determines that most victims of sexual crimes will be women and men the perpetrators . Equality, it is obvious, requires genuine change and a new relation between life and law for Indian women before they can safely seek redressal in the new anti rape laws.
DESPITE ALL THE PUBLICITY OVER STRINGENT NEW ANTIRAPE LAWS AND “KADI SE KADI SAZA” PRONOUNCEMENTS FROM THE SYSTEM, IT IS OBVIOUS THAT NOT MUCH HAS CHANGED ON THE GROUND FOR WOMEN