Fear of being Nirbhaya !

Nirbhaya – the name intrigued me every time I read it in the news papers. And for some reason it brought about an entire new thought for me. Nirbhaya means fearless… but fearless of what? Men? Society? The social standards? Fearless of pain? Fearless of circumstances?

 And then I suddenly realized that within every woman today there is a fear of being Nirbhaya !

 It’s not just a fear that we might become the next victim but there is also a fear to be fearless!

There are two main issues that disturb me when I think of the rape victims.

·         First, The association of rape as crime against honor and dignity of a woman and

·         Second ,The perception of the civil society towards the rape victim

As soon as the case of rape comes up we associate it with the shame and honor, but as a matter of  fact, it  is a crime against a human being and should be left at that. That doesn’t mean that we dial down the sensitivity of the issue. Sensitization of such acts of crime is certainly important but what is equally vital is the manner in which we view the victim. The delhi gang rape of 23 year old para-maedical on 16^th December 2012 is another brutal example not just of a heinious crime but that of the tainted public discourse that followed it. Yes tainted it is ! Because for one reason we all look at it from the narrow prism of a dominant male chauvinistic socio-political system (where the police and the people refused to help the girl and her friend who were thrown out of the bus) and second because in spite of a huge public discourse the crime against women hasn’t dialed down whatsoever! Every coming day since this issue has been sensitized there are recurring news of rape, molestation and domestic violence.

Hence, it was quite a relief to see the Verma committee’s report. Verma committee was constituted to look into the possible amendments in the criminal laws related to sexual violence against women  emphasizes the fact that along with changes in law the civil society’s perception towards the rape victim needs to undergo a change. As stated by the Verma Committee report with reference to the brutal rape case of Nirbhaya- a rape is a form of sexual assault like any other crime against the human body in the Indian Penal Code. And that it is ‘the duty of the state as well as civil society to deconstruct the paradigm of shame-honor in connection with a rape victim.’  It reinstates that it is important that the Indian society changes its outlook of shame and dishonor towards rape victims and instead consider it as a serious violation of bodily integrity of a human being.

The committee in its report also quotes a rape survivor who says : ‘Rape is horrible. But it is not horrible for all the reasons that have been drilled into the heads of Indian women………I reject the notion that my virtue is located in my vagina, just as I reject the notion that men’s  brains are in their genitals’.

To what extent the parliament takes cognizance of these suggestions and attributes in the process of law making is a different question all together.

The whole focus in cases of rape revolves around shame leading to a social belief that the victim has lost her honor and a dignified social status. And what is even worse is that a rape victim has to deal with these horrible facets of society even after facing the heinous act of sexual assault against her, this itself is equally criminal in nature I believe.

 Do we question the honor and dignity of a woman who was tortured, beaten, physically abused by her own husband or anyone else for that matter? Answer is NO!  And why so? either  Because she was abused but not raped by a man who is NOT her husband, hence her dignity is intact (as the argument might go) or because she is ‘married’ there is nothing wrong in physical coercion of another human being unless and until it is within the closed doors and not being spoken of by the victim herself.

What is dignity of a woman? What is her honor?  What is her status in society apart from the labels assigned to her? And more importantly who gets to decide all these things? These are the questions that I find extremely elusive,  Not because I don’t have an answer to it, but mostly because, I believe our society isn’t ready to answer them.

This brings me to my next argument and that is of the ‘conditioned patriarchal thought’ that leads and dominates our society even today and unfortunately most of the time we are either unaware of it or refuse to accept it as a fact because we are habituated to think of it as a ‘normal way of life’.

Ours is a male chauvinistic society where domination, coercion or assault of any sort against women is considered as an ‘attribute of manhood’ instead of crime and hence it is the lady’s honor and dignity at stake and not that of the man who has committed the crime. The strength and right of man to be able to repress a woman and again the idea of women being weak, helpless and subservient to men is what drives the man-woman relationships in society even today. The only difference being that today’s classes do it more subtly and diplomatically unlike the earlier times when it was more direct and outright. 

Hence it is foolish to say that society is changing, because society cannot change unless the idea of family and man–women equations and relationship within the square parameters of the concept family undergo a change. I don’t deny that there are chivalrous men with a broader world perspective. But such men existed back then as well.

My argument here is about the general masses where probably the nature of domination may have changed  but not idea of relationships. We do not like to say and hear these things about ourselves certainly not in public but in the closed doors of our homes we have at least one streak of the same old chauvinistic patriarchy which is not willing to deal with the constantly changing idea of woman, womanhood and the independence & freedom that women are seeking today. I don’t think it’s just the men to be blamed the real problem lies with the women who are bound by patriarchal traditional and sometimes age old orthodoxies aswell.

Hence, coming back to our original point of debate- the question is that of ‘perspective’. How does one judge a woman who- has been through a sexual assault (rape) and one who hasn’t? Our political leadership has been no different in this case either. They have been not only quick in belittling the serious movement (post- Nirbhaya rape case) by showing utmost disregard for democracy whilst stating that ‘the government cannot address every dharna(protest) taking place at India gate’… to rubbishing the women’s organizations and movements as movements by ‘painted and dented ladies’. The leaders who were vehemently speaking at the parliament also fell short of a vision of equating it to a crime against humanity when they referred to violation of bodily integrity as nothing more than ‘zinda laash’. Moreover, we have the so called social, political and religious mentors who speak of the ‘social contract between man and woman where woman serves man and he in return protects her’, and that Nirbhaya should have ‘begged and pleaded to the rapist to let her go and that she should have referred to them as “bhaiya”.’ All these only reflect the horrific chauvinistic facades of our society.

 No crime can be equated to what happened what happened on 16^th of December 2012. What happened was far worse than rape or sexual assault. It seemed like an attempt at crushing the physical, social and individual identity of a girl where the culprit enjoyed the feeling of being able to crush a person in each and every way possible. It’s probably one of the most heinous crimes of mankind committed by a boy whom the court writes off today as a juvenile just because by law he is six months short of being recognized as an adult. If he indeed should be considered and treated as a juvenile what was the reason for him to posses the maturity and sensibilities to have led him through this entire act of crime is my question. The brutality and extent of the horrific and offensive assault where a person’s organs are removed in a fit of anger, excitement or simply out of the urge to do something adventurous is mindboggling. Do the roots of this horrendous crime lie in the socio- cultural understanding of inequality amongst men and women is something I find difficult to answer? As I still do believe that however chauvinistic a society, the intensity of cruelty in a case of crime in itself shows disregard for social norms of any kind.

Another aspect that shapes our social understanding is the public & media portrayal of man-woman relationships and roles. Media, films, TV serials and quite importantly as it is being discussed in this particular case the easily available porn films where the whole idea and act of sex and sexual relationships is twisted. These are mediums of entertainment but what we overlook is the portrayal and articulation of the concept or idea of sex which defies the concept of love and respect for the partner and brings in an idea of adventure instead. For a closed society like India, where sexual relationship is strongly justified only after marriage, there is an extreme curiosity towards the opposite sex which leads to an urge for imbalanced, extreme, adventurous and offensive sexual relationships- if not by consent then by force. 

Society will take generations to change. It is a process of evolution. One can only hope that the public outrage after this incident will at least, if nothing else, nurture the next generation with better value system. However, as of now the only possible institution that can prove to be instrumental in bringing about change is an effective law and order mechanism.