By Sukalpa Bhattacharjee
A month has passed since the brutal rape, killing and the hanging of the minor cousins in Badaun, but so many questions pertaining to investigation and justice remain unanswered. Meanwhile similar cases elsewhere in India and beyond are being reported in the media. Weeks after the Badaun incident , as reported by Pakistani media a 19-year-old girl who had gone missing was found hanging from a tree after she was raped in Pakistan’s Punjab province and two teenaged sisters were allegedly gang-raped by three persons in Siyapur village under Bagvala police station area. India’s Northeast too, despite its claim of cultural uniqueness and difference with the so called ‘mainstream’ in so many aspects has been significantly similar with respect to reported crime of rape and violence on women in recent times. So Badaun is not an exception as a geographical locale in Uttar Pradesh which has made history by becoming “India’s darkest spot” as commented by critics. Badaun is rather a metaphor- the trope of the “wild man within” which has its roots in 19th century theories of human nature, and carries with it ethnocentric assumptions about how people would conduct themselves in a patriarchal system and in the absence of socializing regulations. For average viewers/readers, heated discussions in popular TV channels and newspapers after such incidents of gruesome brutalities provide for temporary cathartic release of their anger and as days pass by this anger evaporates till another such incident is reported.
Our response to such incidents never acquires a constructive shape in the form of an ‘agency’. (Agency describes our capacity to resist, defy recreate and act against the grain) primarily because we neither analyse deeply the sociology of a single incident- for example the Nirbhaya case or the Badaun incident, nor do we succeed in finding a common link between the contextual realities involved in every such incident. Experts and analysts often throw light on social, political and legal implications of rape in isolation from each other without addressing foundational questions such as ‘why does the rapist consider rape as the ultimate offence he can commit against the victim (women)?’, what is the significance of an added dimension of murdering or hanging the victim even after the ‘ultimate offence’ of rape has been committed? What is the underlying link between conflict (generated both by the state and those opposing the state) and the signature of manifold violence on the female body? Susan Brown Miller in her 1975 book Against Our Will-Men, Women and Rape proclaims “it [rape] is not a crime of lust but of [patriarchal] violence and power.” Therefore rape has to be seen as a politically motivated crime rather than a sexually motivated, which has its roots in societal values.
Patriarchal culture, nourished and historicized through false classical myths about male and female capacities and inclinations strategically employs them to justify its power and control over female desires and bodies. Therefore it is important to go into the sociology of these crimes against women and why our politicians get away by making rape victims responsible for the crime committed against them. We have heard comments like ‘why couldn’t the para-medical student on the 16th of December address the boys who gang-raped her as brothers?, what was a 16 year old girl doing at 10 in the night in a pub at G.S. Road (Guwahati) before she was molested?’, that girls should not wear short dresses, etc. Who will own responsibility for the absence of security and governance in our states? How can governmental propaganda on educating girl children, empowerment of women through Food security Bill, jobs and self-employment for women, etc. ever have any meaning if women have to observe the timings of the ‘curfew’ hours when they cannot creatively use the public space of streets and coffee shops in fear of ‘beasts’? Are they safe in the domestic spheres anyways? Is a woman safe during communal and ethnic violence when she is pulled out of her homes and competing ‘hyper-masculine’ groups inscribe violence on her body through gang rape and murder?
We have not forgotten what happened to pregnant Kausar Bano during Godhra riots – her womb slit apart, the foetus taken out with a sword, cut into pieces and burnt alive. How can one reconcile with what happened to her or Manorama Devi under AFSPA some years ago? The female body bears the markers of her own community as well as the fears and suspicions against her community. We haven’t also forgotten how an adivasi woman in a political rally in Assam was stripped naked in broad daylight some years ago. As scholars like Leatherman note, “the bodies of women, girls, …may be the last lootable goods” in a conflict situation. When we consider interpersonal violence of all kinds-homicide, assault, robbery, and rape and sexual assault-women are far more likely than men to be raped and sexually assaulted. Women are mostly portrayed as victims of pornographic violence on the internet and in videos, magazines and newspapers. Such is the degradation of human values that even violated women become the object of sadistic pleasure and pornography. The gendered nature of these acts against women distinguishes them from the violence men suffer. Women and girls are not safe at home, in workplace , on the streets, in police custody or in school/colleges/universities. As defined in Transforming a Rape Culture by Emilie Buchwald et al “A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women.”.Thus one needs to delve beneath the genesis of this culture.
Aristotle describes woman as a deformed man, and that woman “requires a smaller quantity of nutriment” (History of Animals, 608b. 14). Manu in Manusmriti says- “Swabhav ev narinam …..” -( 2/213) which means that it is the nature of women to seduce men and therefore the wise are never unguarded in the company of females. This perfectly endorses the mythical characterization of Eve as the eternal temptress and her spiritual vulnerability when left to her ‘free will’. The centrality of the narrative of the Ramayana also lies in projecting the consequences of Sita crossing the laksmanrekha . It is therefore an imperative that we debunk, defy and demystify these patriarchal myths in order to understand the deplorable condition in women’s life- urban and rural, educated and uneducated, working women and those who are now called homemakers. On the one hand the labour of homemakers being unpaid is never reflected in the Gross National Product(GNP) of our country, on the other hand most professional women pay double price for having ‘a room of her own’ by having to organize both her home and hearth and prove her efficiency in her profession, particularly in those which were earlier occupied only by males.
Our ‘agency’ both physical and mental lies in critically trying to understand how these notorious myths govern our everyday life at home and in the public space. In fact our personal is very much political as the second wave feminists had argued. In conventional homes girl children grow up with lessons on femininity, virtuousness , chastity and sacrifice. Our males consequently grow up with the idea that women are devoid of desires(creative or sexual) , hunger (for food and nutrition).The reason why our mothers and grandmothers never considered going without food (outside their ritualistic fast) a case of denial, deprivation and subjugation is because sociologically the marginalized group or individual in the society often internalizes the language and ideas of the dominant. This is how marginalized sections like that of women ironically act against their own interest and reinforce the agenda of the dominant. Even today, generally both educated and uneducated women justify the rites of the widows, glorify the sati, inscribe marital tattoos and symbols on their body and keep fast in the name of their husbands without ever thinking why the vice versa never happens. Rather, women themselves re-live the patriarchal myth by complying with male demands on their time, desires, bodies, services and wealth.
Thus Badaun is not an isolated incident , not a mere geographical locale but a description of our existential dilemma in everyday life too. The horrifying intersection of the politics of caste, class and patriarchy in the Badaun incident makes it a metaphor of wild anarchy let loose in our political and social lives. Such anarchy resonates during election campaigns in the hate speeches delivered by leaders like Tapas Pal, who need to justify their masculinity and their place in power politics through shameless public invitation to their boys ‘to rape’ the women of the opposition camp. In popular male view, rape is thus the signature of ultimate violence that can be committed against a woman. We must understand the sociology of rape in order to effectively work towards the elimination of it.
(The author teaches English at North-Eastern Hill University Shillong and can be contacted at [email protected])