In India where in every 16 minutes a rape is reported, rape is always a political tool. A tool of the Indian men who are the main stakeholders of the politics of both the macrocosm and the microcosm. Rape is used as a tool by men to show women their status, or aukat.
Though marital rape is not yet legally considered rape, throughout the 11 years during which I was married, my former husband was cognisant of its powers. “You are so ugly, no one will rape you. I will have to get you raped,” he would say. In his case, the spectre of rape was a weapon used to to show domination, to take the reign of power of a family, and to subjugate the woman.
The gruesome rape of the doctor at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital is not an isolated case or an aberration. It’s the culmination – like all other rapes – of our entrenched rape culture. This culture is endorsed by our language, our society, our religions, our economy and above all, our politics. The incident has once again brought to the fore the myths of victim shaming. It has once again brought up male excuses and ‘justifications’ of rape like short clothing, late nights, male friends and so on.
Governments behave on the same lines too. After every rape case of “great magnitude” a government comes up with precautionary measures like the Mamata Banerjee-led Bengal government did. Wherever possible, night duty should be avoided for women, it said. I am consciously using the word, “great magnitude” because we are hierarchical in our protests too. Our selective outrage disowns many rapes. We raise voices considering the caste, class, and gender of victims. We don’t necessarily do it consciously. Our entrenched hierarchy and Brahmanical belief system – which is very much patriarchal – make us do so. The onus to protect themselves is somehow fostered on women, the victims. This denies societal involvement and sees rape as an act of the perpetrator alone, as an individual.
Our languages are rapists’ collaborators
As a woman still living in a village and having spent my childhood in a very closely knit community, I have had chance to experience all kinds of slurs which normalise and endorse rape. They bear the influence of the socio-economic conditions of a society in which they are used. In India, many languages have been misogynistic and eulogise patriarchy. But even foreign languages, like English, aren’t quite immune to this disease. It’s the language which is instrumental, along with many other factors, in injecting the male superiority ego in a child’s mind. The most used slangs in India are all about women and either propagate normalisation of rape culture in India or depict women’s sexual humiliation.
All languages stigmatise a woman’s desire, men hardly understand what consent is, and films with ample amounts of misogynistic dialogues, sexist jokes with misogynistic connotations become blockbuster hits. Sexist politicians foul-mouthing women are being elected as lawmakers with huge margins.
A child growing up with male privilege eventually internalises this privilege and begins to take women for granted, as Dr Madhumita Pandey explains.
The andro-centric educational system
In India, there is a huge gap between these two terms, ‘literate’ and ‘educated’. Thanks to our male-centric textbooks, since childhood the ‘man is the boss’ superiority complex is ingrained in the minds of students, both male and female. They live and grow with the characters that eulogise men and portray women as an appendage to the ‘stronger sex’. In India, the male characters dominate textbooks in all subjects and the number of female characters is fewer.
According to the GEM report, only 6% of female characters are shown in textbooks. Many textbooks downplay women’s achievements. In West Bengal, where I live, three textbooks (one of English language and two of Bengali) of the eighth standard have 54 lessons of poems, stories and essays, and surprisingly, they only have three lessons written by female authors!
Our textbooks rightly have many stories based on the lives, achievements and roles of our freedom fighters. But if any gender sensitive eye flips through the syllabus, they will notice a striking absence of stories of our women freedom fighters.
The last few years of Narendra Modi’s rule hyper masculinity and politics of muscle flexing have taken centre stage. Some fanatics of the rightwing system made apps to ‘auction’ prominent Muslim voices. Journalist Rana Ayyub often shares on her social media accounts how she gets rape threats. When anything goes against the traditional prejudiced system, Indian men of all belief systems (left, right and centre) are known to use rape threats. When she was asked if she ever got a rape threat for her work, Leena Manimekalai, filmmaker and poet, had said: “Millions of rape threats. 20000 tweets. Half the country wanted to murder me, the other half wanted to rape me. There were tweets describing how they will rape me and live broadcasted it.”
No respite
In India, victims never get respite, even after death. The R.G. Kar victim’s clothing to the forensic reports on the crime have become the topic of discussion everywhere from tea shops to dinner parties. The forwards of her mutilated body are on phones, feeding perverts. Disturbing searches on the victim on porn sites have made news.
After every heinous crime, if the victim is from an urban or semi-urban area and belong to the upper or middle class, we see outrage. But when it’s about Dalits, Adivasi, and minorities, we see a brutal silence. After the R.G. Kar incident, some organisations called for a protest, ‘Reclaim the Night’. It’s a good move but only a beginning. The middle class in Bengal thronged on August 14 to reclaim the night. In the last few years under Mamata Banerjee’s rule, the unemployment rate has been on the rise. The urban as well as the semi urban middle classes view a doctor’s profession as a golden one. It is not difficult to imagine why the rape has enraged them.
But in those protest rallies too, the big brothers men occupied spaces. Women who are consciously or unconsciously also the carriers of patriarchy left the space to the men. Sarita Ahmed, an author and teacher based in Kolkata, who participated in the protest says that in the procession for justice for a rape victim, she faced jostling, elbowing and molestations from some men present in the procession.
So one protest call cannot rid the nation of rape. Yes, justice should be served, but retributive justice cannot wipe out rape culture. It only serves the purpose of those in power. We need to question of every aspect of society that endorses rape culture. From religion to politics, we need a change. We need our men to unlearn toxic masculinity and undue privileges. We need them to learn consent and respect for women.
Moumita Alam is a poet from West Bengal. She has two published collections of poetry. Her works have been translated in Telugu and Tamil.
