Too often in public debate about rape, emotions start raging and the focus
shifts to violence against women. When the infamous Nirbhaya gang-rape came to
light, copious editorials were written about the state of women in India and ‘experts’
were probing for answers in mythology and behavioral psychology. If you are
interested in the issue enough to have landed here, you won’t need me to
recount any of those arguments. Suffice it to say that most of them seem to
think “this is how bad a woman’s position is in India. It has always been so
because even our myths give some examples of sexual assault on women. To this
day, women don’t have the same social/cultural rights as men do and so rape is
essentially about India’s attitude towards women”. I have one word for this
kind of hotchpotch analysis-wrong.
Yes, it is true that depending on which part of India you are from, you will be treated a little lesser than your male counterparts. I have lived outside of India for long enough to know that this attitude is neither specific to Indian males nor is a ‘highly educated community’ such as that of science sheltered from this prejudice. But why doesn’t this translate into horrendous rape crimes, the likes of which make us all collectively feel guilty and scarred whenever we hear of incidents such as the recent gang rape of a Mumbai journalist?
Yes, it is true that depending on which part of India you are from, you will be treated a little lesser than your male counterparts. I have lived outside of India for long enough to know that this attitude is neither specific to Indian males nor is a ‘highly educated community’ such as that of science sheltered from this prejudice. But why doesn’t this translate into horrendous rape crimes, the likes of which make us all collectively feel guilty and scarred whenever we hear of incidents such as the recent gang rape of a Mumbai journalist?
To begin with, we should accept that rape is first and foremost a crime.
It is not about behavior or attitude towards woman although I am not denying
they have a role to play. But when we tie it to attitude or behavior and start
talking about teaching men/educating boys, we run into trouble. We focus on
positive motivations and facilitators for rape all the time. We say our society’s
beliefs and attitude towards women make rape possible. Okay. Even if we accept
that argument, how would we correct that? What are we going to teach? That they
should respect women and hence shouldn’t rape them? Okay who are we going to
teach? Young kids? Teenagers? Old men? Office workers? Chai wallahs? How are we
going to teach? Books? Media campaigns? If I am being circumspect about it with
this argument, let me ask you a question: when a maniac runs into a school and
opens fire, do we talk about educating people on attitude to school children? No,
we talk of gun control policies. We talk of tough laws and stricter
enforcements. That is we focus on negative incentives to reduce crime. What
will make the crime so ‘costly’ that an average person would desist from it?
In case of rape in India, as is with many other crimes in India, even
assuming the laws are tough, it is no secret that our processes of enforcement
are inefficient at best and corrupted at worst. Take the case of the nirbhaya –
the main accused ‘hanged himself’, the ‘juvenile’ in the case is all set to
walk away with a mild sentence. Oh heck, how many of us even follow the case
anymore? Life will go on because we all will keep talking about attitudes
towards women and in the meanwhile, our system gets away with being more
dysfunctional and corrupt as ever.
It is a human right to live safely. Instead of worrying about behaviors
towards women, we should focus on behavior towards life. Why is crime so
prevalent in India? Why do men get hacked in broad daylight? Why do children
still work as manual laborers in India? Why do we take all these for granted?
Precisely because we focus on the wrong end of the issue.
