It has only been a couple of weeks since the Supreme Court sentenced Nirbhaya's rapists (December 2012 gang-rape case that shook the entire nation) to death but it seems the death sentence has completely failed to deter the other savage men out there in the open. Last night while a family was going to a hospital at midnight to meet their pregnant relative who was to undergo an emergency operation, their car was stopped midway along the
Bulandshar-Greater Noida Expressway and the four women travelling in it were gangraped while the male members of the family were tied up by the gang. The
Rohtak gangrape and murder incident that occurred last week was as gruesome as that of Nirbhaya, she was gangraped and then was brutally murdered, the assailants disfigured her body. The windpipe of the victim was missing, her body was badly mutilated. But this time there was no hue and cry, there were no protests like it had happened back in 2012, the media remained quite quiet about it and the news has now died down. I wonder if the victim's family will ever get justice, I wonder if their pleas will ever be heard. These are not one-off cases, there would be several other such incidents of sexual violence happening against women somewhere in India that do not get reported to the police or they fail to become National News! The frightening regularity with which sexual crimes against women and girls (sometimes even infants and toddlers aren't being spared) continue to occur at every corner of the nation, probably our conscience and senses have been deadened, we have probably gotten so used to hearing and reading such news that we are no more bothered! We aren't able to feel their pain! These heinous incidents and the barbaric nature of these assaults (as increasingly being seen) are also pointers to the brazenness of the perpetrators and the moral depravity of our society. No wonder when a female foetus is not safe even in her mother's womb, how can we expect those privileged few, who were supposedly 'allowed to breathe', to remain safe outside?
With the recent spate of sexual violence and rape incidents happening every other day, each passing day is sending shivers down my spine. I am an ordinary, common man. And just like the other less-privileged men, I find myself utterly helpless. I'm really concerned and scared about the safety of the women in my life. I am not even being able to be with each one of them all the time. I am no Ambani or some superstar Khan that I can afford providing them with well-armed security men to guard them day and night. But since I can't provide them with armed security, should I ask them to temper their career aspirations and to remain shut inside their houses to fit the reality of life? (So what if they have had a good education, being women, they can't pursue their careers because it is not safe to be out working late!) Or should I teach them that the streets, the buses, the autos, the trains, the taxis, the malls, the parking lots and all other public places do not belong to women, and so they are at the mercy of these lousy creatures? Or should I leave everything to fate and prayers that my loved ones return home safe? What's most disconcerting is that these lecherous men are widening their reach everyday and the spiralling number of sexual attacks makes it a distinct possibility that someone close to us could be the next victim! I am terribly scared. And angry.
I can't think of a crime that evokes a more visceral rage or as much unadulterated repugnance as this. Civility counts for nothing now that my loved ones are endangered for their dignities and lives. If with my words I could decimate all the rapists and so also the potential ones, I would do. If with my words I could pulverise their skulls, I would do. If my words were bullets, I would have emptied the gun into these horrendous creatures. If my words were an axe, I would have minced their manhood to a pulp.
Women from all walks of life and of all ages face sexual harassment in some form or the other, almost on a routine basis. So much so that most of them have now almost accepted it as a part of their life (no matter how disgusted they feel every time they are harassed). But more disturbingly, they are often told to ignore it, as if it is normal and inevitable! The irony is that often it's the woman who is blamed for having aroused sexual feelings in a man. Women and girls are being taught "how to avoid being raped - with curbs like what to wear and what not to wear, how to avoid remaining outside till late night and so on, rather than teaching the men not to commit the heinous crime! Whistling or passing lewd comments or ogling someone or groping or intentionally nudging someone inappropriately in buses or trains or stalking someone are no lesser offences but the harassers often get away without a rap. What is appalling is that such behaviour of men has got society's tacit approval and gets covered up under the rhetoric of 'men will be men'. Either actively or passively, haven't we all trivialised such harassment and in a way, contributed to this social mindset that these are all 'harmless fun' and are not to be taken seriously? How long can we keep accepting this bizarre and horribly distorted belief that men have bodily needs and that they need to assuage their 'monumental' libidinous urges? Don't we, with such an approach, embolden the perpetrator that he can get away with it no matter what? Doesn't it then cultivate the belief in him that any girl on the street is up for grabs, as if she is an object and can be had as and when he wishes or can be overwhelmed through power, without any fear of censure? Sadly, the truth is that getting away with these seemingly 'harmless fun' often leads to an escalation of the degree of sexual harassment and sometimes culminates in rape!
It's times like these that I feel ashamed of being a man... I feel ashamed of being a man when quite a few of my ilk think of women as nothing more than mere objects available for sexual gratification and who do not hesitate to resort to bestiality to assert control over them. I feel ashamed of belonging to a gender that has had, throughout history and in every culture, intimidated, subjugated, exploited, belittled and humiliated women, purely and simply because they are women! And I feel more ashamed of belonging to a society that continues to perpetuate its sexist, male-favoured double standard paradigm with an archaic mindset that harbours a deep-rooted bias against women.
Now I can't help wondering, what if I were a girl? Would I have been able to cope with the ordeal that women and girls live through every day - being whistled at, jeered, pawed, groped or stalked? Would it have been easy for me to confront the fear that they go through each day, with the threat of rape or molestation dangling over me? Would I have even made it to this day unscathed, what with the sexual predators lurking around every corner, waiting to pounce on their hapless prey? How would have I grappled with the prospect when I would have had to be on guard all the time - whether on the streets or inside public transport, whether at desolate or at crowded spaces, whether when alone or when escorted - and yet there was little I could do to protect myself from the nudges and gropings, from cat calls and wolf whistles, from stalking eyes and lewd remarks, and even worse, from acid attacks and assaults?
Then I ask myself if I am really the right person to be speaking on these issues. After all, what can a man really know about the inconveniences and harassment inflicted upon women by other men? Probably I would never be able to gauge exactly what it feels like for a girl to be raped in someone's eyes or thoughts! I can't even fathom exactly how humiliating and emotionally scarring it is for a girl to be disrobed and molested in public.
I could have met the same fate as that young girl who was molested by the mob in Guwahati or that 13 year old girl from Kochi who was being raped by her father, her brother and her uncle for over 2 years. I could have been in place of that 23 year old Delhi girl who was brutally gang-raped in the moving bus and was later left to die on the road. Or I could have met the same fate as the teacher from Chhattisgarh who was sexually tortured continuously in police custody, on charges of being a Maoist (stones were found lodged deep inside her private parts during medical examination). Or that young tribal girl who was abducted and gang-raped by 15 men over 12 days! While I am writing all these, I shudder to visualize what is actually happening with countless other women and girls across our country every other day.
Not to mean that all men are rapists or molesters. Nor do I intend to villainise every single man. But don't quite a few of us indulge in varying degrees of sexual transgression, as 'eve-teasing' or bawdy jokes or lustful gazes, masking them as innocuous acts of fun? Or aren't a majority of us guilty of condoning such unethical behaviour through our silence? It's quite convenient to attribute all the evil to the perpetrators and to heap our hatred on them or to shift the onus of creating a safer environment for women on the Government and the police machinery. But turning the torch light within, let's ask ourselves and answer honestly, have we ever stopped a friend when he ogled and stripped someone naked through his eyes? Probably not. Have we ever objected when someone passed a lewd remark at a girl in our presence? Probably not. Have we ever intervened when some ruffian made a girl feel uncomfortable and insecure? Probably not. Probably more often than not, we have just remained mute spectators or looked elsewhere (remaining stoically indifferent) all the while when someone was being harassed. But isn't our silence and inaction just as abominable as the evil actions of the lecherous? Or should we remain nonchalant and inured just because what happened with some other woman hasn't happened yet with any of our loved ones? Come to think of it, what if she were one of our own who was being victimised? Would we still have remained mute spectators? What is needed of us to do is to shatter our self-imposed vow of silence. Because as they say, "The wicked will continue to triumph till the good men do nothing". To be fair, there are also a substantial number of Indian men who are equally outraged as the women by these recurring awful incidents and who do come forward to a woman's rescue but they are far and few between.
Are more men becoming increasingly lecherous and perverse? Or is it that the rapists and other sex offenders are now undeterred by the police and the criminal justice system? Can a temptation of physical pleasure be so irresistible as to completely deaden one's sensibilities and make him so heartless and devilish? Or can any carnal desire be so strong and uncontrollable as to prevail over one's reasoning and eclipse his morality? Where has this sense of impunity come from, that so many men are committing such heinous crimes without any fear of retribution?
The impunity with which the perpetrators are committing these heinous crimes, I am forced to wonder if these men actually say to themselves, "Let me go and rape someone" as if they were going for a leisurely walk in the garden. Consider this, an unidentified man walks into a State-run school in Mangolpuri in the National Capital of Delhi, accosts a Class 2 student, takes her to a classroom and rapes her! Just like that. Unfortunately such occurrences have sickeningly become so routine that they have deadened our sense of shock. Not a day passes when we don't get to read far worse, blood-curdling reports of rape and other sexual assaults in the newspapers, not to mention the unreported incidents happening in the interior parts of our country or behind closed doors or of those who are suffering silently but not being able to speak up. The magnitude of the reality is unsettling. These sexual predators can neither be wished away nor can be ignored - they now loom large everywhere - on the streets and in the markets, in the buses and in the trains or even in the guise of a friend, a teacher, a colleague, a landlord, a tenant, a cop, a politician, a neighbourhood uncle, or worse still, a family member!
Given this abysmal scenario, could it be assumed a punishment these days to be born a girl (and more so if born in an under-privileged family)? Not that (some) girls don't get to live a charmed life and that all boys and men are cake-walking through life. But the fact remains that sadly, in parts of our country, to be born as a girl itself involves a struggle, right from the foetal stage and from thereon, she is often subjected to sexist biases (sometimes covertly and sometimes overtly). This continues throughout from 'womb to tomb'. In comparison (whether we accept it or not) boys have been provided with a cushion should they fall, right from inside their mother's womb! Shouldn't I then consider myself fortunate for not having been born a girl (and so, for having been spared of all these challenges)? No, I rather feel outraged and frustrated. Because, why should my gender determine my safety and dignity? Why should women and girls ever have to arm themselves with pepper spray or chilli powder or knives? Why should they ever have to keep looking over their shoulders to see if someone is stalking them? Is it too much to ask for women to be able to take their safety for granted, just like we men do?
I am neither a feminist nor do I wish to earn a few brownie points by raking up women issues. I am only a son, a brother, a friend, a husband-to-be, a father-to-be, who is scared for the women in his life! I fervently pray, the realisation that 'a woman is not an object meant for sexual gratification that can be consumed as and when a man desires' dawns on everyone without any further delay.
Unless and until that happens, I will remain disturbed and scared. Terribly scared.
"Yatra Naryastu Pujyante, Ramante Tatra Devatah"
(Divinity blossoms there where women are respected)