Rape: Incurable social disease?

Rape is the one crime no woman is safe from. Everyday one hears the ugly word: rape of children, old women, widows and so on. Every meek and powerless woman is a potential victim of rape. She is a faceless entity in the surge of humanity.

Whether she is beautiful, ordinary or ugly, it doesn’t matter. How old is she? Under 10? Over 50? In her 20s? Who cares? What is her profession? Her socio-economic background? Her marital status? Immaterial.

The cases are legion, each one more horrifying than the other. Many of them get published in the media. But there are innumerable other atrocities, less extensively written about, which are sad reminders of the increasing venality of a nation. All this is happening in a country, which has always prided itself of having a long tradition of respecting women! Why does this thoroughly degrading crime take place?

Ours is a nation where offenders get more smug by the day in the belief that no one can convict them anyway. The core, perhaps, is essentially callous attitude exhibited by many towards rape itself and a general contempt for the second sex, whether overt as in the case of a sex-offender or more subtle like the vast majority of males who steadfastly refuse to accept women as equals.

Women are subjected to sexual harassment in the workplace, in the streets - a phenomenon which, despite its increasing crudeness, still goes by the innocuous appellation of “eve-teasing” and any other place offenders can get access to. The widely held notion that every rapist is a candidate for the psychiatrist’s couch is a myth that needs to be shattered.

The average sex offender is as normal as the man next door is. And, rape for him is merely a calculated, cold-blooded instrument of oppression or revenge, whether on individual women, a caste or class.

The mass rape of womenfolk of the rural poor to crush an uprising and the regular brutalisation by policemen of helpless victims will bear out the statement.

Numerous studies show that there is a definite relationship between common acceptance of myths justifying violence against women and actual anti-social behaviour against them. Crime is endemic to the human condition, but rape - the crime specifically directed at women - is the most despicable. It is unfortunately the one crime that is punished the least.

Low convictions

Despite amendments in the rape law, the official figures of reported rapes are on the increase and the rate of convictions low. With the rape graph spiralling and little interest on the part of law enforcement agencies to pay special attention to the crime, what can be done to contain this extreme form of violence against women?

Despite all the hype and hyperbole, the protective laws and action plans, seminars and speeches, candlelight processions and demonstrations, TV debates and editorials, the basic patriarchal structures and attitudes have undergone very little change.

The majority of women are still second class citizens, their worth measured purely in economic terms; how much work they can do inside and outside the home, how many male children they can bear, how much dowry they will bring.

Justice V D Tulzapurkar had suggested long ago introduction of public flogging as a punishment for rapists. Former Chief Justice of India Y V Chandrachud had said: “An amount of manipulation of the law by piecemeal amendments can help protect women’s honour, dignity and rights. The reason for rape and other such crimes is more due to moral values of the society than any other apparent reasons.”

Traumatised and often destroyed by the act itself, a woman has to further bear the strictures of a society that blames her in some way for a crime of which she is the victim, not the perpetrator.

With the rape graph spiralling and little interest on the part of law enforcement agencies to pay special attention to the crime, we helplessly throw up our hands into high heavens and wonder what can be done to contain this extreme form of violence against women.

There is hardly any hope unless we respect our women and give them proper place in our hearts and minds and society. Rape is a sordid crime which should be attacked from all angles legal, social and psychological. Morality too should not be forgotten.