Boys will be boys?

How often has one come across the accepted maxim, “Boys will be boys,” or “Akhir mard hai” (after all, he is a man), to make light of the misdemeanours/offences committed by boys/men? Contrast this with whether the statement “After all, she is a woman” excuses or makes light of a woman’s capabilities.

For the past month, the whole country has been raging over what has been done to the young woman doctor at the R G Kar Medical College and baying for blood. To deflect from the criticism and save her seat and her government, Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, has mooted the Aparajita Women and Child Bill 2024, which involves the death penalty for rapists.

Aparajita means unvanquished in many Indian languages, while Nirbhaya and Abhaya mean fearless. One can only speculate that the people who do these christenings have no idea about what those women suffered or what a girl child has to suffer from the time that she is born. This is more so in the Indian context where, as one knows, there are communities in which the girl is not even allowed to be born in the cruel act of female foeticide or killed through poisoning and strangulation, soon after birth. 

One has a recollection of my educated mother telling me that she wept at my birth, not because she did not want a girl, but thinking about all that lies ahead for a woman growing up in India. While welcoming the birth of my daughter, I have also lived through the anxiety of her safety, worrying about her physical security, and warning her, even as a child, about “good touch” and “bad touch.” 

Why do parents of daughters have to do this? What kind of warnings do parents of boys give them? Of course, with the abuse of young boys a reality, some kind of warning might also be needed for them. 

But in an average home, what is the upbringing that is given to a boy vis-à-vis a girl? Isn’t there an idea of a Raja Beta (cherished son) in most homes, where the boy somehow gets to sense that he is the favoured one, as he will be the one who will tend to his parents in their old age?

What could be at the heart of this sense of favoured treatment of a boy? Could it be that he is the one who carries the bloodline, though matrilineal societies among several communities may have a different notion about this purity?

One cannot help but hark back to the Manusmriti, where a woman, at different times in her life, is meant to be protected by different men that would involve a father, husband, or son. From protector, the next step can only be controller, and from there to the next step of owner. Does this notion of being an owner give men the right to tease, pass comments on, and, in the worst scenario, rape a woman, whom Manu clearly indicates to be property?

Societal expectations are huge with regard to what is expected of a woman.

Earlier in rape trials, a woman had to face the ignominy of being asked the most personal of questions about the horrific assault on her person and even told to describe the event. People are also quick to judge a raped woman, which is why so many rapes are not reported at all. In a Tamil short story that was shown on television, the mother of the raped girl tells her daughter to apply oil to her head, have a thorough bath, go to bed, and forget all about the horror. Rape is a strange phenomenon where victim shaming is almost the norm.

Exceptions like the Delhi and Kolkata cases happen when the media whips everyone into a state of frenzy and everyone is baying for blood. Despite the imposition of harsh penalties, how are the papers full of stories of rapes? The number of such reports always increases when a horrific rape hits the headlines. It also reveals the selectivity of the media in reporting such stories. Such reports should be a constant so that justice is given to every girl or woman who has been a victim.

The latest report is that the Prime Minister has asked that there should be canvassing to get more women to join the BJP. These women would be well advised to insist that they will not support any plans that the party may be having to give a backdoor entry to the Manusmriti under some fanciful but misleading name. Or else they will be guilty of turning into Smriti Iranis and Kangana Ranauts, who shout selectively. Not to say that Mahua Moitra or Sagarika Ghosh are exempt, as they have been equally complicit in their silence over the Kolkata horror.

At the end of the day, it seems to me that Indian men need to focus more on how they bring up their boys, most of all by respecting the women in their lives.

(The author is an independent writer)