A shameful comment

Such cannot be the quality of banter in the House

Whether former Karnataka Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar made the insensitive remark about rape in the Assembly on Thursday seriously or as a joke, it is an offence and should be treated as such. He was trying to empathise with the present Speaker, who was finding it difficult to control the situation in the House, by invoking the position of a woman who faced rape: When rape is inevitable, lie down and enjoy it, Kumar said. The choice of the rape situation for his wisecrack exposes him because there is no natural comparison between the situation of a woman in danger and that of the House Speaker. Why did he think of a woman facing rape rather than about a man giving up fight when he is attacked? It is a poor and stale men’s joke that rose from the male subconscious, a Freudian slip that speaks more about the speaker as a man than about the Speaker manning the House.

What Ramesh Kumar said was not an innocent joke. A rape is not a matter for laughter but is an experience of pain and lifelong trauma for a victim. It should not be the stuff of jokes in a Legislative Assembly. Jokes always have an underpinning of assumed truth and the speaker’s conviction with them, and they convey ideas more effectively than grim statements of fact. When Ramesh Kumar told the Speaker to enjoy his situation, he made an assumption about how women react when faced with rape. Neither the joke nor the situation is for enjoyment, and those who enjoy the joke are at one remove enjoying the situation. That is the man’s callous and criminal view of an attack on women, trivialising the crime. It is devoid of sympathy for the victim and marked by a sense that such things happen and women do accept them. When such advice is passed off as humour and wisdom, the subliminal message degrades women and there is no defence for it. Such cannot be the counsel from a law-maker and the quality of conversation between a law-maker and the Speaker of the House.

Ramesh Kumar is a repeat offender because he has made a similar exceptionable statement about rape in the past also. But he is by no means an exception. There are many other leaders and legislators who have gone public with such comments. Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav once said that “boys will be boys”, and defended that. That speaks of the patriarchal and retrograde views and values of our politicians. The Karnataka Assembly listened to Ramesh Kumar’s joke in silence and no-one thought of objecting to it. That is a shame. A day later, Ramesh Kumar apologised, and the Speaker decided to let the matter rest. But it is not just a matter for the boys’ club.