We may in due time find a cure for the deadly Coronavirus but the epidemic of rape in India remains incurable. It has only generated a herd immunity in acting against such heinous crime to the point of rape toleration. As almost all women go through some form of sexual harassment in their lives, most cases go unreported to save some abstract honour of the victim which also disgraces and discredits the entire family. It takes the most gory and brutal rapes for the country to come out it of its somnambulance. According to the NCRB data[1], there has been a steady increase in the crime against women with 87 women raped in a single day and one woman raped in every 16 minutes. The horrifying details of violence against women get worse in the case of Dalit women where even filing an FIR is a challenging task. Sadly, it took the gruesome gangrape of Nirbhaya in 2012, in Delhi for the Country to come out in the streets. A nation-wide stir led to the revision of the rape laws in India under Justice Verma Committee Report’s recommendation[2] to redefine ‘rape’ in order to address the existing legal lacunas by broadening the existing flawed understanding of rape. It also included acid attack, sexual harassment, use of criminal force on a woman with an intent to disrobe, trafficking, voyeurism and stalking as part of sexual assaults with stringent punishments. The fact that these widespread crimes against women were legally unrecognised (especially stalking and voyeurism) as sexual assault shows the apathy and the normalising culture of rape in our country.

Image: Screengrab from Markandey Katju’s Facebook wall

As the unfortunate tragedy of Hathras gang rape captured the media glare with the politicians pouring  in and social media buzzing it. Mr Markandey Katju, the former Supreme Court judge of India and the Chairman of the Press Council of India with a long-standing judiciary service made a Facebook Post[3] in all seriousness stating that the rapes in the country are due to the rising unemployment. He further relates the rising number of unemployed male youth of our country with the uncontrollable sexual urges are bound to increase the rapes because they are unable to marry. Before I point out the falsity and the utter farcicality of the argument posed by the most respected judge of our country who may have decided the fate of many rape victims, it’s important to analyse the façade of condemnation of rape which is stated in the first and the last line, while the major part of the post negates the condemnation as it goes on to build an argument that validates caste ridden patriarchy in naturalising the sexual urges of men (and not women) in the form of rape.

The argument posed by Mr Katju is not just flawed but damaging at various levels. Firstly, it promotes a false understanding of rape as a socio-economic phenomenon, thereby absolving men of their crime. If rape is a by-product of a systemic failure of governance in the form of unemployment then it’s understandable for men to rape women for their ‘natural’ urges (not to forget to mention that ‘natural’ is concomitant to ‘good’ in common parlance). What is natural is seldom resisted. Additionally, unemployment rarely impedes marriage for men as most men usually inherit some sort of property or land. Contrastingly, lack of dowry does make many women unmarriageable. Secondly, for Mr Katju, male sexual urges and desires are ‘natural’ like food, it’s interesting how he speaks of sex and food in the same breath while ostensibly condemning the rape.  By equating sex with food, he again normalises the rape culture by re-enforcing male entitlement to female sexuality and bodily claims and not surprisingly in both motif of food and sex, women are conspicuously present by their absence as objects, in most cases preparing food and bed for men. Without distinguishing between sex and rape, Mr Katju almost uses the terms interchangeably further intensifying the rape culture.

While sex is a natural urge in both men, women and people with different sexual orientation, its imperative to disengage sex with rape. Sex is a biological fact but rape is neither biological nor natural and it is most often not an act of sexual gratification, despite being an extreme form of sexual aggression. Rape is an act of cultural and sexual domination. Rape is forced, non-consensual and a complex act. Men can rape for variety of reason, for sex, to seek revenge, to punish, to put women in their place or to show them their ‘aukaat’, for jealousy, to display their power or lack of it, to besmirch the family name, rape is a perfect punishment. Also very often rape is accompanied by bodily mutilation and violent attacks indicating the male power and control in marking their territory. The Hathras gangrape of a Dalit girl by upper caste men followed by unlawful and undignified cremation of her body is embodiment of the noxious interplay of caste and patriarchy to maintain the status quo. Mr Katju’s take on rape here is not only unacceptable but is a dangerous trend as it advertently or inadvertently shifts the discourse on rape to unemployment in an attempt to channelise our anger and outrage into more electorally beneficial issues because as he implies rapes are too mundane (“Numerous rapes have been taking place daily since decades”) Hathras gangrape is a cruel reminder of the upper caste well-oiled machinery that makes raping Dalit women acceptable by easily undermining the legal and social hurdles. Blaming it on unemployment is compounding to the travesty of justice.

 Furthermore, the belief that married women cannot be raped comes from deeply entrenched patriarchal belief that women are men’s property hence the question of consent does not arise in marriage. Historically rape has been a ‘property crime’ not against women, the victim but the husband or the father because raped women were akin to ‘damaged goods’ and hence their owners should be compensated.  If as Mr Katju prescribes marriage to control rapes then why do we have married men raping women inside and outside marriages[4]. Surely Justice J.S Verma, who headed the Verma Committee in the aftermath of national outpouring and outrage against Nirbhaya rape in 2012 did not agree with Mr Katju as he  considered marriage as “not a valid” defence against rape. Hence the Justice Verma Committee maintained that the “relationship between the accused and the complainant is not relevant to the enquiry into whether the complainant consented to the sexual activity and the fact that the accused and the victim are married or in another intimate relationship may not be regarded as a mitigating factor justifying lower sentences for rape.”

Preposterous as it may sound, when there is burglary or theft in our house, do we look for reason for justification of the theft, exploring the socio-economic status of the burglar or lamenting his unemployed and now presumably unmarried state, then why is the prevalence of rape to be blamed on rising unemployment?  It is precisely this mindset that fails to recognise rape as an individual crime on female sexual autonomy and bodily sovereignty that leads to the normalisation of rape.

While Mr Katju is trolled for his post which he described as a ‘twitter storm’ he remained undeterred and put several such post reiterating his condemnation of the rape with more justifications and dismissing women’s sexual urge with the ignominy of forced pregnancies. In other words, women don’t rape men due to fear of pregnancy and also because men are physically difficult to overpower. Unwittingly, Mr Katju points out to the core and crux of rape, and that is, the brazen and most often brutal display of power, violence and aggression which goes without impunity and let’s not forget Mr Katju condemns rape.

*Amina Hussain teaches at the University, Lucknow. She writes on gender issues.

References:

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India surpassed Brazil in the daily record of active Coronavirus cases to become the world’s second largest country with the Corona infection. Crippled by one of the stringent nationwide lockdowns in the world, India witnessed a deep plunge as the economic pandemic with the GDP touching an all-time low at -23.9% this August, China’s incursion on the LAC threatening the Indian security and geographical integrity, repeatedly imposing its dominance. None of this could beg for attention as well as the scripted high voltage drama unfolding on most of the Indian news channels ad nauseaum . 

What does this suggest of us, the viewers. In the absence of the new releases and the exhuasted options of OTT, the entertainment starved nation has transformed the untimely tragic death of SSR into a Box Office hit with the news channels introducing new twists and turns every day, leaving intoxicated viewers guessing, and demanding more. The news-cum-entertainment channels have deployed all the tricks in the hat to be the SSR best seller even launching their own parallel investigation and devising improbable theories with the most trending hashtag of NationWantsToknow hammered down our throats with unparalleled histrionics. 

Amidst this increasingly politicised investigation now, a very relevant discussion and debate is drowned into the rhetoric of inanities. What could have been a discourse, an awareness and understanding of mental health is rubbished and downplayed by the news channels primarily because it lacks the essential ingredients for a perfect Bollywood script which is replete with toxic masculinities where SSR remains chivalrous yet gullible, but a valiant hero. 

Most importantly when the world under the lockdowns and quaratine is struggling to keep the mental equilibrium, any admission of SSR’s mental health problems would be not only the negation of his Bollywood heroic stature sadly mirroring our deeply entrenched patriarchial society where men cannot be weak. Men are made weak by the women in their lives. This is the most acceptable narrative of the society where mental health is still a women’s problem, where fragility is despised at all cost to develop the pumped up muscular masculinity and where there is still no acceptance for a live in relationship. Hence the upward mobile social climber girlfriend makes a perfect fit for a beautiful enchantress. All playing out with the visuals of the girlfriend dancing in skimpy clothes strategically on larger part of the screen while the TV anchors don the conscious keeper of the society call for the candle march. It was meant to be an instant hit, TRPs beloved. 

It is because prioritising the significance of mental health and its wider prevalence will put many news channels out of context in their crusading spree for the market of justice. Endless discussions on nepotism, drugs and mafia with many television actors making appearance on news channels with their sordid saga of struggle and failure laid bare the insecurities and anxities that dominates the glamorous world, yet the discourse failed to move into the right direction because very few dare to make it public. The stigma and shame surrounding the mental health issues often contibutes to its severity. Its widely known in public now that SSR was struggling with mental issues, he was deeply aware and  acutely conscious of it and was seeking treatment but was yet not ready to talk about it, painfully cognisant of the fact that it could affect his career and mar his public image of a “hero”, whose paid job is to save the damsel in distress and thus cannot be seen as a ‘boy who cries’. 

In contrast, when Deepika Padukone opened up about her battle with depression in 2015, she was in the race of one of the most sought-after Bollywood actress. Speaking up openly about her depression and anxiety, she admitted that her recovery was possible only because of professional help, medication and the support of  her family and caregivers. She described the feeling as persistent “strange emptiness”. Mental Illness is not easy to describe, its less dramatic and more profound. 

Suicide rates in India are on a spree, according to NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau), 10,159 students died everyday by suicide in 2018. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General in 2019 made a startling revelation confirming “Despite progress, one person still dies every 40 seconds from suicide” and he further added “every death is a tragedy for family, friends and colleagues. Yet suicides are preventable. We call on all countries to incorporate proven suicide prevention strategies into national health and education programmes in a sustainable way.” 

While we do not know for sure what led to SSR’s death, the country’s top notch agencies at work will sooner or later distill the fact from fiction and thankfully this macabre media frenzy will also die its own death, regretfully leaving some very pertinent questions unaddressed. 

It’s about time that society recognises the extreme ramification of ignoring mental health issues. Emile Durkheim in his pioneering scientific analysis and empirical study on suicides confirmed suicide to be not just an act of individual but the breakdown of the entire social function. 

On this World Suicide Prevention Day on September 10, let’s talk about our mental health, our fears, anxities, agonies, trauma and insecurities with more empathy and compassion and let’s not be shy to seek help because we are not alone in this. We need more hashtags like NotAshamed as one by Deepika Padukone being a depression survivor. Unrelenting Coronavirus making social distancing a norm along with its economic fallout has only warranted an urgent need for a multi pronged approach with more accessible mental health services to address the myth and taboo surrounding mental health in order to save the youth of our country who are worst affected.

Amina Hussain is an Assistant Professor at Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti University, Lucknow

Related: 

Actor Rhea Chakraborty arrested by NCB, but the TV media trail continues to bay for blood 

Guilty as charged: Investigators, judge, jury and executioners of TV news ‘debates’ 

Over 42,000 workers from informal sector allegedly die by suicide

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