Wake-up call for states oblivious to flourishing rape culture
A motley group of youths from the Northeast gathered with candles and banners at Hauz Khas village on Tuesday to protest the shocking rape of an unsuspecting 24-yearold girl from the region by a man who deceived her by offering better transport than the auto demanding a hefty sum.
Claiming that the car was parked on the other side, he made her walk into a park, and then brutally raped her. Sadly, the protest comprised mainly Northeasterners.
This not just ‘their problem’; it can happen to anyone. Before wagging fingers at her for being out late or taking a ‘lift’, ask yourself; didn’t you take a lift from a friend who offered to drop you courteously? Haven’t friends shared autos from the metro, and have we not shared taxis of Ola and Uber? Does that mean we are asking for it?
Even in upscale ‘progressive’ Hauz Khas village, where youths are often seen partying late night, perversions of these kinds lie across class. Delhi’s rape menace raised its ugly head once more. We have all watched the movie Pink to know that in an evolving cosmopolitan society, arguments such as ‘she deserved it’ for being out late or dressing in a certain way are redundant.
Given the swift action of Delhi police in nabbing the perpetrator, it seems that we are not getting into such arguments, and one is thankful for small mercies.
Another recent rape incident was of a popular Malayalam actress, who was abducted and molested by a gang of men while she was en route to Kochi from Thrissur. Following the incident, she went to a director’s house who alerted the police. Her driver appeared to be complicit in perpetrating and facilitating the act.
The actress testified that her former driver was part of the gang. The police have arrested the main accused and are in search for other accused. It is pertinent to mention that there is an alarming rise in brutal rapes and killings in our country. Young couples and women appear to be the target of these rising perversions. One is not even safe in one’s own nuptial home.
The 2016 gory incident of a Delhi man chopping his wife into little pieces is still fresh in my mind. Forty-year-old Gulbuddin, a cook at a local dhaba, had found a ‘new wife’ in some other city and wanted to get rid of his first wife. So, he strangled his 36-year-old first wife in sleep and then proceeded to chop her into pieces. He then dumped her body parts near the garbage in Fatehpur Beri area.
It is not just in India that men feel they have a right to inflict violence upon their wives. In 2010, a Kentucky man, identified as Stanley Neace, shot his wife, step daughter and two neighbours with a shotgun just because he was unhappy with the way she cooked his eggs.
I blame the easy access to guns, and the growing and disproportionate sense of machismo men have when in possession of a firearm. Politicians make hollow promises most of the time, and the guilty are often acquitted. Most of our police force is neither free to act, nor sensitised towards rape victims.
Often, they further humiliate the survivor who is already in a state of shock and humiliation. In smaller towns and villages, if the rapist is a powerful man’s son, they do not even register the rape case, let alone bring justice to the aggrieved. The growing perversion and misogyny of men in our society seems to be running amok. We need our states to deal with rampant lawlessness with an iron fist. We cannot fall silent in these times of oppression. archanadalmia@gmail.com