The R@pe Culture

 

Hello, friends!

The heinous crime that took place with a 31-year-old trainee doctor in Kolkata's R.G. Kar Hospital has shocked our nation's soul. We have seen protests in many parts of the country, including West Bengal. Doctors have gone on strike, the protesters were attacked by goons, and the hospital was being ransacked. So far, the police have arrested 25 people. Everyone is questioning Mamata Banerjee, who is not only the Chief Minister of West Bengal but also the Home Minister and Health Minister of West Bengal. It was strange to see her take out a protest rally after this incident. But the question is, against whom? No one could understand this.

The main culprit of this incident is Sanjay Roy, a civic volunteer in West Bengal Police. In the past, three of his marriages ended due to domestic violence. The first question is, what kind of a person was recruited here to become a civic volunteer? Looking at his history of domestic violence, the police should have taken action against him already. CCTV footage, his Bluetooth device, and DNA samples were used by the police to arrest him. He has confessed to his crime. But the second question is, how did he have access to all the departments in the hospital?

A few days after the incident, there was a demand to transfer this case to CBI. CM Mamata Banerjee tried to shrug off this demand by saying that she has no problem with this. If the police couldn't do anything in the next few days, she said that she would transfer this case to CBI. The Calcutta High Court, while citing reasons such as the lack of trustworthiness of the police, ordered the case to be handed over to CBI. Along with this, the High Court has also reminded that the demand to hand over a case to the CBI shows that the state police are no longer trusted by the people. And this is the failure of the Home Minister and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Here comes our third question, how was a man like Sandeep Ghosh, appointed as the principal of R.G. Kar Medical College? He is accused of being a corrupt person. Allegedly, he ran this medical college like a mafia. But his transfer was stopped again and again. It's suspected to be because he was close to TMC. In this case too, he is accused of atrocities. He is accused of trying to suppress the matter. Trying to play it off as a suicide. The victim's parents were not allowed to see the victim's body for hours. There was a delay in filing the FIR and when he was removed from there, he was made the principal of Calcutta National College. I mean, if a person is not fit to be in charge of one place, what sense does it make to transfer him to another place? Calcutta High Court pointed out this nonsense and sent Sandeep Ghosh on an extended leave of absence.

To investigate the corruption charges on Sandeep, the West Bengal government has made an SIT, which is asked to submit its report in a month. CBI has interrogated him four times in this particular case. When people all over the country wanted justice for this case, then for the safety of women in workplaces, the West Bengal government announced some initiatives. Supreme Court took a suo-moto cognizance of the matter and gave some strong statements like "What is equality under the Constitution if women can't be safe in their workplace and are being denied basic equality?" To bring about ground-level changes, the country can't wait for another r@pe.

By the time this blog is posted, maybe the outrage will be over, maybe the protests will have stopped. But will the nearly 80 r@pe cases taking place in our country every day have stopped? Not at all. After Kolkata, we got this news from Uttarakhand. A similar incident with a nurse. In this case, the bus driver and bus conductor were involved. In Bengaluru, a 21-year-old college student was going home from a party when a similar incident happened to her. In Maharashtra's Badalapur area, a school cleaning staff was reported to have s€xually abused two girls aged 3 and 4. Hundreds of agitated parents blocked the railway station.

Looking at these news, you may feel that over the last 8-10 days, there have been more incidents of r@pes in the country. But this is not true. r@pes are happening every day, but they are not reported every day. Outrage and protests do not happen every day. The first large-scale protests in the country were probably in 2012 after the Nirbhaya case. Then in 2019, when a 26-year-old veterinary doctor was r@ped and mu₹dered in Hyderabad. Then in 2020, people were outraged about the Hathras case, where this happened to a 19-year-old Dalit girl. And now in 2024, this case happened in Kolkata. Over the last 12 years, there were 4 large-scale outrages and protests. Maybe I'm even forgetting a few cases, but broadly speaking, there haven't been more than 7-8 outrages and protests.

And it's not that there is something wrong with being outraged. Feeling outraged after hearing something like this is a natural emotion. Protesting is also a sign of our being alive. But there needs to be some improvement in the situation. If we look at the situation from 2012 to now, it has been the opposite. Around 2012, 25,000 such cases were reported in a year. Whereas according to the latest figures of NCRB, in 2022, 31,000 such cases were reported. That is, 85 r@pe cases per day. If we compare the proportion with the increasing population, we can see a leap there too. Since then, the country's population has increased by 1.14 times. But the r@pe cases have increased by 1.25 times.

It's clear as day, the situation is getting worse. The root causes of r@pe not only continue to exist but are even increasing. This is why I feel absurdity. It's okay to protest for a week, but for the rest of the year, if a person is behaving like everything is fine, it's absurd.

What should be done to improve the situation? Are you ready for this uncomfortable discussion? This discussion will be uncomfortable because you will perhaps see that many of you are indirectly a part of this problem. Will you acknowledge this? I don't know. Because Vir Das had simply said that we are living in Two Indias. On one hand, women are worshipped in our country and on the other hand, they are subjected to heinous crimes. It wasn't incorrect, but people took offense. Similarly, after the Nirbhaya case, Leslee Udwin released a documentary, India's Daughter. It was such a powerful and thought-provoking documentary that it should have been shown to 10th-grade students all over the country. But in our country, people were uncomfortable and banned this documentary, claiming that this would ruin India's international image.

After today's discussion too, you may feel uncomfortable like this. But if you are genuinely concerned about this issue, then read the blog till the end and the steps we will discuss as the solution, let's be a part of the solution.

Let's start this blog with a very simple question. Is r@pe wrong? You will accuse me of asking an insensitive question. Obviously, r@pe is wrong. But when we look at the societal attitudes around us, then we get a completely different picture. Everyone says that r@pe is wrong, but everyone applies their own conditions to it.

Take Nupur Sharma, for example. The BJP leader who said objectionable things about Prophet Mohammad thrice in a single day on three different TV channels.  And because of this, our country was embarrassed in front of Arab countries. But merely because of Nupur's misstatements, is it justified to send her r@pe threats? Not at all. God knows how many de@th threats and r@pe threats she received, which can't be justified in a civilised society.

Look at Audrey Truschke's case. She is a trained historian. She has written about Aurangzeb a lot. She hasn't called Aurangzeb a great ruler. But according to her findings, Aurangzeb was a complicated character. On one hand, he broke down Hindu temples and on the other hand, had saved them many times. If someone finds her historical findings wrong, they are free to argue with her and present evidence against her claims. But no, what do people give? de@th threats and r@pe threats.

Look at Indira Jaising. After the Nirbhaya case, she had advocated mercy for the mu₹derers of Nirbhaya. I strongly disagree with her, but that doesn't mean she should be harassed with r@pe threats. Because no matter how wrong anyone's words or actions are, r@pe threats cannot be justified.

Then comes our politicians. We see politicians regularly giving r@pe threats or threats of such violence. But nothing happens to them. When Union Minister Ananth Kumar Hegde was in the opposition, he had said, "We'll take people by the neck and send them to Pakistan. You won't say it publicly, but while sending them there, you'll say your sister's something or mother's something. But nothing happens to them. When SP leader Azam Khan was in the opposition, he had said that this land is of mujawars. It is owned by us. The ones ruling this land will be abused by the people and will be asked to strip. When Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said that there is no rule of law in BJP-ruled Karnataka, the CM of Karnataka Basavaraj Bommai said that Kharge will get a befitting reply. His skin will be peeled off. When Haryana's Home Minister Anil Vij spoke against protestors, CM Manohar Lal Khattar said that these people should be taught a lesson and their sk!ns should be peeled off. If the law doesn't allow it, the law will change. When Telangana's Congress leader Jana Reddy was discussing Nirbhaya, he said that in that case, I would have broken her hands, chopped off her legs, and pulled out her eyes.

Forget about such threats. Even when these incidents happen, our politicians will find a way to shame women. Because of this, we can't forget the Nirbhaya case. Nirbhaya's lawyer A.P. Singh is the first accused. Nirbhaya had gone to watch a movie at 11:30 pm. That is against our traditions. Nirbhaya was with a boy, and that too without getting married. That is against our traditions. So there are serious accusations against him of putting the blame of this incident on Nirbhaya. Similarly, in the Hathras case, CM Yogi Adityanath's close aide Swami Narayan said that such incidents happen because of Bollywood and social media. So that means we should ban Bollywood and social media and start following the example of Taliban. In the Unnao case, when Kuldeep Singh was accused, Keshav Prasad Maurya, the Deputy CM of Uttar Pradesh, did not say a word against him.

Then came Azam Khan's son, who made statements on the Muzaffarnagar incident. He said that there are 2-3 women who do this to trap someone in a false case and extort money from them. When this video went viral, Azam Khan did not clarify anything. Instead, he started scolding his opponents by saying that these people are using this video to get him arrested.

R@pe happens because a boy cannot control himself. R@pe happens because girls wear the wrong clothes. In fact, MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma said that when I go to Jaipur, I am shocked to see the kind of clothes girls wear. Minister of Education of MP, Vishwas Sarang, said that women's dresses should be according to the cultural values of our country. MP MP Abhijeet Mukherjee said that if a girl is wearing lipstick and makeup, she is a dented and painted woman. SP MP Abu Azmi said that if any girl is having consensual s€x, she should also be punished with the boy. MP Assembly Speaker said that it is because girls do not do pooja or prayer, such incidents happen. In the Malda case, we saw that they said that because the girl was drinking alcohol, this happened.

If you thought that no one thinks this way, then you are wrong. These people believe that the girl is at fault here. And if this thinking is not wrong, then the Indian Constitution is wrong. The Indian Constitution talks about gender equality and freedom of expression, which is fundamentally wrong. If there is no logic behind their thinking, then these people are just fooling the public and are staying in power by fooling them.

The fourth incident, which no one talks about, is very dangerous. If you don't take this seriously, you'll be surprised to know how this affects even educated people. This thinking doesn't only make them a part of the problem, but makes them leaders of this wrong thinking. What is this fourth type of incident? To answer this, I want to ask you a small question. Why does r@pe happen? I'm sure many of you will answer that it's because of lust, uncontrolled lust.

If we believe that the only reason behind r@pe is uncontrollable lust, then why is it that s€xual crimes are committed against 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds? Are people having s€xual desires for children of that age? No. If that were true, then we would see boys and girls being molested equally. But we see that girls face this 2-3 times more than boys. The actual reason behind this is not lust, but patriarchy. Which means that people who commit such crimes think that they have power over someone else.

Even the least educated person knows that this is wrong. But he can still blame his r@pist mindset on a girl wearing a small dress. He thinks that he has some kind of right over her. Because he knows that there is no consequence to his actions. He knows that there are so many incidents that people forget about them soon. This is the mindset that keeps creating these problems. This is the mindset that makes people justify such actions. This is the mindset that creates this r@pe culture. This is what needs to change.

When you can blame such incidents on a girl's dress, then you don't feel that these incidents are wrong. You feel that the girl is to blame. We don't talk about this enough. This needs to change if we want to bring about any real change. This thinking is what causes these incidents in the first place.