In the midst of the unspeakable horror of a rape and attempted murder in Delhi, is a spark of hope that we nurture, cradling it with our hands lest it be snuffed out, helping the spark to grow into a steadier flame – and then spread into a forest fire.

A young woman, a 23-year-old student of physiotherapy, boarded a bus in Delhi with a male friend. They were alone on the bus but for a group of men, who began taunting the woman for being out at night with a man. She and her friend didn’t take the taunts lying down – and eventually the group of men decided to ‘teach her a lesson.’ They beat her friend senseless. And they ganged up to rape her, brutalizing her and leaving her intestines torn.

The hope lies in the huge numbers of people who came out to protest. The spontaneous anger and determination to bring rapists to justice was good to see. But even better was the willingness to direct that anger against the society and culture that justifies rape and sexual violence. The popular will – on part of ordinary women and men – to address the roots of sexual violence and end it, is what inspires more hope and confidence than all the fire-spewing rhetoric of MPs in Parliament.

Challenging Rape Culture

One woman who saw a video of our protest demonstration and the speeches of activists at Sheila Dixit’s house wrote to me to say that the protest struck a chord with her: “Younger girls have been writing to me, absolutely distressed, because their parents are using the Delhi gang rape case as an example of what happens when you “stray”. Now, they are unable to do anything: from having conversations with their male friends to go to a college of their choice. Watching your protest gave me so much hope and a sense of solidarity.”

Sexual violence is, indeed, a way of imposing patriarchal discipline on women. Women who defy such discipline are punished for their temerity by rape. And the fear of rape and sexual violence works as a permanent internal censor of women’s decisions. And ‘protection’ from sexual violence most commonly takes the form of restrictions imposed on women: curfews in college hostels are the most common instance, followed by dress codes, ban on mobile phones, restrictions on mobility and friendships (especially with men friends), discouragement from taking admission in a college away from home, and so on. If sexual violence and the measures commonly used to contend with it breathe the same patriarchal air, no wonder women feel suffocated.

Some years ago, when journalist Sowmya Visvanathan was shot dead, Delhi Chief Minister commented that Sowmya had been ‘adventurous’ in being out on the street at 3 am. The last Delhi Police Commissioner had said in a press conference, “If women go out alone at 2 am, they should not complain of being unsafe. Take your brother or a driver along.” Of course, these statements were greeted with a chorus of protest, with many pointing out that women who work have no choice but to be out late at night. In the present case, BJP leaders in Parliament said that the victim had done nothing ‘rash’ – she had not been out very late in the night. One national English TV channel discussing the rape in Delhi kept carrying these bulletins prominently – “She wasn’t dressed provocatively… she wasn’t out late at night… She wasn’t alone.”

The idea remains: that women ought not to be out at night unless they have good reason for it, that women ought to dress in ways that are not ‘provocative.’ That it is acceptable to expect women to restrict their mobility and choice of dress in the interests of their safety. That it is acceptable to put women who face violence in the dock and ask them to ‘justify’ themselves. In other words, there is a widely accepted notion that women have to acquit themselves of the charge of having ‘invited’ rape.

But in the protests this time around, it was refreshing to see and hear many women challenge this rape culture – a culture that justifies rape and blames women for ‘provoking’ or ‘inviting’ rape – head on. One placard said – “Don’t teach me how to dress, teach your sons not to rape.” Another said “Don’t get raped.” Another declared, “My spirits are higher than my skirt, my voice is louder than my clothes.” And yet handwritten placard held aloft by a DU student who was probably participating in a protest for the first time, declared, “You raped her because her clothes provoked you? I should break your face because your stupidity provoked me!”

When women are offered ‘protection’ on patriarchal terms (terms that impose restrictions and regulations on women), it is time to say ‘Thanks but No thanks!’ We don’t need patriarchal ‘safeguards’ for women – instead we must demand that the government, police, judiciary, and other institutions stand in defence of women’s unqualified right to be adventurous, to dress and move and conduct themselves freely at any time of day or night, for any possible reason or no reason at all, without fear of sexual violence. After all, this freedom to be adventurous and to be safe in public spaces is one that men can take for granted; the adventurousness of men is valourised endlessly in popular culture.

Patriarchal ‘Protection’ and ‘Honour’

Look at the recent ad campaign by the Delhi Police against sexual violence, and you are struck by the fact that it has no women in it. Instead, there is actor-director Farhan Akhtar, saying, “Make Delhi safer for women. Are you man enough to join me?” Another ad Delhi Police has been using for several years has a photograph of a woman being harassed by a group of men at a bus stop with some men and women simply looking on. This poster proclaims, “There are no men in this picture… or this would not happen” and urges “real men” to “save her from shame and hurt”. It suggests that sexual harassers are not “real men”; that women facing harassment feel “shame” (rather than anger); and that only “real men” can protect women. There is no attempt by the state machinery at asserting or propagating the idea of women’s freedom and rights.

The problem is that machismo is being prescribed as a solution – when in fact, it is the root of the problem of violence against women! Rape is not the only form of violence against women. Recently, there have been a series of incidents (in different parts of the country), when a father or a brother has chopped off the head of a woman for having an extra marital affair or for marrying outside the caste. A man in Tamilnadu’s Dharmapuri district killed himself when his daughter married a Dalit – sparking off severe violence against the entire Dalit community. Men are being exhorted to defend women’s ‘honour’ from ‘shame.’ When they police their sisters’ or daughters’ relationships – even to point of murdering her in case of her defiance – do they not claim to have acted in defence of ‘honour’?

Then, there is the notion that rape robs a woman of ‘honour.’ The Rajput queens of old are said to have preferred to burn themselves alive en masse rather than wait to be raped by conquering armies. One factor in the large number of suicides of women following rape is no doubt the fact that they are told their life is ‘ruined’ and not worth living.

BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, speaking in Parliament, declared that even if the Delhi rape victim were to survive, she would remain a ‘zinda laash’ – a living corpse. Reacting to this statement, a woman student of JNU, participating in a vigil at Safdarjung, said: “We’ve come here to let the rape survivor know we’re with her. We angry with the statement made by Sushma Swaraj that a woman who has been raped remains a ‘zinda laash’. We’re here to say we hope she lives the fullest life with her head held high – and it is the rapists who ought to suffer and be shamed, not the survivor!”

End Custodial, Communal, and Casteist Rape

The outrage and anger over the rape and attempted murder of a young woman in Delhi is welcome. The outrage, solidarity, and struggle for justice should also embrace the victims of custodial, communal, and casteist rape.

• In 2004, Thangjam Manorama Chanu of Manipur was raped and murdered (with bullets in her private parts) by personnel of the Assam Rifles. Till date, the perpetrators of this gruesome rape and murder have not been punished; in fact the Indian Government is protecting the perpetrators, claiming that Army personnel under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act cannot be subjected to a criminal trial!

• Two young women Neelofer and Aasiya (the latter a schoolgirl) were raped and killed by Army personnel in Shopian, Kashmir, in 2009. The entire state machinery has engaged in a massive cover up. The perpetrators are free.

• Recently, a young adivasi schoolteacher Soni Sori was raped by Chhattisgarh police officers, who inserted stones in her private parts. But SP Ankit Garg, instead of being arrested and punished, got a Presidential Gallantry Award on Republic Day! Soni Sori continues to be stripped and humiliated in Raipur jail, and remains in the custody of her rapists.

• Countless Dalit women are raped all over the country by men of the upper castes; while BJP and RSS mobs gang-raped Muslim women during the Gujarat genocide of 2002.

Police or Army uniform, and the dominance of caste and community cannot be a licence to rape and kill! If the Delhi rape has awakened people to the crime of sexual violence, we must ensure that the voices of Manorama, Neelofer, Asiya, Soni, Priyanka Bhotmange (Khairlanji) and Bilkis Bano (Gujarat) – and countless others – calling for justice, are heard.

Demonizing the Poor

The Delhi Police and Delhi CM, beleaguered by the popular outrage, are taking the familiar route of projecting an ‘external enemy’ – the migrant worker! And some others too are trying to channel the anger against sexual violence into class hatred for the migrant poor. In a TV interview Sheila Dixit said that the nature of Delhi had changed thanks to the influx of migrants, who could ‘attack and flee’, and this made crime against women difficult to fight in the city. The TOI on December 20 carried a story about how ‘migrants’ were ‘on the prowl’ in the night in Delhi, quoting ‘top Delhi Police officers’ as saying that migrants are prone to crime and rape because this group ‘stays away from their families for years. They are attracted to big city life. However, they have little means to attain it.” An op-ed article in the same day’s TOI by one Tuhin A Sinha said that “a huge chunk of male population lives away from its spouse to earn a livelihood. It is this chink which has shown a greater propensity towards committing gender crimes. It makes sense, in this situation to consider legalizing prostitution.” What is this article saying? Do migrant women or the wives of migrant men, separated from their spouses, go around raping people?! Isn’t it a shameful justification of rape to suggest that it is motivated by male sexual starvation? If we say the rapist rapes women when deprived of access to his wife or a sex worker, is his wife or the sex worker the usual recipient of his violence? Can rape be fixed by ensuring a steady supply of sex/women as a commodity to all men? Or do we need to recognize rape as an act of patriarchal violence, assert the personhood of women and challenge the notion of women as ‘providers’ of sexual and domestic services?

The TOI is running a campaign calling for chemical castration and so on. If, instead, the TOI were to stop justifying rape by blaming it on male sexual starvation, It would be much more helpful for the campaign against sexual violence! The calls for chemical castration and the like are all based on the false notion that rape stems from sexual desire. In fact rape is motivated by hatred of women, not desire for women! Notorious serial rapists such as the British serial rapist and killer Robert Napper and Jack the Ripper are suspected to have been impotent.

Only 26 in Every 100 Rapists Are Punished – SHAME!

End Impunity – Ensure a 100% Conviction Rate for Rapists!

Undoubtedly, perpetrators of sexual violence enjoy a sense of impunity, a sense that they will go unpunished.

The facts tell their own story:

National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows that incidents of rape in the country have increased by 791% since 1971 (murder increased by just 240%, and robbery by 178%, kidnapping increased by 630%).

And conviction rates for rape dipped from 41% in 1971 to 27% in 2010. Conviction rates for other crimes against women – dowry death, cruelty by husband and relatives, trafficking, molestation, sexual harassment, kidnapping – are similarly very low. The reason is that the police force, hospitals and courts are unfriendly to women and gender-biased.

• Remember, this abysmal percentage of conviction (26%) is in those cases where FIRs are filed. Rape is the most under-reported crime: studies indicate that for every reported case of rape, more than 50 go unreported. In hundreds of cases, the police simply refused to file FIRs, or demoralizes the complainant so much that she withdraws her complaint.

• When it takes days of struggle to get an FIR filed, one can imagine there is no urgency in the matter of collecting forensic evidence.

• The medical examination in hospital is another ordeal – it is common for doctors to perform the ‘two finger test’: inserting two fingers into the woman’s vagina to establish whether or not she is ‘habituated to sexual activity.’ In spite of the Supreme Court’s injunctions against this practice, emphasizing that the survivor’s past sexual activity is irrelevant, this ‘test’ continues to be given credence in lower courts.

• Trials run on for years, allowing the rapist greater chances to exert pressure on the complainant and witnesses. The delay wears out the complainant, often leading her to concede defeat.

• And in the event it does come to the court, the trial can be an ordeal where the complainant is subjected to all sorts of humiliating questions.

• Courts have been known to pass a variety of gender-biased judgements in rape cases. Even if the bench itself is sympathetic and sensitive, the shoddy work of police and prosecution combine to prevent a conviction.

The Intimate Enemy

In the national outrage against rape, it is all too easy to forget that rapists are not an ‘alien species’ in our society that can be exterminated. Rapists are not always faceless strangers – in most than 90% cases, in fact, they are fathers, brothers, uncles, neighbours: people the victim has known, trusted, and been expected to respect and obey.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau data for 2011, “Offenders were known to the victims in as many as 22,549 (94.2 %) [of all cases reported in India in 2011],” and “Parents/close family members were involved in 1.2% (267 out of 22,549 cases) of these cases, neighbours were involved in 34.7% cases (7,835 out of 22,549 cases) and relatives were involved in 6.9% (1,560 out of 22,549 cases) cases.”

In other words, rapists are not separated from the rest of society by a neat wall. Rapists are not born. They are created – by a society that demeans and subordinates women.

The foremost preventive for sexual violence and other forms of violence against women (‘honour’ crimes, sex-selective abortion, domestic and dowry violence, sexual harassment), then, is what the women’s movement is doing: challenging patriarchal attitudes and women’s subordination; asserting women’s unqualified personhood and freedom; demanding full equality for women. The problem is that the governments, the dominant political parties, and the state machinery, remain hostile to the women’s movement’s struggle. Instead they stand by patriarchal forces at every juncture.

We can’t allow perpetrators of sexual violence to continue to be free of the fear of punishment!

We need steps to be taken IMMEDIATELY.

Let’s Demand a Change at Every Level of the System:

•Gender-Sensitive Laws, Swift and Sure Punishment: Hold a Special Session of Parliament without delay to enact comprehensive laws against Sexual Assault (including provisions for marital rape and rape by security forces), Sexual Harassment, and ‘Honour’ Crimes in consultation with the women’s movement.

•Judiciary: Fast track courts for all cases of sexual violence (not only rape but sexual harassment too must be set up, with verdicts to be delivered within 3 months.) Any judge who has made remarks or passed judgements which justify any violence on women and go against gender equality, must be made to quit.

•Police: Gender sensitization training modules to be introduced in all police stations, including procedural instruction and training for dealing with rape complaints. Proper infrastructure and rape investigation kits to be made available in all police stations. Punitive measures including dismissal in case of failure to register cases of sexual harassment/rape.

•Hospitals: A separate ward for medical and psychological care of rape victims and proper infrastructure for handling pathological-forensic investigations in hospitals.

•Ending the Culture of Justifying Gender Violence: An end to ANY justification of sexual violence, ‘honour’ crimes or domestic violence. Those public servants including elected representatives or police officers or judges who indulge in victim-blaming must be made to quit.

•Support: Social, medical, legal, psychological, and economic support – at Government’s cost - for rape survivors.

•Prevention and Education: Gender Equality be made an essential part of the school curriculum, to be drawn up in national consultation with women’s movement activists in the field. The aim should be to challenge misogyny, patriarchal attitudes, and hostility to women’s freedom and rights, head-on, on a war-footing.

When denial of justice in cases of sexual violence is the norm rather than the aberration, it is hardly surprising that some brave women have been pushed to desperate measures in their quest to be free of violence in their lives. Kiranjit Ahluwalia, an expatriate Indian living in Britain, set her husband, who was a habitual wife-beater, on fire. Some years ago, women slum dwellers in Nagpur together killed a serial rapist in the courtroom itself. A Bihar schoolteacher Rupam Pathak knifed to death a BJP MLA after police failed to take action against him in spite of her rape complaint.

It is ironic that BJP leader Smriti Irani declared that she would shoot rapists dead without care for the law –while her own party leaders branded Rupam as immoral and thanks to their NDA Government in Bihar, Rupam has been sentenced to life imprisonment in a fast-track trial, while her rape complaint remains uninvestigated!

In the situation where the main problem is that rapists do not have to fear punishment thanks to shamefully low rates of conviction, death penalty for rape is unlikely to provide any real deterrence.

Rape is patriarchy’s way of punishing women’s very being, women’s demand for equality and freedom, and asserting male dominance. Rapists do not ‘desire’ women, they hate and fear women’s freedom.

As ordinary people storm the streets demanding justice for victims of sexual violence, let’s raise the battle cry –

Defend Women’s Right to Freedom Without Fear!

Ensure Swift and Sure Punishment for Rape!

Fight And Win Women’s Equality and Dignity!

Box matter 1

Some Instances of Rape Culture As Promoted by Authorities

• A nurse in Shanti Mukund Hospital in Delhi was raped by a hospital employee so brutally that her eye was gouged out. When the trial reached the point of conviction and sentence was about to be pronounced, the judge asked the rape survivor to take a weekend to consider the rapist’s proposal of marriage (in return for letting him walk free).

• Senior police officer KPS Gill said rapes are on the rise in Delhi because women wear provocative clothes.

• The DGP of Andhra Pradesh blamed the rise in rape cases on women wearing ‘fashionable’ clothes

• Karnataka’s Women and Child Welfare Minister C C Patil said women should avoid dressing provocatively

• Following the Park Street rape case in West Bengal, a W Bengal Minister asked what kind of woman, a divorcee to boot, visited a night-club instead of being at home with her kids. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee first denied the rape, cast aspersions on the morals and veracity of the complainant, and then announced restrictions on timings of bars, nightclubs etc.

• Following the gang rape of a woman employee of a nightclub in Gurgaon, the Haryana Government first announced a ban on women’s employment in late-night jobs.

• Following the rape of a woman student and call-centre employee in Delhi some years ago, principals of several colleges asked why the woman had been out at night near a dhaba.

• A sting operation by the Tehelka magazine revealed a series of senior Delhi-NCR cops saying rape complaints were, as a rule, fake, and that victims were to blame for having ‘asked for it.’

• In a booklet issued by Delhi Police some time back, women from the North East were asked to dress ‘decently’ to avoid sexual harassment and violence.

• Mamata Sharma, Chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW) said in a recent interview that women should “take their Indian culture along with them when they leave their homes,” and should “dress carefully” in order to be safe.

• Other forms of violence against women, too, are routinely justified. A judge in the Karnataka HC recently asked a victim of domestic violence to ‘adjust’ rather than seek a divorce; and he also ticked off her lawyer, saying that as an unmarried woman, she should not seek to break up the complainant’s marriage!

In the rape case in a Delhi bus, the men taunted the girl for being out with a man at night. Is this very different from what the Bengal Minister or the college principals quoted above said? Rape culture (that justifies rape and blames its victims) is the fertile soil in which rapists flourish and from which they draw sustenance.

Box matter 2

What Was She Wearing

I’m sick of the question – How was she dressed?

Show me the man slumped over the counter with a bullet in his head

Dressed like someone who deserves to be dead.

Tell me the 6 year old girl assaulted in church was asking for it.

Or the girl raped in gym class looked like a slut in those sweat pants.

What clothes – pulled from what rack

Will prevent an attack?

Tell me the store – and I’ll go back

And buy the right clothes this minute –

The outfit that prevents rape if you’re in it.

See I didn’t understand

I didn’t understand that I could buy a shirt that says ‘I deserve to be hurt’

I had no clue I could put on a shoe

That says do whatever you want to do to me

See, your needs come first

After all I am wearing a tight skirt

Instead of the assault-proof dress

And I notice that you have the fault-proof vest

So it’s my fault I guess

Apparently I didn’t say No as loud as my clothes could say Yes

See I didn’t know that my No wasn’t enough

I didn’t understand that my body became less precious

‘Cause certain dresses made me look hot

And I guess if I’m wearing the wrong top

Then my yes is the same as my ‘Stop’

And you shouldn’t have to, just because I begged you to

I’m begging you, tell me the magic outfit and I’ll buy it

Apparently my No wasn’t heard even when I screamed

So I need my clothes to be quiet.

Box matter 3

AISA, AIPWA, RYA, AICCTU Hit the Streets

In Delhi AISA, AIPWA, and RYA were at the forefront of the protests – with the rallying cry “When not a corner of the city is safe for women, it is time to turn every corner into a site of protest!”

The JNUSU organized protests and chakka jam (road blockade) at Vasant Vihar thana (close to the site of the rape). AISA, AIPWA and RYA braved water cannons at Sheila Dixit’s house. Massive protests called by JNUSU and AISA have been held at India Gate – with student protestors marching to the Home Ministry defying all security arrangements one night, and holding a sit-in till the Home Minister met a delegation. JNUSU as well as AISA-RYA called for a vigil at Safdarjung Hospital, which was spontaneously joined by women lab technicians and doctors from the Hospital itself.

Activists of the DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) Unity Centre (affiliated to AICCTU) distributed a leaflet in support of the struggle for women’s rights, and pointing out that the Delhi rape case underlined the need for a comprehensive network of DTC buses in the city instead of anarchic and privatized, insecure transport allowed by the Delhi Government.

Protest demonstrations and meetings were held at various areas of Delhi, organised by the party. At one such meeting at a slum cluster in Wazirpur, where many women spontaneously joined the party’s demonstration, one comrade was greeted with much appreciation and applause when he said, “Candle marches are all very well, but women should have sandals in their hands!”

All over the country, AISA, AIPWA, and RYA have held protests. In Allahabad, 1000 women students joined a March organized by AISA and the Women’s Cell of Allahabad University. At Patna, a massive demonstration took place in which large numbers of women students, nurses, and others joined. Enthusiastic district-level protests were held all over Bihar and Jharkhand. Powerful protests were held at Banaras, Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati and Jorhat and as we go to press, the protests continue.