Rising Incidents of Rape in India: Problem and Solutions

by Sudhanshu Tripathi

Whether accompanied by violence or not, rape is, in fact, one of the most heinous, savage and lifelong agony and also trauma-inflicted brutalities perpetrated on women, and a complete violation of her self-respect and dignity leaving not only permanent physical injury but also incurable mental scars. Her sense of humiliation and utter powerlessness at the time causes such abysmal inner throes to her heart which are far more difficult to heal than the external blots on her body. And this probably explains as to why many social scientists consider rape to be driven by the patriarchal lust for life-long subjugation and control of men over women. However, evolutionary biologists are more inclined to believe that rape is more about sex than dominance and control. The underlying theory in the present context is that the male of the species is more likely to be sexually profligate and is more likely to forcibly satiate himself sexually when he believes he can easily get away with it.

Obviously, sex does play a role, particularly in a sexually repressed society like India where even in a protest march against rape, men reportedly gaze on women in the crowd with their evil lust. It is in this context that the ongoing fierce popular outrage demanding capital punishment at the earliest to all the accused involved in the brutal rape of a promising para-medical student and her consequent death at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore in the early hours of December 29, 2012, is going to meet the same failure as usual.

However, the following measures may be considered as effective safeguards for security of women as well as post-incident investigation-cum-prosecution-conviction procedures:

• Attitudinal change: It is a deeply entrenched attitude of male superiority over women, that is, men are more equal than women in various forms, that needs to be immediately removed from our age-old and traditional mindset; hence the emphasis on moral education, reviving the spiritual-cultural environment, particularly highlighting respect and honour for women; and girls’ education must include compulsory physical education having judo and karate and other means of their physical empowerment, particularly by female instructors, so as to develop their self-confidence, determination and the capacity to protect themselves and retaliate in any adverse situations; and what is also needed is an anti-commodification campaign and anti-masculine projection etc.

• Investigation by women-police and also prosecution and trial in women-judge court in a fixed time schedule. Also fast track special courts should be established for speedy trial and cent-per-cent conviction and fixed death penalty in case of conviction of the accused; the rape victim’s statement should be recorded before the magistrate only, because the police mostly tries its best to dilute the gravity of the case and pressurises both the victim and the accused to marry each other, something worse than hell, and such incidents often instigate prospective criminals. Further, in this regard, an all-woman criminal justice system for acts of violence against women would prove to be a better option of enabling equitable justice than one dominated, certainly at lower levels, by patriarchal insensitivity towards women.

• Women’s Forum at all levels for dealing with exclusive women’s issues where ladies may discuss their own problems and may seek solutions for redress, thereby arousing their self-confidence and also motivating them to work for resolution of their problems with their own endeavour.

• Control on all forms of media including cinema, channels, advertisements and other such entertainment programmes projecting the female body as a market or commercial commodity for seeking sensuous pleasures and which can be easily ravished for sole lavish and lustful male desires; also there is an urgent need to make a clear distinction between entertainment and vulgarity.

• Control on Beauty Contests and minimum female dress code covering their basics; in fact, beauty contests are well calculated institutional means of commercial extraction from a women’s body and such vulgar projection through incomplete dress which has become very common under the pretext of modernity.

• Reservation for women in jobs, both in public and private sectors, and in the political system at all levels which will not only make them socio-economically strong and sound but also elevate their status in the male dominated bastion of the Indian society.

• Establishing rape-redress counselling centres at all places including universities and colleges for encouraging the victims to report about such incidents and providing help for onward police and legal actions; these centres can also provide expert counselling to the aggrieved by reviving her self-confidence and self-esteem by doing away the social stigma attached to such incidents;

• Restoration of joint family system: In the specific context of the revival of family traditions and values for inculcating restraint and self-discipline, particularly among younger gene-rations.

• Immediate control over the West’s inspired consumer culture and obscene internet contents: Everybody knows about the availability of highly obscene contents on the internet which are, in fact, the potential threats to immature and young minds which usually instigate them to resort to such perversions, as has been well proven by the recent spurt in the most heinous crime of rape of women of all age-groups in India and all over the world.

All these steps, if honestly implemented, will, undoubtedly, create a responsive and secure environment wherein women will find them-selves more comfortable as well as safe while interacting with men, but, which also requires that women should themselves honour the basic social norms and aesthetic values for discoura-ging the male’s sexual profligacy and lustful behaviour in the prevailing patriarchal socio-economic and cultural psyche where chastity is a feminine virtue and also a masculine weakness not only in India but also in the other parts of the world, particularly Muslim, Chinese and also English societies having similar patriarchal arrogance and possessive insensitivity towards women.

Dr Sudhanshu Tripathi is an Associate Professor, Political Science, M.D.P.G. College, Pratapgarh (UP).