It has been almost two days of me following
every bits and pieces of information surrounding the Delhi gang
rape case: updates about the captivity and social positioning of the rapists,
discussions that attempt to unearth the root of the transgression and expose
the gaps which corrode our ‘system’, opinions which range from suggesting
innovative of ways of retribution to the depraved perpetrators of the crime which
range from chopping off their testicles to public lynching. An American friend
of mine, who was greatly distressed with the insecurity of women in Delhi, sees
this as a much needed and positive unity of anger and outrage as do many of us.
Not that it is a first of its kind, but the brutality of the crime is so
unnerving that shock and indignation seem nothing but the most spontaneous,
humanely conceived reaction to it. I do
not really have anything to add to the already much deconstructed dynamics of
the crime and its causes. It is just
that, apart from the abysmal depression that I have been led to with this
incident, apart from discovering the more gruesome ends my ‘vulnerability’ as a
woman in the rape capital of the country can be subjected to, I find in myself
a dislocation in how I had been looking at the problem and a lot of other
things. Maybe sometimes for some or most of us, things actually need to go way out
of hand to attract some serious reflection, within or without.
I find myself living in
a city which, though had always been infamous for the violence against its
women, has now been confirmed the as the most unsafe city for women. I wonder what is it that made Delhi the-most-unsafe. What is it about the social
and cultural space of this place that makes it so conducive and tolerant to the
uncontrolled misogyny? And what is even more puzzling is why Delhi out of
places where I finally come to face with the most distorted of all
complications womanhood must watch out for. I grew up in Patna where girls are
usually home by evening. It was a decree we grew up with and effortlessly
internalized. It almost seemed ‘natural’ that we were home comfortably by dusk,
that things were as they were and they couldn’t and needn’t be any other way.
With a family fiercely protective of its girls, it was hard to comprehend any
greater good coming out of any mobility outside this containment and
restriction. Even more for girls like me, who did not visit any places other
than the towns of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, had no alternative less-restrictive lifestyles
to compare with. We were safe, i.e. we
were limited, we knew our bounds and couldn’t escape our share responsibility
in the consequences of transgressing them. And also how little we realized that we were condoning our own confinement and limitations with such conditioning! Now living alone in Delhi, without the
over-reaching protective arms of my family, many times I move out of those
erstwhile defined spaces because I need to and because I choose to. And consequently I come across this palpable
insecurity, each day when I leave for work or come back from it. Like many
other women, I am not sure whether the day would not turn out to be in an
unpleasant one, without a man hooting at me from an auto rickshaw, or ogling at
me at me at a traffic signal, or brushing against me in a bus or a metro.
It has been posited a
number of times, and very reasonably though, how the displacement of women from
the domestic towards political, social affirmation and economic security has
been perceived as a threat to masculinity. The image of a self-dependent woman,
earning her living and establishing her own control over her mind and body can
be seen as something leading to a potential emasculation of manhood in a
repressive patriarchal discourse. Seeing women competing with men at work
places, or getting better salaried jobs adds to the condescension they have
always borne against women who are understood as essentially different and
weaker and less capable than them so much so that their very presence in the
‘man’s world’ outside the confines of the household is seen as a misplacement,
an aberration
The anger and resentment seems to be much more
rampant this time. There are many who
have been screaming for ‘death by hanging’ or even public lynching of the
rapists. The mob passion and hatred is unbridled against those vermins who
could have been so denuded of humanity to execute a crime of such barbarity.
Without getting anywhere into the validity or otherwise of capital punishment,
this baying for ‘blood’ seems more like a very convenient escape from our
collective guilt and responsibility in the incident. It’s an expedient othering
of the culprits as inhuman monsters, a
subsequent marginalization of the criminals which even more justifies a brutal
end to be accorded to them. Why it has to
go unnoticed that this is altogether a dumbing down of our own participation in
the horrendous incident. This barbarity was the outcome of the utmost
perversion of a psyche we have been brought up with, lived with, or silently
witnessed without any felt or activated dissent. And in such moral and
psychological claustrophobia, why not just exterminate those who are the distorted
products of the same shared and withheld consciousness? We might have been
shaken by the gang-rape but why do we still fail to acknowledge the continuum which
exists between the ‘public’ and the ‘private’ in the instances of rape and
violation? I do not see how a ‘blood-thirsty revenge and retribution’ can be
the hard-wearing blow.
And still remains undaunted
is the shamelessness of people! Or should I call it just shamelessness or also an erosion
of all reason and sensitivity. Even after something as soul-numbing as this I
can hear voices expressing their utter incomprehension of the fact that a woman
with her skimpy clothes, 'loose' and 'untamed' lifestyle could still be anyone
worthy of any respect. Seriously, how can they liberate the victim of her own
participation in her destruction when she chooses to be out of her home so ‘late
in the night’ and ‘with a male friend’. It was unfortunate but she had it
coming to her! And all this self-righteous fury that this incident has
generated especially among men doesn't keep one from wondering how many of them
are not guilty of the innocent mischief so mildly passed off as 'eve-teasing'.
How many of them dint go out of their ways to 'compliment' women known or
unknown to them. What still prevails is the thought that that such 'attention'
makes women feel good about themselves and desirable. But, yes of course, this
is just ‘harmless fun’ and could never take the hideousness of ‘rape’ and ‘molestation’.
So much for the the fury and the shame!
Of
course there will be the talk of how all this involves a need in the change of
collective consciousness of the society and also how it could take years and
even a century. And hence its credibility as an imminent path of action and
recourse is toned down. We will
demand
for better, stronger laws, .i.e. executive and procedural. We will want
the harshest punishment to be meted out to the criminals. But if we
could just care to ask ourselves: How much are we willing to change? How
much are we willing to let others change?
