The latest news on the Hyderabad Rape case has stirred a dialogue. At the danger of opening the flood gates, the encounter has gathered rather loud applause. Usually, you won’t find me arguing in favor of even the death penalty let alone a judgment taken outside the court of law. However, the given circumstances have been more than infuriating and here I am, standing on the fence.
In a recent argument on this topic, in a heated moment, I claimed a stand, which surprised me, and got me thinking, WHY?. The fact is, that not only have the number of rapes been on the rise, but the blatancy of the recent crimes are sickening. Today a rapist has the audacity of openly harming his victim on the way to court, during an ongoing case. It is almost like we are all acting out scenes from a regressive 90’s Hindi film. On one side we talk about women’s empowerment and the other side, we agree with companies banning women from working post 6 pm, in the name of safety. While we advocate patience for the governing body to introduce and fund the possibility of a speedy legal course. Hoping for a shift in the system, a shift against the core patriarchal culture, that blames the victim. At the same time, we condone a culture that deems the correction of rape to be the imprisonment of women.
We were silent when the Telangana CM called for an 8 pm curfew for women in Telangana’s transport department, as a response to the rape case. Or when a BJP lawmaker in UP said “Not even Lord Ram can stop rapes,” Or when a female leader in Chandigarh advised a young woman, who was gang-raped by an auto-rickshaw driver and his two accomplices. Asking the victim to have been more cautious. Or when a senior leader from RSS in 2013, said rape was an urban problem, and that it didn’t exist in rural India. (he clearly had zero facts in place) According to him the “western influence” is to blame. As he went on to advise women to be better housewives to avoid rape. He said: “A husband and wife are involved in a contract under which the husband has said that you should take care of my house and I will take care of all your needs. I will keep you safe. So, the husband follows the contract terms. Till the time, the wife follows the contract, the husband stays with her, if the wife violates the contract, he can disown her”
If it is ok for our lawmakers to advocate an age-old, regressive belief that the only way to stop rape, is to strip a woman of her independence. If it is ok, for our society to regress into the ages, where women were second class citizens, to be provided for and protected by men. To bound her by deadlines. To ask her to live in constant fear. Always cautious and forever watching her back. If it is ok to be the torchbearer of patriarchy and expect women to continue being the martyr, compromising her ambitions and dreams, to only be a wife and a mother, simply reduced to her body. Then in the same country, it should be OK, to regress to the age-old method of justice! Wasn’t an eye for an eye the way of justice somewhere in history. If history is what we celebrate, and if history is what we vote for, then we should inevitably celebrate the history of justice today!
Recent events have proved that most of our country doesn’t expect our lawmakers to bring about a reformation. How can we? When most of our lawmakers are marred themselves? More than 40 percent of our lawmakers face criminal charges including rape and murder, hell, even terrorism. Therefore, if we celebrated gimmicks in the name of politics for this long, then we might as well spend the day celebrating a sorrowful, guilt-filled justice for Dr. Priyanka Reddy’s family! However, if our conscience has just awoken if, we have just begun to realize the hovering threat to human rights in India. Then let us please begin by questioning ourselves, and by questioning why and how we choose the lawmakers of our country.