Gender crime haunts India

The appalling incident of a young photo-journalist getting raped by a group of hoodlums in the heart of India’s business capital Mumbai bear testimony to society’s collective incompetence in bringing about a real change — a change that is radical enough to impact the general mindset of treating women as an object.
After the unprecedented apolitical mass protest that followed the brutal gang rape and death of a young para-medical student in a running bus in New Delhi last December, it was widely believed that the conscience of the Indian nation has finally woken up and that the sexual predators would not have a free run anymore. In the days that followed, the nation witnessed an outpouring of anger on the streets of the capital and elsewhere with people demanding adequate response from the political class.
Politicians, ironically, have never taken any worthwhile initiative to put an end to the violence inflicted upon this country’s female citizens. With optimum use of social media platforms, the reverberations of this largely peaceful protest, spearheaded mainly by the youths, were felt nationwide. But did the public outcry and heightened media focus ultimately effectuate any positive change, so far as women’s safety is concerned?
There is no doubt that the New Delhi rape case has had a significant impact on India’s institutional response to feminine safety. A thorough review of legislation was undertaken soon after. The reaction of police and judiciary to an ever-increasing culture of dishonoring women with vile misogyny has undergone a perceptible change. The Indian Parliament had approved suitable amendments to the criminal law early this year to make the statute more comprehensive in its approach to gender inequality and victimization of women. The government has also shown the desire to put maximum effort in increasing gender sensitivity within the law enforcing system. But, in spite of all the honest intentions, women’s safety remains in peril.
Unfortunately, a spurt in registered cases of violence against women and rape cases involving foreign nationals has put a blot on India’s image. Most disturbingly, there has been virtually no interruption in the steady rate of crime against women including girl children as the nation has clearly failed to build on the momentum generated in recent months by an animated civil society. Adding to the woes is the tendency of the educated class to respond selectively when it comes to the issue of violation of women’s dignity. While some incidents of rape, particularly in urban areas, get huge coverage and evoke frenzied response from the elites, scores of others goes unnoticed.
The heinous crime in Mumbai has once again shown that the roots of rape in India are deeply entrenched and it is not easy to treat the acute symptoms, unless a holistic approach is adopted at the sociopolitical level. Though it is not an India-centric phenomenon only, the very fact of a generally conservative society — which has always put women on a higher pedestal — showing sign of ethical digression will inevitably raise some eyebrows. So, the society as a whole needs to evolve an efficacious strategy to eradicate this disease as leaving it to the legal system alone for redressal will surely not work wonders. Rape or any form of violence inflicted on women is at the end of the day a problem that has its foundation in our upbringing.
It is a major crisis afflicting our multi-cultural society and transcends the barrier of caste, creed or religion. Leashing those who are lurking around with the intention of violating the modesty of women in this huge country is no easy task especially when the citizen to police ratio is pathetically low. But we can certainly make a new beginning at least. Our ability to achieve a safe environment for women or bringing down the rate of criminal sexual activities depends on how effectively this nation can decipher the male psychology. It would be naïve for us to think that severity of punishment combined with a message of zero tolerance for sexual assault can arrest the rising graph of sex crimes because no law, framed anywhere on earth and howsoever effective, has ever been able to stop sexual offense altogether. Rather, we need to assess the impact of violence on Indian men, what they have experienced or endured throughout their physical existence and the sort of effect it have on their mentality and behavior patterns.
Empirical evidences suggest that a majority of Indian males have had the unfortunate experience of witnessing a frightening amount of violence in their private life and that too during adolescence. Indian boys in fact are no less vulnerable than girls on the question of being abused during childhood. A huge number of boys in their teen have suffered from mental trauma after experiencing physical as well as sexual violence and acquired an aggressive trait as they grew up. There indeed is no single solution to this complex societal crisis. For example, the accused in Mumbai rape case are reportedly drug addicts. Controlling the epidemic of drug abuse and unrestrained peddling can be one part of the solution. But the real solution perhaps lies in looking inward, at our homes and communities and eliminating the accumulated seeds of hatred from our mind. Above all, the practitioners of politics should desist from converting a serious social issue into a political slugfest. Crime on women or anybody else is in no way linked to a religion or ethnicity as some of our political masters would like to have us believe.

• Seema Sengupta is a Calcutta based journalist and columnist