[Reader-list] [Delhi gang rape case] Lest we forget and move on, yet again

[asit das]

*Lest we forget and move on, yet
again<http://nsi-delhi.blogspot.in/2012/12/delhi-gangrape-lest-we-forget-and-move.html>
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*- Prachee Sinha*
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A 23 year old young woman battles for her life in a hospital in Delhi. She
was raped by a group of men, brutalized, beaten mercilessly and thrown out
of a moving bus on Sunday night. Her fault: she was a woman in the wrong
place at the wrong time; she dared to be in a public space at night; and
she was with a young man with whom she had just finished watching a movie.
According to some media reports, she was in fact taunted by the rapists
about being out with a male friend late at night. This young woman is
fighting to stay alive as we speak, and she may not make it, but if she
does and decides to fight for justice, there will be an entire society, an
entire system standing against her, blaming her for what happened to her,
scrutinizing and judging her entire life, her choices, and her very
existence.

This crime is particularly brutal, with horrific details emerging about
what this woman has endured and the damage her body has suffered. I for one
have no complain about the talk and interest that this case is generating.
Even though I do think that putting the CCTV footage of the rape in the
public domain is frankly disrespectful and offensive. It should be used as
evidence in court and not as fodder for public consumption. Anyhow, media
is making the case a headline, the police and government are acting fast
under pressure of the public opinion, and everybody who is anybody is
decrying it as a heinous crime, which it indeed is. And now the political
parties have also jumped in with the BJP starting to make demands, the Aam
Aadmi party starting to make comments. There is uproar in the parliament.
The politicking and slugfest has just commenced. The girl is still critical
and the police are still investigating and all the criminals are still not
in jail.

The danger, however, is that focusing mainly on the brutality of the crime
makes it appear an isolated incident, whereas it is not some freak mishap,
or rare wrongdoing of a few mentally sick twisted men just acting out their
perversion while possessed with evil. It is a product instead of a culture
and a society which still has deeply entrenched feudal-patriarchal social
relations, where women are considered lesser people who should be
controlled and be punished if they break from tradition, where girls are
denied the right to be born, to health, to education, and often to be loved
and cherished, where conviction rates in rape cases are abysmally low,
where the woman is always blamed for being raped, where boys are so
precious that they get away with anything from a very young age, where
women are murdered for every day dowry, where wife battering is considered
an act emanating from love and is considered a right of the husband, and
where if you love and/or marry the “wrong” person, your family can kill you
in the name of honor.

I am a young woman in my 30s. I work and travel 2 hours each way to work
and back every day in the public transportation. Fortunately the Delhi
metro has a women’s only compartment now, to consternation of many men, so
at least for that leg of the journey women are spared the leering, the
groping, and the pinching and other unwanted advances. I am in public space
alone to work, to travel, for leisure, and I am harassed almost every day
in small ways for being out and being alone. When I am not being harassed,
I have my antennae up, devising and scheming mechanisms to be safe in the
public space. I am calculating my actions and moderating my choices, making
rational and constraining decisions so that I do not get into trouble.
Despite all this rigmarole, I make mistakes some time, and I have been
fortunate so far. What do you, for example, if you get into a shared auto,
which is by the way much easier on your pocket, around 7 pm in south Delhi
and soon you are only woman with three men, one of whom decides to serenade
you? Do you stop the auto and get off, or do you just sit in hoping some
other women will board it at the next stop? I assessed the situation,
decided not make a huge issue out of it, and took call to continue on, and
if something untoward had happened to me that night, I know I would have
had to answer a million questions: why I was in a shared auto at that time
alone? Why was I out at all at that point? What was I wearing? How did I
behave? They would have dug up my past, my ex-boyfriends, and my so-called
loose character and so would have gone out the window any slim chance I may
have had of justice. And I am in no way alone in all this. Millions of
young women who get out every day to work, to study, to hang out with
friends, to visit places, they all brave harassment on a daily basis. And
when the crimes are committed against them, very few cases make it to the
courts, and most of those few get thrown out on some technicality or the
other.

I hope and wish that the young woman survives for there is nothing more
precious and beautiful than life. Her living would be the biggest defeat of
an entire system, an entire culture for which she is expendable. If she
lives, she will need support to overcome the trauma. She would need a
supportive family, a supportive society, and she would need counseling. She
would need lot of help to make that all-important journey from a victim to
a survivor. And she would need justice.

If she lives, the true color of the deeply entrenched sexism and misogyny
of the Indian society and culture, judiciary, police and politics will come
to fore. At every step she will be questioned, stopped, barriers will be
erected between her and justice. The police and lawyers will character
assassinate her, the judiciary will acquit the criminals on some
technicality. Even if they do go to jail, they would either get bail after
some time, and resume their lives like before, or serve a meager 7 years
stipulated by law and then get back to normal life. The neighborhood, the
relatives, the society will stigmatize the woman, she will be marked
forever. Men will think she is available now that she is not chaste any
more. The media will forget about her and move on. The protests will cease
and new issues for struggle will become more important.

If she lives then she will be in a long lonely fight, her family may stand
by her if she lucky. If she lives, she will become just another story and
fade away from the collective memory pretty soon till the time another
shocking incidence makes the headline and violence against women will
continue unabated, the protectors and enforcers of law and order will
continue to be unresponsive and insensitive, and justice will continue to
be denied.

As I stand on the shoulders of the women who came before me and whose fight
laid the foundation of a better life for me, I refuse to back down. And I
refuse to forget and move on. I just hope I am not alone in this.

Because, you see, the onus in on the rest of us to ensure that violence
against women becomes an intolerable, inexcusable act in all walks of life.
The onus is on the rest of us, not to forget, not to relent till justice is
done.