{"id":2876,"date":"2014-06-15T11:48:16","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T11:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nehadixit.in\/?p=2876"},"modified":"2023-09-15T13:24:46","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T13:24:46","slug":"rape-in-india-reading-between-the-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nehadixit.in\/rape-in-india-reading-between-the-lines\/","title":{"rendered":"Rape in India: Reading between the lines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes photographs \u2014 even ones that go viral \u2014 aren\u2019t worth a thousand words. Here\u2019s what they won\u2019t tell you.<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Neha Dixit<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
In a village called Badaun in the northeastern state of Uttar Pradesh in India, two teenage girls, cousins, were gang-raped and hanged from a tree. One girl wore a bright orange tunic with purple pants; the other wore dark green. The silver embroidery on their clothes reflected the rays of the sun. Five men, including two police officers, have been arrested. Two others are absconding. When the girls\u2019 families went to the local police station to report their daughters missing, the officer refused to register the complaint until angry protesters forced them to do so the next morning, May 29, when the bodies were discovered.<\/div>\n
The girls, 14 and 15, had gone to the peppermint fields a 10-minute walk away at around 9 p.m., to relieve themselves as they always did. They were from a lower, landless caste, while their attackers were from the dominant landowning caste \u2014 the same as the recalcitrant police officer.<\/div>\n
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A horrific image of the two girls\u2019 still-hanging bodies went viral,\u00a0despite Indian media laws<\/a>\u00a0that prohibit revealing the identity of rape victims. But behind the photograph of this rape and rape in India in general is a plethora of forces \u2014 misogyny, caste prejudice, poverty and more. What follows is an attempt to explain some of them.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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1. The caste system<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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In India the caste hierarchy originated with Hinduism and spread to other religions. Landowners usually belong to the upper caste, while the landless and workers come from the lower castes, a majority of whom are considered \u201cuntouchables.\u201d They are not allowed to enter temples, sit, eat or share common resources such as wells and roads with the upper castes. Dalit is a broad term used for the so-called “untouchable” community in India.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Despite a reservations system in government institutions for those belonging to lower castes since India gained independence in 1947, they have struggled to overcome a long history of oppression. Land reforms, a top priority during the freedom struggle, are a long-lost dream. They were meant to break up large feudal landholdings and divide surplus land among the poor, landless lower castes. Lower-caste women are still subjected to sexual atrocities by the dominant upper-caste employers. Casteism is so entrenched in certain sections of society that a\u00a0judge dismissed a case of rape<\/a>\u00a0against a Dalit by a group of upper-caste men on the grounds that \u201can upper caste man could not have defiled himself by raping a lower caste woman,\u201d as happened in the widely debated Bhanwari Devi case. A lower-caste social worker, she was gang-raped by upper-caste men in retaliation for her public opposition to child marriage.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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2. Migration<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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According to the 2011 census<\/a>, 30 percent of the Indian population are migrants. Because of an agrarian crisis, a rising population and urban-centric development policies, the tide of mass rural-to-urban migration is surging. With skyrocketing rents and inadequate infrastructure in the cities, migrants are forced to live in ghettos and slums devoid of basic amenities like water and electricity. A lack of community support allows for more instances of brutality against women.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Migrant women primarily work as daily wage laborers, construction workers and domestic help, often in exploitative circumstances, which leaves them vulnerable to sexual abuse. Migration can also lead to the trafficking of women for commercial sex exploitation or forced labor.\u00a0According to by a widely publicized report<\/a>\u00a0by a former top cop, P.M. Nair, 75 percent of the victims of trafficking are tricked into it by the promise of a lucrative job. Migrant women are quick to take the bait and are instead sold off at brothels or to placement agencies. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, more than 100,000 trafficked children were rescued from domestic work in 2011\u201312, a rise of almost 27 percent from the previous year. The figures could run into several hundred thousand if women above 18 are included in the data. The National Commission for Women receives complaints of\u00a0eight cases of murder of household help every day<\/a>\u00a0from all over the country. Most are sexually abused before they are killed, according to the same report. The Domestic Workers Welfare and Social Security Act, which mandates decent working conditions for domestic workers, has been pending in parliament since 2010. With no legal framework for proper wages and a suitable work environment, housemaids economically dependent on employers can end up as sex slaves without the means to report abuse to the police.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
For migrant men who come from rural areas where the woman\u2019s place is in the home, this works the other way around. According to\u00a0a 2010 International Labour Organization report,<\/a>\u00a0the female workforce in the Indian capital, New Delhi, doubled from 1995 to 2010. The graph is still moving upward. This gives working women not only socioeconomic independence but also more visibility and participation in public spaces \u2014 traditionally a male prerogative. Rape then becomes a weapon to reclaim power. The December 2012 survivor popularly known as Nirbhaya was\u00a0gang-raped in a moving bus<\/a>\u00a0at 9:30 at night by five migrant men.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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3. Public spaces<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\n
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In India, most public spaces are occupied by men. In a patriarchal society, many consider women out in public spaces to be either for male consumption or defiant creatures who need to be taught a lesson through sexual harassment.\u00a0A 2011 survey<\/a>\u00a0conducted by Jagori, an Indian women\u2019s empowerment group, shows that 42 percent of women in Delhi were harassed both physically and verbally while waiting for public transport.<\/p>\n

Similarly, 50 percent of women in Delhi found the lack of access to clean and safe toilets a hindrance to their accessing public spaces. Even in big cities like Mumbai, for instance, there are\u00a0half as many public toilets for women<\/a>\u00a0as for men, and most of them close at 9 p.m., unlike the men\u2019s toilets, which are open all night. The two girls in Badaun were raped when they had gone out to the agricultural fields to relieve themselves. The government funds doled out to construct toilets under the sanitation campaign in Badaun were instead used to construct rooms in people\u2019s houses. The villagers said that constructing a rain-proof roof over their heads, which they could not otherwise afford, was a\u00a0bigger priority<\/a>\u00a0than constructing a toilet. According to\u00a0a 2013 report by Water Aid America<\/a>, 300 million women and girls all over India defecate in the open. A large majority belong to the poor lower castes in rural areas, who cannot afford a toilet. A recent study, “Danger, Disgust and Indignity<\/a>,” suggests that in 2013, 400 women and girls in Bihar, another northern state, were raped when they had gone out to defecate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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4. Moral policing<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\n
On Jan. 24, 2009, 40 activists of a Hindu right-wing group entered a pub in Mangalore in southern India and\u00a0assaulted women<\/a>\u00a0for consuming alcohol. This anger is in line with a patriarchal society in which the bodies of women are the repositories of culture and family \u201chonor.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Rashtra Sevika Samiti, a powerful Hindu women\u2019s group,\u00a0claims<\/a>\u00a0that Indian women \u201care not feminists, we are family-ists,\u201d and motherhood must be a woman\u2019s ultimate goal. They regularly counsel victims of domestic abuse to compromise instead of breaking the family structure. Similarly, caste-based village councils, known as\u00a0Khap panchayats<\/a>, have banned women in the northern states of Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh from using cellphones, getting educated or choosing a marriage partner. They issue frequent diktats of honor killings and gang rapes against those who defy them, or they impose a socioeconomic boycott on the woman\u2019s entire extended family, which can be reversed only after a heavy penalty.<\/p>\n

<\/small><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Acid attacks<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0women<\/a>\u00a0by jilted lovers are an extension of these beliefs: Women who use their agency against the male order must be punished. According to Acid Survivors Trust International, a U.K.-based organization that works to end acid and burn violence, 1,000 acid attacks take place every year in India. In some rural and tribal areas, women who turn down sexual advances or challenge patriarchal norms are\u00a0paraded naked, tied to a tree and lynched<\/a>. Nearly\u00a0200 women are killed every year<\/a>\u00a0after being branded \u201cwitches.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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5. Sex education<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\n
The newly elected government, led by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, is opposed to sex education. In 2009 a parliamentary committee, headed by BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu,\u00a0recommended<\/a>\u00a0that “there should be no sex education in schools” and said sex before marriage is “immoral, unethical and unhealthy.\u201d In 2007, Harsh Vardhan, now the minister for health and family welfare in the new government,\u00a0said<\/a>, \u201cThe curriculum prepared in the name of sex education is so much obscene and filthy that the teachers, lady teachers feel shy reading it.\u201d He went on to say that if it were to be introduced, girl students would drop out of school.<\/div>\n
\n

Sex education is largely seen as a Western-influenced practice that would pervert Indian morality. Yet sex ed is vital for juvenile boys, who may have distorted notions of sex and consent through pornography. In\u00a0a recent case<\/a>, a 14-year-old boy sexually assaulted a 6-year-old girl in Ghaziabad district, bordering Delhi. The girl sustained several injuries. He was booked for rape and assault.<\/p>\n

In India, showing pornography to a child is a criminal offense. Bhuwan Ribhu, the national secretary of the childhood advocacy nonprofit Bachpan Bachao Andolan, who interviewed to the 14-year-old-boy, says that he committed the assault after watching pornography on his mobile phone, and that such incidents have increased in the past five years. \u201cPornography is readily available over the counters in the form of DVDs and on the cellphones,\u201d he says. Ribhu thinks there is a lack of awareness about sexual crimes among children. \u201cChildren are not informed about \u2018good touch\u2019 and \u2018bad touch\u2019\u2026 There needs to be a massive drive at the school level, to educate children.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The National Crime Records Bureau reveals that last year,\u00a01,316 juvenile boys were booked for rape<\/a>. In the Nirbhaya gang-rape case, the brutal act of inserting a rod into the victim\u2019s vagina was committed by a 17-year-old \u2014 a juvenile.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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6. Property rights<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Despite the passage of the Hindu Succession Act of 2005, which provides equal inheritance rights to ancestral and jointly owned property, it is not strictly enforced, depriving women of their rightful inheritance. According to sociological research, this is\u00a0partly responsible<\/a>\u00a0for the widespread problem of sex-selective abortions in India. It is estimated that\u00a0700,000 unborn girls are killed in India every year<\/a>\u00a0through sex-selective abortions; India has a sex ratio of\u00a0940 females to 1,000 males<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Rita Banerji, author of \u201cSex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies\u201d and a women\u2019s right activist, links the unequal sex ratio to property rights. She says, \u201cEven in the colonial times, it is the rich landlords in Punjab who had the most worrying sex ratio \u2026 As higher education amongst women rises, the sex ratio falls, because [the] patriarchal order does not approve of wealthier women or women controlling family wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In conservative northern Indian states such as Haryana, the low sex ratio (879 females per 1,000 males) often results in young girls from poor families being\u00a0trafficked as brides<\/a>\u00a0and used as sex slaves by the male members of the family.<\/div>\n
Poor implementation of women\u2019s property rights renders them financially dependent on their families. In incestuous rape cases, for instance, women are unable to leave because too often they depend on their rapists to support them. India still\u00a0does not recognize marital rape<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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7. Sectarian violence<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Hindu-Muslim communal riots during the partition of India in 1947, and the 1992 riots after the Hindu right demolished Babri Masjid, an ancient mosque in Uttar Pradesh (also the state where Badaun is located), set a gruesome precedent for systematic rapes. Women\u2019s bodies were used as proxies for combat to establish the supremacy of one religion over the other. In 2002, when the now\u2013prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, was chief minister of the western state of Gujarat,\u00a0close to 2,000 Muslims were killed<\/a>\u00a0during riots. The number of acts of sexual violence has never been pinned down. Women were gang-raped, their bodies were mutilated and then burned, to destroy the evidence.\u00a0In one of the most horrific attacks of that period<\/a>, a pregnant Muslim woman had her belly slashed by Babu Bajrangi, the head of the Hindu right-wing group Bajrang Dal. He then allegedly took out the fetus, holding it aloft on a sword.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Last September, too, sectarian violence broke out in Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh. Though only seven cases of gang rape were officially registered,\u00a0hundreds of women<\/a>\u00a0were gang-raped, sodomized and brutally assaulted. While women are the immediate victims of rape, the act serves to suppress the communities to which they belong \u2014 caste, nation and religion. Thus the rapists threaten not just the women but, through them, their entire community.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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8. AFSPA<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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\nThe\u00a0origins of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act<\/a>\u00a0(AFSPA) lie in colonial times. It was introduced by the British in 1942 as an ordinance to suppress the Quit India movement by freedom fighters. It is currently imposed in the seven northern states, including Jammu and Kashmir, which borders Pakistan. The act allows armed forces in disturbed areas to use force or to fire without warning, even if it causes death; search premises without warning; and arrest people without warrants. Most important, it provides legal immunity to armed forces for all their actions. In 1991,\u00a053 women were allegedly raped by army personnel<\/a>\u00a0during a search interrogation operation in Kunan Poshpora village in Kashmir. The Indian government called the accusation \u201cbaseless\u201d in the face of criticism from a number of international\u00a0human rights watchdogs<\/a>. No one from the army was ever charged.<\/div>\n
Such\u00a0misuse of AFSPA<\/a>\u00a0by army personnel against women is commonplace. In the northeastern states, the first such case to be reported in the media was in 1974, when a teenage girl from the state of Nagaland committed suicide after being raped by an army officer in front of village elders and left a note blaming the army. Cases like that never made the national news, however, until 2004, when a group of 30 outraged old women in the state of Manipur marched naked through the capital, Imphal, to the army headquarters with a banner reading \u201cIndian army, rape us\u201d to\u00a0protest the rape and murder of a young girl<\/a>, Thangjam Manorama, after she was picked up for interrogation by the Indian army.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The protest made international headlines, and in its wake a committee was formed to evaluate AFSPA; it recommended that the act be made more \u201chumane.\u201d The promised amendment in the law is still pending. In March 2012, the United Nations asked India to revoke AFSPA, calling it undemocratic and draconian. In the newly elected BJP government, a former army chief was appointed as the minister for seven northeastern states under AFSPA.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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9. Politics<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Women are very poorly represented in the Indian political system, making up\u00a0only 11 percent in parliament<\/a>. There is a women\u2019s reservation bill that was passed by the upper house of the Parliament in 2010, but it has been pending with the lower house ever since. If passed, it would ensure a 33 percent reservation for women in parliament.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Unsurprisingly, then,\u00a0sexist and misogynist remarks<\/a>\u00a0by parliamentarians and political leaders never fail to lace debates around gender violence. A minister from the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, Babu Lal Gaur, from the BJP,\u00a0said while discussing Badaun<\/a>, \u201cRapes are sometimes right and sometimes wrong.\u201d\u00a0The head of the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav, said, \u201cBoys commit mistakes. But should they be hanged for it?\u201d Abu Azmi, a Samajwadi Party leader from the state of Maharashtra, said, \u201cUnder Islam, rape is punishable \u2026 any woman if, whether married or unmarried, goes along with a man, with or without consent, should be hanged.\u201d Twenty-one percent of the newly elected parliamentarians have\u00a0serious criminal cases against them<\/a>, including crimes against women.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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10. Laws and reforms<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Following the December 2012 gang rape and subsequent mass protests, the Justice Verma Committee was formed to review rape laws. Among its\u00a0recommendations<\/a>\u00a0were police reforms and rehabilitative measures for survivors. The committee also insisted on the need for gender sensitization of the police, dominated by male officers and governed by archaic colonial laws, and for the recruiting of more women officers. In September 2012, a low-caste woman from the northern state of Haryana was gang-raped. In April 2013, she was\u00a0imprisoned for 10 days on charges of perjury<\/a>. She had withdrawn her statement against the rapists because of an economic boycott by the upper-caste council on her family. Her family members worked as agricultural laborers. With no financial help from the government, she and her family, who were dependent on the upper-caste landowners for their livelihood, had to withdraw the case in exchange of employment. According to the\u00a0National Commission for Women<\/a>, a rape survivor receives up to 200,000 rupees (US$3,350) within a period of one year of filing a police report. This amount is too little and comes too late to fight a never-ending legal battle against rapists. The\u00a0conviction rate in rape cases<\/a>\u00a0across India is an abysmal 26 percent.<\/p>\n

Published by Al Jazeera America on June 15, 2014<\/em>
\nLink to the post:\u00a0http:\/\/america.aljazeera.com\/articles\/2014\/6\/15\/rape-in-india-readingbetweenthelines.html<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes photographs \u2014 even ones that go viral \u2014 aren\u2019t worth a thousand words. Here\u2019s what they won\u2019t tell you. Neha Dixit In a village called Badaun in the northeastern state of Uttar Pradesh in India, two teenage girls, cousins, were gang-raped and hanged from a tree. One girl wore a bright orange tunic with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,103],"tags":[],"thb-sponsors":[],"yoast_head":"\nRape in India: Reading between the lines - Neha Dixit<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nehadixit.in\/rape-in-india-reading-between-the-lines\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rape in India: Reading between the lines - Neha Dixit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sometimes photographs \u2014 even ones that go viral \u2014 aren\u2019t worth a thousand words. Here\u2019s what they won\u2019t tell you. 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