Rape, rape, go away. Little Mina wants to play. (Why rape won’t ever quit India. Or, anywhere else for that matter.)

What is rape? The word derives most likely from the 14^th century Middle English rapen out of the Anglo-French raper from the Latin rapere meaning “to seize, carry off by force, plunder”. http://bit.ly/1MZpGV7 Culturally viewed, it is an atavistic act harking back to the male chauvinistic, patriarchal, feudalistic past. The Latin word atavus refers to the great-great-great-grandfather or an ancestor. For the victim, rape is existentially disruptive. For the perpetrator, rape is more often than not a crime of opportunity. Ergo, unpredictable and impossible to anticipate and prevent. Equally, it is a crime that requires the existence of a special kind of mindset in the perpetrator who may hail from any caste, class, region and religion, often from among the close acquaintances of the victim. Mind mapping of a potential rapist would reveal, I suspect, the existence of a patriarchal, fedudalistic terrain wherein the power equation is forever set against women. To the rapist, women are vassals in perpetuity. Men are the all-powerful lords and masters entitled to all kinds of privileges as well as access to every conceivable resource including the vassals’ bodies. The by now widely publicized views of many authority figures as well as the rapist in the Nirbhaya case lend credence to this contention. 

This set of core “tenets” is not documented but informally passed on from generation to generation. So strong is their stranglehold on Indians that even some of the womenfolk willingly and readily assist their “betters” in enforcing them. This is abundantly evident by their inclusion in the perpetrators’ line-up in dowry and honour killings. Even village elders, gotra (clan)-inspired khap panchayats and similar formal or informal tribal networks willingly join such woman-hating initiatives. One is often led to wonder if the paternalistic underpinnings of most religions like Vedantism/Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity do not make them the ideal breeding grounds for the rapist as well as the terrorist mindsets.

In the sexually vitiated Indian context, the subtext of dowry reads like this in the warped male mind: I’m taking “the burden” off your hands. So, pay up whatever I ask for and shut up. Of the resistance to widow remarriage: I have no use for “used goods”. (Objectification of women is routinely implicit in all misogynous behaviour and thinking. Even in the “civilized” Occident, only wives are swapped, never husbands, remember?) Of “provocative” dressing and behaviour by women: Take me. I am available.

Have you noticed the oft-recurring visual tableaux in most dances performed by couples? The male dancer supports his female partner with his arm wrapped around her waist, his face looming over hers and she is arching backward as far as she can as if to keep as much distance between the two as possible. Male superiority/male dominance is written all over this image – just as it is in the iconic RK Films logo − even when the choreography is orchestrated by a woman. By so doing, is she (the female dancer): (a) accepting her inferior status in the relationship or (b) repelling the male’s advances (a crypto-rape scenario)?

Then, there is the all-time classic, time-honoured “Krishna Leela” defence and/or ratiocination, based on a myth deeply embedded in the Indian consciousness, which nobody seems to question or object to. Krishna, the legendary lover with reportedly 16108 wives (none of them won by relentless ragging, though), well-known for his playful and innocent antics as a child of hiding the clothes of bathing gopis, teasing them to distraction and taking advantage of their affection to rob them of butter, is heralded as the beacon of how a young man should woo a young woman of his fancy, i.e., the one who currently triggers an upsurge of testosterone in him. The “boys will be boys” justification is used with impunity, time and again, to condone disrespectful treatment of women by “manly” men. In the fifties and sixties, there was a spate of Hindi movies featuring Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor, Shashi Kapoor and even Joy Mukerjee – the poor girl’s Shammi Kapoor − emulating this “Krishna” school of how to woo a girl and not compromise your machismo. This sort of depiction of the male-female equation continues to exist in one form or another in movies and on the idiot box even now.

Much as I would like to take an optimistic view of the situation, no way out of this well-entrenched psycho-socio-cultural impasse seems to exist in my opinion. Legal and/or extra-legal (e.g., lynching and, on the milder side, protests march, candle light processions, advertising to persuade the would-be rapist to shed his sinful ways) solutions cannot achieve the desired result. The only way to do it is to change for the better the existing attitude and belief super structure of India. And that, as the dashing, debonair Don would have so eloquently put it, is not only difficult but impossible (= “mushkil hi nahin, namumkin hai”).

The rise and rise of rape in India.

There has been an alarming rise in the incidence of rape of late. This is causing much bewilderment and trepidation in so far as the crime is keeping pace with the measures taken to arrest or lessen its occurrence as well as the widespread publicity generated by the epidemic. 

I discern at least two equally powerful triggers for this intriguing phenomenon.

First among equals is the galloping pace of pro-feminist reforms and the accompanying fanfare they receive in media and word of mouth. This raises the anti-feminist’s heckles. They yearn to strike back. And what better way to do it than to go rape, molest, insult, humiliate “those pesky bitches”? Rape is a crime of power, not passion. In the present instance, it is the rapist’s response to the women’s increasing empowerment.

The second trigger is the nationwide – nay, worldwide – media coverage that each succeeding gang rape in India has been receiving of late. In the rapist’s sick mind, committing this horrendous crime of power in the company of like-thinking comrades seems to be an easy way of getting and basking in his fifteen seconds of fame. Labyrinthine and convoluted though this logic may seem, that’s the way the cookie crumbles in the rapist’s twilight zone, I’m afraid.

If both these triggers are currently at work, what is the way to slow down the occurrence of rape in India? Should the pace of pro-feminist reforms be slowed down? Should the fanfare that is their due be somewhat subdued? My off-the-cuff response is No to the first course of action and Yes to the second. My Yes response may be owing to my antipathy towards the way Indians and Indian media respond to anything: way over the top – so much so that for the potential rapist, rape has virtually become a cult!

Is there a way to nip a potential rapist in the bud? Caution and vigilance on the part of women stepping out of the safety of home and workplace as well as the law and order functionaries seems to be the partial – though not totally satisfactory – solution. Is there a way to identify and tag potential rapists before they crawl out of the crack and go on a rampage? Truth to tell, I don’t know.

The world owes me one. Really?

In the heat and dust raised by the Delhi gang rape and similar ongoing criminal atrocities, the mention of a key trigger of such events is conspicuous by its absence. I wonder how all the expert analysts forgot to dwell on it. This key spark, come to think of it, is the sense of entitlement every criminal, be he a rapist, a murderer, a petty purse or chain snatcher or whoever, has in abundance. (The sense of entitlement, mind you, is not even a distant cousin of self-worth, i.e., “the belief that one is worthy of accomplishments earned through hard work” according to the Why Is It Always About You? author, Sandy Hotchkiss.) This narcissistic trait overrides all scruples and moral restraints in a person about to commit a criminal offence. Such a perp’s self-justification may be couched along the following lines:

“I feel like I never had what I needed, so I didn't feel bad about taking what I wanted, be it taking credit for other people's work, sleeping with other people's girlfriends, or just taking whatever object I wanted at the time. Taking didn't (always) mean theft, but it did mean I sometimes shorted others, or made them wait, or whatever. If I wanted it, I would get it, because I deserved it. Rules, laws, and social contracts are for people who need guidelines. I don't, so I make my own rules and don't care if you don't like them. You just don't know any better. If you did, you wouldn't question me.” http://bit.ly/WJ7FUc>

No solution to India’s systemic meltdown is on the horizon. Certainly not in the short run. What’s essential is a total overhaul. How do you inhibit the endemic occurrence of the sense of entitlement? Concessions and reservations have only worsened the situation. Excessive economic inequalities are not making matters any better. The naked use of power, political and/or economic, to make anything – including the worst wrongs – right is not going to be tolerated indefinitely by the mango people. The day of reckoning is not too far away, it looks like. The sooner everyone – VVIPs, VIPs and celebs – join the mainstream and learn to accept it (no security at public expense, no sanitized living in gated quarters), the better it would be for all Indians. Maybe, urban guerrilla action based on the 70s-style Western template won’t be such a bad thing.