I’m an Indian woman, I’m tired of outraging. Jharkhand tourist gangrape won’t change a thing
File photo of a protest against rape | Representational image | ANI
Reading about the gang rape of a Brazilian tourist this weekend took me back to 2012. In the aftermath of the harrowing gang rape in a moving bus, I returned to my home city Delhi to participate in the protests. Janpath was where the capital’s men and women—mostly women—expressed their rage, horror, and every other visceral, unnameable feeling at the egregiousness of the crime. It was as if the brutality had not been perpetrated on the body of one woman alone; it felt like it happened to all of us.
The chanting, singing, demanding swell of women were answered by lathis and water cannons. But the cannons were no match for a population’s burning fury. Sheila Dikshit, Delhi’s Chief Minister at the time, would later note in her autobiography that she wanted to resign in the days following the case. But a year after the incident, a still seething city would vote Dikshit out anyway.
Reading about the Brazilian biker tourist who was gang raped by seven men in Dumka, Jharkhand, while camping with her Spanish partner, I felt the same fear and anger all over again. The travel blogger, who was on her way to Nepal, had travelled through 63 countries including Afghanistan, but it was in India where she became the victim of horrible sexual violence. In a now-deleted Instagram post, the 28-year-old woman said: “They had beaten us and robbed us, although not many things [were taken] because what they wanted was to rape me.”
It suddenly feels like the 12 intervening years have not passed. I, and many women like me, are back in the same place we were a few years ago. But something is different this time around. My anger has no focus now. My rage is no longer tinged with the possibility of change.
Groundhog day of terror
I am an Indian woman who is tired. I am tired of being angry, I am tired of outraging, and I am tired of my outrage not counting for a damn thing. Unlike the anger of men, my anger does not have any consequences.
I am tired of this groundhog day of terror, the fear following me around, never leaving my body, no matter which part of the world I am in. I am tired of feeling like it’s not a question of where, or how, but just a matter of when.
In the heady days of 2013, it appeared like the needle was shifting. We knew the streets of India would not change overnight, but it had seemed like Indian men could no longer inflict assault on women, and not have to face repercussions. Amendments to the criminal law—no matter how dissatisfactory—reflected a sliver of hope. The definition of rape broadened to include non-penetrative assault; setting up of the ‘Nirbhaya Fund’ and fast-track courts meant that the delivery of justice and compensation to rape survivors would be swift. Section 376E of the IPC was introduced in the aftermath, stipulating imprisonment for life or death sentence for a repeat rape offender. It was applied in the shocking Shakti Mills gang rape of a young woman photojournalist.
But India’s women should have known that legal amendments is as far as it could go. That knee-jerk reaction to shameful incidents that capture the world’s attention is all that India cares about. That in the last decade, we’d be back to watching a parade of bodies of women, young and old, treated as horrifically in death as in life.
What we’ve learnt
Indian women are in a constant state of PTSD. Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve witnessed over the last few years. We’ve learnt that if you’re a Dalit teenager in an Uttar Pradesh village, dominant caste members will harass, rape, and eventually murder you, but will soon be acquitted of those charges. Meanwhile, the police will cremate you in the dead of the night, without the knowledge or consent of your family.
We’ve learnt that if you’re a minor and your rapist is a high-ranking MLA, you’ll have to immolate yourself in front of no less than the Chief Minister’s office before you can expect to get justice. Even so, in the process, you will lose members of your immediate family.
We’ve learnt that if you’re a Muslim child from a nomadic community in Kashmir, people will launch rallies in support of the men who kidnapped, drugged and gang raped you. Some of them will turn out to be policemen, meant to protect you.
We’ve learnt that the men who gang raped you, a pregnant woman, in the middle of a communal pogrom, are released from jail for “good behaviour”, will then be garlanded and offered sweets in full public view.
We’ve learnt that even if you’re an Olympic medalist and some of the most recognisable celebrities in India, your sexual harassers will continue to be in power.
We’ve learnt that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a woman in Manipur, Muzaffarnagar, or Sandeshkhali, your fate will remain the same. And I am tired of putting my fate upon a dime.
No longer shocked
I am distressed over what happened to the Brazilian tourist, but I am no longer shocked. I am confident of the trajectory the narrative will follow: A slew of condemnations at the highest level, followed by swift arrests of the culprits (three of the seven accused have been arrested), a hurried trial, the introduction of a new “Atithi Devo Bhava” hotline, maybe special tourist police squads… For a while, Indian tourism might even take a hit.
All of this will be forgotten two months down the line. What will remain is the knowledge that even relative power, like your race, is no insurance against sexual violence. And I am tired of knowing that no amount of privilege will save me.
I am especially tired of the burden of forced nationalism that will be foisted on my sagging shoulders. Predictably, Rekha Sharma, chairperson of the National Commission for Women, the apex national body that is supposed to look after the rights of women like me, is turning complaints about the safety of women into accusations that purportedly ‘defame India’.
But no one is defaming India more than Indian men. The burden of India’s culture of sexual violence lies with Indian men alone. And it is Indian men who must now step up to the plate to remedy that. For far too long, Indian women have had to take up that gauntlet by changing their own behaviour.
In the same way that Indian women have identified with every victim or survivor of a sexual crime, Indian men must realise that every perpetrator of sexual violence is one of them, and treat it like a personal failure. It is Indian men who must take up the responsibility of turning things around.
Because Indian women… we’re just tired.
This article appeared as an Opinion piece on ThePrint, on 04 March, 2024. Click the link to visit the original article’s page on ThePrint.