Rape festival and why we cannot afford it

 
“It is impossible to overestimate the consequences of American ignorance on
world affairs.”

Salman Rushdie (Imaginary Homelands)

 The article about the rape festival is unfortunate. Its literary merit is beyond
doubt. Others have already taken it up. My concern is a little different. My
concern relates not as much as to the article, as to the comments. People
actually believe in the truth of this report. That again is partly due to the style of
writing but then to be so willing to believe such heinous stuff makes one
wonder if the West still thinks it needs to recolonize us in their missionary
activities!

Terrible things happen in India. Young people are killed off if they dare to love
in the name of honour. Old men and women are burnt as witches if there’s any
outbreak of disease in a village. Girls doing their doctorate degrees are
conditioned to do ‘purdah’ when at home. A woman in a live-in relationship is
still considered disrespectable. Our wedding vows order us that the man is the
Lord as far as the wife is concerned. But we don’t have rape festivals. We have a
rape culture, but we are still not a people who celebrate rape. We are a people who
would ostracize a rape victim (!), then how can we be a people to celebrate
rape!?

All children in India are taught one thing at school – that India celebrates unity
in diversity. It is only much later in life that we come to realize how difficult it
is to retain this illusion of unity. We are so diverse that even talking to someone
from a different part of the country is treading thin ice – you stand a chance to
hurt the other without even being aware of it. We have the regional stereotypes
of the “lazy Assamese”, “loud Punjabi”, “cunning Bengali”, etc. and yet we
need to overcome these (I don’t mean these qualities; I mean the stereotypes)
everyday to celebrate our unity in diversity. And then there is the issue of the
north-eastern states and Kashmir.

Kashmir is not an issue but a range of issues, something I won’t take up here as
my focus is actually Assam. Assam is one among the eight north-eastern states.
The "rest of India" demands that all of us north-eastern people look alike – we
have mongoloid features, raised eyes, fair skin, and if we don’t, we should.
When we don’t conform to that one particular look, we are met with, “You don’t
 look like an Assamese.” It gets even better; the next line invariably would
be, “You look like a south Indian / Bihari / Bengali.” So you see, it’s not just the
northeast who has a uniform look but also “south Indian” and Bengalis and
Biharis!

The northeast part of the country has always maintained that it’s always
received stepmotherly treatment from the capital. I won’t comment on the
stepmotherly treatment but it has been ignored at best, if not persecuted
actively. Draconian laws like AFSPA continue to stay enforced during peace
times. We do have a lot of rightful grievances against the centre but most of us
still have faith that things will improve. Some of us are ashamed that Assam
ranks so high up in crime against women but I for one am happy that things of
this nature are being reported now. Patriarchy in Assam is far more subtle than
it is in the rest of India. We don’t keep our women under the veil, we allow our
women to marry for love, we don’t have honour killings, we don’t have cases of
sati, but we still have a clear cut distinction between a man’s work and a
woman’s work, we still have a saying that ends all argument – lau jimanei
nabarhok, xodai paat’r tol (no matter how big a gourd grows, it will always be
under the leaves). Recently my uncle who loves and pampers me no end, asked
me to laugh more “like a girl, without my gums showing!”

So we the youth in Assam are waging a war at the personal level daily, to raise
that glass ceiling a little higher. We in the northeast are fighting the rest of
India’s perception about us, fighting for attention to our existence as part of it.
And at a time like this, to have a report like this floating around, is infuriating,
humiliating, and alienating. American ignorance can result in a lot of
unforeseen consequences and anyone wielding the pen should be especially
careful about it.

I would like to end with a piece of advice to the publisher –
Dear Sir (in this instance, I would refrain from writing Ma’am), I would like to
inform you that my country that “celebrates rape” has many KPOs that provide
service to your country. Seeing the standard of your language, I can only
suggest that you ought to hire the services of one as soon as possible.


http://nationalreport.net/assam-rape-festival-india-begins-week/#comments

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/11/07/rape-festival-satire-not-clever-says-charity/

On bus seats and chivalry!

Rahul* is the perfect gentleman. I admire his sense of old school chivalry. He travels everyday for four hours by the metro to office. A soft-spoken man, by some quirk of fortune, he has ended up with a job that makes him control a team of unruly people. Yet he somehow does it without raising his voice or temper. If one were to ask Rahul as to what he desires most in life, the answer would definitely be world peace. He’s a content man and I have never come across him finding fault with anything. Yet this gentleman begrudges one thing. And what is that? — the reserved seats in the general compartments in the metro.

Meet Neha*. She’s a scholar; full of high ideals, passionate about the downtrodden. At present, she is all for the naxalite cause. She dreams that one day all of us would be equal. Although she is not a communist (not yet, i.e.), she believes that a day will come when there will be an equal playing field for everyone. And that day, in her opinion, could be heralded in only through reservation.

The decision to increase the number of reserved seats in buses has disappointed me. I feel this is a regressive step, a negative impact of gender sensitization. I believe that if an external body tries to coerce Rahul to give up his seat to me, he will give it to me definitely, but he will hate me for that. Now the question is why should I care if Rahul hates me? The reason I should care is because there are not many men like Rahul. And it is not about a mere seat (although the importance of a seat can never be overemphasised; ask about it to anyone who stays in South Delhi and has to go to Noida, sector 62 everyday). It’s about the way Rahul is going to feel about me in general. Why should Rahul help me if I trip and fall while getting out of the bus? Am I not the same 'woman' who so confidently ‘claimed’ my right to the seat?

Neha’s argument is that one day we will not need reservations anymore; which goes on to imply that she considers reservation a necessary evil. She believes that the day we attain that ‘common platform’, we can start off our march of equality from there. She refuses to understand that once the march starts, there will be people lagging behind again. At least that is what Darwin claimed long ago. She also believes that a day will come when women become as ‘empowered’ as men and that day, we women would relinquish our claims to reserved bus seats. But why would I want to give up my benefits, especially something that’s merely physical. Come on people! Aren’t we the ones who claim, ‘don’t look at my body structure; look at my brain.’ Then why do we claim something based on our bodies?

I for my part want rights — right to education and the right to basic amenities. I want a world where we are all human beings with the same facilities. I don’t care for equality in terms of the number of zeroes in our bank balance, because that again is subject to Darwin’s rules. I believe the two sexes are different but equal. Let Eve Ensler be. If we open our minds, this world has a space for everyone. We don’t have to be a misandrist to be a feminist.

As I write, I hear terrible news of further reservations – that the Delhi metro will have two reserved compartments instead of one in the near future. The day it comes to pass, I know I will be ashamed to face the Rahuls in the metro stations. My confident walk would falter. And that’s what the government will have accomplished with ‘its’ gender sensitization.

* Names changed.

Some juvenile thoughts

I used to be a happy woman, without actually being a stupid person. I was a small town child, a city life teenager, and a metro woman. I have gained my freedom step-by-step with age, with education and also with the places I was lucky to be at during these different phases. My curfew hours used to be 5 at the town of Lakhimpur, 7 in Gauhati, and 10 in Delhi. As a working woman, I gave myself some more freedom, occasionally stretching my curfew till 11.30 or so. Every time I would come back home late at night, I would be amazed at this person I have become, this independent person who can move about all alone, who has money to spend, friends to love, a supportive family, and the confidence to be her own person. I was brought up to be self-dependent, but along the way, literature and earning my own keep, made me so fiercely individualistic that I would not tolerate any discrimination or suggestion of one, be it some friend (male/female) carrying my luggage or dropping me home because it was late. Well, I still am charmed when someone opens the door for me, but my appreciation of chivalry is limited to that. Thank you very much!


And then THE rape happened. You see, I have already maintained that I am not a stupid woman. I know rapes happen; I know rapes happen in Delhi, I know I have as good a chance of getting raped as any other woman in Delhi. But the reason this jolted me was because of the senseless violence. Rape is painful. I can’t write more about it. I was a victim of child abuse and it took me almost 20 years to get over it. I still am not sure if my mistrust of the opposite sex is because of the concept of cheating boy-friends or because I still have in my mind the person who violated my childhood. But the Munirka rape has stopped me on my track again. I don’t know how many years it would take me to get over this; this ripping pain in my lower abdomen, this choking feeling in my throat, this heaviness in my chest, that I feel every time I am reminded of it.

And now the government will be taking measures to protect me; this body of people who cannot see how people are dying every day under AFSPA. The very same body who is so scared of western influence, that they would much rather be happy fighting over gods than occupy themselves with unimportant stuff like rape or carnage. Am I wrong to be frightened? If they have their way, I know, my life as I know it is over. I know that three years from now there will be a man-eater roaming around in the streets of Delhi. But I won’t be able to protect myself from him because I won’t even know what he looks like. I won’t know if he’s the guy who’s delivering my gas cylinder or if he’s the one taking me home alone at midnight in his auto. I won’t know because he is a mere child who commits unnameable acts of cruelty as means of having fun!

Why can’t we have some conclusive tests to find out his age? If we don’t have the necessary technology, why can’t we borrow it from others? The missiles of our DRDO displayed on the republic day parade won’t save us from this monster. Why can’t they invest a little of their time, effort and sense to realise this? As to school certificates, I can verily say that they mean zilch. My cousins from villages who are older than me by 3-4 years are a year or so younger than me in their certificates. Not because they think it’s fashionable to be young but because, well, because that was the year their teacher decided to put in everyone’s certificates uniformly.


I am not asking to lower the juvenile age because I know that to commit a crime, age is not a factor. I know of this kid in my home town who is nine and has already raped two kids and who has not even been sent to juvenile custody. I am just saying that these kids need to be better monitored; for their own good as well as the security of the society. And as to this monster, I pray each day that he be proved to be more than 18. But if he’s not, I pray that my government grows some brain within the next three years.