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/