December 9 2017
Men blame women in western clothes: India's rape culture is thriving
Delhi: India promised a lot following the 2012 gang rape of a physiotherapy student so brutal that she died of her injuries.
It would give legal aid to victims, make it easier for rape survivors to register the crime, develop a more sensitive police force and "fast-track courts" to expedite cases, it would add more street lights and CCTV cameras to make women feel safer.
Let's put all that to one side because hardly any of it has happened.
What about the hope that Indian women would be less at risk of sexual violence and harassment because of the jolt to the national conscience from a case that shook the country to its core?
Let's park that on one side too, because women are just as vulnerable as before. Their daily lives are still ruled by fear.
And if they are unfortunate enough to be raped, a report last month by Human Rights Watch showed that they will still be subjected to humiliation and doubt and questioned about their promiscuity and moral character by police and health workers.
Judging by the latest rape statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau on November 30, it appears not. Rape cases rose by 12.4 per cent in 2016 after a dip between 2014 and 2015.
The increase is probably the result of more women being prepared to report the crime, but it certainly shows that if women hoped the 2012 gang rape would usher in a more progressive male mentality, they were wrong.
'Women should watch what they do'
Regressive attitudes towards women are rooted in India's deeply traditional and conservative culture, in which women embody a family and community's izzat, or honour.
The clothes they wear, where they go, at what time, with whom, must be controlled lest they bring dishonour and disgrace through unacceptable behaviour, such as being seen with a man who is not a relative, smoking, drinking, dancing, wearing revealing clothes or being out after dark.
Men who believe women should not be free to live as they wish are not monsters. Many are hard-working, decent men trying to do the best for their families in very trying circumstances.
But the basic fact is that - barring a Westernised elite that is so minuscule it barely counts - they cannot countenance giving women the personal and social freedoms that are taken for granted in the West.
Take Virendra Kumar, 37, who sells flowers on the roadside in south Delhi. Married with young children, he says emphatically that the men who raped and killed Jyoti Singh Pandey with unbelievable ferocity after she boarded a bus with a male friend to go home after seeing the film Life of Pi on December 16, 2012, "should hang" for their savagery.
Though the Indian government flew Pandey to Singapore for an intestinal transplant – her assailants used an iron rod that ripped out her intestines – she died on December 29.
Kumar expresses sympathy with Pandey and her family but insists that women need to watch what they do.
'A man will only have bad thoughts ...'
"I sit out here all day and see couples on the street holding hands, hugging. These are things that should happen behind closed doors. If the girl who was gang-raped had been making out with her friend on the bus, then that would have provoked the men who raped her," he said.
He states firmly that Indian society does not allow a woman to smoke or drink or wear what she likes.
"She must be covered and look respectable. That way, no man will try anything," he says. "A man will only have bad thoughts about a woman if she is showing a lot of flesh. Not otherwise."
Vijay Verma, 53, has several customers impatiently crowding around the counter of his grocery store in New Friends Colony in Delhi but takes a few minutes to give his views, which are not very different from Kumar's.
Verma is aware that times have changed. Girls and boys mix more freely, girls go to college and cafes, and interact with men in the workplace. He finds all that acceptable.
Then comes the invariable "but".
"But girls here can't be like girls in the West. They have to dress decently and watch where they go, who they are with. If they don't observe these restrictions, they are perceived negatively by men and will be at risk," he said.
Rapes don't happen in villages
These are ordinary men and their views are near-ubiquitous in India, in rural and urban areas, across class, and across religions. Proof that they are entrenched deep in Indian psychology comes from the fact that the same opinions have been voiced by numerous politicians since 2012.
"Earlier, if men and women held hands, they would get caught by parents and reprimanded, but now everything is so open ... Rapes happen because men and women interact freely," said Mamata Banerjee, a woman who has been chief minister of West Bengal state since 2011.
"Rapes take place in cities and not in villages. Women should refrain from venturing out with men other than their relatives. Such incidents happen due to the influence of Western culture and women wearing less clothes," said Mohan Bhagwat, leader of the influential Hindu social organisation the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in 2013.
"Women should not venture out with men who are not relatives," said politician Abu Asim Azmi in 2014, in answer to a question about rising numbers of rapes.
Forum
Pages: 
