Tara Joshi |Contributing Writer
Normally when I tell people that I’m originally from India, I’m proud about it. It’s a beautiful, diverse, exciting country and I love that it’s a part of who I am. Every nation has its flaws, of course, but I suppose not living or growing-up there has made it easier to look beyond the political corruption and just focus on the positives. India’s treatment of women however, notably in light of recent events, has not been so easy to accept. You have very likely heard by now that on December 29th, a female rape victim from India passed away. A twenty-three year old, she was travelling on a nearly empty public bus in Delhi at night after a trip to the cinema with a male friend, to whom she was engaged. On this bus six men – including the driver – attacked the pair, divesting them of their clothes, beating them unconscious with a metal rod and raping the woman. This went on for an hour before the gang threw the two victims off the bus and onto the street. Both were left bleeding and naked in a critical state, the woman so horrifically injured that the bulk of her intestines had to be surgically removed before she died a few days later from multiple organ failure.
The fatal sexual assault on December 16th has triggered nationwide protests.
This was not a one-off, either. In the past month alone a two year old in Gujarat has died after having been raped by her uncle, and a seventeen-year-old gang-rape victim in Delhi died by suicide after the police allegedly pressured her to withdraw her complaint. Women of all ages in India are being assaulted and it needs to stop.
So how does one go about preventing rape and sexual molestation? In the past year suggestions from high-ranking officials have genuinely included stopping the consumption of chow mein because, along with other fast foods, it causes a “hormonal imbalance” that leads to the desire to commit sexual assault. I hate to think what the rape statistics are like in China. Another suggestion was to force all girls to marry around the age of thirteen, because coercing females into the institute of matrimony at such a young age would obviously prevent them from ever being raped.
You could say I’m being harsh; that India is still a developing country and – in spite of the ongoing cases of female infanticide and the general long-standing views of the place of women in the household – the female population of the country is really coming into its own. There are more and more women entering the workplace and, notably, there are prominent and powerful female managers, bureaucrats, politicians and other role models. Really, though, there’s no way to make up for – or, indeed, to make excuses for – a country where attacks like the one described can still happen.
It would be wrong to tar the entirety of India with this negativity – many men of course treat women with respect and these incidences of molestation are not happening all over the country. That the government who represent the country can be so apathetic about such cases, though, is surely a sign that something is detrimentally wrong with the general attitude towards women.
India is far from the only country in the world where women are treated in the “traditional” sense of being possessions as opposed to individuals. Yet for a country of such a huge population; for a country that is supposedly a rising, modern power; the reality that men still feel sexual assault is more or less acceptable is an abhorrent state of affairs. This could perhaps be at least partly explained by the largely sexually repressed nature of the nation. Even leaving aside the issue of rape for a moment, women in general do not have a particularly easy time of it in India.
Perhaps that’s just me being oversensitive though. After all, if a man in India is publicly harassing me by catcalling, making suggestive remarks or brushing up against me that’s just “eve-teasing”, and it’s all in good humour and, frankly, I probably asked for it. If I’m out in the evening, or if I’m wearing a skirt that’s above my knees, or if I’m at a pub or a bar then I am absolutely asking to be molested. I’ll concede that there are cultural differences in social norms between the Western world and India, but that is not an excuse for sexual harassment. There was a case in 2012 where a female student in Guwahati left a bar, only to be set upon by a gang of around eighteen men who proceeded to publicly grope her and try to take off her clothes. Onlookers stood there and filmed it on their phones whilst the offending men smiled for the cameras and the woman in question begged for help. It was forty-five minutes before the police arrived. As the news channels, one of which had even been filming the incident without intervening, were quick to point out, though, it was really the woman’s own doing because she’d been drinking.
If there has been one good thing to come from all of this, it’s that India is finally taking a stand. I’d question the wisdom of instigating the death sentence for the perpetrators of rape as many are now calling for, but the punitive and justice system absolutely needs a re-haul if women are to feel safe in India. In Delhi alone this year there was only one conviction of rape in spite of 635 reported cases, and 745 arrests. In India as a whole, one rape is reported every twenty minutes. It is not that the laws against it don’t exist – it’s that no one seems to care enough to enforce them, and therefore the perpetrators don’t fear punishment. It has been a long time coming, but one can only hope that all the protests and marches will force the government to realise something has to change. That the UN has intervened and urged India to protect its women must be a signal to the country’s politicians that India’s international image has taken a beating.
India’s international image to me personally is less of a concern; I can only hope that this time next year I’ll be able to say with confidence that women in India are a lot safer, that attitudes of men have changed for the better and that I am truly proud of India’s actions. For now, it’s certainly not pride that I’m feeling, but despair.
