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The recurring story of gender violence

By Ranjita Biswas. Dated: 1/27/2015 10:39:34 PM

Ever since 2012, when there was a public uprising against violence against women following the brutal rape of a young woman in Delhi, the issue of gender crimes has taken centre stage in the national discourse on women's rights and safety. There is heightened awareness among people, we have a new law that promises harsher punishment to perpetrators and there is a slew of helplines and other protection services to deal with complaints. Yet, one look at the crime data clearly reveals that not much has changed on the ground. According to recent media reports, in the last three years the number of cases related to sexual harassment, kidnapping, abduction and rape has gone up from 2.28 lakh to 3.09 lakh. Moreover, around 31,000 rape cases are pending in various high courts.
Issues around gender violence were discussed during a national symposium, 'Political and Sexual Violence in Contemporary India: Socio-legal Perspectives' in Kolkata, West Bengal, recently. City-based non government organisation, Ebong Alap and Aman Trust from Delhi, that work on gender issues, joined hands with the National University of Juridical Science (NUJS) to organise the event where activists, academics and practitioners got together to share their experiences and observations on how structures of patriarchy intersect with that of economy, region and religion to increase women's vulnerability to violence.
In the recent past, the differential effects of urbanisation and development policies leading to 'hate' crimes against different groups as well as sexual assaults on women all over the country have become increasingly visible. "We have witnessed competitive electoral politics leading to communal violence in Muzaffarnagar, caste politics largely to retain control over land by upper-caste groups in Haryana, the extra-judicial killings and disappearances in the 'conflict zones' of the country, and the devastating role of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Kashmir and the North-East. We are also seeing the macabre commandeering of the lumpen-proletariat in West Bengal politics and the attempts by the State to smother protests and 'takeover' people's movements. Women's bodies have become the most common sites of revenge against the 'other' in all of these instances," stated the conveners of the seminar. They further observed that, today, there is a tendency to de-politicise violence against women as if the incidents are largely a result of "a clash of tradition and modernity" or a by-product of conflict between disillusioned people and insurgent forces. In fact, most panelists, including independent scholar and activist Sarmistha Dutta Gupta, NUJS faculty Ruchira Goswami, and human rights lawyer Vrinda Grover, also felt that these days, in general, there is an attempt to write off sexual violence as symptomatic of a society in transition.
In her key note address, Prof. Kalpana Kannabiran, regional director of the Hyderabad-based Centre for Social Development (CSD), remarked that there has been an alarming rise in incidents of sexual violence among the marginalised sections of society. "We seem to be moving in cycles, from the Mathura rape case [that happened in 1972 in Maharashtra] to the incident in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh (UP), in May 2014 [two girl cousins were alleged raped and found hanging from a tree in their village]." In both cases, the victims were from poor, marginalised families - the former was a tribal girl while the latter were Dalit.
Looking at sexual violence in the historical concept, Kannabiran said that abduction as an extension of gender violence during times of conflict, like in the case of the Partition in 1947, is not even spoken about. "If at all, the reference can be gleaned from literature," she added. Well-known writer Saadat Hasan Manto's story 'Khol Do', for instance, is a devastating comment on the issue. In the story, when Sirajuddin of Amritsar finds his daughter, Sakina, alive in a hospital in Lahore in the aftermath of the partition riots he is ecstatic; but when the doctor attending to her asks him to open the window ("khol do"), Sakina's reaction to the words is disturbing. The young woman automatically unfastens the drawstring of her salwar and pulls it down. Meanwhile, the doctor sweats because he could be another perpetrator like her so-called rescuers and others. Manto never names who 'they' are, whether from this side of the border or the other, but Sakina's situation is nevertheless telling. And, of course, is not merely a fictional character; there would have been thousands of Sakinas at the time.
From one post riots scenario to another, Fehmida Malik, a clinical psychologist, who runs Sambodh, a non-government organisation from Dholka, a small town near Ahmedabad, Gujarat, spoke on the connection between communal politics and sexual violence. After the devastating riots that hit the region in 2002, she started working among traumatised child victims in the refugee camp at Vatva. Later, this effort developed into an empowerment project with 47 women volunteers. As someone who has been working diligently at the grassroots, she rued the fact that even now, over a decade later, rehabilitation is still a problem. Many women have had to take to prostitution to sustain families although this reality is seldom mentioned. "People talk about borders. But every village in our area has a border; everything is politicised. Yet, we are not supposed to talk about it," she said.
Activist Sarmistha Dutta Gupta, who is associated with Ebong Alap, echoed Malik. She said, "In West Bengal, rape is being used by political parties as if it's a football match of male camaraderie." According to the 2012 report of the National Crime Records Bureau, Bengal accounts for 12.67 per cent of the total crimes committed against women in the country while Kolkata is ranked the third among the unsafe metropolis for women, behind Delhi and Bengaluru.
One of the key reasons behind this unabated spree of gender crimes is poor reporting of incidents, which is the direct consequence of an undependable judicial system. Many cases across the country go unreported. Besides the fear of a social backlash, the victim also finds it tough to approach the local police station to register her complaint. "Despite all the strictures and the new amendments in the law that seek to empower women, this [the stigma associated with sexual crimes] is a hard reality that those especially in the rural heartland have to contend with," said Renu Mishra of Association of Advocacy and Legal Initiatives (AALI), Lucknow. As the founder of an NGO that directly intervenes in cases of rights violations she is more than aware of the truth prevailing on the ground. "We are often stonewalled by the police if we try to intervene even though there's legitimate reason to protest," she added, reeling off figures to illustrate her point. According to her, UP has the highest rate of child rape in the country and, in 2013, 85 honour killings happened in the state. "So when senior political party leaders pass off sexual abuse as 'mistakes' that boys sometimes make, it not only endorses a negative mindset but also encourages further atrocities with impunity," she stated.
Though significant interventions are being made by human rights and women's rights groups to challenge the impunity of the perpetrators and seeking justice for victims of violence, clearly, there is a lot of ground to be covered before any effective change can take place.
—(Women's Feature Service)