Why Rapes Continue to Occur in India Despite Vociferous Protests?
Nationwide protests against the brutal killing of a 31-year-old medical student on August 9 in Kolkata echoed our collective anguish over a yet another rape-and-murder case in the country. Even then, justice continues to elude the victim’s family as the politics, intrigue, and conspiracy surrounding this crime deepen every passing day.
Not surprisingly, various political organisations in West Bengal and Delhi have become embroiled in a war of words, blaming each other over the ghastly incident. Meanwhile, the protests, which initially began on R. G. Kar Medical College in Kolkata, have swiftly spread across India in the form of silent marches and candle light processions.
All of this is eerily reminiscent of the 2012 Nirbhaya case, when the entire nation stood united to cry out against a yet another innocent young woman’s shocking rape and murder in Delhi. In the Kolkata case also, millions of Indians have taken to the streets and voiced their anguish and frustration over the ghastly incident.
While spontaneous and passionate demonstrations in support of women’s safety and women’s rights are an encouraging sign in themselves, they also raise a worrying question: Why do rapes continue to occur in India despite the ever-increasing public protests against this crime?
After every vehement protest against a rape-and-murder-case in India, a few more such cases hit the headlines. For instances, within a few days of the Kolkata case, a teenager was gangraped on a bus in Dehradun within a few days of the Kolkata case, a teenager was gangraped on a bus in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, on August 12. A 10-year old girl was raped and murdered on August 21 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. On September 12, two Army officers were robbed and their woman friend was gangraped in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
As evident in these instances, the disturbing trend of more rapes and murders, following protests and public outcry against atrocities on women, strongly persists. Nowadays, every headline-making rape feels like a déjà vu! To put it in perspective, according to a recent news channel report, there were 31,516 rape cases registered in India last year; which amounts to 86 cases per day, and four rapes every hour!
Staring in the face of such worrisome numbers, one wonders, why do vociferous protests prove powerless against the rampant rape culture in India? Why do demonstrations and social media campaigns against rape culture achieve little to stymie it? Stating it succinctly, why do protests fail to curb rapes? While there are no easy answers, three factors might explain this stark reality: perception, politics, and patriarchy.
Protests against rape are erroneously perceived by many as an urban phenomenon with an elitist tone attached to it. It is a nefarious perception in itself; nevertheless, it does diminish the power of protests to some extent. Nowadays, thousands of social activists, political affiliates, students, members of voluntary organisations, philanthropists, and conscientious citizens pour out on the roads whenever a rape becomes a headline. Such voluntary outrage against atrocities on women seems representative of contemporary India.
However, it appears that the perpetrators themselves hardly feel deterred by public protests. More protests and more social media coverage do not translate into fewer rape cases. Perhaps, the rapists consider protests against rape a passing phenomenon that rises quickly, garners a lot of attention, and dissipates soon after. Perhaps there is too much visibility, hype, and commotion attached to our
‘protests’ for the felons to see them as foreboding. Perhaps, protests nowadays seem overly urban and sensational to communicate a strong sense of moral condemnation. Perhaps, our protests have become more spectacular and media-friendly to represent and communicate our collective outrage and pain effectively.
So also, the politics attached to rape often deflects the focus away from the crime itself, giving perpetrators a sense of security. While millions of Indians join protests to express their solidarity with the victims and to demand accountability from the government, numerous others participate just to get political mileage out of it. Unfortunately, most rape cases in India become politicised clashes in which vested interests seek to malign their opponents. When politics undermines justice, humanitarian, social, and ethical concerns for the wellbeing of the victims quickly become subsidiary to hidden agendas and power dynamics.
Politicisation of social issues, such as rape and atrocities on women, also neutralises the transformative power of protests and public anger. In such a scenario, the victim’s rights are often overlooked in a bid to politicise the incident. When politics deliberately converts a dehumanising crime into a blame game, the culprits inadvertently benefit from it as legal maneuvers hamper speedy justice. Politicising atrocious crimes only leads to superfluous posturing and sloganeering for calculated gains. As seen time after time in the past decade, when political motives highjack public protests, the rapists roam free, hiding in plain sight, while the victims run for cover in fear and shame.
Similarly, a deeply ingrained patriarchal mindset drives misogynists to employ rape as a form of punishment against women. Traditional patriarchal structures in India still breed an egregious amount of discrimination against women, which encourage men to treat them as inferior, weak, and vulnerable in general.
Worse still, patriarchy also covertly feeds and approves the objectification of women through material and sexual exploitation.
Since a patriarchal mindset considers women’s subjugation a normal social practice, it also treats sexual violence as an effective means of overpowering women. Indian women will continue to become victims of sexual violence, such as rape and murder, so long as the biased patriarchal social systems prevail in India; so long as women remain deprived of the dignity and respect they deserve; so long as they continue to face discrimination and dehumanisation from a male-dominated society. Unfortunately, protests against rapes fail to desist bigoted men from committing sexual crimes against women because the latter remain ensconced within the walls of their misogynist biases.
A brooding sense of doubt over the power of protests to curtail atrocities against women lingers on because of the frequency with which violent crimes continue to occur in India, despite forceful protests after each such incident. While the accused were quickly arrested, convicted, and hanged in the 2012 Nirbhaya case, neither the widespread protests that erupted in its aftermath, nor the fate of the convicts, daunted other rapists across the country.
In the past decade, such heinous crimes have only continued to shock the nation at regular intervals. In particular, the Badaun case in 2014, the Kathua case in 2018, and the Lakhimpur Kheri case in 2022. Young women were subjected to rape and violence in these instances even after much hue and cry over the Nirbhaya case. If the protests, advocacy, and anger that accompanied these crimes had generated even a semblance of deterrence, perhaps, the recent Kolkata rape and murder case would not have occurred at all.
While a faulty perception of public protests persists, while the politics besieging sensationalised rape cases thrives; and while an impervious patriarchal system survives, public outrage alone will never eradicate rape, rape culture, or rapists from India. On the contrary, the rapists seem will continue to develop an immunity to the sociopolitical, legal, and moral pressure exerted by public protests all over the country.
Since protests are reactive by nature, something more proactive is required. Perhaps, a paradigm shift in the way women are perceived, judged, and treated in society might make a difference. It might even become a potent antidote to the menace of rapes in India.
The writer is Assistant Professor of English and Vice-Principal of Arts St. Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The views are personal.
Bengal: Girls Take Charge of Own Safety in Jangal Mahal
Karate instructors demonstrating self-defence at Shahid Khudiram Basu Madhyamik Sikshakendra premises on September 29, at Kelapathar village of Ranibandh Block, Bankura.
Schoolgirls, college students, and housewives in the Jangalmahal area have begun training in karate, judo, and boxing for self-defence, choosing to take their survival into their own hands.
"Girls must protect themselves, as the administration has repeatedly failed to safeguard the common people. When citizens are affected, the administration often evades responsibility through various tactics, eventually siding with the perpetrators. Recent incidents, including the brutal murder of a medical student from R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, as well as several events across Bengal, particularly in the Jangal Mahal region, have opened our eyes to the shortcomings of the administration”, said Pratip Mukherjee, former professor of Bankura Sammilani College.
On September 29, Mukherjee had come to Kelapathar village to attend a self-defence training camp of Jangalmahal’s girls students and housewives as a guest.
This is the first such initiative in West Bengal supported by an organisation called the 'Jangalmahal Aatmaraksha Samannoy', which includes residents from Bankura, Purulia, and Jhargram districts.
The self-defence training camp was inaugurated on September 29 at the Shaheed Khudiram Bose Madhyamik Siksha Kendra in Kelapathar village, 230 kilometers west of Kolkata, under the Ranibandh Block of Bankura district in Jangalmahal.
The event saw the participation of thousands of people, with over 600 female students and several housewives enrolling for training in self-defence training. More girls from neighbouring villages are joining the programme now, encouraged by their teachers and parents.
Why Are Girl Students so Keen on Self-Defence?
The areas of Ranibandh, Raipur, and Sarenga in Bankura, along with Belpahari and Banspahari in Jhargram, and Bankura and Manbazar in Purulia, are surrounded by dense forests and hills. Due to the geography, the distance between the villages is significant, and students often have to walk or cycle long distances to attend school, college, private tuition, or markets.
Girls students of Jangalmahal Ranobandh enrolling for the self-defense camp.
In addition, many female labourers in the region venture into the forest almost daily to collect leaves, branches, and Kendu leaves (used for making bidis) for their livelihood.
These women not only face threats from wild animals but also constant fear of physical assault from known and unknown miscreants, as they navigate through isolated forest paths and desolate hills to reach their destinations.
The people of Jangalmahal have endured a long history of violent attacks. In the 1980s and 1990s, many villagers were victims of violence perpetrated by miscreants from neighbouring Jharkhand. In the following decades, 568 people were killed by Maoists in the districts of Bankura, Jhargram, Purulia, and Paschim Medinipur. Additionally, 256 people are still missing, their fate unknown. Families, such as that of Chunibala Sardar of Sarenga, continue to live in hope.
Aarati Majhi, whose husband Rampada Majhi was allegedly murdered by Maoist militants, recalls the horror. “On February 22, 2002, in the middle of the night, Maoists attacked our dilapidated mud house in Bethoyala village of Ranibandh. They dragged my husband and me into the forest, where they murdered him in front of me and left me half-dead,” she said.
Many women in these areas recalled having have witnessed their relatives being taken away or killed during these tragic times.
Archana Saren, a post-graduate student who registered for the self-defence training camp, said, "We haven't forgotten those tragic, bloody days. Even as children, we could hear the sound of gunfire at night from neighbouring villages and the cries of those who lost their loved ones."
Anita Mahato, a second-year under-graduate student, also expressed concerns about the present situation: "The post-graduate medical student, Tilottama, whom we considered like an elder sister, was brutally murdered on the premises of R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital. What did we see after that? The state administration seems more concerned with protecting those responsible than delivering justice. People across Bengal, and even in other parts of the country and abroad, are protesting daily for justice. If the administration had acted properly, would people still be sleepless at night, fighting for justice?"
Several girls in the Jangalmahal region organised protest rallies from village to village, demanding justice for the R.G. Kar victim.
“We held torch processions in the forest villages. Every time, the police tried to stop us, which made it clear who they were trying to protect. That’s when we decided to take our security into our own hands because the administration won’t provide it,” said Namita Sardar, a 12th-grade student from Ranibandh.
The girls who attended the workshop also said they were asking their friends and relatives in other Jangalmahal districts to start their own self-defence training camps.
Madhu Sudan Mahato, convener of the Jangalmahal Aatmaraksha Samannoy and a social worker from Ranibandh, explained the reason behind starting the training camps.
“Seeing the increasing interest in self-defence among girl students from different villages, we decided to establish these camps. Women and girls in Jangalmahal risk their lives daily. Whether they’re sick or need basic services, they often have to cross dangerous forests and hills. The situation has become so dire that fear dominates their lives,” he said.
Mahato mentioned two recent incidents in which female students from Bandwan in Purulia and Raipur’s Fulkusma were tortured and killed.
"The administration did not take proper action against the culprits, which has only heightened a sense of fear in the area. People are turning to self-defence as a means of protecting themselves," he added.
Moni Mahato, a CPI(M) elected member of the Rajakata Gram Panchayat under Ranibandh Block, emphasised the importance of community support for this initiative.
“The people of Jangalmahal must come together to support this self-defence movement. On the inauguration day, we hired vehicles at our own expense to bring people to Kelapathar village. All the school headmasters and mistresses are supporting this initiative,” he said.
Paresh Majhi, headmaster of Kelapathar School, who was present at the inauguration of the camp, noted that boys and housewives also registered for karate, judo and boxing training.
The camp was inaugurated by Md. Naosad Alam, the All-India Joint Secretary of Kickboxing. State karate trainers AnnapAuli from Khatra, Bankura, and Sankar Thapa from Jhargram conducted demonstrations at the event. Chirosree Mahato, who won first place in the state boxing competition this year, also attended with her instructor, Dibakar Shil.
Madhu Sudan Mahato, convenor of Jangalmahal Aatmaroksha Samonway.
The training camp will be held free of cost every Sunday at Kelapathar School. Trainers have confirmed that all necessary self-defence techniques, including karate, judo, and boxing, will be taught. Within a few months, these girls will gain the strength and confidence to protect themselves, they added.
When asked if the time spent practicing was interfering with their studies, the girls responded: "Life is more precious than anything else. We don’t want our parents and relatives crying over our dead bodies. We will protect ourselves, and we believe we can."
When asked to comment on the camp, Khatra SDPO (Sub divisional police officer) Abhishek Yadav told this reporter, “We encourage steps like these to promote safety and empowerment.”
The writer covers the Jangal Mahal region for ‘Ganashakti’ newspaper in West Bengal. The views are personal.
(All pictures by Madhu Sudan Chatterjee)
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