7 years after 16 December gang rape: Did anything change?

Dec. 2012: A 23-year-old student is beaten and gang-raped on a moving bus in the capital New Delhi and later dies of her injuries. Five men and a juvenile are arrested - four of the men have been sentenced to death and one hanged himself during the trial. The juvenile was freed after completing three years in a reform home.

Jan. 2018: An 8-year-old Muslim girl is drugged, held captive in a temple and sexually assaulted for a week before being strangled and battered to death with a stone in Kathua town in northern India. Six men, including a Hindu priest and three police officers, were convicted of the crime. Three were given life sentences.

Representation image, Google

Jul. 2018: Eighteen men are charged in Chennai with repeatedly raping a 12-year-old girl over a seven-month period, sedating her with drugs and then taking her to vacant apartments in the block to assault her.

Nov. 28, 2019: The charred remains of the veterinarian are found under a flyover near Hyderabad. Four men are arrested on suspicion of gang-rape and murder. All 4 of them were killed by Police in encounter

Dec 5, 2019: A 23-year-old rape victim is set ablaze by a gang of men, including the alleged rapist, as she made her way to court to attend a hearing in the case, in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, police said.

Dec 6, 2019: Dead body of an 8 year old is found in a park in Barola village, Noida. After 2 days of discovery of body, police came to the park to do their preliminary process.

Most of the people who watch television, scroll through different social media handle or still read newspaper would be well aware of the rape cases mentioned above except for the last one! Why? Good question with a very easy answer because that was not covered by media houses even though most of the popular media houses reside in Noida. Does that make this incident less cruel than others – No it doesn’t but it brings out the reality of current scenario in our country that it is indeed becoming a RAPE REPUBLIC.

Today is 16 December, a day when a girl like me went for a movie with her friend but didn’t return back to her home. She was raped, brutally assaulted and thrown at some sideways after 5 monsters thought she is as good as dead. She was lying there for many hours, so many vehicles ran past her no one stopped for even a second to see or help! It’s been 7 years to that incident, her parents still are waiting for justice and closure while the criminals are staying in Tihar jail filing taking turns in filing mercy pleas in court; not to forget one of them got away because wow he wasn’t an adult!

I remember standing in the newsroom when this news broke; my first instinct was that this is worst form of violence against women – it is the first thing that should go on air! But I was stopped – why because we were a regional news channel and this is something that happened in New Delhi so why bother? The second time I heard my senior say that the girl shouldn’t be out at night along with her boyfriend and god knows what she was wearing to attract strange group of men. I couldn’t help but broke down at the indifferent and casual take on brutality against a girl who stepped out of her home!

Why am I talking about what happened 7 years back? Because as much as anyone in this world wish to believe that we are progressing, the girls are standing along with boys, the girls are doing what boys could do or throw this development tantrums – I don’t see any change. There is no denying fact that the outrage over the Nirbhaya rape case prompted legal and administrative policy changes, this had little-to-no impact on arrests and convictions for rape, molestation and sexual harassment in Delhi.  According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data available for 2017, more than 32,500 cases of rape were registered with the police in 2017, about 90 a day. The total number of rape cases that went to trial in that year was 1, 46,201 but only 5,822 of them resulted in conviction – 32.2 % despite the stringent laws in the aftermath of the incident. This excludes all those cases that goes unreported and undetected.

I feel helpless, angry and agitated. It pains me to see same circle of events happening after Hyderabad case as Nirbhaya – public outrage and demand for hanging rapists, politicians taking advantage, Facebook activism, media debating and re-debating on how safe women are? And toxic masculine mob culture of killing the rapists as the instant punishment and oh yes film industry cashing in by making films like Mardaani 2 or actors like Akshay Kumar voicing their opinion on twitter demanding strict laws while using sexist and rape jokes in their movies!

I feel outraged because dear fellow country people who proudly calls Nation as Bharat Mata why do you need to make your presence visible only when a rape case becomes viral; do you engage in pseudo activism so that you can let go off your guilt of being a bystander when a girl was being harassed or because you are the part of toxic patriarchal system; why don’t you raise your voice when you see gender stereotypes being forced in families, workspace or in public domain! Isn’t it you who commented on what dress that girl was wearing, weren’t you the one who said that why she is going late in evening, or what is doing with that boy in the college or in work? It’s so easy to put blame on society, law or police that we forget to look inside us! Rape culture is not something that has come out of blue, it has its root inside us; we are the society!

Interestingly while our leaders are busy burning down our country in the name of citizenship bill – No comment or statement has come out of their mouth on violence against women. Probably this doesn’t help their vote bank; one of the women leaders have been listed in the Forbes list of most powerful women in the world but we have girls and women being subjected to molestation, harassment and rape like it is part of our goddamn life.    

I constantly wonder what has changed post Nirbhaya case!  India was named as the most dangerous country for women in terms of sexual violence last year and each day brutality is reaching another level despite so called laws – why are we as people, society and Nation becoming regressive with each passing moment. When are we going to open our eyes and understand that Rape is epidemic with roots lying into patriarchal system that we are happily part of.

The hue and cry at the time when a rape case becomes viral won’t eradicate gender based violence; we need measures at all level: as people, as lawmakers, as politicians, as media person and as society! Stop being a bystander, raise your voice right at the beginning because if anyone can stop this circle of violence it is us.   

Mardaani 2: Disappointing, frivolous and misogynist approach towards rape culture

The film engages on gender issues and rape culture in a very populist, mechanical and Bollywood way; where concern of the film lies more on dwelling in the psyche of the criminal and tactics than actually addressing the issue of gender discrimination and violence; reducing it to typical cat and mouse kind of crime thriller!

Mardaani sequel brings back SP Shivani Shivaji Rao back in action; this time tracking down a serial killer and rapist in the student hub of Kota. Rani Mukherjee continues to play cop in a solid, badass, straight forward way where the director tries to bring her emotional side but it vanishes as quickly as it comes on screen! And for a cop as smart as her (made very obvious in the beginning of the film), it is hard to digest that she can’t see the villain who is hiding in the plain side.

Taken from google

According to me, the most irking and unacceptable part of the film was using rapist as the lens to the movie – he talks to the audience whenever he is about to commit heinous crime; is he making audience his friend, confidante or implicating that society at large behaves this way? – These mixed messages actually succeeds in blowing the entire façade of gender conversation this film tries to build. According to government data, more than 32,500 cases of rape were registered with the police in the year 2017 that means 90 cases a day forget about the unreported cases of rape! It has been 7 years of Nirbhaya Rape case, about 10 days when a doctor was raped and burnt in Hyderabad and more recently 8 year old raped, killed and her body was left in pieces in a park in Noida. While our country is going through this unimaginable social crisis (it was always there but now it’s all out in the open), cinema could have been a powerful tool to bring out the stories, and initiate a process of dismantling toxic masculinity and mindsets. But here we are – cashing on the most painful realities of rape culture to bask in the glory of cinematic mockery.

I refuse to hear this MONSTER gloat about his hideous context of being offended by independent, out spoken and smart women and subsequent vendetta against them.  Another disappointment was Rape being portrayed as psychological aberration, an inheritance to perversion rather that power play of patriarchy – for how long cinema will try to justify or reason with criminals behind the curtains of mental instability. The story does more harm than good- it fails to address gender based violence as a result of patriarchal mindset that is deep rooted in the society and each of us; secondly stereotyping people with mental health issues. I am sorry but this just says that if someone has some psycho social disability- the first thing that comes to their mind is raping a women and honestly this age old excuse is definitely too old  and distasteful.

Mardaani 2 is a futile attempt to address gender norms in the society; instead of debunking stereotypes the story ends up emphasizing them for example the rapist intends to rape certain kind of girls – girls who are ‘out spoken’ ‘smart’ or  ‘taking over men’! What do you think would happen if girls – young and adolescents sees this? 

There are few scenes that could have hit the nerve of the audience for example- Shivani Rao conversation with his senior talking about how equality is still a distant dream and society being too aversive when it comes to participation and sharing in the male and female dynamics; another one where the forensics ask her to bring justice for the girl and number of people being interviewed. Unfortunately, these conversations look too mechanical, devoid of emotions and feelings and just too preachy.

While the first movie of this franchise seemed realistic; where we saw the protagonist being actual badass, she keeps fighting while her family was put into danger. She works her way to dismantle the nexus of sex trafficking! But the sequel disappoints because we miss badass Shivani Shivaji Rao, she is more of hollow words than actual action! She appears and disappears too soon for one’s liking leaving audience in plain distaste as we keep seeing criminal smiling and plotting his way to rape.  

The film also justifies subverting the law, which seems to be a famous notion at this point in time. Shivani is shown beating up men in an almost vindictive trance. The anger can be felt in every frame but the picture it shows is alarming, not only because it’s quite graphic but because it’s sending out a dangerous message — kill the rapists, because that’s the only way they’ll stop.

This is an example of what will not solve the issue of violence against women. This film fails to tap into or channelize the feeling of fear, anger or loathing towards rape culture and leaves with an unsettling emotion as to where we stand? It is evident that from rape capital ‘Delhi’ now we have become ‘RAPE DEMOCRACY’ but our films still chooses a naïve and frivolous approach to talk about this issue making me wonder to what length this regression will go if not that we are at the bottom of it.

Challenging violence on each step and still standing tall with hope sand dreams!

“My daughter was killed by her husband, he strangled her. She didn’t want to go, I could have stopped her. She had dreams! We are fighting a court case against her husband. I have to run here and there. I try to stay positive but she won’t come back!”

As part of #16daysofactivism, we collaborated with My Perch to co-create a sharing space for women from Barola community, inviting them to share their experiences of gender based violence, pain and struggles of womanhood and how do they gather strength to face these challenges on daily basis. We have worked with women from different age groups, different geographical locations and class for example women from rural area in Baghpat, women from middle class in Dwarka. However this set of women were lot different and so it was important for us to understand their context in order to create a space where they feel safe enough to share!

Most of the women who live in Barola have come from different villages and towns of India. Many of them live with very violent husband who drinks alcohol, beat their wives and children and don’t give a penny in the family. Some of them have husband who has another family with other women, they still chose to live with them despite the fact he just boss around and contribute nothing. Some of them are single as either their husband have died or left. Women living in the slum community are very vulnerable to all the forms of violence, the importance of having a male figure in their family has a totally different objective – one being protecting them from other men in the community to jump on them or their children.

So whether their husband is violent or living with other women, they stick with them so that other men don’t look at them as prey! It’s a very twisted and challenging situation. These experiences have made some of them so hard that now they don’t give a damn about men. They beat the men who try to fight them and also indulge in drinking. Unfortunately even then men don’t stop, they take advantage of them by pointing fingers, and their own children despise them leaving them distressed. This set of women showed a clear intersection of gender and class where the latter dominated their identity making their lives more difficult.

Keeping in mind the context and vulnerability we designed a sharing space where they could share their experiences of being a woman living in poverty, experiences of violence and what keeps them going despite all these challenges!

The session began with a brief introduction, what will happen in next 2 hours and ground rules to make this space ambient for sharing. In the first activity, the participants were invited to share their names and one quality. With the shy smiles, giggles and reluctance some shared and few just stopped after saying their names. The answers were heartwarming like ‘I love dancing’, ‘I enjoy doing funny things’, ‘I like doing fun things with kids so I come here too’

This was followed by game of ‘wolf and sheep’ where women participated with uninhibited enthusiasm. It was amazing to watch them play sheep and get away from the circle of wolf with strength and wit, at the same time playing wolf and not letting sheep get away!

In the next activity, the participants were invited to share one thing that they hear constantly or randomly because they are woman:

‘You stay at home! What do you do? Same thing is asked not just by husband but also kids.’

This statement actually broke the barrier that was stopping few of them from actually sharing. Every woman in the circle agreed unanimously that they do all the household chores, take care of family in every possible way and their work never stops but all they hear is what do they actually do staying at home?

‘Why are going out, what will you do outside home?’

‘I don’t like staying at home at all. It’s boring and annoying’

‘I had to always hear taunts and comments, whether it is from my in laws, husband or children. No one seems to be happy with what I do!’

‘You always think about yourself. So self-centered, don’t care about anyone else!’

‘There are times when we work outside at our jobs. Even for small mistakes, I am scolded, it becomes more evident because I am a woman. People just assume that we don’t have brains or are incapable because we are women. It is frustrating and I do get angry but we don’t even get space to vent out even in our homes. Why? Because woman are not even allowed to express anger! I am a human being, tough situations at work and home can make me angry.’

The discourse on gender based violence began with the question ‘Can you share any incident where you did something when you didn’t want to?’

‘What happens in villages is that they want a girl who is from well to do family, is educated and beautiful. Despite all these criterion, they want the girls to do all the chores in the household, most of the work is done by hand like making flour from wheat by hand swing, making cow dung cakes etc. I never wanted to do this but I had to because I was married in a rural area.’

‘My 17 year old son beats me. He is always on phone who gets angry on very minor things and loses his cool. He was alright till last year, but don’t know what happened! I keep my distance and he is strong that I just can’t save myself. I try to calm him down. But sometimes all the situations just get too much. I feel like leaving everything and just run away. Many a times, I just want to hang myself and get rid of all these miseries’

‘I was 14 years old when I was married off. I didn’t even know what marriage was at that time and neither was I expert in cooking. So for every small or big mistake, my mother in law used to scold me, taunt me and blame my maiyka for not teaching me anything. Days passed and my husband bought us here, we had children one after another. We didn’t even have money to fill our stomach, my husband was doing nothing just drinking and assaulting me. There was time when I went for entire week eating plain rice and that was the time I realized it was enough if I don’t take charge then we would be stuck like this forever. I wasn’t educated somehow I got a job for Rs 1500, my kids were really small, so while I used to be at job, they used to roam around here and there with no one to look after. Those were really tough time, but I decided that my life was better here, so I would do anything in my power to live here and raise my kids in better condition. Now I earn 12000, we are so much better leading a better life. My kids are educated and doing well! I just wish that my daughter find a better sasural and groom’

Following this, we invited them to share on ‘Have you ever challenged someone or any situation where you were forced to do something that you didn’t want to do?’

A very inspiring and courageous story was shared by a woman –

‘There was a fight in my home, everyone was running towards me to beat me – my husband, my in-laws and those who were not coming to beat me were standing like statue just watching and doing nothing. That moment I said enough is enough, if anyone dares to raise hand, I will do the same. If I am gonna die today then I will make sure others die along with me. I fought, retaliated in every possible way. My brother came to rescue me and so I left my in laws house for good with a very clear thought that I will never come back here. I worked hard, made living for myself and my kids. I still go back to my town for work, but I don’t even look at them. My ex-husband loiters around does nothing and here I am! I am not scared anymore.’

The smile and confidence on her face says so much about her struggles and what she has achieved. With all this, we engaged on  gender based violence and emphasized again and again as to how it is not their fault that they have been violated but the fault of the person who did violence. It was equally crucial to state that as woman we have been forced to internalize violence and think that it’s our fault or that we are not good enough for people because of which you end up believing it. So, we as women can stop this by understanding that we can and we should say NO to the violence!

It was exhilarating to hear how voices of women became loud and louder with each time they said that ‘THEY WON’T TOLERATE GENDER BASED VIOLENCE IN ANY FORM’

There was this lady with a kid, she was nervous and was kind of reluctant to sit in the circle. She wanted to go early saying that she has lot of work at home including washing dishes. But she never left, instead kept listening to what we all were sharing and I saw her crying many a time. So it’s not really important that everyone should share in form of words, because people have different form of expressions. Her voice was the loudest when we were saying No to the violence!

We closed the session by inviting women to share their dreams one after another while all of us clapped!

‘I wish to travel to different places’

‘I want to build a home where I could live with my children and my husband won’t be allowed here’

‘I want to have my own home where I live on my own! And I don’t want to marry’

‘I want to build a home near ocean’

‘I want to be like you, help people and make them smile’

The circle was bubbling with positive energy, happiness and hope! These women have suffered so much, they were challenging violence on daily basis, despite that they have zeal, hope and openness!

I feel so grateful and thankful for each of these women who trusted this space to share their experience. I just hope that women understand that they are strong and they have this choice to say no to violence even if that person is their husband, son or any relative. It is not okay for anyone to raise their hands to express anger or any frustration.