The brutal realities for India’s countless women

We know it from the epics. The great heroes of the Lanka war watch in silence as Sita goes through fire. No one asks, “Why should Sita be punished for being abducted by Ravana?” Of course it is the victim’s fault! Why did she step out of the lakshman rekha? By doing that didn’t she herself invite capture?

Why was Draupadi stripped in open court? Not because her husband was stupid enough to use her as a pawn in a dice game. Terrorising her was great sport for the opponents. She had to be dishonoured to dethrone and disgrace her husband.

India’s Daughter suffocates me in sepulchral gloom. Not because a foreigner has showcased something shameful about our country. Not because India has earned badnaam in the West. Nor am I depressed because the film reveals anything new about the male gaze and the patriarchal mindset. I am depressed because it doesn’t.

You will say rape is not new; Indian celebrities in every field have been charged with this crime. You will also say talibanisation of any religion is not new, not with our Parliamentarians, swamis and fringe netas spouting regressive absurdities every day. 

And yet, did it not chill you to the bone to realise that there is no difference between the rapist and his lawyers? “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape… A decent girl won’t roam around at nine o’clock at night … wearing wrong clothes.  A girl is more responsible for rape than the boy,” says rapist Mukesh Singh, not to his private circle of “friends”, but to the public camera.  Defence lawyer AP Singh says, “If my daughter or sister allowed herself to lose face and character by doing such things, I would most certainly take (her) to my farmhouse, put petrol on her and set her alight.” What the other lawyer says reduces a woman to an object (a flower or a gem!), to be possessed by the male master to whom she must submit.

So professionally qualified, highly educated people in urban settings think the same way as people from deprived backgrounds? Does this not raise shocking questions about the kind of education we offer in this country? Just what kind of development are we working for? What kind of people are we if we continue to politicise our culture? 

The government, our great panjandrum, bans the film.  It doesn’t have the spunk to admit that this is neither a reasonable, nor an enforceable solution in a world of netizens. It does not say, let us introspect. Instead, it tries to cover up all the festering wrongs in a burst of self-righteous indignation.  The film gets blurred in the miasma of reactions, where “culture” is used to promote gender oppression. These upholders of lakshman rekha never ask how any man can dishonour a woman in a culture that venerates Rama as Maryada Purushottham, whether she is out at midday or midnight. In Ramrajya, isn’t the onus on the men to make sure that women are not shamed? Doesn’t Ramrajya promise safety and security to all citizens?

I don’t forget that once, caught on the rioting streets of Kolkata, following Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, I was walked home by the rioters.  I was lucky. But I cannot forget that this is a land where a woman can encounter extreme violence, be stigmatised for being “modern”, trounced for being influenced by “bad” western culture, and therefore judged as someone who invites punishment, and deserves to be raped.

The author is a playwright, theatre director, musician and journalist, writing on the performing arts, cinema and literature