The Land Where Marriage Means Rape

Minister for Home Affairs Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary gave a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on 29 April to a question raised by Kanimozhi of the DMK. To her question on the criminalisation of marital rape, our esteemed minister (not the first of his ilk to go down that path) said that marital rape as understood internationally couldn't be applied to India, due to factors like illiteracy, poverty, social customs, religious beliefs and the treatment of marriage as a sacrament. In essence, his stand, like so many others before him, and like such a huge majority of general Indians, is that once a woman agrees to a marriage, there is no question of force, because she MUST have sex with her husband, when, and how, he wants. So, how can there be rape? In other words, a woman loses her fundamental rights as soon as she chooses to enter wedlock (in the world's LARGEST democracy, as we like to boast).

Every time India is forced to confront or even consider the issue of marital rape, the country's parliamentarians, judges, and general public trot out an old and oft-repeated list of arguments against any move towards criminalizing the act. Foremost among them is the idea that marriage is sacred in India. Many, if not most, married women in india (or in Indian communities abroad) would disagree. For too many Indian women across the country, and elsewhere, marriage is no more sacred than being trapped in a torture chamber. Some of the forms of sadism practised in Indian marriages would make hardened criminals and sadistic prison guards cringe. Here are some cases, (from my own experience as well as from various sources including NGOs i have been associated with.

                                        

The first time her husband raped Pinki was, (like a majority of women in arranged marriages) on their wedding night. She was an ace student getting her master's degree in science from a prestigious university. Engaged to a man she saw just once for roughly 20 mins, a month before her final exams, she was married off as soon as the exams were over. Her nightmare began from the first night of her “honeymoon”, as it does for so many. Unprepared, uncomfortable, and hoping for some kind words, a building up of a relationship, what she got instead was her HUSBAND forcing himself on her, quite brutally. When they came back to their two bedroom home in mumbai, which she shared with her parents-in-law and sister-in-law, the bedroom door was always open, everyone's things kept in everyone's space so people walked in and out as they liked, yet, she was required to make herself available to her husband's whims whenever and however he wished, never mind her discomfort with the lack of privacy. There was also no question of contraception, and she had no say in the matter. Like a vast majority of indian men he refused to consider condoms, and she was not allowed to even visit a gynaecologist, let alone ask for some other method of family planning.

Sheela was only 18 years old when she was married to a man she barely knew, she didn’t think that he would demand sex on the very night they got married, but he did. She wasn’t ready for it, but that didn’t matter.

Reena wanted to wait a few days until the relatives had left, and the nieces and nephews were not sleeping behind the curtain partition. However, what she wanted was as immaterial as it usually is, and her husband forced himself on her, without any regard for her physical or emotional readiness, until she could barely walk (not that “resting” would be an option. Remember these women also have to get up in the morning and discharge all the duties of a good “daughter in law”. Unless she is so injured she in need of medical assistance, she wont get help or rest, and sometimes not even then).

For many years after her marriage, Rashmi believed that frequent bleeding after intercourse was normal for women. Married at 17, her husband would assault her six to seven times a day, with no regard to her arousal or comfort. At 19, when she conceived her first child, she was forced to have intercourse whenever he wanted till the eighth month of her pregnancy, regardless of how she was feeling. Barely 15 days after she had a delivery by C-section, her husband assaulted her so badly that it led to the rupture of her stitches. When she tried to raise her voice, her mother mocked "This is normal. It happens to everyone. Husbands don't rape you, they are allowed to do all that."

Sarita's husband forced himself on her, inserted a flashlight into her vagina, and sodomised her brutally to the point where she could't walk.

Astha was so violently assaulted by her husband that she was bleeding profusely and had suffered anal tears, when she went to the doctor.

Vandana's husband regularly bound her hands and feet while he forced himself on her because she objected to certain sexual acts.

Reema's husband transmitted an STD (sexually transmitted disease) to her which caused severe vaginal infection and painful boils. Then, in spite of her discomfort and pain he not only refused to have them treated, but continued to rape her leaving her in pool of blood most of the time. His reason for the uncaring attitude? "It is you who are in pain, not me,"

The first full sentence Ketki heard from her husband was “Show me your thighs”. When she didint comply immediately, she got, “Don’t make me yell!” Still a little slow to react, she was grabbed by the hair and groped and violently torn into until she lay bleeding.

Sheen's husband regularly got drunk, beat her ruthlessly and then demanded sex. During her first pregnancy, he insisted on regular sex even after the doctor had advised against it for a brief period. This caused a miscarriage, but that was no respite, things went on as before and she was pregnant again in a couple of months. When she got up the nerves to walk into a police station, three years after her marriage, when his behaviour started putting her in the hospital, “They were very sympathetic, gave me a cup of tea and told me to go back home and ‘adjust’”. She did, That was a huge mistake. What she viewed as a compromise, he obviously saw as victory. Given that she now knew she had nowhere to go, she had to give in to his whims. Her parents, when told, came up with the classic Indian excuse that keeps so much unfairness and justice thriving in our society “what will people think?”

Neeta's husband expected her to have sex for six to eight hours a night after using Viagra, leaving her in so much discomfort that she could barely walk the next day, proving his manliness (that every problematic MARDANGI that causes so much nastiness) inflicting great pain in the process, and with no concern for her feelings or health.

Sabina often fainted during or after intercourse, the agony was so great.

Asha's husband forced her to have sex during her labour pains.

Lata's husband administered electric shocks to her vaginal area and regularly used extreme force while having sex.

The list is endless, and each case more horrifying than the last. If any of these offences had been perpetrated by a person outside the family, he would be booked and prosecuted for sexual assault, and rape, but when the perpetrator is the husband, there is no legal recourse, nowhere to go, no one to complain to, and no law to save the woman. As for the man, he gets away scot-free, every time.

And this doesn't even begin to talk about the thousands and hundreds of thousands of women who are just “persuaded” when they are not in the mood, but their husbands are, or who are never even asked whether they have a mood or not. Not all cases are extreme or involve overt violence. In most cases neither the man nor the woman have any concept of consent, and sex within the marriage happens when and how HE wants, never mind if she wants it or not.

Arranged marriages are glorified in India, considered the only proper way to find a spouse, and love matches are still a little bit suspect, off the track, and considered flimsy because they apparantly “dont last”. Yet what is the definition of a successful marriage in India? Simply one that doesnt end in a divorce, never mind how it lasts or what the cost. And, usually, the woman pays the biggest price for this Lasting Marriage that is so prized in our society.

Given our social taboos, and overall reluctance to talk about anything really important, and the segregation and overprotection of girls practiced in the majority of homes, a large majority of Indian women don’t know anything about sex when they get married. A common argument against criminalisation of marital rape (or making the claim that no such thing actually exists) is that when women in India get married they are fully prepared to start having sex with their husbands immediately. The problem here is that women only have a very vague idea of what that involves, often drawing their ideas only from Bollywood films and vague murmurings from married friends/cousins which leads them to expect soft focus, rose petals and mogra, hugging kissing and gentle teasing, if anything. The reality is far from their idea. Even regular normal, consensual sex for the first time is anything but flowery and fuzzy, with a lot of physical and mental discomfort involved, let alone the kind of sex they are likely to get from their sex starved, equally clueless, brought up on porn husbands who suddenly have this slave, this sexdoll as it were, to do anything they wish with.

And this is not a problem in the “uneducated lower classes” as we like to think. In big companies, in corporates, in colleges, in my own experiences in hostels, at work, and social circles (all educated women from the middle or upper middle classes, all from or in cosmopolitan cities), I have constantly met women who were totally clueless. Women who were going to be horrified and really upset on their “First Night” as we so eloquently call it. Most of them have only sketchy concepts of kissing, with nothing more than hugging and fondling to follow. They would be horrified at the real mechanics involved. Even in cases where the husband is nice enough to wait a little while, they are not likely get a long enough respite to really be ready mentally and emotionally, and will surely be raped – violently or otherwise – soon enough.

How it normally goes is this. In a majority of cases the girl still gets only a few, supervised, chances to see or interact with the man soon to be her husband. On the night of the wedding, or a few days before (if she is lucky, and her mother extremely unusual) her mother would give her some kind of a cringing, embarrassed, vague talk about wifely duties which mainly run along the lines of he has all the rights, do what he wants, when he wants it. Still dazed and overwhelmed with the enormous endeavour and production that is an Indian wedding, the next thing she is likely to know is suddenly being locked up in a room with her new husband. 

Given that neither of them has a real clue, and they have mutually inmical ideas of how the next few hours should go, what can you expect? She expects flowery language, soft focus fuzziness, and nameless ROMANCE. He's been gorging on rough porn and not only expects her to behave like an experienced porn star, but also thinks he has to prove his “man” credentials by doing it immediately, and doing it hard, fast, and rough. Add to this the foregone confirmed belief that he has the ABSOLUTE right to do anything he wishes to her and she cannot say no, and you have the prime recipe for disaster.

Unless things get really badly out of hand, no one really sees a problem with this. And even if things DO get out of hand, as in the few cases i stated (which are far from isolated incidents), there isn't any real legal recourse, or social support structure. When pushed to extremes, women have only one option, lodge complaints of physical abuse, but do not want to talk of marital rape. 79% of the women who reach out for medical help report domestic violence, of which only 48% actually report sexual violence within the marriage, says Sangeeta Rege of Dilaasa, a hospital-based crisis centre in Mumbai. The problem is that other forms of domestic violence, like broken bones and cuts are easily visible, but women are reluctant to talk about sexual violence even when they're bleeding and can barely walk, according to a spokesperson from Vimochana, a women's organization in Bengaluru.

And yet, what numbers there are tell a different story. In 2013, a United Nations survey found that nearly a quarter of 10,000 men questioned, admitted to having raped a female partner. The belief that they are entitled to sex even without their partner’s consent is a common state of affairs. Studies clearly show that sexual violence within marriages in India is common. The data includes the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and studies by the International Centre for Women (ICRW) and United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA). The landmark study was conducted in eight States only: Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha. It covered 9,205 men and 3,158 women aged 18-49, and the sample was representative across caste, religious and income groups.

Here's what they show. ONE THIRD of the men in these States admitted to having forced a sexual act upon their wives/ partners at some point in their lives. The last NFHS showed that the vast majority of sexual violence reported by women was within the marriage; ONLY 2.3 PER CENT of rape reported to the NFHS interviewers was by men other than the husband. Overall, what these numbers clearly show is that sexual violence within marriages is undeniably and unquestionably common. The UNPF report shows that about 75% Indian married women live in a marital sexual hell because of our social blindness and cultural injustice. At any given time, a majority of the calls received on women's helplines to report domestic violence include sexual violence.

Despite the evidence, minister of state for home, Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary told Parliament that marriage is a “sacrament” and that the concept of marital rape cannot be applied to India. How ironic, and how perfectly Indian. Marriage is a sacrament. But it is perfectly legal to rape your wife. “It is concerning when government starts talking about culture and tradition to justify crime,” says Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “When the state makes culture a reason to refuse to legislate on what is clearly a criminal matter, what message percolates down the line to the entire criminal justice system?” Says advocate Seema Misra, with the women's organisation Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives, in Uttar Pradesh, “You are basically saying that a wife’s consent doesn’t matter, that we are still stuck with the outdated notion that women are the property of men,”

And this has deep patriarchal roots. To address issues of consent, you have to recognise that the woman has agency, that she owns her own body, and that she has an opinion on sex/sexuality. Essentially, all of these are things patriarchy CANNOT acknowledge. Women are not supposed to either want or enjoy sex, because if they do, how will you control them and their reproductive rights? So, in their twisted logic, since she cannot enjoy it, and never wants it, where is the question of saying yes? Ever? She is just an inert vessel for the propogation of the man's lineage, so all she has the right to do is say yes when her lord and master puts forth a demand. If a woman is seen to want or enjoy sex, "they're not viewed as good women. In order to respect a woman's right not to have sex when she doesn't want it, we must respect her right to ask for sex when she wants it," says Manisha Gupte of MASUM, and therein lies the problem. That's what is behind killing women who marry for love, marry intercaste, marry inter community, or simply want to wear what they want. It all implies an agency, a choice being exercised in the sexual arena... UNACCEPTABLE.

Manisha Gupte, of rural feminist organization MASUM says "It's important to examine non-consensual marital sex even if it is not marked by outward signs of violence." Lawyer, Karuna Nundy, feels (and i agree) that trying to draw a distinction between rapes taking place in a marriage and rapes outside of it is illogical. “The fact that people are told some rapes are sacred and some are criminal is the worst kind of violence against women.” Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch, disagrees that the institution of marriage needs protection. “It is not the State’s job to promote culture (the institution of marriage); it should instead focus on protecting the rights of its citizens, in this case women”.

“Many people were concerned that if made a crime, marital rape would be misused or be difficult to prove or would result in the unnecessary break-up of marriages,” says Leila Seth, former chief justice of Himachal Pradesh. But, is that enough reason to not make the law? The same concerns were raised when the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act was being debated. However, the fact that a law could potentially be misused by a few is no reason to NOT make a law that can benefit and protect millions!

As for the question of “how do you prove marital rape?” You have only to visit the outpatient departments of any government hospital and you will see the number of married women coming in for treatment and the grievous injuries caused by sexual assault. As Mrinal Satish, associate professor at the National Law University, Delhi says, “Just because something is difficult to prove, it does not mean that you cannot have a law against it,”

There are those who argue that sexual assault is covered by the existing Domestic Violence Act. But this Act is a civil law and only gives some relief to abused wives, provides them a way out, if they need it. She can, under this law, seek protection or get civil relief, but it does not provide for criminal prosecution. So she may get a bit of relief...if at all...but he would never be punished.

India needs to recognize that rape is a crime, no matter who does it. But there's an essentially blind spot here. Every since the Nirbhaya case, public patience is running thin on the issue of rape by strangers. Yet the idea that the home could also be a dangerous place and needs to have legal machinery to protect women finds fewer supporters. For many, if not most, Indians, the idea of sexual consent in marriage is an anomaly. Our cultures, our languages define rape ONLY as loss of virginity or loss of honour. Izzat lut jana. And this can only happen if an unmarried woman is attacked by an outsider, or a married woman by someone other than her owner/husband. After all it is the family's izzat that she bears in her body, maiden or wife. This is also the major source of the social stigma and shaming of the survivor. After all she, and by extension her family/clan, has been dis-honoured. So the comments of “zinda lash” and the encouragement to suicide. So, how can a husband rape his wife? She is his wife! (said in the same tone of voice as “it is his car”). Educated, middleclass, so-called modern indians have this blidspot too (i've met too many, brrr!).

Our mentality doesnt understand the concept of consent before every sexual encounter. “If she’s given her consent to marriage, then by definition, she is consenting to a sexual relationship. It’s possible that at times she may not be well or feel like having sex and the husband might insist, but by that definition every husband will become a rapist and there is no way prove such marital rape unless it is associated with domestic violence,” says Dr Suneeta Mittal, director and head, (department of obstetrics and gynaecology) at Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurgaon. And sadly, that is how too many Indians feel. And you just CANNOT explain to these people that YES, anyone who insists or forces sex when the partner is unwilling (for whatever reason) IS a rapist.

AS FOR THE LAW, it falls neatly in with our patriarchal and far outdated “culture” and social mores (more is the pity). According to the Indian Penal Code, "Sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape". While the Justice Verma Committee -set up after the Nirbhaya rape case -recommended criminalizing marital rape, the parliamentary standing committee headed by the BJP's Venkaiah Naidu rejected the proposal. And opined that "If marital rape is brought under the law, the entire family system will be under great stress." (So, asking a man to respect his spouse and pay attention to her wants/needs will destroy the great Indian marriage! Well, maybe it SHOULD be destroyed then!)

In another supremely ironic and farcical move, the government decided to raise the age of consent, (the legal age when a girl is deemed capable of consenting to sex) in 2013 — from 16 to 18 years. Simply put. any sex with a girl below the age of 18 is statutory rape, even if she wants it, even if it is in a consensual relationship. OH! BUT WAIT! What if that girl is a wife? After all India is a country with a massive number of child marriages, where girls anywhere between 11 and 17 are regularly married off! In fact in certain segments 18 is considered practically unmarriageable. Here’s where the real fun contradictions lie. Although the legal age of marriage as well as consent is 18 for girls (shouldn't that make any marriage with a girl below 18 invalid?) Provided your wife is over 15 years old (and no one will ask you HOW you got a wife that young when it is against the law! Wink! Wink!), it is perfectly legal for you to have sex with them -- with or without their consent. Suddenly, with one magic act of “marriage” neither the law for age of consent, nor the law for age of marriage apply anymore!

When it is clearly illegal to beat, cheat, torture or burn-alive a spouse – then why do we hesitate when faced with the idea that forced sex with anyone, (even your spouse) should not be a legal right? Why is it felt that allowing rapes to take place regularly and routinely within marriages strengthens the Institution of Marriage? What kind of institution IS it if this is the case? What kind of marriages are these that are strengthened by repeated and regular sexual torture and subjugation of one “partner”? Why do we need to protect or strengthen any Institution by such ways and means that puts innocent citizens (roughly half of the population at that) at an almost certainty of being sexually assaulted? What kind of people, what kind of society, what kind of culture, benefits from such an institution that feels weakened without sexual assaults being permitted to happen within it?

As for Culture, Society, and how this will bring the end of the world? Nepal, a Hindu kingdom, has made marital rape a crime, and seems to have survived without its "culture" crumbling under the weight of such protection and inclusivity for women. On the flipside, India is in the company of 30-odd other countries, that do not criminalise marital rape, including China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia. Is this the company we want to keep?

Why is it that once a man has been married to a woman, even when she is legally separated from him, and rape is actually acknowledged, it is seen as a lesser crime? The idea that when a man marries a woman, he is entitled to Dowry, Male children, Sex on demand and an Obedient servant and care giver for his parents is not only unfair and unjust, it is unconstitutional in a democracy given that it essentially eliminates the woman's ability to choose, refuse, and exercise basic rights. 

There can be no two ways about it. A rape is a rape whether it is on the street or inside the bedroom, whether the rapist is a stranger or the husband. Why is it so difficult to get Indians to understand or acknowledge that women own their bodies, have a right to say no, and sex without consent is rape. Doesnt matter who does it, doesnt matter what their relationship to the victim, it is rape.

 

  

The madness that passes as protest

Looking at the front page photograph of a huge mass of humanity, mostly male, pressing against police barricades at Raisina Hill, I can’t help but wonder how many women protesters were groped and mauled in the melee that is being created over the Delhi gang-rape incident. The crowd did not look like it was made up exclusively of socially aware, conscientious, ethical young men and women. On the contrary, it looked like the usual mishmash of opportunists, bystanders, watchers, and thrill seekers, augmented by a bunch of “swept by emotion and caught up in the flow” kind of crowd.

This has been the character of almost all the recent “citizens’ movements” from Anna’s crowds to Ramdev’s pressure cooker brigade, to this one. This is just another exercise in catharsis and guilt assuaging by the middle class Indian. We know we are largely to blame for the perpetuation of these social evils, and we feel vaguely bad about the fact, and these “MOVEMENTS” give us the perfect opportunity to feel like we are making a huge difference, which in turn relieves our guilty consciences. And yes, there are the usual numbers of opportunists, from pickpockets to those seeking cheap thrills from pinching bottoms. And this became super evident with the violent turn the protests took. As long as the actual protestors were conducting matters, everything was fine, and even when the police – unprovoked – opened up with water cannons and tear gas, the protestors did not retaliate, and stopped each other from reacting. However, pretty soon the more unsavoury parts of the mob took over and full scale rioting began, with its usual side effects, the looting, the mayhem.

While it feels great, and makes us all glowy and warm to think of how the “average Indian” (whoever that might be) takes so much interest in righting wrongs, demanding justice, and making his/her voice heard. But is that what’s really going on? And are we asking for the right things with this voice? Seems not, from where I stand. First of all, we have seen this farce before. The sudden upsurge of anger, the marching on the streets, the chanting, the slogans, and then the dissipating numbers, the disappearing crowds, until the whole things fizzles out. Seems to me like the same pantomime is being played out all over again. A couple of days, and then everything will be back to the usual grind, everything forgotten.

As for the demands, they are fairly ridiculous, and proof of how emotions, not thought, are calling the shots here. Demanding the death penalty for a crime where the maximum allowed penalty by law is seven years in jail, just shows the total absence of any understanding of how crimes are punished. There is NO WAY that a court can LEGALLY award more than the maximum penalty allowed, no matter how loud such a demand might be from a bloodthirsty public. Even if the law is amended, as certain groups and factions are demanding, it would still not apply to this case, which was registered when the old law was in effect. Also, let us not forget the hugely complicated and politically fraught process that needs to be gone through before the law can be changed. It isn’t happening for so many MORE basic things, it is highly unlikely it will happen here, and screaming is not going to make it so.

Anyway… to any rational person the answer to the problem is NOT awarding the death penalty in the “rarest of rare” rape cases, but to properly enforce the current punishments. After all, as the Apex court is already realizing, the “rarest of rare” definition leaves the decision TOTALLY up to the presiding judge, with all his/her prejudices and mental blocks. It is already being applied to randomly in cases of murder, how much worse will it be when you bring in a highly contentious and inhibition arousing matter like rape? Also, such a provision increases the tendency to let most of the offenders go free. “If it wasn’t bad enough to deserve the maximum, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all” is the usual rationale. It has been seen in effect for so long in rape cases which have managed to get to court, for years. Even with a seven year maximum, without any need to prove that it is “rarest of rare”, hardly anyone gets any sentence, with the few who do hardly ever going to jail for more than a year or two.

It is not likely that the judges who won’t even send rapists to jail will suddenly start hanging them, left right and center. An effective deterrent is never one that is heavy but never applied, it is one that may be lighter, but is applied efficiently. If the police register the cases without refusing to, if they stop further humiliating the victim with sneers and lewd comments, if the investigating agencies actually begin to investigate the cases lodged, instead of just making token efforts as a show or completely shelving it, if the cases are tried fast, and effectively, and if EVERY single rapist goes to jail for seven years, pretty soon no one will dare commit the crime. No one wants to lose seven years of their life. Forget the social environment we create that promotes rape, forget families that teach NOTHING of value to their sons, forget the whole socio-economic-political roots of the problem. Simply making it difficult to legally get away with rape will bring the numbers down. As of now, a rapist knows as a certainly that he will probably never be arrested. If he is arrested, he wont be prosecuted. If he is….by some strange and horrible chance… actually prosecuted, he won’t go to jail at all. If, horror of horrors, he IS sent t jail, which is a one in a 10,000 kind of probability, it will be a virtual holiday at a lightly guarded, easy going, jail, for MAYBE a couple of years.

Given this situation, it is actually surprising that more women are not raped everyday, as they are molested. After all, the punishment for both is the same… NOTHING. Just streamlining and making the legal system will change all that. It will make sure more women come forward to report the crime, and more cases are registered, and more cases actually go to court, and more rapists are actually convicted, for a sizable duration. THEN we will see real change. Screaming for a kill on the streets is NOT going to achieve any of this.  

Freedom Land

What the situation is, 65 years after independence.

·         20 crore Indians live without adequate food

·         Eight thousand die every day of starvation

·         2 crore children don’t go to school

·         20 crore Indians are illiterate

·         43% children suffer from malnutrition

·         66 crore Indians don’t have access to hygienic sanitation

·         India ranks 66th (Pakistan is 61) on the international hunger index

·         India ranks 132nd among 142 countries in terms of developmental index

These are numbers from a bunch of information links doing the rounds online. While they may not be exactly accurate, (at least, I am not sure whether they are) they are pretty close to the real situation overall. Not much cause to celebrate, if you ask me. Add to that India’s “record” showing at the London Olympics 2012, with 6 whole medals, not one of them gold, and I really don’t think there’s much to CELEBRATE right now.

And then there’s the madness going on all over the country with thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people FROM the seven north eastern states fleeing their places of residence all over India because they no longer feel safe in those places. And why did I just put the FROM in all caps?? Because many of them have been living in those places of education, work, residence, for years, decades even. Yet, one whiff of trouble in some far corner of the country, and they are being attacked, harassed, and driven out to go BACK to this place they are supposed to belong to. Rumours are flying, threats being issued and realized, attacks made, and a large segment of Indians are feeling  threatened within the sovereign territory of India. And news channels and papers are playing up the immigrant situation and the harassment of immigrants. (are these people immigrants in their own country? By what definition? What law?)

It began as a riot/ethnic clashes in certain areas of Assam primarily between illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and the resident farmers. The trouble was over rights to the land, and the attempt to prevent sneak-over-the-border-in-the-night people from encroaching on it. As is the nature of such conflicts, things got bigger and more complicated as it was allowed to go on for longer (although local Muslims are still pretty happy there, and safe), and since the news channels didn’t bother to even try to put anything other than a religious/communal colouring on it, this territorial, anti illegal alien clash began to be seen as another of the Hindu-Muslim riots that we are getting more and more used to. That’s new, although riots in themselves are not. What is really new this time, the year of the 65th anniversary of our becoming a nation, is the backlash against people seen to be from the “north east” in far flung parts of the country -- parts that have nothing to do with Assam, and face no added pressure from the refugee movement generated by the clashes.

From flash riots in Mumbai, to threats and rumours in Pune, Bangalore, and more, the overall perceived threat level has risen sharply, especially in places with a considerable presence of students and workers from the north eastern states. People are leaving in droves, with something like 9700 tickets to Guwahati booked in a single day from a single station, and four extra trains having to be made available to accommodate the huge waves of people leaving from Bangalore on a that ONE day. So, what’s really going on here? Does a bunch of mixed ethnic, mixed community hooligans (the bunch arrested in Bangalore for rumour mongering etc include Hindus and Christians) really care so much about the trouble in Assam? Are they so emotionally invested in, and swayed by, the people rendered homeless in Assam that they have to avenge them by harassing, assaulting, and killing people from Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura, and West Bengal?

What it is, is a bunch of people making a noise, lashing out, creating trouble, for reasons and motives of their own. From chauvinistic political parties looking to strengthen their communal vote bases, to ruffians looking for any excuse to indulge in a little vandalism, reasons and motives are many and varied. What concerns me however, really worries me, is how easy it seems to have become to drive a large number of people out of your city, area, state on the pretext that they don’t belong. I am concerned because, this has a lot to do with people like me. As I blogged in January 2010 in SporadicDiaspora (premonition? Foreshadowing?), I belong to the increasingly larger segment of the population who are not really FROM anywhere. Of course, this is a concept most Indians don’t seem to get. So, for me there was never a question of going BACK to some safe place where I belong.

As populations grow and resources become strained, such things are only going to get more common. The refrains of “go back to where you belong” will continue to get louder as the years roll by, as they have in the last few decades, posing a massive problem for me and my ilk. I don’t BELONG. Having lived in some six different states till date, I have no domicile, no hometown. As for Bengal, I have no roots there, I don’t have a mental emotional connection there, and I don’t belong there. Yet, I have recently acquired a flat in Kolkata, a sort of roof over the head arrangement, even though it is no secret how much I have come to dislike the place over the last few years. A childhood friend, someone I have known for the last 36 years, and who is in kind of the same predicament, was fantasizing last week about selling up Kolkata flats when we are older, and moving back to Dehradun, where we were born, to live out our retirements.

While that sounds unbelievably lovely, and nostalgia inducing, I realize it is never gonna happen. As I was explaining to my chuddy buddy, no matter how much we feel like we are not  REALLY Bengali, no matter how much more comfortable we are outside Bengal as opposed to in Kolkata, no matter how much Doon, or Pune, feels like home, like where the soul belongs, for the “other” we will always remain outsiders. People will always ask “are you a local?” and mean “are you Garhwali/Maharashtrian?” they will always ask “where are you “originally” from?”, leaving you speechless, and when push comes to shove, they will – nicely or not so nicely – ask you to leave. It happened and continues to happen in many states, and is only getting worse. The Bengalis I know who chose to remain in Dehradun after their retirement are already facing problems, and they belong to my parents’ generation. How much worse are things going to get by the time we are ready to retire? In Maharashtra too, the erstwhile muted murmurs of the “Maharashtra for Marathi manoos” political language have been getting louder over the last decade. As the focus shifts from Biharis to the North Easterners, I can only wonder how long before it shifts again…to the Bengali.

And if it does, as it eventually will, where do I go? So, I have that little roof over the head insurance in the land that I feel no belonging in, in case I have to leave all the lands I feel connected to, in case it becomes impossible for me, or my child, to live threat free, safe lives in all the places I would rather live in. what makes me really sad, angry, disillusioned, disgusted, and depressed is to see this drama unfold each morning on the news, where on the 65th anniversary of the formation of a nation people of the nation are not free to live in their choice of location in it. To see that in this free land, this secular democracy, a segment of its own citizens is being called “immigrant”, to see that they are being driven to drop educations, livelihoods, settled lives to go BACK to a state where they supposedly BELONG, makes me fear for my future and that of my child outside the mythical land of my belonging.

Rape is not a crime

The recent much publicized and highly controversial case of a woman raped at gunpoint in the up-market park street area of Kolkata seems to have brought all our repressive and regressive ideas about sex/sexual violence to the forefront again. As has a more recent case in Falta, roughly 100 odd kilometers from Kolkata, where the father of the school-age victim of an abduction and gang rape actually has to move court to get the local authorities to even register his report (still no actual case registered as of this morning).

As a culture, the shamefully biased and anti victim stance we have in such matters is of almost legendary proportions. We make a cultural art form out of victim shaming/victim blaming, and go all out to excuse, encourage, and make the perpetrators comfortable and safe in every possible way. We make an art form out of ignoring the victim, or maligning them, and completely exonerating the perpetrators.

The most glaring example of our complete blind spot towards sexual violence is that we have practically no laws to deal with it. We have absolutely no law to deal with the rape of a minor or any form of short or long term child sexual abuse. The only law which is used in some way to deal with sexual offences against a child is the section 377 of the IPC, which in turn creates a lot of mess for adults engaging in consensual sexual activity. We also do not have any kind of a competent law to deal with rape and other forms of sexual assault and harassment, forget a comprehensive one. We have no decent infrastructures or processes in place to collect evidence in such cases, or to even register a case without precious time being wasted.

What laws exist leave a lot to be desired, what processes exist are flawed and made worse by the lack of sensitivity and training among baseline law enforcement personnel. Until very recently, there was also no law dealing with marital rape. In fact the concept of marital rape still does not exist in our culture. After all, a wife is the property of the husband, to do as he likes, and sex within a marriage is a duty she owes him, and a right he can claim anytime he likes. The question of whether there is her desire, her consent, or her willingness, does not come into the matter at all. Also, it is the most often unreported crime. Neither the women, nor her well wishers, nor anyone around has any knowledge of marital rape – what it is, and whether it is a crime – and the Indian woman is highly unlikely to tell anyone even if she suffers it repeatedly.

We don’t have stringent laws, or any enforcement of existing laws – however weak they may be – to deal with molestation and sexual harassment in public spaces. In fact, to us, it is such a non-crime that we even give it the very benign name of eve teasing, as if that’s all it is, a little harmless teasing of protesting but basically willing girls. Whereas, it is probably the single biggest problem faced by any woman in India on a day to day basis. Of all the women I have met in my thirty six years of life, there is not a single one who has not been accosted, groped, inappropriately touched, or had offensive language thrown at her in buses, trains, crowded rail stations, and a thousand other places.

In the absence of a go-to solution for legal recourse, each one of us has come up with her own defense mechanism. Some carry rolled up umbrellas under their arms to prod unwanted physical closeness from pot bellied wannabe lotharios insistent on invading your private space. Some carry large safety pins to stab the groping hand with. And, more recently, some carry pepper spray or good old mirchi powder. It is a SHAME – in capital letters – that every single woman HAS to take “eve teasing” in her stride, as a way of life, as a necessary evil, something that must be endured because it can’t be cured. Our repressive culture even makes it very difficult for her to raise a hue and cry during the incident, because SHE is the one who will get the leers of all the people around her.

In the case of a schoolgirl, abducted by local goons, and gang raped for 10 days before she managed to escape, it is much worse. Although she was found by a police patrol, wandering dazed after her escape, and although her injuries are severe enough to warrant her being hospitalized for a month, no case is being registered, and the south 24 parganas SP actually goes on record with a statement that he APPRECIATES the Falta OC for not registering a complaint since this is apparently a case of the victim having an AFFAIR with the accused!

The highly injured, traumatized, and now pregnant, schoolgirl was having an AFFAIR with the five accused??? So the injuries, severe enough for her to still be in hospital more than a month later are no more than love-bites. Is it? And her trauma, and nightmares, and overall psychological shock is probably just pretense. Right? All this conclusion drawn from knowing nothing about the case? The point here is that regardless of what actually did or didn’t happen, the victim wants to register a case, they bloody well have to take the FIR. Facts of the case, affair or rape, blah blah, are all things that will eventually be sorted out via an investigation. It is not for the OC or the SP or anyone else to decide on the MERITS of the case BEFORE a complaint has been officially registered! It is not up to them to play judge and jury and dismiss a complaint out of hand!

Imagine then, how much worse it is for someone to garner the strength of heart to report a case of rape, especially given how our society treats victims. Most of the people I talk to, and Indian society in general, don’t even consider rape to be an especially heinous crime. In most minds, it is something that happens to young, good looking, PARTY going women who dress inappropriately (meaning anything from jeans and a long kurta to tube tops and mini skirts) who frequent pubs and bars, stay out late, and indulge in such WESTERN vices as socializing with the opposite sex, drinking, etc. so, all in all, it is their own fault, and the men are not to blame. Even in horrific cases, such as the rape of a 10 month old baby, the rapist gets a reduced sentence because the judge “understands” that he was living away from his wife and family, and was therefore lonely and frustrated!!!

When a woman arrives at a police station to register a complaint of rape, first she faces leers, then, the officer in charge makes comments like “how is it possible for someone to be raped in a moving car? Can you show me the exact position you were in when you were raped?” Then, when she refuses to be intimidated by all this, and insists on registering a complaint, they tell her to come back the next day, with a written statement, because apparently her STORY was inconsistent. When the case is finally registered, the chief of police makes statements like “she is already separated from her husband, what was a mother of two doing in a nightclub so late at night?” as if who she is and where she was has anything to do with it.

This only amply illustrates the Indian mentality. For a woman, being in a nightclub is an automatic certificate of loose morals. From personal experience, I can say this is not a rare mentality. When some friends and I made plans to go dancing, I made the mistake of inviting a young relative and his wife to come along. When he mentioned the plans at home, all hell broke loose! The outing was compared to going to some 10 rupees a pop prostitute! Keep in mind that this was not some man planning to visit a seedy dance bar with cronies. This was a bunch of married and committed people, with their spouses and partners, going to a reputed discotheque, in a group. No hanky panky, no seediness, nothing. Just some harmless fun. Not surprising then that a married but separated woman, alone in a nightclub at 2 am, is seen as little more than an escort. The point though, (which Indians will never get) is that it doesn’t matter. Even if the person is a prostitute, selling his/her body for money, they still have the right to say no, and no one, absolutely no one has ANY right to force any sexual activity on them.

We also don’t seem to understand, as a culture, that rape is not a crime about sex. It is about violence and power. If it was about sex and attraction, random strangers wouldn’t grope women they don’t know in buses and trains. If it was about sex and attraction, 10 month old babies and 90 year old grandmothers would not be routinely raped. If it was about sex and attraction, male rape would not be such a major part of subduing your enemies and the prisoners of war in any combat situation. RAPE IS VIOLENCE pure and simple. It is one party ASSERTING THEIR POWER over someone they see as less powerful.

And victim shaming, telling people that “it must be something you did” just gives MORE power to the rapists. Excusing men as helpless creatures with no control over their raging libidos just gives them an excuse to continue this kind of TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE behavior. It discourages women and children and victimized men from speaking up, which gives the rapists even more of an excuse to continue this kind of TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE behavior. It destroys the victim’s sense of self, or self worth, or self respect, all of which are already in tatters from the trauma of the crime itself. It also causes the general public to see rape as pure titillation. Rape scenes in Hindi films are tantamount to porn, to be rewound again and again for morbid enjoyment. Why? Because not only was she asking for it, deep down, in her heart of hearts, she enjoyed it! THAT’S the kind of mentality that has created today’s rapist friendly India.

Insensitivity is all pervasive, from the absence of adequate female constables and officers to take reports and escort the victims to their medical examinations, to the administration of the archaic and meaningless (especially in the case of women who have been sexually active before the incident) two-finger test on the victim (which they are finally talking about dropping).  In spite of a clear ruling from the judiciary that simply the word of the victim is enough grounds to register a case and begin investigations, especially forensic investigations (for evidence like sperm, which degenerates over time and any delay can mean the absence of conclusive proof), cases are routinely delayed, as with the park street rape incident, where forensic tests were finally conducted something like 9 days after the incident. Fat chance of finding anything! And this is being touted as another doubt, that there are only abrasions, but no CONCLUSIVE evidence of rape! Whose fault is that? And the Falta case? A month and more of delay in even registering a case has comprehensively ensured that there is absolutely no forensic evidence left to find!

This is how we react to the few cases of rape that are ever reported, which are probably some 10 percent of the cases that actually occur. We STILL have no concept, no teeny tiny discussion even, of male rape. We still think of and deal with child sexual abuse as a crime perpetrated by the dreaded STRANGER which is too rare to even think about, whereas some 60% of adults have faced some form of it in their childhoods, and given the blindness, encouragement to perpetrators, and the overall increase in crimes against women and children, the number is probably much higher today.

I really think we should all, collectively, wake up and smell the coffee!

The surreal world of the great Indian adoption fLAWS

According to recent reports from government agencies, much publicized by the press (accompanied by suitable tongue clicking), adoptions in 2008-2009 have fallen by about half, over even the measly number from last year.

This is despite a concerted effort, on many fronts, to encourage the Indian adult to adopt. The press, as well as the electronic media, has done its part by bringing adoption to the forefront of the Indian mind. TV ad campaign “in public interest” have been backed up by gushy articles in the press about the joys of adoption, its social significance, the pleasures of parenthood and whatnot. The local and central governments have put up hoardings and billboards at strategic locations, pushing adoption. Electric bills are being printed and mailed with social messages encouraging people to adopt a child.

And still the numbers are falling? Is this an indication of the ever unchanging Indian biases against adoption? Is this an indication of the growing selfishness among the prospering middle and upper-middle classes? NOT AT ALL. All this indicates is the age-old “short term fixes ignore the long run” approach of the Indian establishment to just about everything. The system makes it extremely difficult for most people to adopt, completely impossible for some, even though they may be willing and able to love, support, and make a home for a child.

As recently as two decades ago, hardly anyone would even think of adoption. Forget couples who already had children of their own (whn god gives in such plenty why adopt some unknown child with unknown antecedents? Much better to carry on the Vansh, the bloodline), even the majority of childless couples would not imagine bringing a child home. Childlessness was a punishment from god, a fault of their “kismet”, or just bad luck (unless of course the BARREN woman was to blame). And who can fight GOD’s will?

So has nothing changed? Yes, much has. From a time when adoption was the last resort of the childless couple (and even then a child from a known family and bloodline was sought, like that of an impoverished relative with more kids than he could feed), today its more and more acceptable, at least in the more open minded urban culture. So why are the numbers falling, you may ask. There are a number of reasons, and none of them has to do with the reluctance of couples to adopt or with a scarcity of suitable up-for-adoption kids in the system.

First, and most important, hindrance is the superlative levels of red tape an the total lack of organization in the process and the agencies. Although there are thousands of suitable children available for adoption all over the country, and hundreds, at least, of couples wanting and waiting to adopt them, bringing the two together seems beyond the capabilities of the government. There isn’t even a national database of adoptable kids! So, if you are a couple in Maharashtra wanting to adopt, and there are no suitable children in that area, you might have to wait indefinitely for one to become available (through being orphaned or abandoned) even though there are hundreds of children available in other states.

The complete lack of technological application also makes the actual adoption process a long and convoluted one. Running around from one Organisation to another, from one Babu to another; providing a plethora of authentications, documents, proofs, ad nauseum; the months of waiting while the juggernaut of government machinery rolls along at an achingly slow pace. The police verifications and background checks alone take months, or years even, and the total process can last anywhere from three to five years, sometimes more.

Add that to the fact that most couples overcome a lot of mental, emotional, societal, and familial opposition and pressure to take the decision to adopt in the first place, and you have the beginnings of a picture. But there’s more. Most couples, for obvious reasons, seek to adopt infants. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it. The child comes to you as a blank slate, so to speak, with no preprogrammed language, culture, values an so on. Effectively, it’s as good as having one of your own in terms of seamless integration into the family and society. The child is young enough to be moulded totally into one of you.

Now picture you picking a six month old, and then beginning the process that will ultimately allow you to take it home. By the time the process is completed, the child could be a six year old, brought up in an orphanage, imbibing no-one-knows what values and culture from the people who look after it. Not exactly great for instant “apnapan”. All it means for you is that you will have a long haul of un-programming, before you can even think of beginning the reprogram that makes the child a part of your family, social set, and culture. All the behaviour picked up so far will have to be un-learned before the child can learn the behaviour that is acceptable in your world.

In addition, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, or Jain parents can only adopt Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist or Jain orphans, or abandoned kids, whose parents are not known, where the kid has been brought up in these religions! (What kind of sense that makes, in a country already swooning under the burden of divisionism, I have no idea. Why not let the parents choose? Let them decide if they would like to adopt across communities. Maybe that would even help ease inter community tensions a little). A Hindu woman, the wife of a Hindu man, cannot apply for adoption or be a co-applicant. She can only “give her consent”, and that too only if she herself is a Hindu. There are separate laws for Muslims and Parsis, but for the most part those don’t even allow outright adoption. They only allow kids to be placed in Guardianship, which ends when the children attain legal maturity. All this only adds complications, and makes it more and more impossible for couples to adopt easily or quickly.

And that’s not all. The problems stated so far only arise in the case of a married couple who have no children of their own. Now one can easily imagine how much harder EVERY thing is, for a single person wanting to adopt in India. First of all, let’s not forget the instinctive mistrust mainstream India shows for anyone who chooses not to marry. That’s bad enough, and speculation of all kinds from sexual inadequacy to homosexuality will be advanced as a reason behind such a choice. Factor in the desire of such a “strange” person to adopt a child, and you have an instant “WHY”. The paranoia is so deep rooted that it is excruciatingly difficult for a single person to adopt (in spite of the brownie points the government feels entitled to for even allowing it in the first place), thus reducing the number of prospective adoptive parents even further!

There are other issues too. Twenty something years ago, my parents wanted to adopt a child. They have two of their own, but they had the economic strength to bring up more, and thought it would be a good way to pay-it-back, give back to society. But, the great Indian adoption (f)laws prevented that very, very effectively. They had one son and one daughter, you see. So, according to the Hindu adoption laws, they could neither adopt a girl or a boy. Completely nonsensical, of course, considering that people would only want another child of the same gender if they really wanted it.

Two decades later, it hasn’t gotten any better. My man and I want to adopt, we want girls, and we want not one but two. However there is a hitch, a major one. We already have a biological daughter! So, the government of India, in all its wisdom, and on the basis of a law un-amended since the mid 1800s, tells me I cannot have more, unless I choose to overburden an already overcrowded planet by bearing more. And all this in a country like India, where female foetuses are lucky if they are allowed to be born, where female infants are incredibly lucky if they are not thrown into a well, drowned in a river, or suffocated to death with salt. Presumably, the government knows more about me than I do, and can tell that I am only pretending to want girls. What I probably really want to do, the omniscient feels, is bring them home, pay for their upkeep, education and everything else, only to make them high class slaves to my OWN daughter.

Unless the system loses its prejudices about OWN and ADOPTED children, until the processes are streamlined and cleaned up, until it takes less time – and heartache – from choosing the child to bringing it home, until religion and community stops being so much of a barrier, until single people are accepted and encouraged as adoptive parents, and until people desirous of adopting are allowed, even aided, to do so regardless of gender of child and existing biological offspring, nothing is going to change.

Adoption rates WILL fall. And neither the press nor the government should be remotely surprised by it. After all, a die hard pro-adoption couple as us (I knew I would adopt since I was 12 years old, my man, since he was in college) has been forced to all but give up the plan to bring home a child in the face of such determined and targeted opposition from the Indian government. It’s taken us four years of banging on doors and begging at agencies. Pity really, considering that two homeless, parentless, love deprived little girls would have gotten a family in that time.

Does Passing the IAS forgive rape?

The Supreme Court of India has taken a stand. And it is the right one! That’s a rarity in the current atmosphere of weird judgments, and large scale corruption allegations against the judiciary. This time though, the lower courts were dead wrong, and the Supreme Court has upheld not just justice, but common sense!

Imagine this. A man is convicted of rape, and abetting in a rape, and sentenced to fifteen years of rigorous imprisonment. He goes to jail, as he deserves to do, and while there, puts his energies into studying for the Indian Administrative Services. Whether he has the brains, or can cram really well, whatever the reason, he manages to pass the IAS entrance exam. Well, good. But then comes the funny thing. The Delhi high court suddenly decides that he has atoned for his sins by passing the IAS, and reduces his sentence from fifteen years to a mere five and a half years!

There are a number of problems with the high court decision. First and foremost, according to the Supreme Court, the high court does not have the discretionary powers to take it upon itself to reduce a sentence. There are proper procedures that have to be followed, which were bypassed in this case. Also, extreme and special circumstances have to be cited as the rationale behind a decision for clemency for a convicted inmate. The passing of the IAS exam, while certainly a bit of an achievement, does not qualify as special circumstances.

The other issue here is that the sentence cannot be reduced to below the minimum prescribed sentence for the crime, as put down in the Indian Penal Code. In this case, the minimum sentence for someone convicted of rape is seven years. So the High Court is overstepping its bounds in reducing it to five and a half years, which is considerably below the minimum prescribed punishment.

One also needs to think about the social and ethical implications of such a decision by one of the highest courts in the country. Letting a rapist loose, into the community that is supposed to be protected from him, so much earlier than the end of his sentence is problematic in itself, but when you consider the reasons being cited for such a move, the issue becomes even more problematic. What is the high court saying here? That such a heinous crime becomes nothing when compared to the great achievement of passing the IAS exam, something thousands of responsible citizens do every year? How are the two things even brought into comparison at all? What is the connection of passing an exam, which is a matter of cramming, and memorizing, seen as a mitigating factor for a crime that is among the most horrible ever thought up by a human being?

If you manage to learn a lot of facts and numbers, and answer an exam paper correctly, does that mean that somehow, magically, you have become a better human being and a more ethical person? That’s woolly thinking in the best of cases, by the most ordinary of people. When such woolly thinking is indulged in by one of the highest branches of the judiciary, in conjunction to such a heinous crime, it is cause for major concern for all the citizens of India! What is next? Serial killers being let off for passing the GRE? Thank god the Supreme Court stepped in when it did to uphold the law, and to protect ordinary citizens from the dregs of society!