Rajasthan minister questioning a gang-raped student's integrity is a pathetic reality of India
When will male politicians learn to stop making ignorant comments on rape?
It’s like an epidemic. A man feels like he knows more about rape than the actual victim; which in turn, leads him to make excellent scientifically accurate ground-breaking inferences. Perhaps it’s a secret requirement given by political parties to aspiring members that they have to have amazingly stupid opinion on a really sensitive topic. Perhaps they have an internal bet on who can say the worst thing possible about sexual assault or molestation or rape or harassment in public.
The present contender of this contest is senior BJP leader and Rajasthan home minister Gulab Chand Kataria. Kataria on Monday, March 27, commented upon the rape of a minor. The minister said, and this is not a joke, “Generally, even I am not able to understand if eight men raped and the girl does not come and inform the same day. Because I have experience of so many years, I can say, if even one man rapes a minor girl, she will get to know... even then, no issue."
It’s unlikely that 8 men gangrape a girl & she doesn’t complaint says Gulab Chand Kataria, Rajasthan HM #IndiaShamed pic.twitter.com/n7Gy0DORpl
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) March 27, 2017
Let that sink in for a bit. The esteemed minister thinks, nay, speaks out of experience that a rape victim who doesn’t report the incident within a day is odd.
The incident referred to here, is the alleged gang-rape of a 13-year-old in 2015, by eight of her teachers. The teachers are believed to have made a video of the incident as well, which they used to blackmail her. According to the girl's father, the teachers allegedly called her on April 12, 2015, after the school and took nude photographs of her. They later raped her and warned her not to talk to anybody. They also threatened to kill her if she revealed that she was assaulted.
The matter came into light, when the victim's father finally filed a complaint four days back, on March 23, yes of 2017.
"We have registered the FIR against eight people based on the father's allegations. All eight are teachers of a private school and we have booked them under relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and other sections of the IPC," a police officer said to Times Now.
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| Entitled mahapurush, Gulab Chand Kataria. [Photo: DailyO] |
While a preying Congress has already jumped on the occasion to sling mud at the BJP, something they are always ready to do, the more important question here is, why does this continue to happen? One would think that after years and years of media and public outrage over insanely asinine comments on rape or sexual assault, these minsters and politicians ought to have imbibed this valuable lesson.
The question the minister should have asked himself before subjecting us to his mind-vomit is just why rape or assault victims often don’t come out in the open about incidents. The answer is simple. We are an unforgiving society that not only enjoys casual victim-blaming, we also outright refuse to accept these claims and brush them off with exaggerated statistics of false rape charges.
We as a society wholly indulge in mistrusting women when they talk about rape. Noted “social scientist” Madhu Kishwar believes that it should be considered rape if it can’t be medically proven by doctors. Someone should point out to her that there is literally no way for doctors to prove rape. They can prove assault by looking at wounds. But there are no medical tests that prove rape. Then again, she is also of the opinion that nothing apart from peno-vaginal penetration constitutes as rape.
Perhaps the minister should have asked himself just how a thirteen-year-old child is expected to react to a traumatising incident like this. How is she to process rape and consequent blackmail? How is she to behave at the very idea of potential shaming in her society after her teacher and alleged rapists released photos and videos of this heinous act?
But of course, the minister knows from experience that this is "odd". Sure. What exactly is this experience he is talking about? What has this minister to show for his experience in dealing with rape victims? Oh wait, he’s a man in power, with a pulpit to spew defecation in form of words. He doesn’t need to prove anything.
The way things are going, maybe someday our esteemed minister will be called as an expert witness on rape cases to talk about whether or not he thinks the timing of the complaint is odd. Cannot wait for that glorious day to arrive.