Where's the outrage over Haryana gang rapes?
A 15-year-old girl in Haryana left home for her tuition classes on January 9. On January 13, her body was found in Jind, around 100km from her village – mutilated, partially naked, bearing evidence of the torture she had been subjected to.
According to doctors, the teenager suffered 19 severe injuries, on her face, neck, lips and chest. Her liver and lungs had been ruptured, and an object jammed into her body. The damage to her lungs was caused by someone sitting on her chest.
A report quoted SK Dattarwal, a doctor in PGI Rohtak, as saying: “The body had many injury marks, the private parts were mutilated and there were lot of internal injuries. Signs of sexual assault are visible and looks like three-four people were responsible, a hard and blunt thing was inserted inside her, signs of drowning also found.”
On Saturday in Panipat, an 11-year-old girl was kidnapped, raped and strangled when she left her house to dump garbage. The two people arrested in the case have confessed to necrophilia, according to reports.
On Sunday, a 22-year-old woman, who was returning home from work, was kidnapped and gang-raped allegedly by four men in a moving car for nearly two hours in Faridabad.
On Sunday, a 10-year-old girl playing outside her house in Pinjore was raped, allegedly by a 50-year-old man.
Where is the outrage
By all standards, these are horrific crimes – women interrupted as they were going about their lives, brutalised, violated and killed, only because someone around them craved sexual gratification.
The appropriate, in fact the only possible response, to the crimes should be the administration swinging into action, the chief minister addressing the public and stating that culprits would be brought to book and every effort made to curb such incidents.
None of that has so far happened. In the Panipat case, two men have been arrested. In the Jind case, one person has been “identified”, and some detained. No arrest has been made in the Faridabad case. In the Pinjore case, one man has been arrested.
The only reported reaction from CM Manohar Lal Khattar has been that an accused in the Jind case has been identified and that the CM “was sure he would be arrested soon”.
Far more charged-up voices had been heard from politicians when Sanjay Leela Bhansali “sullied” the fictional Queen Padmini’s honour through his movie.
Why does rape not move the Indian political class? Why is it only the media and some “women’s groups” raging and raving about sexual crimes?
In Haryana, it is war on women
Haryana, in particular, is notorious for one of the worst sex ratios in the country. Ironically, on January 14, the state had celebrated logging its highest-ever sex ratio of 914 girls per 1,000 boys, in 2017. CM Khattar had been quick to attribute the success to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme.
In 2016, Haryana was the state to report the most number of gang rapes. According to NCRB data, 191 gang rapes took place here in 2016, with a rate of 1.5 per cent against the national average of 0.3 per cent. The total number of rapes was 1,187, averaging to more than three rapes a day. The rape rate in Haryana is 9.4 against the national average of 6.1. It reported the highest number of gang rapes in 2015 and 2014, too.
Going by these statistics, rape in Haryana is not just a law and order issue, it is society at war – a section of the population at threat before they are born, and every second after they are born.
In the scenario, it is telling to recall what Khattar’s views on sexual assault had been before he became CM. In 2014, at a poll rally, Khattar had said: “If a girl is dressed decently, a boy will not look at her in the wrong way. If you want freedom, why don't they just roam around naked? Freedom has to be limited. These short clothes are western influences. Our country's tradition asks girls to dress decently.”
He had gone on to add, “Khaps maintain the tradition of a girl and boy being brother and sister. They are just making sure that a girl and boy do not see each other in the wrong way. These rulings help prevent rapes too. Pre-marital sex is a blot. Sex after marriage is acceptable. Pre-marital sex happens as the minds of the girls and boys are not on the right track.”
Law cannot wait for mindset to catch up
Indeed, Khattar is not the only Indian who thinks so. The fact that he still became the CM shows how acceptable and prevalent this mentality is. The same mindset is shared by a large section of policemen who register complaints, the lawyers who fight the cases, the judges who give verdicts.
The mentality is the reason women’s existence in the state is so precarious: the skewed sex ratio has meant there are a lot of men with simply not enough women to marry, the society’s “bare branches”.
Patriarchy has taught them they are owed a woman to sleep with. Toxic masculinity has told them it is okay, in fact commendable, to seize what they can’t otherwise have. A regressive society ensures that if they do cross boundaries, they will find sympathisers and defenders, the assault will somehow be the woman’s fault.
This mentality was clearly visible when the son of Haryana BJP chief was arrested for stalking a woman — at the time, several leaders from the party resorted to unabashed victim-shaming.
However, while regressive mentality can explain the behaviour of an individual it is no reason to condone his/her actions. For an office bearer, his personal views cannot influence the discharge of his responsibilities.
As the chief minister, Khattar had sworn to protect every citizen of his state. These rapes – which amount to a large section of the population being denied their right to life, liberty and basic human dignity – show his utter failure as the administrative head of the state.
Women will truly be safe only when there is a transformative change in the social mindset as a whole. But that will take ages to happen.
Till that time, the law enforcement agencies – police and judiciary – need to be made accountable in the discharge of their duties, so that women at least get the rights guaranteed to them in the Constitution. The right to move about without fear and the right to redress if violated is the most basic among them.
For this, the lead has to come from the political class. Women cannot wait for the whole society to be reformed before they can feel safe. We need leaders across political parties to unite and denounce these incidents, we need curbing of rapes to become a major election issue.
The Constitution guarantees equal rights to every citizen. Every rape makes a mockery of this right, and is a blot on those entrusted with upholding the Constitution.
Also read: Truth behind why child sexual assaults and abductions are on the rise in Pakistan