Rape as a 'lesson' for bringing dishonour is an ugly practice that needs to end
A woman is seen not as an individual, but as a symbol of her family’s honour.
A 21-year-old woman from Uttar Pradesh has alleged she was gang-raped as punishment for eloping with her boyfriend – by her father, brother and uncles. Let that sink in. Not outsiders. Not a village khap. Her father and brothers, as punishment.
The four men have been arrested. The woman has also claimed that her family members threatened her against reporting the rape and forced her to end her pregnancy.
According to the police, the woman had eloped with her boyfriend, both residents of a Muzaffarnagar village, twice, and her family had registered an abduction complaint both times. The woman was brought back after her second elopement attempt in October, and has claimed that it was after this that her family members assaulted her.
The 21-year-old's mother and sister-in-law have claimed the accused are innocent, that the woman lodged a false complaint under her boyfriend's influence. It is possible that the men are indeed innocent. But what is horrifying is that while we are disgusted by it, we are quite ready to believe the news.
This is not the first case where we have heard of a woman being punished for transgressing her patriarchy-approved boundaries, for bringing dishonour on her family, for committing the ultimate sin of trying to choose her own sexual partner.
That the country at large is not ready to grant a woman this choice has also been apparent in the much publicised Hadiya case, where the Supreme Court has appointed her college dean as her guardian, despite Hadiya repeatedly saying she wishes to stay with her husband.
Rape as a tool of subjugation
The Muzaffarnagar case, if true, once more shows how a woman is seen not as an individual, but as a symbol of her family's honour. Her actions as impacting her own life are immaterial, they matter only when they start impacting the family name. Even the "dishonour" is not hers, it is her father's, her brothers'.
And therefore, a woman bringing shame on her family deserves to be punished.
A father or a brother becomes less of a man if he is not able to control the actions of his daughter or his sister. The most common description of rape and the most common exhortation against it show this mentality well enough – a raped woman has been robbed of her izzat (honour), one must respect a woman not because she is a human being, but because she is someone's behen (sister), someone's beti (daughter).
Research has found that soldiers often rape even when they don't want to, for possession of their women is the most complete humiliation of the enemy.
Another sickening aspect is that rape is considered the ultimate subjugation of a woman. By proving that she cannot even protect her own body, a woman is sought to be shown her place.
Honour and shame
According to a statement made in December last year by junior home minister Hansraj G Ahir in Parliament, India registered an almost 800 per cent rise in the number of honour killings from 2014 to 2015. The states with the worst figures were Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
Newspaper reports of family members killing couples for marrying outside their caste or community are all too common, and often, the reaction to them is not unmixed with sympathy for the murderers.
On November 11, a 24-year-old woman was stabbed to death allegedly by her family members as she was in a relationship with her brother-in-law.
In May, a couple was killed with an axe allegedly by the family members of the woman in Badaun as they had eloped.
A few months before that, a 65-year-old man was arrested for allegedly killing his son and a married woman he had eloped with in Kannauj district.
So, what is it that drives a family to kill, confine, assault its own young? The barriers of caste, a strong need for approval within the community, and the inability to accept that a woman is free to make her own choices.
The family is never acting in a vacuum. In a rigidly casteist, patriarchal society, "love marriages" threaten the established social order like little else does, and the retribution is swift and often violent. Families that choose not to punish their erring young are ostracised and village panchayats come up with punishments of their own.
A 2015 case in Uttar Pradesh hit international headlines after a village council ordered that two Dalit sisters be raped and paraded naked, as their brother had eloped with an upper caste woman.
Families who attack their children for transgressing social boundaries are often merely weak, trying to satisfy a vengeful "samaaj" that demands blood before it can be appeased. That they do not turn to the police and the administration for help also shows how little the system has been able to penetrate the more regressive corners of our society and collective mentality.
Way forward
Crimes such as the one alleged in Muzaffarnagar will not stop until the society at large continues to sympathise with the perpetrators, till the honour of a family is linked to the sexual conduct of its daughters.
For this, legal steps need to accompany attempts at social change. While a wider campaign is needed to break the stranglehold of caste, patriarchy and misogyny, the law needs to be stringent with the custodians of "izzat" in Indian society.
Parents who kill their children need to be considered as murderers - plain and simple - without the apologia and euphuism of "honour killing", which positions them as victims too. Village councils that order insane and illegal punishments need to be tried and convicted for inciting violence and attempt to murder.
It is a matter of great shame for a modern democracy if its society feels compelled to attack, rape and murder its young for choosing their sexual partners. It is time the scales of honour and shame are set right.