In the past couple of months everyone can conclude that, India
is country where its own capital is not safe for his citizen. A five-year-old
girl was kidnapped from outside her home and raped mercilessly by her
neighbour. A water bottle and few candles were poked into the private parts of
the five-year-old rape victim. In yet another painfully shocking reality of
police brutality the mother of a seven-year-old alleged murder and rape victim
was beaten, thrashed and dragged by a cop in Maharashtra. The police also baton
charged outraged mob, who came out on roads and pelted stones at police and
blocked traffic for dozen hours after the body was found from a garbage tub.
The true deterrent to rape crimes (as in most other crimes) is
not the quantum of possible punishments, but the surety of punishment. The
conviction can be both legal and social. In India, due to prevailing depressing
conditions, the possibility of either kind of punishment is often fairly low,
guiding some people to feel they can get away with this. This hypothesis is
partially supported by the fact that rape is the fastest growth rate among
crime types in India, while having the lowest conviction rates.
In fact in real terms, most of the times the husband’s forceful
intercourse or intercourse when partner is not ready has never been accounted
in the reported cases, which also qualifies in the legal term as rape; also the
growing stress level, lack of sexual knowledge, social taboo on speaking on the
subject in the family. Growing objectification of Women via media and
advertisements has added more to it. Sexuality fashion and accessories which
may be fashionable, there is no denying but they are meant to be that way; as
much as the guys would enjoy watching the AXE advertisements and cheerleaders
in IPL advertisements. Adolescents are left on their own to discover
sexual know-how and sexual feeling often find information in porn.
There are some cases where the intercourse happens with the
consent of the victim on the lure of some benefit or situation such as —
getting married to the guy or consensual sex. Having a mutual accepted
condition to have intercourse is also accounted as rape. Also there is an interesting fact, in fact the paid sex or
prostitution is also counted as rape and there are some angles to it. You will
find that the health ministry has opposed the decriminalization of the clients–
not directly implying but attesting the need for sexual intercourse to exist.
May be we need to look around and ask more questions to
ourselves. It has to go deeper than merely discipline people. Some of these
perpetrators/future perpetrators may seem normal and we might mix with them
daily. But what is it that causes their fall?
Nikhil Chandwani
National Best-Seller Author
Columnist at STIMULUS INDIA !
