And the 10 utterly revolting, insensitive statements that follow:
No News Bulletin seems to be complete without a customary rape. Another little girl violated. Another harrowing “tale”: of inhuman brutality. Another “case”: of the perverts seeking out their victims as we watch, dumbfounded by the sheer bestiality involved. Another “incident”: that numbs us to disbelief, even as we cringe helplessly, unable to find a catharsis, to channel the anger that builds up inside, gnawing at our souls.
The “cases”, the “stories”, the “incidents”, the “tales” are soon pushed away from our collective consciousness as the channels move on, in their TRP-induced hunger for Breaking News. The victims, condemned to eternal damnation, are forced to carry the scars that will never heal and are expected to “grin and bear” our apathy, even as they become mere statistics in the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), only to be taken out, dusted and paraded as exotic creatures the next time another man mistakes his impotence as virility and violates another innocent woman.
However, what is even worse is our outright insensitive and despicable “reactions”. As a man, it may not be possible for me to comprehend the ignominy, the pain, the trauma or the castigation that being raped means to a woman, but even I, with all my faults, am stunned by the predictable reactions they draw.
Let me list 10 statements which are bandied with gay abandon by the various “authorities” and “experts” and follow set patterns that are not only revolting in inducing disgust, but seriously makes one want to question our very humanity.
- Woman had fun and was later “forced” by family to bring in charges. As if women love marking themselves as “rape victims” which provide them with untold “facilities”. In the hallway of lame excuses, can anything be even more pathetic? We can see through your subterfuge – that of trying to pass off something as heinous as rape as a “collateral damage”!
- Love triangle being investigated. A rape is a rape. Period. Whether the perpetrator was a lover or a spurned one is of no concern to anyone. Question is, when will those who are entrusted with the onerous duty of protecting us understand this? Equally ham handed is the terse response that says that “according to preliminary investigations, the crime was committed under the influence of alcohol”.
- Woman of loose morals. So I am a Slut, can you still quench your perverted hunger by forcing me and thrusting yourself on my unwilling self? Yet, how often have we heard the authorities trying to mollify the just anger by belittling the severity of the situation, by casting aspersions on the character of the abused?
- Transaction between two parties that went wrong. What? You are insinuating that the poor girl was trying to sell herself and that it is merely a matter of the oldest trade going wrong? Was it not enough that her modesty was brutally assaulted, that you are trying to label her a street walker? What will you guys come up with next? That, potential Rape victims carry the Caveat Emptor sign on them?
- The law will take its own course. Who is that moron trying to tell you what course the law of the land will take anyway? Just because he is a two-bit politician wanting to thrust his pockmarked face on prime time television, what (or more importantly, who) gives him the right to flash his sanitized smile to rub salt on our wounds?
- Justice will be done. Oh yeah? When? What does “justice” mean, that too after decades of callousness, to one who has to bear the stigma every moment of her life anyway? Bunkum! Have you noticed, how the same people, indulgent smiles writ all over their Lucifer faces say, “boys, will be boys”, sinfully oblivious of the amputating pain such numb inducing statements spread?
- Nothing less than Public Hanging. Yes, that’s what the hanger-on’s say to sound politically correct, that too, feigning mock outrage. As a matter of fact, some of these “shrill” voices of protest use the “opportunity” to negotiate and access the largess that the authorities throw to quell what they think is politically pregnant with negative possibilities. That, my friends is the illegitimate, bastard son of the whole rigmarole.
- Castrate the offender. Then, there are the NGO’s and the women’s rights activists – the “jhola-walla’s” as they are fondly called in Delhi. Banshee wails from the far fringes of society. Those making such statements are there only to prove their radicalism and use the shock value to attract attention to … not the victim’s plight, but themselves.
- It’s an open and shut case. Our boys are seeking out the “Open” people among the dissenters so that we can buy them off and “shut” the case forever. It’s one of those many things that one has to “fix” in order to be in politics. So shut up and do your thing. Or better still, shut up, or else…
- No one, irrespective of their political affiliations will be spared. Hang on fellows, the Inquisition is on and we are looking for a suitable scapegoat from among the opposition for the stake. The key here is the use of the term “political affiliation” which in plain speak means that the decision to add political colour has been consciously arrived at, to shift the focus from both the victim and the offender, with a view towards extracting political mileage.
“But what about the rape” You cry indignantly horrified? “What Rape” they ask, with the callousness of a pachyderm, gleefully adding: “Rape is nothing new. You must congratulate the Government for empowering the women, who are lodging complaints in increasing numbers these days, which is skewing the statistics. The Police must also be complemented for recording the complaints which was not encouraged by the earlier regimes. A deep-rooted and widely prevalent social malice like rape takes time to be eradicated and this too, shall pass. We must celebrate the fact that we have taken the first steps in the right direction. Till such time, the victims can ride the bicycles provided exclusively to them by our Revolutionary leader on compassionate grounds – needless to say, another first in the country!”
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