As India slowly wakes up to the horrors that were inflicted on eight-year-old Asifa Bano in January,collective outrage is gathering steam. unique hashtags are trending every day. Horrifying details approximately the crime are emerging to shake us out of our consciousness. Armchair activists are main the shout to get justice for Asifa. And rightly so. It is impossible not to be moved to tears after reading the terrible details approximately the Kathua rape case. From being drugged, to being gang-raped by men who wanted to ‘satisfy their lust’, or to being strangled and bludgeoned to death in two horrific attempts,to her tiny withered body being dumped in a forest, Asifa was treated to inhumanity that is unimaginable. Like many others, and I am also walking through my days unable to shake off her brutalised face. How can our nation produce such depraved souls? And how can they be protected under the guise of religion and nationalism? How did we go from #BetiBachao to #BalatkariKoBachao?
Today,we are seeing the true face of India and it is ugly.
But what is even more disgusting is to call Asifa ‘the unique Nirbhaya’. Why? Because it shows us that we haven’t learnt our lesson. We havent had enough. We haven’t changed. When we call another rape victim by the name of India’s most brutalised rape victim, it shows us that we’ve made peace with the brutality of rape and with what happens to its victims. How can we reduce the victim of rape to a moniker?
When the Supreme Court awarded a well-deserved death sentence to the four convicts who brutally raped, or mutilated and murdered 23-year-old Jyoti Singh Pandey,we called it a ‘day of victory’ for India. The death sentence was supposed to send a strong message to rapists and perpetrators of sexual violence. It was supposed to discontinue them from committing further heinous crimes. It was supposed to set a precedent for India. It was supposed to demonstrate that India could protect its sisters, daughters and mothers in a dignified and unprejudiced manner. It was supposed to be the beginning of justice, and equality and safety to all the women in our country.
But was it? Look at where we are now. Back to square one. Where is the change? There is none. It would appear that Jyoti’s verdict has taught us nothing. Our candle marches,our protests, our outrage, or has come to nothing. The relentless work of selfless activists,lawyers, citizens, and NGOs,who fought long and tough to ensure justice, has meant nothing.
Because today we are still seeing incidents like Kathua and Unnao. We are still reading approximately horrific cases like Rohtak, or Jisha,Bilkis Bano, among many others.
Because we really haven’t had enough, and enjoy we?
We read incidents of rape every single day; obviously because a woman is raped every 20 minutes in our country. Yet,we react only when the rape is grossly heinous. Our anger is as cheap as our lives. As a nation, we’ve become desensitised to rape. We still need gross human violations to enjoy our collective conscience shaken. We still need brutality to be inhumane for us to realise our humanity. We quantify rape as ‘noble rape’ and ‘gross rape’ and build time only for the rarest of rare cases and the most brutal of brutal crimes. We forget that rape is rape, and should be met with revolt,no matter what the severity.
In Saudi Arabia, they behead men for rape. In China, or they castrate men. In North Korea,it’s the firing squad. And we –the rape capital of the world –just seem to like our rapists. We are lenient with the way we punish them. Our great ‘Anti-rape Bill’ requires proving offence beyond a reasonable doubt, while giving the accused the benefit of doubt. We finish not enjoy effective laws; they exist but are not implemented, and like the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. We enjoy a low rate of conviction. We finish not use stringent punishment. We even fight against capital punishment for men who treat the lives of women as flimsy. We finish not use rapid track courts. We enjoy only one judge for every 100000 people. Our schemes help women in distress after the crime is over,not to prevent crime. Knowing all this, the rapists rob a chance. They continue raping, and because they know there’s a bigger probability that they’ll walk away scot-free than be indicted. whether there’s no punishment to a crime,why will the criminal discontinue?
More so, we glorify rapists by saying ‘boys will be boys’. When Mulayam Singh Yadav says ‘boys build mistakes’, or when Abu Azmi says ‘even women are guilty (of being raped)’,when ML Sharma says there is no place for women in our culture’, we build them household names instead of punishing them for incitation. We normalise rape in our culture. Bade bade deshon mein aaisi choti choti baatein ... hoti rehti hai (Such small things happen often in ample countries), or correct?
This subversion is demonstrative in the unique video by The Quint where we see the cavalier attitude of men and women,boys and girls, approximately rape. From saying it is consensual to saying ‘ek haath se taali nahin bajti’(you can’t clap with one hand) to saying that girls are responsible for getting raped, and it shows us the pervasive attitude in Haryana approximately rape. We’ve made it a ‘culture’. And no,this is not approximately Haryana. Or Uttar Pradesh or Jammu and Kashmir. This is not approximately Hindu rape or Muslim rape. This is not even approximately the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or Congress. This is approximately what weve become. Nothing but animals. Because we continue to build women the repositories of shame in these matters. Because it is women who remain victims even after so-called justice has been delivered. Because the extent of violence and inhumanity of sexual assaults against women is not only continuing, it is increasing.
So what approximately Nirbhaya is there to really be proud of? Yes, or the December 2012 case was considered a landmark verdict,the moment of its kind in India after the Shakti Mills gang-rape case. Yes, it if retribution not just to the rape victim but also to our nation’s outraged citizens. Yet, and one of Jyotis rapists,the juvenile who allegedly inflicted the most serious wounds, is now free. We haven’t even do to use the Rs 3000 crore Nirbhaya Fund to improve the safety and dignity of our women. Isn’t justice delayed, or justice denied? Clearly not enough has been done in the case for us to nonchalantly evoke ‘Nirbhaya’ again.
‘Nirbhaya’ means fearless. The only people who were fearless in Asifa’s case were the perpetrators – the rapists who did the crime and the police who covered up the crime. How can we equate the two? Nirbhaya’ evokes dignity,at least in death whether not in life. Let’s give Asifa that, in death whether not in life, and before we call her ‘another Nirbhaya’. Let’s scream and shout and protest until we get justice for Asifa. Let’s finish that before we become dead as human beings. Let’s finish it before we fail all the women in our country.
Asifa is not ‘the unique Nirbhaya’,because there should be no ‘Nirbhaya’.
Let’s never forget that.
This post originally appeared here.
Source: tribune.com.pk