The weakest link, no more

It’s all thanks to the titillating item songs, they said. Blame the mini-skirts, others echoed. Boys will be boys, a few opined. It’s the CHOW MEIN, some spat out.

Sexual crimes against women are not a recent phenomenon. However, the 2012 Nirbhaya incident did reinforce the significance of this issue in the public discourse. A lot of people, since, have held the immense sexual repression in India responsible for the high incidences of rapes in the country. They are not incorrect in their thinking as it does play a significant part. However, the occurrence of these incidents even in the more liberal west is an indication that this is surely not the only cause.

In the recent past, there was a flurry of incidents involving drivers of app-based cab services involving themselves in deplorable acts of molestation and rape. When you think about it, these incidents are nothing but manifestations of a power struggle.

Take the case of one of these cab drivers. Earlier he was a poor cab driver silently taking the discriminatory attitude of the rich. Then came along the likes of Uber and Ola, turning a number of these drivers into well-paid individuals. So this guy thought that the new-found money will buy him a ticket into the upper strata of society. Yet again, he was proven wrong when he encountered the deep-rooted prejudice against certain professions and class distinction based on attire and diction. This phenomenon of quickly amassed wealth, mostly through agriculture (and drugs?) is omnipresent in Punjab & Haryana as well — a belt that is notorious for its cases of women molestation.

And when the seething anger in the hitherto looked down upon classes needs a vent, it is the women they target.

Right from the time when kingdoms flourished and attacked each other, the oppression of women was a marker of the victor’s authority over the vanquished party. Mass rape incidences by armies of various nations while at war are still existent, and though they are a result of the sexual deprivation of these men, they are primarily a tool to set up the power dynamic. There has always been a price attached to a woman’s chastity, and the infringement of it a mark of great dishonour.

Does knowing this yield us an answer to being these incidences down? I can’t claim so. What I do believe is that understanding these root causes will lead to an answer and, at least, prevent everyone from finding fault where there is none.

Women must know that they are targeted not because they are weak but because they really are the core of the society they live in. And though men have a large part to play to make this better, it’s the women who need to take charge and stand for their own rights. Sanity shall be restored then.

Happy Women’s Day.