Rape Justice spelled backwards is M-I-S-O-G-Y-N-Y
Srivatsan Q
TRIGGER WARNING: The following article contains strong language, and references to sexual violence, rape, and graphic descriptions
Rape has never been merely sexual — it goes beyond to the political, social, and moral construction of our society. We have come to believe that rape need be violent and gruesome, that it’s all about the villainy of the rapist.
The act though, is far from being about a “monster rapist”.
Madhumita Pandey interviewed 100 rapists in a recent study, rediscovering German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt’s ‘Banality of Evil’ in the reality that most of those she interviewed had the ability to make her feel sorry for them. Most of them were people, much like you and I are used to being around, who didn’t understand the gravity of their crime, didn’t know what consent meant. They were not “extraordinary men”, but rather incredibly ordinary.
Why does this matter? It matters because in India, in the fight to communicate the sheer psychological terrorism, the power-dynamic and the oppression that rape is, it is not merely about characterizing rape to be a function of the “monster rapist” but rather a product of an overwhelming rape culture, patriarchy, sexism, and the historical oppression of the female sex. And in such a world, words matter.
A student of JGU was raped. For two years, she was blackmailed, tormented, forced to have sex with someone who she thought she could trust, and his friends too. They were perhaps living in rooms we’ve lived in. Where we walk today on campus, is perhaps where she lay broken, each time. We can’t pretend to empathise. We cannot pretend to understand. We don’t. After all this, we have an administrative response by JGU in an email, stating “with deep regret” the conviction by the courts, and asking to consider the loss of education, life and “productive years” of the men who committed this disgusting crime. No official apology is given for those words. A few months later, similar words are used in the order suspending the jail sentences of Hardik Sikri, Vikas Garg, and Karan Chhabra. The order states ‘the lack of gruesome violence’ as a reason why bail must be granted. Regardless of academic or legal prowess, beyond our debates about morality, jurisprudence and philosophy, how have we developed a mindset, where we could even think of extending the smallest amount of sympathy — to men who raped her, against her will, blackmailing her, for months, where she lived every day in the fear that it would be worse than the previous one?
This wasn’t merely the actions of Hardik, Vikas, and Karan, not just the “monster rapists”, it is contributed to by every word stated by people in ignorance, calling the victim a ‘slut’, justifying the acts of the men, and believing that an alternative explanation could justify the mentally and physically breaking experience that we must try to think of, without understanding the brutality of it.
It was where a student could be forced to feel that undergoing the crime was a better option than facing society’s vindictiveness — a society that is supposed to be warm, accepting, condemning to the utmost extent such crimes, and doing all we could, for justice.
Where then, as a community, are we left?
Context : A complaint was lodged by a girl from the O P Jindal Global University to the administration in 2015 alleging rape and blackmail by the above trio, since 2013. The local court in Sonipat awarded Hardik and Karan each, a twenty year sentence and a seven year sentence to Vikas.
Challenging the order, the case was then taken to Punjab and Haryana High Court which granted bail to all the three convicts, instead ordered counselling for all three of them at AIIMS. The reason for the bail as given by the High Court is as follows: “misadventure stemming from a promiscuous attitude and a voyeuristic mind”, on the part of the victim, a conclusion drawn by the officials after analysing the statement of the victim.
About the writer: Q, as is their preferred name, is agender, and a senior student of International Relations at the Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities. They has presented papers at various national and international conferences, on political psychology, gender, mythology, and literature.
Q is currently pursuing a semester at Trinity College Dublin, and is the founder of the LGBTQ Community of JGU and TwiLit Slam Poetry.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are independent views solely of the author(s) expressed in their private capacity and do not in any way represent or reflect the views of KrantiKālī.
