From Survivors to Victims
In December 2012, Jyoti Singh, a 23-year-old female, was beaten and gang-raped by six men in a moving bus in a South Delhi neighbourhood. After the attack, she was thrown out onto the roadside, and thirteen days later, she succumbed to her injuries. The brutality of the rape, the scale of the protests, the extent of the media coverage in India and internationally, and the intensity of the public’s opprobrium towards the police and the administration of Delhi, was unprecedented. The conversation to deal with violence against women was overdue in India, and the public was demanding justice and accountability. This was a momentous expression of desire for action by civil society, one that was resulting from a build-up of anger. The discourse surrounding the 2012 Delhi gang rape is a reflection of existing and evolving trends in the social and cultural attitudes towards rape, its victims, and its perpetrators, and in a larger sense, how males and females are represented in Indian society. In particular, I will discuss how the language and images used in news interviews and reports about this rape highlight different attitudes, changing views, and prejudices in Indian society.
Protesters demanded the swift and severe persecution of the remaining defendants, after Rahm Singh’s suicide, but more importantly they wanted profound changes to India’s laws and attitudes towards women. On the other hand, some argued that men lack control over their impulses and that the perpetrator was acting just as any other man in society would if he were in a similar situation, a stance that the defense lawyer ML. Sharma adopted. In the infamous documentary about this case, India’s daughter, ML. Sharma cleverly manipulates the shocking premise of his argument by elevating women through the use of the metaphor of ‘flower’ and ‘gem’ to connote that they are gentle, valuable, and need to be guarded against harm. He exacerbates the sexist argument with the trope “If that flower you put in a gutter, it is spoilt. In a temple, it will be worshipped” (1). This paves the way to categorize women into those that can be discarded to those that are to be worshipped. If educated members of society such as ML. Sharma perpetuates such an ideology, it is inevitable that uneducated and less exposed members of society such as the perpetrators would not feel vindicated for holding this ideology.
ML. Sharma paints a picture of what he deems to be an ideal Indian woman, one that is gentle, valuable, and needs to be protected. In India’s daughter, one of the perpetrators Mukesh provides an explanation for his crime which highlights impact that the stereotype of an ideal woman and gender roles can have. Mukesh argues, “You can’t clap with one hand. It takes two hands to clap. A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 p.m. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boys and girls are not equal” (1) The use of ‘decent’ ‘more responsible’ ‘not equal’ reflects the attitude that it’s a woman’s fault for not fitting into a man’s definition of how she should behave. Mukesh reduces his act of violence to a quasi-consensual act, which minimizes the act and justifies his actions further. It also reflects the delusion of perpetrators ingrained with ideas that women ‘out and about’ are asking to be violated.
Additionally, the other defense lawyer AP Singh exemplifies the victim-blaming and shaming that is rampant in Indian society, in his statement, “if my daughter were to be raped I would bring her to our farmhouse, make her stand in front of all our relatives, put petrol on her and burn her to death” (1). The attitude that women are an appendage to the men in her family is shown through AP’s Singh’s use of “burn her to death,” which reflects the ancient Hindu practice of Sati, where women would join husbands or sacrifice themselves on the funeral pyre. The visual imagery of a burning woman in front of all her family members perpetuates the idea of women as chattels, undervalued, and sacrificial creatures to the whims and power of men. The underlying and pejorative idea in Singh’s speech is that a woman’s chastity is the man’s possession and if she were to be raped before or after marriage, this impacts the honor of the family, and hence she becomes a liability and shame to her family.
In India, rape is a strange crime, where survivors become victims and in some cases suffer more than their perpetrators. The media constitutes a key arena in which sexual violence is described, defined, and understood, and is one that shaped perspectives on rape, its victims, and perpetrators. Some argue that the use of imagery, lighting, and perspective, although subtle, can greatly condone victim-blaming and sexual violence. The most common image used for reporting rape is of a woman with a cowering posture, covering her face. In other crimes, victims are often shown to be angry and demanding justice, but rape victims portrayed as defeated, ashamed and guilt-ridden. For instance, in a Hindustan Times article on school management’s failure to report sexual assault, published in 2017, the image on the left was used consists of a shadow of a man’s hands looming over a girl while she is in the spotlight. The light is deftly cast on the girl and it hides the identity of the perpetrator, which indirectly places the blame and onus on her. The abject fear on the girl’s face again gives no sense of empowerment or the ability to come forward or fight back.
Other than lighting, camera perspective also reveals the hidden message that the picture attempts to convey. Images of rape are shown from the perspective of the assaulter, so the power of ‘gaze’ is of the perpetrator. In an article published by the Indian Express in May 2016 on the number of sexual assaults reported since April in the same year, the image on the left was used portrays a woman in the background with the perpetrator’s back being the viewer’s perspective. The voyeuristic angle sensationalises the issue and again conveys the victim as totally powerless and erases her identity as her face is covered. It also seeks indirectly to shield the viewers from the horrific effects of such crimes which could be accentuated by showing the emotion in her eyes.
What connects images used in reporting rape is the posture of the woman in the frame. The rape survivor’s face is always hung with shame, suggesting passivity. In a snippet from a Zee News report discussing the death penalty for the 2012 Delhi gang rapists, the image in the background on the left has a woman sitting in shame and with a visual of a woman resisting a man forcing himself on her. In the top right corner, we also see a woman hiding behind a veil. All of these collectively point out the idea of passivity. Another noticeable feature is the fact that the woman is always seen alone with no one by her side, sitting in a dark room and isolated from the world. This creates the normative point of view that a rape survivor is left alone and doesn’t require any kind of counseling or moral support from the people around her.
Of 645 rapes reported in Delhi in 2012, there was only one conviction. Given this culture of impunity, and the pervasiveness of rape, many stories fade into the masses. To reach audiences, garner reactions, and viewership, the media often sensationalises rape crimes and focuses on gory details, which serves to decontextualise the case from the larger issue of violence against and attitudes towards women. I believe that Indian media should step away from trivialising rape cases, shaming, and victim-blaming, and instead focus their attention on the perpetrators and hold them accountable. There should be an attempt to redress this issue and reclaim the image of rape victims by creating visually based alternatives that can ameliorate the narrative around rape from shaming the survivor to focusing on the perpetrator.
Bibliography
(1) Udwin, Leslee, Abhey Anand, Anuradha Singh, and Krsna. India’s Daughter: The Story of Jyoti Singh. , 2015.
(2) “Pre-School Management Booked for Failing to Report Sexual Assault of Children by Staff Member.” Hindustan Times, 23 Feb. 2017.
(3) Mathur, Aneesha. “Sexual Assault: Of 1,138 Cases Heard in April, 331 Involve Minors, DCW Tells Delhi HC.”
(4) “India Victim in 2012 Delhi Gang Rape Named by Mother.” BBC News, BBC, 16 Dec. 2015, www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35115974.
(5) Dorwart, Laura. “How a Gang Rape Case in Delhi Stunned the World.” A&E, 19 Mar. 2019, www.aetv.com/real-crime/delhi-gang-rape-case-nirbhaya-crime-jyoti-singh.
(6) “Interview Renews Horror of New Delhi Gang Rape.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Mar. 2015.
