“Rape is becoming so common that only the brutal ones shock us.”
Are you too acquainted with the above line? Well, that’s the exact truth depicting the circumstances we as a part of the society, experience every day or maybe every hour, and what if I say every minute! C’mon what rubbish, we don’t experience it every day, it happens somewhere in India far away from us, we live in a city which is full of Educated people and no one thinks of such act here and well if anyone even thinks he is well aware that he can’t even touch a woman in broad light. Okay! let us assume Rapes is just another word that doesn’t exist in your locality or city. And the very next day your family member gets raped! (Don’t curse me, it’s just an imagination) And there’s no outrage against the criminal and he is the son of a Minister, who using his so-called power suppresses the case. You are standing helpless with no clue to ask anyone for help, and being oppressed if you go to a higher level of justice.
Every day her mental condition is torturing you within, you are unable to find out how to get justice, there’s no one standing with you, you are all alone my friend. Would you still call “Rape” just another word that happens far away from you! Well, this is the exact situation of thousands of Indian families! Maybe you are still not being familiar with the word “Rape” and thinking that why would it even happen to your family member. There’s a small task just Google “Rape” and enter the name of the city in which you reside, you would find thousands of cases. Mumbai being one of the safest cities for women in India has registered around 766 rape cases in 2020 even though country-wide lockdown was imposed according to police officials. Okay, one may compare the population of Mumbai to rape cases, but remember that 766 cases were registered and why among 766 your case would not be one?.
Well, India reported around 28,046 rape cases in the year 2020 that averages 77 cases per day(Source: NDTV) that’s around 6.4 per hour, and 1 in every 10 minutes. That’s like while you are reading this article one rape has happened. But that’s the official data, the crime is widespread. According to the “Mint” newspaper, around 99% of cases go unreported in India which includes marital rapes. Okay, that’s not official data but let us assume almost 30,000 cases per year which will round the graph to every 5 minutes a Rape. But, isn’t it legal to have sex after marriage and it’s the basic thing a couple of experiences and I don’t find it wrong in having sex if I have married a woman, doesn’t marriage give me a license to have sex with my wife or future partner?
That’s the basic thing which happens in an arranged marriage, you marry a stranger whom you met just 15 days ago and have sex after just knowing each other for 15 days, well that’s a different topic altogether and shall discuss it later on. And here we find a loophole in the system, “MARITAL RAPE”. In many cases, the family tries to disclose the news to avoid the so-called “Character Assassination” and let the accused marry the victim and the “Rape” case just flies like an eagle beyond the clouds. Some of the times, when the accused belong to the same family or neighborhood, to avoid any damage to the reputation both the family make an agreement of not disclosing the same and eventually either forget it or plan the marriage. And these are only a few important reasons for the cases being unreported.
Now as you have understood the word “Rape” we shall go further briefly discussing “Why Exactly Rape happens.” We will consider the report by Dr.Madhumita Pandey(Profile: https://bit.ly/3HrLM4j) on her interaction with rapist and murderer from Tihar Jail as the fundament of this article. Dr.Madhumita interviews around 100 rapists and the main sentence highlighted by her is “We need more reformative justice over retributive and do not think that stricter punishment is the answer.” And an important outcome of the report as stated by Dr.Madhumita in her interview (Reference: https://bit.ly/33Nby4c)
“Not all men convicted of rape took responsibility for their crimes or expressed a sense of remorse but there are two points to note here:
a) For a rapist to feel remorse and apologist, he must first understand and accept that his actions were wrong. Since most men in my research sample did not identify their actions as wrong ( as many of them did not understand what consent meant) they did not feel like they had anything to apologize for. They said they are not guilty.
b) There are different ways in which remorse can be expressed. Some men outrightly said that they were repenting their actions while others said that they would not want anyone to do this to their sister or daughter, highlighting that at some level they did understand that their actions were wrong.”
If this is a result of not having strict laws, why not just hang the rapist to death or give stricter punishment and the most reported punishment according to many people was ” Chopping off the genitals of accused”. There will be immense fear among the accused for the punishment and it’s true! One will think over 10 times to pursue further. Let us have a short discussion about the same. Every source has positive as well negative outcomes, the positive outcome we already know, but what about the negative one? A rapist would more be likely murder the victim to avoid any proof of the same or if the victim is known to the accused, the accused family would try to limit the case to avoid the brutal penalty and threaten the victim’s family thereby. We as an individual cannot decide fate but as a personal thought, it would be a great thing altogether, for achieving something we need to sacrifice. Leaving up to you for more thoughts on the same punishment. We can have a public execution too to create a fear that the judiciary is acting strictly. (We can discuss more methods about the same in the comment section.)
But why not reformate the mentality? Instead of thinking about the after treatment, we must focus on creating an environment where we eradicate the word “Rape”. The most important aspect that we come across is Education and it is correct to some extent but not 100%, Why not 100% true? The Indian Education system still doesn’t educate students for the Indian society, we are educating the future minds to work as an employer and to a certain extent now regarding Entrepreneurship. But do you as a reader agree that you are educated regarding moral ethics about the society, empowering for the women safety! I remember during my Secondary schooling days, the girls of our class were separately called for a hygiene session. That’s a good move but why not explain some of the points to boys too, why don’t we generalize these things! Many of you might have heard about generalizing everywhere but there’s no implementation of it. We need to start with teaching moral ethics, gender equality, caste equality. Okay, we have a solution now but is it enough?
That’s definitely not enough to serve the purpose. One of the factors influencing Rape is “Pornographic content”. Whether you agree or disagree many cases are inspired by pornographic content. Most of the rapists think that there’s no stuff called “consent” and no one dislikes sex, the videos uploaded over pornographic sites depicting several relations or some professions, and the so-called enjoyment of sex with random people in videos, forcing for sex, being harsh would increase the participation. Many relations are being spoiled through those videos and the mind gradually tends to divert its way. The way women are objectified in Bollywood songs, movies bring a negative impact in a long run. So should adult content or pornographic sites be banned in India? There’s another answer that many may say, why not put age restrictions? and keep our children away from those sites? That could be an option but who would keep children away? There’s already an age restriction but many of them find their way to sites and the internet is so widespread that nothing can stop them! But do only children see and get inspired? Many above 18 are high on hormones and many of them take the wrong step! You are free to have your views on “Should pornographic sites be completely banned?”.
The next generation learns from the previous one, and tends to follow them! Many Indian’s don’t take eve-teasing as a serious crime, it has begun a common problem for nearly 99% of Indian females, and still, we never talk about it, and what if I tell that eve-teasing is the fundamental of the concept “Rape”. There are no serious laws for eve-teasing which gradually increases the mindset to do touch their body randomly in public. Many women experience a touch on their chest and their lower back in buses, crowded places, etc. and some of them just ignore it as a thought that it was by mistake, but many women tend to feel unconscious and are unable to come out of it with constant fear. Further random touches grow eventually to grabbing intentionally and doing it for a longer time continuously which further grows to the destination “Rape”. Why not have very strict laws against eve-teasing and why not parents teach their child to correct his vision, eve-teasing is the very common crime which nearly your college mates might too be doing, why not you as an individual make a though of respecting and not sticking your eyes to girl’s body!
One of the most significant things that nearly most Indian’s (we are just limiting us to India for now) do is abusive language relating to your mother and sister! Many personally think they respect women, they love their mom and in public use abusive language relating to the women. And we as normal beings enjoy it without even reconsidering our thoughts, which happens during college mostly with friends, and we as a public laugh at it. So, are you respecting your Mom, sister? Say no to abusive language relating to Mother, sister, and whatever relations. One of the important things that happen quite frequently is using terms to refer to girls like ” Item,maal,hariyali, etc”, this may make you feel cool but it isn’t cool at all. The topic deviated a little but it has a significant role!
On accounting for the issue of “Rape” some governments are being strict to it as the bill for “Shakti act” has been passed in Maharashtra which will be providing an edge to overcome the “Rape”. Many organizations are highlighting and awareness is being spread against “Rape”, one of them being “Youth Against Rape”.
To be concluded, should capital punishment be sentenced to rapists? Well, a strict punishment along with reformative content and better educating people is the need for an hour! And we as a society can break the chain!