Three girls were already born, when the fourth one was also found out to be a girl, uncles declared that they wanted their share and live away from the family. They did not even see her face. When it was revealed in sonography that it was a girl, the doctor was paid money and that tiny little body of a few inches was cut into pieces and aborted. When it was found that the first child was a girl, she was strangled then and there. This has been done by both the women and men in the family. This has been done by mothers and fathers as well.
Somehow she got to live but even in infancy, she was attacked and raped by men. People from her family touched her inappropriately. Fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, teachers and friends, almost every man related to her touched or teased her against her will. She was raped, continuously, until she died but could not muster the courage to tell anyone what has happened and has been happening.
She was betrayed by her first love who leaked their intimate moments in public. She remained fearful of everyone afterwards. She had to give up her studies. When she went to live with her relatives in search for better opportunities to study her own male relatives or any other person kept molesting her and blackmailed her that she was living in their house and that her sister or aunt will be harmed if she did not oblige.
The Alwar incident happened and it created a storm during the election season. But what would you do after knowing what happened in Alwar? Such incidents are happening every single minute. From backward societies to advanced economies such incidents happen everywhere. Therefore, the names of the place and society are becoming increasingly irrelevant.
There is a set pattern for these incidents. An incident happens, police is reluctant to file the FIR, the ruling party condemns it, the opposition attacks the government as if everything was fine during their rule, people share the link of the incident of Facebook and at the same time tell the guy sitting next to them how ‘mast‘ the girl sitting in the next cabin is. Both giggle and everything becomes ‘chill’. This is the whole story of the rape of a girl. This is wrong but that’s how it is.
Our problem is that we start the discussion in the wrong way and lead it to some place where it is completely detached from the issue itself. The issues remain as they were and will happen again in a new form, at a different place, at a different time. Molestation or rape is not a political problem, hence you will get nothing by cursing the leaders. It is a social issue, and society will have to bring about some fundamental changes for this.
Nothing will come out of cursing the leaders because nothing has ever come out of it. You should assume that nothing short of a civil war, or a large scale public uprising, in other words, a public movement is required to improve the situation. But even after that, men will continue to exist in society, and some men will continue making headlines of raping a newborn to raping an old lady eventually raping a female corpse. The most a public movement can achieve is at least no politician will be able to shamelessly say that elections were on so the issue got neglected.
Therefore, change is needed somewhere else. A female friend of mine texted me saying female foeticide is right and it would have been good if she had been killed too. She said that let it be a world of men only because the men deserve this heartless, sick world. I did not have an answer. What could I say? I also fail to answer when my elbow accidentally touches a girl in metro and she rebukes me. Despite knowing that I am not at fault, I fail to answer.
I fail to answer because that rebuking was not for me but for my being a man, a man who masturbates in the metro, keeps his hand on a girl’s shoulder, rubs on her back taking advantage of the crowd in the metro. It is me everywhere. It is only me in different forms, who deliberately falls on women in buses, who rubs his penis peeking into the windows of girl hostel. It is only a form of me who lures a young girl with a bar of chocolate and takes her away, brutally rapes her and then kills her.
These are all me in different forms, therefore even when I am not wrong, I tolerate all the accusations hanging my head with shame. Because I know that half an hour ago someone would have touched this girl deliberately. These acts are so common that on an average a girl experiences this a dozen times a day.
Manhood and Power
The feeling of power that comes attached to the manhood can be seen even in a sickly, weak man. Even when such a man indulges in sex he exerts his power over the other person instead of seeking pleasure. Instead of imbibing the purity of those moments he is more concerned about leaving an impact of his masculine strength on that girl.
We don’t really get involved in sex, we actually use sex to show how much power we have stored up inside us, and all of that power is exhibited by thrusting through a vagina. Our girlfriends know how savage we are in bed.
When this power does not find an outlet, it gets transferred and is manifested in acts like twisting a girl’s arm in crowded places. This is the power that gives the audacity to spank a girl’s posterior. This power gives you guts to rest your hands on a girl’s breasts. This is the subtle form of the same bestiality. This brutality is found in men generally, the only difference being that some keep it under control while most of them want to dominate in every situation and at all times as they don’t even bother to consider their presence in bed, or what she wants.
Normalisation of Rape
Rape is the ugly form of this power. We should be shocked at hearing such words but we are not. Why does this word not shock us anymore? Because we men have made it so common that such news has lost its impact. We have normalised it from a newborn girl to even the dead body of a girl on which we leave our marks. We express momentary grief, but we tend to forget. But, rape is not an incident to be forgotten so easily.
If we forget then there is some problem in our system. It doesn’t matter what place it is, what matters is the fact that it’s widespread and yet we keep on sweeping this under the carpet. We never thought much. We never introspected. We never tried to control ourselves.
The beast inside does tend to dominate, be it on our girlfriends or our wives. Did we ever actually make love in those moments or we got our fantasies fulfilled forcibly? Maybe, the girls who are in relationships with us might have mistaken this for love while we actually raped her with her consent. Have you ever tried to know if you ever surrendered yourself to the person who surrendered herself to you?
This is where questions are raised on our mentality. This is where we make our first mistake. When we never realise the love of the ones who are with us, with consent, why wouldn’t we get crazy seeing a girl in the outside world? Or, why will we get bothered by the news of a 16-year-old being held captive for 51 days by three boys and getting raped?
If the mentality of men is not changed for good, then in the coming times we will be found committing rapes within our own families. Our fear would be gone, police would not be present inside our homes, and we will take out our frustration on our mothers, daughters, and sisters.
What can we do?
What do we do then? The first things we can do it to accept that we all men are partners in such acts. It is us who give the courage to a man to commit such acts. It is a group act, that guilt of which lies on every man. The only way we can get rid of our frustration is when we are in a situation to admit our own mistakes and the mistakes of our society. What sensitivity can be expected of those who attack their own girlfriends and wives?
Teach our kid gender equality since the very beginning. Tell him that the difference between himself, his sister and his friend is somewhat similar to that between a rose and a marigold. Don’t categorise the beauty of girls as attainable and unattainable. Don’t make her a trophy of a race. Treat both your son and daughter equally.
Make it a habit to ask your kid about what all happens to him or her in home or school. Whether it is your son or your daughter, ask them if they are being touched inappropriately in school or tuition class. Ask them if someone has told them not to tell about something. Don’t ignore your children in any situation. If you see some sudden changes in a child, don’t ignore him/her in your busy schedule. Remember that the child was not born out of his own will but you have brought him/her to this world and it is your responsibility to give the child a better future. Therefore, never neglect your child.
Stop your colleagues at your workplace from indulging in cheap misogynist activities. Tell them this seemingly harmless situation can turn them into rapists or can inspire others to commit the biggest mistake of their lives. Remember, there is a difference between looking at girls, staring at them and scanning them like an X-Ray machine. Always remember that.
Our society is doomed, we can’t change much about it. But we can certainly give a better society to our children and train them to give a better society to their children. This is a continuous process. You can choose to ignore, thinking that your own house is safe but a person cannot live in isolation, he does not have control over all the things happening with him, we are all influenced by external forces.
Better education and continuous efforts only will help clean the society. At your own level, start by loving your girlfriends or wives instead of exerting force on them. Understand the importance of these moments, try to understand them in their entirety. Momentary pleasure and show of strength affect your mental state at various levels. This culminates into something really horrible.
Alwar happens every minute. Leaders give statements every day. We discuss this on Facebook every other day. But these incidents do not decrease because we have stopped feeling. We have normalised its brutality. We move on treating it like a normal thing.
Whereas, we will have to understand that we can give our society positive energy by bringing some changes inside us, controlling our desires, and spreading love in place of oppression. I know even this article might float around in the digital world like a hundred thousand other words that I have written on rape only, and will serve no purpose. But I will keep writing because even if a single person is changed after reading this and is able to accept the negativity inside him, my writing would be successful.
This article is a translation of this Hindi article. The translation has been done by Aditi Singh.
