As October marks the beginning of various important international dates celebrating women and talking about awareness to act and end violence against women, let’s talk about non-consensual sex and India’s progress over the years.
Non-consensual sex, as the term quite plainly suggests, defines sexual relations without consent. It took a while to come up with the right term (so to speak), as a consequence of the most hits out of “about 34,700 results in 0.45 seconds.” Or maybe we could just call it rape and get on with it? The Istanbul Convention’s definition of rape is regarded the most comprehensive. It specifies that “consent must be given voluntarily,” defining all acts of sexual violence including rape as:
a) engaging in non-consensual vaginal, anal or oral penetration of a sexual nature of the body of another person with any bodily part or object; b) engaging in other non-consensual acts of a sexual nature with a person; c) causing another person to engage in non-consensual acts of a sexual nature with a third person[1].
Writer Rachael Hope theorises that using “passive” language while talking about violent sexual acts might be “a misguided attempt at political correctness.” In her article ‘There’s No Such Thing as “Non-Consensual Sex”,’ Hope explains how the term “non-consensual sex” implies that the victim was a participant in the act, subsequently dulling the narrated impact and sugar-coating the actions of the perpetrator.
A Bloomberg report has recently shed light on alleged sexual harassment cases in the Denmark parliament citing “misogynistic conduct including everything from rape to sexual intimidation of female interns by male lawmakers.” The leadership of a country generally applauded for its apropos gender equality norms currently faces significant criticism, three years past the #MeToo movement first sparked outrage in Denmark. While its quite understandable that we have a long way to go, the misinformation and spin used to manipulate and nullify the effects the movement can have is indefensible. Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement, has repeatedly emphasised how the movement has at times diverted to a women against men scenario. “A movement to centre survivors of sexual violence is being talked about as a vindictive plot against men,” Burke states. When the movement gained momentum in India in 2018, what transpired was brutal but sadly, unsurprising. It gave rise to victim-blaming, character assassination (in public media, by the media), labelling women as troublemakers but worst of all, important lawmakers, celebrities and journalists walking away scot-free. In a slightly less disturbing chain of events (yes, sarcasm), the past week saw former Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath of the INC label BJP minister Imarti Devi “item” and his refusal to apologise for it.
“In fact, regardless of what choices women make, they’re rarely the ones labelling themselves.”
We have come quite far since Sati, have we not? It seems just an apt argument as any, saying that it’s bad here in India but it’s so much worse in other places. It comes quite close to justifying bride burning, willfully or not, no matter her age or state of health, along with her already dead husband.
People in this country seem to have a habit of forgetting political and societal blunders. The brutal 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case (Nirbhaya case) shook the country to its core. The united front presented in protests regardless of caste and creed further shook the highest offices and those occupying the chairs in them, which goes to show the power people possess when they decide to take it in their own hands. Yet, it took the apex court seven years to deliver capital punishment to the killers due to multiple stalled executions owing to legal loopholes. Yet, the Uttar Pradesh government saw Yogi Adityanath’s ascent to chief minister’s post, a few years after he was at the forefront of protests against the Women’s Reservation Bill whilst highlighting concerns on how reservation would affect women’s domestic responsibilities. “If men develop feminine traits, they become gods, but if women develop masculine traits they become demons… Western ideas of women’s liberation should be properly analysed in the Indian context,” said Adityanath as quoted by Hindustan Times in 2010. Ancient ideas of gender roles like the [women = property] equation, have not only slipped past every new century mark but also seem to have taken a communal spin like everything else. While a vendetta against an entire community is wrong in itself, separating out one gender further clarifies on its standing in the eyes of our leaders.
“If they take one Hindu girl, we will take 100 Muslims girls.”
Following the 2012 incident the central government did make valiant efforts in improving the criminal laws under the IPC, for example, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013 aka the Nirbhaya Act, passed within the week. The Disha Act was also passed in Andhra Pradesh after the gruesome gang rape and murder of a 26-year-old woman in Hyderabad in 2019. Although increased punishment and other statutes pertaining to the Code of Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act have been attempted to be revised in benefit of the victims[2], they were not and still are not enough to deter offenders and stop the mounting statistics. Weak implementation of the law and lack of stated preventive measures have negated any possible positive changes of the amendments. The Hathras case in Uttar Pradesh is one of the recent dreadful additions to the list, where four upper caste men allegedly raped a 19-year-old Dalit woman (mention of caste important because of what happened next). The two latter cases saw serious lapse in policing as the accused in the Hyderabad case were encountered and killed before trial by officers (a move which was celebrated across the country), whereas UP police officers cremated the victim’s body in Hathras despite contradicting medical reports and without the family’s permission.
Whether what political government is in power matters, can still be debatable without specific comparable statistics cross examined with increasing population, this is an issue of failure on part of the society in general and refusal to learn from repetitive history. No matter how much women achieve, the endurance they show and the obstacles they overcome, going out past dusk will always be a contemplative decision requiring an extensive risk analysis factoring in the length of each clothing item and how many padosi aunties will be awake at what hour and what our “close friends” Instagram list should like. Because unless we do that and take the right decision (of staying in), we would be asking for it.
[1]Analysis of National Definitions of Rape –https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjs6sDIs6_sAhWPf30KHeJpC9kQFjAEegQIBRAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Feige.europa.eu%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fdocuments%2Fdatabase%2Fgbv_natdefn_rape.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0VRgBn1KxjS30B9zn2baQx
[2] India: Nirbhaya Case: Do We Continue To Fail? – https://www.mondaq.com/india/crime/928712/nirbhaya-case-do-we-continue-to-fail