Five years after Nirbhaya’s death, women still unsafe

Several extremely cruel sexual crimes have been reported in recent weeks but most of them received scant attention and there were no signs to suggest that sensitivity of the society had been disturbed. This indifference is markedly different however from the widespread protests seen at the time of the tragedy in December, 2012, December 16 to be precise. Consider some of the recent cases marked by extreme cruelty:

• On the evening of October 17, the body of a 12-year old dalit girl was found in a sugarcane field in Shahjahanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. Investigations revealed that the girl who had gone to fetch fodder had been gang-raped and then murdered. The unbelievable cruelty she had undergone was evident from the severe mutilation of genitals and body parts as well as bite marks. This student of class VI was killed by drunk men with a heavy object which broke her hyoid bone and trachea in the neck.

• On September 11, in Birbhum district of W. Bengal a woman was gang raped by three drunk men, who thrust liquor bottles into her private parts after raping her. For one of the culprits, this was his second assault on this woman within the past few days. The woman was hospitalised in a critical condition.

• On the morning of August 6, in a village of Kushinagar district of Uttar Pradesh two women were attacked by several people who stripped them, tied their hands and marched them around the village naked while beating them on their private parts with a stick. These are only a few of the more cruel incidents of sexual assault which forced leading newspapers and officials to draw comparisons with the case. However, several other equally or more cruel cases have been reported recently. In Visakhapatnam on October 29, a man raped a hungry, poor, homeless woman and possibly mentally challenged woman in broad daylight on a busy roadside while passers- by looked on or clickedpictures without making any effort to help the victim. On the same day the father of a girl who tried to protect her from miscreants was burnt alive by these goons in Damoh district of Madhya Pradesh. A Delhi woman visiting Bikaner was raped by about 30 members of a gang. A schoolgirl of Sikar district was raped several times by her two teachers over a two- month period. A college student in Dumka (Jharkhand) was dragged into bushes and raped by five youths and her naked pictures were taken. On September 27 in Kota, a 16-year-old girl, who had turned down advances of a youth was raped by the youth and his friends, and was then killed with a stone. On November 1, a girlwas picked up from a crowded place in Bhopal and repeatedly assaulted for three hours by several men after being tied up, all this in daytime. In Chandigarh, a 12- year old girl going to her school for the Independence Day function was abducted from a crowded place and raped. On November 2, a man in Delhi abducted a one and a half year old baby and raped her in front of his own children. These incidents within the last four or five months reveal that brutal rapes and sexual assaults are becoming more common and rape victims are being killed more often. In many cases the assaulters are drunk. The assaulters have been striking even in busy places and that too in daytime. Some of the goons involved in these cases appear to have no fear of consequences and several of them have been found to be addicted to watching porn. Police in most cases was found wanting in attending to victims. It is clear from detailed accounts that despite claims to the contrary, women in this country are not safe. While government agencies are certainly responsible for the mess, people and the society too can scarcely escape their share of the responsibility.

This is distressing. Hopes were raised following the case that the problem of women’s safety would finally receive serious attention. But as we can see, such hopes have been belied. We need to understand the social conditions in which such cruel crimes are taking place before we initiate broad based efforts with community participation to reduce crimes against women. By monitoring several such cases, some clues to steps that are needed for making public places safer can be obtained. But while cities can arguably be made safer, how do we make homes safer for women? How indeed do we ensure the dignity and security of women in the rural areas? An increasing number of men in the Indian context seem to be growing up viewing women as sex objects devoid of any human feelings. But more importantly, we need to look at conditions which encourage crimes against women and allow patronage and immunity to the perpetrators. We need to understand why such men are becoming more powerful and ruthless and why they are getting away with their crimes. It will not be out of place to also take a second look at the availability of porn and liquor everywhere, in small towns and in villages. While policing needs to change, politics and politicians too need to rise to the challenge of curbing criminals and help make for a more sensitive society.