Why women are never safe in India     

It was a December in 2012 that as a society, as a nation we had prolonged, painful discussions on women’s safety, on rape, on the attitudes of men. It was like a churning. The gangrape and murder of the woman called “Nirbhaya” or fearless by sections of the media, opened our hearts and minds to the horror of the violence, to our own prejudices, to the state of women in

21st century India.

Or so it seemed at the time.

Here we are in December 2019.

Déjà vu.

Another horrific gangrape and murder of a young woman and the same conversations. The same calls for strict laws and punishments. The call for instant mob violence. The questions about the “mistakes” the victim made. The need to pack women into their homes by some time before dark to keep them safe.

Between 2012 and 2019, there have a large number of such gangrapes, of women of all ages. Some have affected us more than others. But nothing has changed.

Rape remains a popular threat on social media. Rape has long been a form of entertainment in Indian popular cinema.

Sexual harassment is common on the streets, in public transport, in offices.

Most rapes and sexual assault take place inside the home, by those known to the victims. There is a code of silence which governs society, so that these assaults are kept secret to save the family name.

The reputation of the rapist is far more important than the rights of the victim, even if the victim is a small child.

Where then do women feel safe?

They do not feel safe when people cry for mob and vigilante justice. They do not feel safe when “Romeo squads” wander around extracting their hafta from young men and women. They do not feel safe when they are told that they cannot work late because predatory men may be about.

They do not feel safe when they are told not to wear this, not to do that.

They do not feel safe when they are told they must know their “Lakshman Rekha”, the limitations of what they can do.

The problem of course is that all these suggestions are for women. This emphasises the point that women are the problem. The temptresses. The sirens that lead men astray from decent behaviour. If a woman goes to a movie at night, what is a man to do? This is reality. And women must accept it. And tragically, many women do. As a form of self-preservation or as part of patriarchy.

And as long as we look for solutions which focus on the victim, the patriarchal culture which suggests that boys will be boys, men will be men, women can never feel safe. As long as tradition and history and culture are used as defences, women can never feel safe.

As long as the investigative procedure attacks the victim, women can never feel safe.

As long as judges rule that victims should marry their rapists, women can never feel safe. The rape and murder of a young woman in Hyderabad has just repeated all that for us.