Rape Raj: Shrouded in shadow

A frenzied attack or bouts of insanity; “rape is rape”! Every 30 minutes one rape is crafted in India. A woman or a child…they are all prey of the rape lore.

The rape cases are up swinging in numbers each day. Bruises and injuries only leave scars, not recoveries.

The victims soon or later are succumbed or marked as grime. Sympathies don’t lie in its supreme constituents.

The list of names flourishes each year — Nirbhaya case in 2012, Aruna Ramchandra case in 2015, Asifa Bano in 2018; Priyanka Reddy in 2019; Manisha Valmiki in 2020 and who’s next in 2021? Why stated ‘she was raped’? Why not alleged ‘he raped her’?

This brutality is not just an android game in contemporary society, the cruelty had been breathing since centuries ago. The social responses, the laws and sections are very tedious to heal the wounds of the victims. Justice is just a dream.

Data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) revealed that India recorded an average of 87 rape cases every day in 2019- a rise of over 7 per cent from 2018.

The data further revealed there was an increase of 4.5 per cent in rape cases against children in 2019 than what was recorded in 2018.

The NCRB data further revealed that at least 1 man out every 5 men were sexually abused in one way or the other in the country in their lifetime and over 50 per cent of them reported of abuse within the age group of 5 and 15 years.

Any good society is formed with people’s organisation on uniting aspects and with their contributions towards universal human values.

Unfortunately, we have a society which mainly boasts over caste, creed, class, religion, language, gender, and most important influences of politics and power are supreme overall.

One can calm oneself by acknowledging that every individual is not the same and these disgusting acts are committed by a few only who are grounded in their different characteristics or individual behaviours. But how can one repeatedly slaughter humanity and that too with the complicity of the state from top to bottom?

The Hathras incidence in Uttar Pradesh is an example in hand as to why is rape trending upslope in India? Why the Rape Raj is not abolishing yet even after the harsh Constitutional Amendment following the Nirbhaya incidence in Delhi?

Remember, rape has no caste, religion or identity; ‘it is an act of hysteria’, madness and an act against any sane society.

Blaming only any government is always not wise. The crime committed by the member is from this very society, we all live in. The government is not a pessimist or mind reader of the culprits or the rapists — what are their intentions or who is to be raped next by them.

However, being complacent with the crimes or protecting the criminals like rapists and human lynchers have been observed time and again from certain governments for their political interests, which obviously is an additional bolt for us all- in India.

Rape is not enough to call it a Rape only. It is devouring humanity and undermining faith upon humans. Human constituted the laws, unlike animals, for the guidance of citizens and to protect humanity to fall apart.

Despite the harshness of these laws, an actual punishment falls less severe. The act of sexual violence, swelled underneath the bodies, mangled with a metal rod inside her, hanging her on a mango tree, cutting the throat, chopped her tongue or strangled. Indifferences and tolerance of sexual harassment are in the hilt.

The agony and trauma the victim goes through, no brutality or punishment given to the rapist will justify. Rape does not cut or mark injuries into the only intimated parts of the body of a victim but pierced into their vehement.

Such wounds are often unseen but never washed off. No amount of guilt or worries will cure it. No functioning of NGOs or systems run by the government or the law-makers can bestow the pride of justice. If we are in our nerves and understand ourselves then we have failed humanity. It’s high time we wake up from slumber and educate our minds and thoughts.

Instead of ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ make the sons aware … that raping a woman is raping the womb of every mother.

Somewhere, right now in the nook of my city, before I complete this piece of writing … it may cross the line into one more rape. One more daughter or son may be your child, is being raped this night! It pains, you may not feel the actual pain unless you are a victim or from a victim family.

([The author is an advocate of Gauhati High Court, a freelance writer and a poet)