"Do Not Politicise Rapes." Really?


Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his much hyped Townhall in London recently answered to a scripted interview question telling, "Do not politicise rapes". The nation did not get the scope to ask him in response, "Who has actually politicized rapes in India?" This is not to say that rapes have happened only after Modi government has come in. This is not also to say that there are only political or social causes alone behind rapes.
Anti Rape Ordinance:
President Ram Nath Kovind on April 22 promulgated a criminal law amendment ordinance, paving the way for providing stringent punishment, including death penalty, for those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years. The President's nod to the ordinance came after the Union Cabinet's approval yesterday for tightening the law against people involved in rape, following public outcry over cases of sexual assault and murder of minors in Kathua and Surat and the rape of a girl in Unnao. The minimum punishment in case of rape of women has been increased from rigorous imprisonment of seven years to 10 years, extendable to life imprisonment. According to the ordinance, in case of rape of a girl under 16 years, the minimum punishment has been increased from 10 years to 20 years, extendable to imprisonment for rest of life, which means jail term till the convicts "natural life". The Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Evidence Act, the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act stand amended with the promulgation of the ordinance after the approval of the President. The Ordinance comes after nationwide protests against Unnao and Kathua rapes, even in London when PM visited the city, and 10-days hunger strike by the Chair-person of Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal.
Politics of Rapes:
Having said this, the 8-year old Asifa's rape and murder in Kathua, Jammu, was primarily to scare her community, Bakerwals, out of that region. And now there is a movement spearheaded by local leaders with blessings of two erstwhile BJP ministers of the state to protect the rapists. Here rape is a tool for control over resources, supported by right wing politics. The 16-year old Unnao girl being raped by a BJP MLA is an act of sex and also of gender violation and social power. That means, she is defiled to show the power of men on one hand, and of Rajputs over lower castes on the other, apart from the act of sex. And then the rapist is being protected by the Thakur lobby dominated state government till Allahabad High Court forced action and that too through CBI and not state Police. In last five years several acts of violation of women have happened from the right wing forces. Either as a tool of sex, or of gender dominion and rights over women, or of caste-communal dominion. One should first understand that women through their gender identity as well as sexual identity are marginalised. Gender is a social construct. Sex is a biological construct. Both are power dynamics of patriarchy. However, both these identities have multiple marginalisation when it is combined with caste, minority religion, nationality, race, or any marginalised culture. A Dalit woman can be raped not just for being a woman, but for being a Dalit as well. In Kandhamal and Gujarat, women were raped not just for being women, but for being Christians or Muslims. In fact, the rapists have even articulated this while raping. Women in Kashmir and North East were raped in large numbers not just for being women, but for being part of a marginalised nationality identity on their bodies.
Rape Cases after Nirbhaya and Statistics
Rape is among the most disregarded and heinous crime done against women in India. A total of 34,651 cases of rape were reported in India in 2015. Out of these, in 33,098 cases the offenders were known to the victims, revealed the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data. The victims were majorly among the age group of below six years to over 60 years.  Madhya Pradesh reported 4,391 rape cases, the highest as compared to other states, with Rajasthan being another major state. Delhi reported 2,199 such cases–highest among the union territories. It is pertinent to note that MP is ruled by BJP for 15 years now, Rajasthan for the last 5 years, and in Delhi, Police reports to the Central Home Ministry. India launched fast-track courts and a tougher rape law that included the death penalty after a gruesome assault on a young woman shocked the country in 2012, but crime statistics indicate the situation has got worse, not better, since then. The data was collated by Reuters amid mounting public anger over crimes against women after the last two horrific cases in Jammu and Unnao, that has, once again, cast a harsh light on systemic problems plaguing the country's police and courts. Statistics show that since 2012, reported rape cases climbed 60 percent to around 40,000 in 2016, with child rape accounting for about 40 percent. The conviction rate of people arrested for rape remains stuck around 25 percent. The backlog of rape cases pending trial stood at more than 133,000 by the end of 2016, up from about 100,000 in 2012, National Crime Records Bureau data showed. In each year during that period, about 85 percent of the total rape cases being heard remained pending.
What Ails the System in Rape Cases?
In general, conviction rates for crime against women - deaths following demands for dowry, assault, kidnapping as well as rape - are lower than for most other crimes. A study by the National Law University in Delhi found that 43 death sentences were handed down for murder involving sexual violence in 2017, almost double the previous year's number. A study by Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation, whose founder shared the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, reckoned that as of the end of 2016, the backlog of child sex abuses cases in the courts would take two decades to clear. Under POCSO, which covers victims under 18 years, police should collect evidence within a month of the complaint being filed and the court should complete a trial within a year, and this has been flouted in most cases. Crime statistics showed that police files remain open for about a third of all rapes that were investigated for each year between 2012 and 2016. Understaffing is an issue. The government told parliament last month police had a sanctioned strength of nearly 2 million officers, but almost a quarter of those positions were vacant. Some of the worst accusations against the police stem from cases, like the ones in Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, where they are alleged to have bowed to pressure from people of influence to bury cases. So far the only policy response to the latest cases has come from Maneka Gandhi, the minister for women and child development, who has advocated applying the death penalty for rape cases where the victim is under 12 years old. Currently, the Supreme Court reserves the death penalty for extreme cases, as in the 2012 Delhi case. In February 2017, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of India introduced resource material related to health issues to be used as a part of a pan-India adolescent peer-education plan called Saathiya. Among other subjects, the material discusses relationships and consent. Hence, this is a question of sheer political will to check the rape epidemic in India. The government can make a hundred laws and yet it will fail because there is no enforcement. It needs to take this as an epidemic and treat it accordingly, by completely overhauling the police machinery, prosecutors and the judicial system. This political will is missing at the Centre and in most of the states.
Prof Ujjwal K Chowdhury
Is Currently Head, School of Media, Pearl Academy,Delhi mumbai