"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