The Silence of the Lambs

“India’s society rails against rape, in the main, not out of concern for victims but because of the despicable notion that a woman’s body is the repository of family honour. It is this honour our society seeks to protect, not individual women.” – The Hindu.

The destructive and yet also the contributing habit of people of obsessing with permanent agendas only temporarily, and contributing to the sound and fury in only the moment of crisis leads to situations where hasty decisions overshadow reflexive thinking. That justice should be meted out to the victim of Delhi Rape Case and that the criminals should be hanged to death is not only right but also necessary.  Definitive actions pave way for definitive assurances and the women of this country, the people of India need that assurance from the law and the government. 

However, that punishing the criminals and that appeasing the existential angst of the people would not only lead to closure of the case but also the closure of the matter in general, is a cause of concern. In three months from now, all would have been forgotten. In three months from now, the over-powering sound and fury would find itself buried under the dunes of this fast- paced life. While few issues should be more important to Indian Society than the safety of its women and its children, three months from now, the issue of safety of women would find itself dumped alongside other important issues as ever increasing cost of living, rising gap between the poor and rich etc.

54% of Rape Cases are never reported

While implicating the criminals and demanding justice for the victims, people distance themselves from a crime that is more collective than it first appears to be. In India, the ordeal of a rape victim does not end with the end of the moments in which the ghastly and dreadful incident took place; the ordeal lasts every day of the remaining days of victim’s life and we the people, though not directly involved in the crime, become passively involved in the ordeal of the victim. The spectrum of this collective crime comprises of many juries that speak through expressions of sympathy, advice, indifference, impassivity and in most cases, subjugation. What do you think a rape victim wants- words filled with sympathy or statements imbued with pity? Do they desire your advice or your analysis of where they went wrong? The rape victims are subjugated to live a life in which the deafening echo of forced silence does not permit them to either forgive or forget.

According to Rape and Incest National Network, 54% of rape cases are never reported.  A constant fear of being ostracized from the society withholds the rape victims from coming out in open.  If Tehelka’s sting expose, The Rapes Will Go On, is any proof of it, the attitude of the guardians of law is not exactly helpful. To state it in clearer terms, most fingers find themselves involuntarily pointing towards the victim and not the accused. Arguments such as the length of the dress, the unsuitability of the hour, the amount of alcohol consumed become more important than a simple fact: She should not have been raped, irrespective of how valid or invalid the secondary details may seem to be.

Silence is not the remedy

 

Rape and Incest National Network also states that 97% of rapists never see the insides of a prison. This so happens because most of the rape victims choose to stay silent, a stance well promoted and encouraged by family of the victim to protect that farcical crown of family honour.  In psychiatry, talking openly about one’s wounds is the first step in the process of recuperation. How will a rape victim get over the trauma when they are deprived of that first step of healing? 

49 years back, an African American girl was raped at the tender age of 9 in Mississippi. Oprah, the girl who was raped, would go on to become one of the greatest talk show host of all times and inspire people with the story of her life. Millions would praise her resilience and raise her to the stature of being an idol. A few years back, another girl was raped in a metro city in India. That girl would go on to live the rest of her life filled with the regret of having never spoken about the heinous crime to which she fell a prey. She would never forget and she would never be able make peace with herself.

Rape is a crime and any crime is not remedied with silence. Crimes are remedied with punishment. Unfortunately, in India, rape has been made into such a taboo that ultimately it is the victim who gets punished for the crime they suffered. It kills me to know that in different corners of the world, there exist women who not only go through the physical agony that rape causes but also the mental agony that the forced or feared silence brings along. If we are talking about safety of women, let us also talk about creating such an environment in which rape victims, out of the fear of social judgment, are not forced to stay silent.

I demand justice for the victim of the Delhi Rape Case, and I also demand justice for all those rape victims whose stories never reached us, whose pain was burned to protect the family name, and justice for all those who suffer from the suffocating silence that is capable of choking existence. When justice will be served to all, it is only then that the lambs will stop screaming.