Volume 4, No. 1, January 2003

The capital city of India, Delhi, has become a dangerous place to live in for the common people. The crime–graph is rising fast, especially against the women. The streets, buses, public places, and even homes are no longer safe for the women folk. Not a single day passes when there are no reports either of harassing, stalking, molestation, dowry deaths and rapes against the half of humanity. The crime page of the daily newspapers comes full with horrendous tales of such happenings everyday. And yet, it is the tip of the iceberg of such crimes that gets reported while the rest, and which is far greater, happens in the poor and lower middle class neighbourhoods, goes unreported and unrecorded.

While the rulers remain busy devising means to further fleece the people through privatization and commodification of the social services and social security systems, the daily life of the people is getting more and more brutalised as everything the people need comes with a price. Even the safety of the people while walking on the roads is compromised. The authorities had sold the security of the Maulana Azad Medical College and hospitals affiliated with it to some private security agency showing its inability to protect the people in whose name it rules and is constitutionally bound. But the rape of a medical student in mid November in broad day light in an open place, a fifteenth century monument known as Khooni Darwaza, brought the student community of all the medical colleges in the capital together to protest in an unprecedented show of strength that has eluded the student community of this city of many universities and hundreds of colleges for a long time. This, despite the fact that molestation, stalking and harassing of the girl students is a daily occurrence and even rapes have been committed after abductions.

The student community had stopped reacting to such crimes after they found that the paper work indulged in after every incidence was too cumbersome and delay ridden. Moreover, many unscrupulous elements have been controlling the student unions having affiliation with the BJP and the Congress party in various colleges and universities, thus blunting the consciousness and fighting spirit for the just causes. The students have been silent for a long time.

Now, a beginning is made. The long silence has been broken. No sooner they came to know of the incident than they came on to the streets to protest against the college authorities who had dumped their responsibility of protecting the students in the campus, and the police authorities who are used to a callous behaviour when crimes against women is the issue. The girl preferred to report to her fellow students first rather than to go home and live with the "shame" quietly, or running to the police station to face further humiliation at the hands of the police officers.

This daring step of her’s made the difference. It raised the rage of the students and the protest they staged became a wake up call for the society to come forward and condemn the incident and ask the government to catch the culprits before they disappear, as usually happens in hundreds of other such cases in the city. On the fifth day of the incident, the students marched to the office of the Delhi State Health Minister, picketed at the Rajghat for two hours when stopped from heading further. They had slogans written on placards: Today’s Silence, Tomorrow’s Disaster; Are the Protectors Sleeping?; Many Rape, How Many Convicted?; Medical Fraternity Stands Together! etc. Minister had to come to them to listen to their grievances.

The MAMC rape case has brought to the notice of the public afresh the scourge of crime-against-women that afflict the city where the rulers of this country reside, and where under their very nose, a great den of degenerate social forces thrive. Nobody takes any notice of such crimes because so regular is their occurrence and so uncommon is the protest. Crime here is business-as-usual. In the year 2000 alone 435 cases of rapes were reported, in 2001 there were 381, and in the year 2002 till October, 340 were reported. The corresponding all India figure for the year 2000 is 16,496. These are the figures where victims or their parents dare to come forward to lodge a report.

A great majority of such crimes never see the light of the day due to the social stigma the victim has to go throughout her life. This stigmatic syndrome is created by the very patriarchal society that itself is responsible for such crimes against women to keep them under subjugation and male control. The rape, and the stigma associated with it, thus serves the interests of the ruling classes that have the task of protecting and continuing the property and social relations that perpetuate patriarchy reducing the status of women to pathetic second-class citizens. They suffer silently and prefer not to report the wrongdoing. And if they do, the judicial system and its laws are so positioned against them that only a few of the criminals are convicted. This dismal figure is just 4%! The rest go Scott free.

Remember the Priyadarshini Mattoo, a law student’s kidnap, rape and murder case of 1996? Nothing happened to the criminal, and the judge, in spite of the widespread exposure and coverage the case got in the media, ultimately acquitted him! And she was the daughter of a top bureaucrat. What an ordinary person can expect from this system?

In this way, rape acts like a weapon in the hands of the patriarchal ruling classes who have created myths about this that call on the women to suffer silently and not to make a din out of it. If they do the law is there to take care of the culprit making it contingent on the woman to prove that she was raped. The judges say: she herself might have invited the intruder, or might have consented, or she might have attired provocatively, or she must have been an habitual, or if nothing helps there are hordes of judges who just decree that respectable men don’t rape, or the upper castes don’t rape a lowly woman. In this way it is the woman who is put on trial and not the culprit.

Just two weeks before the MAMC case, there was a report from Rajasthan that two senior judges of the Rajasthan High court had sent a Deputy Registrar of the court to a woman doctor offering to help her in her litigation in return for sexual favours from her. The registrar was suspended following her complaint but the judges are still there to deliver ‘justice’ to others. And there is a report from Karnatka that an enquiry is going on against the sleaze behaviour of three judges. In the Punjab State there are reports that many a judges have been employed by a previous government for money, their posts, as is alleged by the new administration, were sold for Rs. 75 lakh a piece. The judges who purchase their posts can only issue verdicts for a price, making justice an impossibility. The judicial system cannot stink more.

Also, there is no dearth of expert lawyers who sell their services to criminals for the sake of money to prove that rape was just a figment of imagination, or was never committed, or that just the culprit was not present at the scene of the crime on the said date, and above all, makes her go through added mental trauma by persistent, shameless and degrading questioning. Before standing trial in the courts the victims receive the very first injustice at the hands of the police who usually delay the recording of the first information report (FIR) so that the physical scientific evidence is destroyed in the meantime.

Custodial rape case in a Mathura police station, Bhanwri devi gang rape in Rajasthan and many others infamous episodes point to the patriarchal system of women subjugation. All this makes the victim suffer while the perpetrator enjoys the general benefit of a male dominated, patriarchal society.

In the MAMC case, had the police not been pressurised by the agitating students it would not have acted swiftly. In recent weeks, many kidnappings and rapes have been reported in the press but no case attracted this much ire and concern of the people as the present one, thanks to the agitation associated with it that led to the public outcry. Just during the week after the MAMC case, more than two rapes were reported. One of a nine-year-old child and the other of a forty-year-old woman. Even in the MAMC campus again, some medico girls were stalked, and one of them subjected to remarks and punched on the Black Day meant to protest against the student rape. As the people did not come out to protest in the subsequent rape cases the police preferred to take them as "routine" happenings and did not show much interest.

The MAMC case has raised a debate over the issue afresh and many a voices have been aired. 340 did not produce a cry but this one did. It even forced the Deputy Prime Minister and the Defence Minister to speak up on the issue.

Patriarchal attitudes present in the society not only justify and legitimize crimes against women, even make people tolerate these crimes, they keep quiet when these occur, even up to the point of defending the perpetrators through various connections and means. Such behaviour make them part of the crime and the anti-women social set up, though not directly participating yet they side with and help the wrong doers by keeping aloof or silent. There is no other reason why even after the scourge has assumed dangerous proportions men and women continue to take it as a normal thing. "So what?" is their usual response when their own acquaintances are involved in the crime. The mother of Priyadarshini’s rapist and killer defended her son. In the MAMC case too, as is the general behaviour of the relatives and close contacts of such criminal elements, the parents of the accused also defended their son unashamedly. When women too come to the defence of such the criminals the only explanation is that the influence of the ideas of male dominated and patriarchal society have deeply penetrated every mind.

Nevertheless, the debate has attracted the attention of wider sections of the population. While the police are looking for vulnerable points in the campus to man them it is suggesting to the students to form joint committees with the police to look into the security problems. The MAMC students allege that such committees have never functioned properly in the past as the experience in the University campuses shows. The presence of police only instill a fear in the academic environs of the educational institutions and the students never feel free. Even, many policemen have been caught while misbehaving and molesting the girl students who then are afraid to go outside of their hostels in the evening. An assistant professor for the faculty of the study of social systems argues that in twenty years the sexual security situation in the campus has worsened, as there were neither hoodlums nor rapists then. She says that in 1997, the student community was very active in the Jawaharlal Nehru University but now they are dimmed because they have lost faith in the security committees due to many reasons including delays and complicated paper work. She cites another reason, which is perhaps the crux of the matter, that "women students are generally left feeling it was all their fault for having been vulnerable in a particular situation," and "oppressor’s carrier and identity are generally protected" to save them from ‘ruination.’ This patriarchal attitude of protecting the perpetrator mars the academic atmosphere and works against the interests of the girl student. This compels the women students to abandon any quest for justice and sometimes forcing them to leave their studies altogether. Almost two years ago one girl student had to leave the university forever after she was raped in the campus.

Now again, the police authorities advise the students to form committees in the MAMC for collaborating with the police. The police, in fact, don’t have a solution. Campus can be quarantined (though this too won’t solve the problem) but what about the streets and buses? The problem has acquired monstrous proportions. One of the police officers said that those who indulge in eve-teasing, staring, harassing and molestation are not criminals, they are common men from middle class families, as it has become a general attitude of the society towards women. He says the common man indulges in these acts and they cannot have as many policemen as there are men in the city. He stopped short of saying the real thing, that is, the criminalisation of the civil society has become a general phenomenon under our rulers. Nor did he say that this criminalisation is more glaring in the police forces.

However, the MAMC rape was committed by the son of poor family though most of such crimes are committed by ‘respectable’ people in the city. The ideas of the ruling classes that run the society are bound to be reflected in the common man too, as their attitudes and institutions make men what they are. Another police officer, a woman, says that there should be ‘self help first,’ that the citizens should help and cooperate with the police through community policing of institutions and neighbour-hoods. She further says that the girls should avoid empty buses, deserted roads and the people should help strengthen the police forces. She sees the threat to women from loiterers, hangers-on, drug addicts, gamblers, drunkards, etc. in a sense, the lumpen element of the society. And the society is full of such people who don’t have jobs, are pushed down the ladder of social status, and are mostly poor. The woman officer, did not utter a word about the fact that most of the reported crimes are committed by rich and middle class ‘respectables’.

The upper crust of society wants to turn the ire of the middle class people against the poor neighbour-hoods, once again concealing the fact that a vast majority of grave crimes against women happen at homes by close relatives, friends, neighbours, including step-fathers and dirty fathers. Many have suggested to dismantle and uproot the poor neighbour-hoods around colleges and universities and around the rich ‘respectable’ areas. A silent conspiracy is at work to turn the tide against the poor in the name of controlling crimes. This conspiracy of the rulers must be resisted. In the hunt for the real culprit in MAMC case the police harassed hundreds of poor people living in slums. The sympathetic attitude of the police towards the rich criminals is as age old and glaring as the crime itself. The crime, like all other institutions, starts from the top, the sections of society who rule and control.

Another debater suggested a solution by giving jobs to the unemployed, providing better opportunities to the poor and strict implementation of the existing laws. One of the participants in the debate suggested that the punishment should be ensured, rather than make it more stringent in the papers and files. One person posed a question to Advani, and also Fernandes, who has a notorious record of saying "this has not happened for the first time to women," for their advocacy of the capital punishment for rape: "will they punish the perpetrators of mass rapes against Muslim women in Gujarat in the recent carnage, why were they silent? Or would the same state hang them when it had consented and colluded with the rapists?" She rightly said that the noise about death sentence was just a political ploy of Advani directed at creating sensation.

Even some women parliamentarians voiced their support for the death sentence but little they offered as to why the existing laws have not been implemented and cannot be implemented in this patriarchal society. Another woman, herself a victim of gang rape, asks what is the use of having a death sentence when majority of the rapists go Scott free? No doubt, most of the women who were surveyed argued for death sentence to the rapists but everyone wanted to see the culprits certainly punished whatever be the law. Their wish for death to their oppressors is a pointer to the anger with which they want to take on the criminals. This fury needs to be translated into action, into a powerful movement for the liberation of women.

Meanwhile, when the debate continues to rage the newspapers and magazines across the city continue to depict women in a degrading way on their glossy pages. Cinemas continue to show pornographic stuff. The disrespect to the women folk goes on unabated in the hunt for money and marketability. You see that the business continues to make bucks out of the woman’s body. The soulless creatures of money are quietly continuing their trade of the human flesh unmoved. This is quite despicable and condemnable and reflects the power of money and the way the present day world is.

MAMC case has again raised the question of the security of the women in the work places, in educational institutions, in public places, in buses, in houses and on the streets. And no one will give them this security. They have to fight for their place at every step, in every institution, in all streets and neighbourhoods, at all places. The attitudes of men are not going to change for a wish. Women have to win back what they have lost. It is only through struggle and resistance against every discrimination and crime that they can secure a life of dignity in the patriarchal society of ours. From murders in the womb to the harassment, rape and murder at homes, streets, and work places, they have to fight at every level. The rulers cannot help, the police help the least. Policing is not the answer. Laws are not the solution. More than the new laws and bandobasts by the police and civil administration the resolve to fight for wresting back half the sky and the earth for women is the answer. First of all, they must Take Back The Street. It is only the women vigilance groups and whatever forms of women organisations they deem fit to protect themselves and their rights in the neighbourhoods, work places and educational institutions that can prevent crimes against women. A network of women organisations of every kind and against every form of discrimination and oppression, is the need of the hour. Not the kinds of the NGOs, which the Delhi government has more than one thousand in the city and which are only meant to side-track the genuine resistance of the women folk. The NGOs only highlight certain problems, make propaganda blitzkriegs, and then disappear into the thin without ever bringing in the women folk into real struggles against the authorities. Can the government that runs a thousand women organisations, as the health minister of Delhi has claimed, struggle against itself? Had the will of the government been genuine a thousand organisations in the city were sufficient to prevent these crimes and make the streets secure for women.

Nor the training of a few women in judo and karate is the answer as has been suggested by many. This can only help a few as the brave girl of a school has shown while fighting against her kidnappers and freeing herself from their clutches. The fight must be collective and by and for the entire womankind though the physical strength and martial arts count whenever there is a hand-to-hand fight. The social scourge demands an intensive, extensive, and a relentless defiant movement that goes far beyond the individual defence techniques. Women have to unite in their own organisations, with other fellow workers and fellow students in their institutions for their own cause and for the common cause and get the support of whosoever wants to help them in their fight for dignity.

The old monument is not the only Khooni Darwaza in Delhi, there are countless in the crowded places and residential districts too, and the fight must start wherever there is a crime against women.

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