I have to admit that I am using a paper I wrote for this blog as this was fortunately refused by reviewers for publishing in a book of papers.
History has been a site of struggle for Women’s Movement. I am not the first person to state this; neither will I be the last! Women’s Movement has been constantly and tirelessly battling issues with mainstream history. By mainstream history, I mean the History that is taught in schools, colleges and universities.
Women’s Movement in India started with a custodial rape and with the reopening (https://aud.ac.in/uploads/1/admission/admissions2014/open%20letter.pdf) of the case ‘Tukaram v. State of Maharasthra(1979)’. Most school students would hardly know about it or the Women’s Movement in India, let alone the girl who was raped in custody and who was subsequently, denied justice by Supreme Court of India. The question here is this — Is the education system bothered enough about an inhuman violence to bring notice to it in the curriculum? Everything has a history and so does ‘rape’. We need history to learn collectively what we need to know to become better human beings. It is supposed to serve as learning from the past.
The response from the recent rape of Dr. Priyanka Reddy is anything but civilized or human! The rape and the killing of four men who were not proven to be rapist both are blotch on what we should have learnt from previous experiences — History!
I would probably be branded insane, if I were to even suggest today or then, when the women’s movement started, to imagine a rape free world. We desperately need people who can raise a few questions of the sanitized world to bring some sense of what is happening presently. It is essential that a link between women’s movement and the pedagogy of teaching history in schools, colleges and universities, is created to enable at least a few to imagine the impossible. As far as I know of indigenous societies, there were no rapes in them. Whatever rapes happened in such societies were mainly by the ‘civilized’ outsider! Historians and anthropologists need to validate this instead of recording histories of wars and domestication of women. Lessons learnt from women’s movement will help understand the rationality of rape, social acceptance of male supremacy, political will to change inequality and possibility of a rape free society.
Radha Kumar, The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800–1900. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1993
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/025764309300900210?journalCode=siha 9.12.2019 1.19
Susie Tharu and K. Lalita eds., Women Writing in India: 600 B.C. to the Present, Volume I: 600 B.C. to the Early 20th Century, The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1991, Reprinted by Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1992
Even though Uma Chakravarti’s lecture on ‘Sexual Violence in Indian Society’ in 2014 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrD72xmOtxE 24.08.2020 11.46 p.m.) makes the complexities of sexual violence in India evident, I do not find it strange to start this paper with simplicity of the headline of the statement issued on December 23, 2012, immediately after the Nirbhaya gang rape on 16 December 2012. It was signed by concerned citizens and women’s groups from all over India. It gives us hope for a more compassionate society.
STATEMENT BY WOMEN’S AND PROGRESSIVE GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS CONDEMNING SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND OPPOSING DEATH PENALTY
I wrote a paper on rape soon after the Delhi 2012 rape and ended it with the above statement headline. And here I write again on rape taking it from there. I did not know that what the women’s movement says would be so difficult to put across when it comes naturally to me.
On the evening of 22 May 2019, a student called me to say that her friend had been raped and wanted to know what should be done. I was stunned, yet again! I told her to file an FIR. That young girl stayed with her friend, explained the parents the need for an FIR, and was with her during the entire medical and FIR process. 23 May was to be the day for election results, but I was so bogged down, that it did not matter who won. If those in power in a country like India cannot stop rape, what respect can I have for them? It is not that they are unaware of the maladies, what it would take to change the society, it is as if they have blinders that cannot see beyond their own constructions of patriarchy. I respected that one girl who was with her friend through the ordeal more than the government and all parties that have ever come to power in India. On 24 May, the boy who raped was arrested. I was angry, but I still sent him some love telepathically. Individuals are just puppets of the system, after all.
Since 2010, I have been teaching about the beginnings of Women’s Movement in a Foundation Women’s Studies Course (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSYP-jn10fw 09.12.2019 1.25 a.m.). Year after year I have wondered about Mathura and what the women’s movement owes her. Not just Women’s Movement but what the History of India owes her! I cannot fathom, in terms of money and honour, the identification that she should have received, instead of fading into invisibility. A couple of years ago, I learnt that the patriarchal system has swallowed her spirit and she no longer wants to be contacted. I have therefore not added that particular reference here. We could not give her the recognition due to her, I wish for her to at least live in peace.
This writing is a hypothetical. All researches start with hypothesis.
My sister said, after hearing what my paper title was, ‘If Sati could be eradicated then why not rape? ’ She is one of those highly optimistic persons, and so am I. It makes me think of the issues that led to eradication of Sati. For erasing any social phenomena that has been practiced for years, someone needs to think that it is wrong. A lot has been written about Sati, which leads us to conceptualize the patriarchal connection in all its aspects. To understand its historical background is most important. As I search for history of rape I came across these three articles which are different in representations — the first is on Modern India, the second about Ancient Greece, and third a combination Ancient Greece and Indian mythology -
https://www.brynmawr.edu/sites/default/files/Rape_in_India_MEDHA_GHOSH.pdf (12.12.2019, 11.50)
http://historyofrapeculture.weebly.com/history-of-rape-culture.html (12.12.2019, 11.51) and https://feminisminindia.com/2017/10/06/origins-rape-culture-mythology/ (12.12.2019, 12.02).
As of yet, I have not come across any satisfactory origin and history of rape, but as Britannica says there is no denying ‘rape is a serious crime’ https://www.britannica.com/topic/rape-crime (12.12.2019, 11.02). It needs to be done away from the world. There is no hypothesis about this basic fact that rapes should not exist but people are yet to imagine a rape free world. What benefit does the system gain by this? In fact the myths that are mentioned, both Greek and Indian, are also to promote subjugation of women — obviously a product of patriarchal mindset. Subjugation of one set of people only enables the resource allocation to be lopsided and make the subjugated willing participants of the process. Media makes violence against women accepted as normal!
To imagine a rape free world — my world is the Indian subcontinent. I am limiting myself to the geographical political India post 1947. This is not about the statistical figures of rape in India. One Draupadi and one Sita were enough to play havoc with the psyche of Indian culture and make it patriarchal to the core! In the 70s, Women’s Movement got the people of the world to notice ‘rape culture’ as an ailment that is everywhere! In India too, it was Women’s Movement that got people thinking and talking about this unspeakable assault on women. With a reopened Mathura’s case — Mathura a tribal girl, ample work has been done by women’s movement bringing changes even in the legal aspects of rape. A gnawing question remains — what do we do with the patriarchy seeped in our system? It becomes difficult to address this question because the issues that are taken up by the women’s movement are not reflected in academia except Women’s Studies. Women’s movement has consistently looked at History, as Indian History in its uniqueness is represented in the background of ‘position of women’ (Chakravarti, Uma, Beyond the Altekarian Paradigm: Towards a New Understanding of Gender Relations in Early Indian History 1988 in John, Mary ed., Women’s Studies in India, Penguin, 2008)! Mahabharat and Ramayan are not History but Indian lives are governed by the popular versions of these two epics. It was difficult to teach A K Ramanujam’s 300 Ramayan (https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/three-hundred-ramayanas-delhi-university-and-the-purging-of-ramanujan/cid/340912 13.12.2019 11.49 p.m.) by DU’s History department for BA syllabus! I am skeptical therefore about how it will be taken, when I say, ‘origin of rape in India’ lies in ‘disrobing of Draupadi’ and ‘abduction of Sita’. And of course, the amazing History that we are still taught in schools, colleges and universities in all disciplines continues to assert that the ‘golden period for women in India was the Vedic period’, despite women’s movement in India raising questions against this. No property for women, no queens and no right to public space — this was the golden period (Chakravarti, 1988) and instead of questioning the structures people were burdened with glorification of women. For my hypothetical assumption of a rape free world, I need an origin for rape. Where else other than in Indian History with so much emphasis on women’s position, can I place this origin? If there was an origin, a beginning, it means there has to be an end, and more importantly, a space where there is no rape!
I also have to deal with a perspective which my brother-in-law shared in all sincerity — human beings have a vile nature — all goodness is acquired. Whenever cracks appear the goodness crumbles and realities of the human negativity becomes visible. Even though I am tempted to acknowledge his view I am burdened with knowledge that my own experiences have allowed me to access (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/574357 16.12.2019, 4.30 p.m.). Had rape been a natural phenomenon of human beings, then it would exist in all societies! I have had the privilege to be in touch with an adivasi society of Kashipur, Orissa during their struggle against bauxite mining. Time and again I visited the village and saw that their struggle was not just against the bauxite mining, it was also for saving their livelihood, the water, the land and their life style which incidentally does not have rape built into its fabric. I did not see rape written about in pre-historic societies either.
(https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/origin_family.pdf).
I am giving benefit of doubt to those in power that they are unable to understand why rapes happen. If rape is not natural then what are the issues that lead to rape? I am jotting down a few here so that these can be sorted if an attempt is made. Not that we have much of an option if we want a rape free world.
Marriage, Power and its expression, Hierarchical society, Understanding subordination, Controlling women’s sexuality and mobility, Social and cultural acceptance of rape!
Last hundred years have noted rapid changes, some beyond imaginations. Inspite of campaigns (https://libcom.org/files/Against%20Civilization%20-%20John%20Zerzan.pdf) against civilization it is difficult for people programmed to heterosexual marriages, to even imagine a life without hierarchy or subordination. Marriages laid down in Veda have a patriarchal perspective seeped into it. The marriage practice considered best is the one in which a father gives his daughter (kanyaadaan), along with gifts. We are not allowed to see the objectification of women. Instead, Ram making statue of Sita, one of the pioneering status of the process, portrays importance of women in the society. Most people are unaware of campaigns against the civilization, but thanks to the media, alternative ways of living can no longer be pushed under the carpet. When marriage as an institution has to be adopted, for whatever reason, the least that can be done is to bring equality and partnership in it, instead of subordination. Adivasi societies do not look at men or women as sexual objects. Popular media, particularly movies, have cleverly distorted realities. This association of character with sexuality needs to be done away. We cannot possibly adopt all the norms of adivasi society, but we can begin by putting a stop on the controlling of women’s sexuality and mobility. There are continuous rapes happening on regular basis, other than the ones flashed by media. The ones that go unreported are mainly because people will be ready to go to police station for any crime against them, but when it comes to sexual harassment of women or rape, there is an audible silence. The question of getting any justice also stops women from legal complaint.
Why should I write papers on Rape? There is nothing I am going to say that has not been already addressed in Women’s Movements. We learn a lot from the women’s movements (types of rapes, legalities involved, changes in law, socio-cultural aspects, most of all collective strength) but academics is where teaching-learning is done for the educated to create knowledge. History, as a subject, has incorporated a lot. I am sure the discipline can get out of its historiography of nationalist historians and incorporate the common knowledge of women’s movement to challenge patriarchy. I came across this amazing effort of another Ram (Devineni) (https://in.makers.yahoo.com/indias-first-female-superhero-priya-survivor-of-gangrape-013015523.html) to make a female super hero comic book. It is not enough, to remain in pages of comic books, but it is an important start! History should not let the media get away with selective representation of rapes to create further fear, control of women’s sexuality and mobility and to basically re-enforce patriarchy.
If anyone wishes to pursue this as research add your email in response and I will email the bibliographical reference.
