A painting 'Rape of the Sabine women'

Original Text in Hindi by: Manisha Pandey

Translated in English by: Abhishek Pandey

When did I hear the word rape for the first time?   When did I understand what does it really mean? I have no idea. I was just 12 years old when a young woman was gang raped in my city--Allahabad. The news was played up and it was above the fold on the front pages of all newspapers. If I remember correctly, this was the first time my mother instructed me how to behave and dress ‘decently’. That day, she got angry because I went on the terrace of my house without her permission. I asked for her permission to go to a friend’s house that evening. She bluntly said no.  She even scolded me when I went to the market nearby to buy milk without wearing tippet.

We, me and my mother, had not discussed about the news published on the front pages of newspapers that day. But I had understood that the change in her attitude is because of that incident. I had understood that the girls who do not follow the instructions of their parents are raped. A girl should wear a tippet not to get raped. She should not roam around on roads after sundown. She should not go to a friend’s house alone. 

Even after having all this precious pieces of information I didn’t know what was rape? I was growing up. When I was five-years-old I went to a friend’s house to call her. No one was at home. Taking the advantage of the situation her uncle undid his blue ‘lungi’. I got frightened and ran away. Was that rape?

A man lived in my colony with his wife and used to call me beta. One day he made me sit on his lap when his wife was not around. Whatever he did to me was disgusting and still fills me with filth.  I dint tell anyone but began living in an unknown fear. Was that rape?

When the son of Marwari aunty held me by my shoulders for gyrating, he touched me between my legs in an awkward way. I got frightened. Was that rape?

When I was in class six and my mother send me to buy sugar from the general store next door. The shopkeeper touched my breasts. Was that rape? 

In the Hindi belt of shining India, a girl growing up in the city like Allahabad faces similar incidents almost every day. I was frightened to speak up. Was that rape?

I was afraid of dark.

I was afraid of deserted lanes and by-lanes of my city.

I was afraid of men.

I was afraid of my own body.

Was that rape? 

If it was rape, I dint tell anyone about this. I dint ask my mother what was it.

One day, there was another news item that hogged the headlines of newspapers. A bandit in the ravines of western Uttar Pradesh had killed 22 upper caste males because they had gangraped her. Perhaps she was not prosecuted and all the cases against her were withdrawn.

The incident raised many questions. Should girls shoot rapists? The only idea of such action made me feel great because I wanted to kill the uncle of my friend, that uncle next door, the son of Marwari aunty and the shopkeeper. Neither I had courage nor the idea what I wanted to do? My mother had told me that the bandit was Phoolan Devi and had killed 22 thakurs (upper caste). One of my distant relatives, Shukla Jee, was sad because she had killed 22 thakurs.

No one talked about the gangrape.  No one showed any respect or love for Phoolan Devi. Even on my terrace that evening, people were sad about the killings of 22 thakurs but no one saluted Phoolan Devi for her courage or sympathized with her.

I understood one thing that day.

Rape is bad but shooting rapists is worse and killing thakurs is the worst.

Whatever that uncle, the neighbor, the son of Marwari aunty and the shopkeeper and several other males of Allahabad had done with me or the girls like me could be bad but telling this to anyone is worse and thinking about killing them is the worst.

I have stopped thinking about the ‘bad things.’

But the bad behavior of pervert males, eve teasing, molestation and such behavior has not stopped.

This does not happen only in Uttar Pradesh.

One day, I was talking with twelve of my friends at Women Working Hostel in Mumbai. We had managed to get three bottles of wine and only those girls were present who had no issue with drinking and on whom we can trust that they will not leak the news. We were drinking wine in steel tumblers and were talking about things we do not discuss normally.  After a few moments of fear, shame and hesitation, all the twelve girls in the room accepted that they had faced sexual abuse when they were young. Uncles in their neighborhoods, friends of their fathers were the ones who developed a sense of fear and hatred in their minds for their own bodies and for males. 

Even at that moment I could not decide: was that rape?

Once, a hostel mate came back after night out with his boy friend and had black marks under her eyes and bruises on other body parts. She was molested by her boyfriend who had tried raping her. She did not complain to anyone. After ten day she went for outing with the same boy again.

Was that rape?

In Mumbai, a woman lawyer working for a social organization told that she had to sleep with her husband unwillingly many times. She said this as if it is acceptable in our society. Is this acceptable thing was rape?

The woman from Allahabad who says she had never took initiative on bed because she thinks that males think that such girls are sluts. Indian males have poor opinion of the girls who say yes to the proposal of making love before tying the nuptial knot. Males think they are characterless. The educated, modern, working girls fake their orgasm for making their husbands and boyfriends physically, sexually and mentally satisfied.

At time boyfriends do not wear condoms rather force their girl friends to swallow anti-abortion pills which cause vomiting and other health problems. They are the same who leave their girl friends alone and go out of town during their abortions if she forgets to take a pill in time and conceives a baby.

Can all these be called rape?

Male colleagues in offices call a girl slut if she smokes; wear skirts or talks to boys in a loud tone. If a girl had been in a relationship with more than one male then they say “anyone can sleep with her” and bet among each other that who can do it first. They think the girl is available if a girl chose to have a relationship with a male before getting married.

Is this rape?

My 35-year-old unmarried aunty never had relationship with a male fearing she will lose the tag of a ‘good woman’. She had her menopause at the age of 38 without sleeping with any man in her life and in return she got the tag of a ‘good woman’ from society.  Was that rape?

I am unable to decide that what is rape? The sections of Indian Penal Code have failed in defining it. Indian judicial system has failed in deciding its definition. No one decided this because no one cared. No one felt the need because it was not affecting their life directly.

In a spine-chilling incident, a girl was brutally gangraped in the national capital by six monsters in a moving bus. They brutally assaulted the girl and her friend. They threw them on the road without clothes in the freezing cold of Delhi. The nation got outraged. Thousands of boys and girl took to the streets to demand capital punishment for the rapists.

What should be the punishment is a different topic of debate. This is for sure that this is a barbaric criminal act. This is one of the ugliest faces of crime against women. The death of the brave girl has shaken the conscience of the nation. The safety of women has become a prime concern in our patriarchal society.

Rapes were happening before the Delhi gangrape case. They were happening in homes and outside. Indian army was raping. Custodial rapes and marital rapes were happening. Known and strangers were raping girls. Father, uncle, tuition teacher, neighbor and strangers were raping but this never became a prime time question in mainstream media. People never came out on the streets to face water-canons, tear gas shells and lathi charge.

Since we have come out on the streets to talk about this issue we will talk about the history of rapes. We will talk about its culture. We will talk about the patriarchal norms of society. We will talk about religious texts. We will talk about the unfair laws. We will talk about the world which taught men to rape and instructed women to be raped and keep quite. We will talk about the world that makes a man sexual being and a woman a sex object. We will talk about the social norms which justified sexual needs of males and told woman to fulfill them.

We will talk about the society which tells women how not to get raped but never directed a male not to rape women. We will talk about the society that has not given rights to women to express their sexual desires. We will talk about the society that has made woman the property of her father, brother, husband and son. We will talk about the society that made women a machine that produces human beings.  We will talk about the society that has justified the exploitation of women in religious texts and given their own descriptions of them to suppress women.

The society has restricted its daughters from roaming around on roads at night but let its sons out to rape them. The society taught girls to keep the sanctity of their bodies but opened brothels for fulfilling the sexual desires of males. The society tells girls that they were raped because they were scantily clad but never questioned boys for roaming around without shirts and peeing in full public view. The society calls a girl slut for having four boyfriends but praised a male who had sex with 100 women. The society justified violence against women and gave rights on her heart, body and soul to males.

Now we are questioning, discussing and debating on rape then we should not ignore these concerns boggling the minds of women for ages.

I have never reiterated the word ‘rape’ so many times in my life but have written this word many times in this article. And, this is for a reason: we have to take this issue forward to bring about a positive change in our society.

Baat Nikli Hai to Phir Door Talak Jayegi…

The original article was published on www.pratilipi.in. 

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By Abhishek Pandey

There were three news reports in the newspaper last week which troubled my conscience. First, The editor Ravindra Kumar and publisher Anand Sinha of ‘The Statesmen’, a Kolkata based old English Indian newspaper, were punished for reproducing an article because it hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims. The original article was written by a Journalist, Johann Hari in ‘The Independent’. Second, Pakistan accepted the ‘Shariat’ law in the swat valley and declared cease fire with Tehrik-e-Nifaz Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM), a militant group of ‘Taliban’ nature. Third, an autobiography of a nun ‘Amen’ was released recently which revealed many hidden facts of mal-practices in Kerala catholic churches. All of these stories are very much connected with the religion and gender bias.

I browsed through a few pages of history of some major religions and tried to find out the state of women in different religions. I found that women are apparently subsided in most of the religions. Every religion talks about the highest place of women in the scriptures but contrary to it, women’s conditions are pathetic and palpable in practice.

Islam, which is considered the most unfavorable religion for women. The pages of history speak this in details. Johann Hari writes in his article that it exists from the days of Prophet Mohammad, who married a nine-year old girl 'Aisha' and raped her. It is said that she was not abused child but ‘blessed’ child, if you ask some mullah for clarification. One must read the book ‘Jewel of Medina’ written by famous journalist Sherry Jones for details. In a recent case in Saudi Arabia a ten year old girl was married to a 58 year old man. When the mother of a girl reached to the court then court discarded the plea and said that her mother could not file the case and even, child could not file the case until she reaches puberty.

Have you heard that a rape victim was punished and convicts were left free? Yes, it happened. A gang rape victim in Saudi Arabia was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail because she was moving around in a car with the man who was not her relative, Guardian reported this news on November 2007. Mukhtaran Mai was punished to be gang raped in a southern Punjab village in Pakistan by village council called jirga; BBC reported the news in 2004.

What kinds of religion suggest these atrocious acts? Women are thrashed, abducted, molested, raped, beaten, murdered in Taliban ruled states and some parts of the Middle East countries. The reason was as ‘simple’ as that because they started moving freely, joined jobs for their livelihood, started studying or they were not wearing hijab. Mrs. Shirin Ebadi, noble peace prize winner, also expressed concern about the fact that certain Islamic countries still did not officially recognize women’s rights, particularly those of wives.

Now, I would like to come to my own religion, Hinduism. Here also, women are suffering from the male chauvinism from mythological age to the 21st century. Sita went through Agnipariksha in Satyug and women were burnt for centuries because of Sati pratha. In 1987, Roop Kunwar, a young bride from Rajasthan immolated herself on her husband’s pyre following the religious practice of Sati pratha. Her brother justified her act by saying that she would become the goddess then. Hindu widows were alienated from the Hindu society from centuries and when, Deepa Mehta tried to show that in her film ‘Water’ then Hindu extremists came on the streets, protested and shooting has to be stopped in Varanasi in 2000. She had to complete the shooting in Sri Lanka. For many years, female feticides and infanticide were practiced in India. And the reason was as stupid as that ‘who will perform the last rites of the elderly people’ or ‘how the family lineage would enhance’.

In a recent case of Mangalore, Women were beaten by Hindu male chauvinists because Indian culture does not allow women to go pubs but the same time ‘does it allow molesting and beating of women in public place’. The answer by these idiots possibly would be: No. They did that because it was necessary for saving the culture of the land or saving the religion. As, they are the only people left on earth to do the same.

Another major religion in the world is Christianity. It is considered the most advanced and liberal religion. Yes, it in true in many aspects. The silver lining in dark clouds is that hardcore malpractices are not in this religion. Child marriage, Sati Pratha, forceful gentle mutilation or female circumcision, atrocities for having relation with opposite sex, and honor killing do not exist. But, gender bias exists in some other forms. Women priests are not appreciated, they can work as nun and serve the male priest but they can not be elevated usually as bishop or pope in religious hierarchy.

Sister Jesmi, who was a nun from Congregation of Mother Carmelite (CMC) until August 2008, writes in her book ‘Amen’, ''At a retreat for novices, I noticed girls in my batch were unsettled about going to the confession chamber. I found that the priest there asked each girl if he could kiss them. I gathered courage and went in. He repeated the question. When I opposed, he quoted from the Bible which spoke of divine kisses,'' she writes. Sister Jesme revealed that another time; a nun forced her to have sex with her.

I know that religious issues are always surrounded by electric fence and if any one would try to pass it then s/he will surely get the shock. Salman Rushdie, Deepa Mehta, MF Husain and Tasleema Nasreen are few victims. But these issues must be raise and challenged for the sake of reformation in the ideas and ideologies for our future generations. All the above mentioned malpractices in different religion are like fungal diseases and from the ages, these are the reason of deep scourge on existence of ‘womanhood’. I don’t have disrespect in my mind and heart for Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity or for that matter, for any religion. But we need to look in to reform it for the better development of all, not only for one section of society.

None of the religion is made to oppress any one. It is made for better functioning of society and to make people god-fearing so they don’t commit crimes. Ironically, misinterpreted religions are used for oppressing the people in the name of god and religion. All the religion in the world deserves respect and I do respect all of them. Religion and religious guru, mullah, and priests should accept the rational questions and it will elevate the stature of religion in the eyes of the common people.

!!!Amen!!!

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