This Article is From Jul 31, 2014

Threatening Women with Rape, on Facebook and Elsewhere

(Subhashini Ali is former MP, former Member of the National Commission for Women and Vice President of the All India Democratic Women's Association.)

The wraps are off; the unspeakable is being spoken loud and clear. What most women and girls have known or sensed from early childhood and what has been strenuously denied by many on both sides of the gender divide should now be accepted and dealt with realistically. Rape is the ultimate threat to keep women and girls 'in line'. It has little to do with the way a woman or a girl dresses or behaves but is the ultimate punishment meted out to them when they transgress limits that have been placed on their thoughts, desires and volition. It is the ultimate method of control exerted to deny them equality in all spheres including that of wages. This is not to say that every woman and girl experiences the de-humanising brutality of rape, but to affirm that every woman and girls experiences the threat of rape as a persistent shadow that accompanies her every step, thought and action. It is a threat that circumscribes her freedom as no prison could.

Tapas Pal, the Trinamool MP, was universally condemned when he exhorted his supporters a month ago to 'rape CPI(M) women' to teach them and their party a lesson. What is truly terrifying about his statement is that it reflects a reality shared by millions of women -  that their affiliation with a group, voluntary or involuntary, is punishable by rape. Hundreds of women in West Bengal know that belonging to the CPI(M) means that they face the threat of rape. It is equally true that this realisation is shared not only with all those women all over the world who confront authority and fight for freedom and for the rights of the dispossessed and exploited everywhere. This is punishment received or threatened for a conscious decision of affiliation.  

But, even more widespread, is the threat and fact of rape that women and girls face because of the fact of their community, religious group, caste, race or class because of the desire of those that assault them to injure or control or wreak vengeance on that particular community, religious group, caste, race or class. To paraphrase Susan Brownmiller who wrote her path-breaking book "Against Our Will" in 1975, rape is even more about power than it is about lust.

The wide range of female activity threatened by rape has only been illustrated by the recent comment made by Shri V.R. Bhat, a known Hindutva and RSS activist. In a comment posted on  social media, he said that Smt. N. Prabha and others like her should be dragged by their hair and then raped.

Smt. N. Prabha is an office bearer of  Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti (a progressive Left mass organisation committed to the promotion of a scientific temper and outlook) and she had posted a comment in support of scientific thinking. In his comment, Shri Bhat has criticized Smt. Prabha not only for her lack of understanding of Sanathana Dharma but has gone on to say that she is one of those who reads books by the famous Kannada Dalit writer, Devanur Mahadeva, and is, therefore, assured of  the unqualified support of other readers like herself. It is significant that Shri Bhat exposes the close links between misogyny, communalism and anti-Dalit, casteist Brahmanism.  

In the changed political situation, with a Government at the Centre that is led by those committed to Hindutva, Shri Bhat's comments, which could and would have been brushed aside as the ravings of someone belonging to a 'lunatic fringe', are extremely sinister and chilling.

While it is essential that Messrs. Tapas Pal and Bhat be prosecuted and punished for their statements which are violative of our Constitution and laws, it is equally essential that their statements be recognised for what they reflect. And that is the fact that the threat of rape blights the hopes and dreams and lives of women and girls everywhere.

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