Sex Crime Against Kerala Actor Shows Disturbing Trends

The horrifying sexual crime against a well-known popular young woman actor in Kerala has led to widespread protest and condemnation across Kerala. Members of the film fraternity held a solidarity meeting in Kochi sending a strong message of condemnation and demanding action by the government. All the most respected names in the industry were present, and the resolution adopted by them calls for a widespread social movement in defence of the rights of all women for a secure and safe environment; it pledged not only to fight for justice in this case, but for all survivors of sexual crimes.

The girl is most courageous. Supported by her friends and family, she filed the complaint almost immediately, she underwent the required procedures and unfurled the flag for justice. Her status as a popular public figure, a celebrity, must have made it all the more difficult and painful to take such a decision. Survivors of sexual crimes are often confronted by an aggressively misogynist social milieu which seeks to shame them into silence. In this case, it was no different.

The TV channel Kairali put out an utterly scurrilous story about her. The channel had to publicly apologize. Other media outlets who ran sensationalist reports should do so too. But she broke that barrier of silence. By doing so, she will always be an inspiration for other young women to speak out. Her action, as those of other brave survivors like her, gets translated into a collective strength which empowers all women.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has pledged that not a single culprit will go unpunished. The police has so far moved swiftly in the case: three of the seven criminals have been arrested and there is a hunt on for those absconding. Political will to take strong action against criminals is the key to providing a safe environment for women. In a large number of cases throughout India, it is the lack of political will on behalf of ruling regimes which empower criminals and lead to low conviction rates in cases of crimes against women. Often, powerful political forces defend and give patronage to perpetrators of crimes against women.
 Regretfully and unfortunately, Kerala's record under the previous UDF Government has been murky in this regard. There have been cases such as in the "Solar Scam" where leaders of the ruling parties have been directly named for demanding sexual favours. Earlier, there was the terrible Suryanelli case - when a minor girl was trafficked and was subjected to sexual barbarities and yet later, the UDF Government did everything possible to sabotage the process of justice for her. Cases of blackmail proliferated during the years of UDF rule, many of them linked to cases with a sexual dimension in which leaders were involved.

It is also the case that the issue of sexual violence often gets reduced to a tu tu mein mein between this or that particular party. While every political party will certainly react to developments according to their own understanding, there must be an actionable code of conduct to ensure that there is no trivialization of the case and nothing which demeans women, which has become common in the language deployed to attack a political rival. Women's organisations, groups and individuals who have been in the forefront of the struggles of women for justice at various levels often get dismayed, demoralized and angered by insensitive comments when issues of life and death for women become a football kicked around by influential leaders. It also does grave damage to the struggle of the survivor in dealing with the multiple layers of trauma and pain that she suffers. At a wider level, it weakens social unity required to develop a consciousness of citizenship for which individual and community participation in the creation of a safe environment for women and girls can be built. It is absolutely essential that parliament and state assemblies draw up such a code for their members which will make leaders accountable for their language. 

In this case too, we have seen the kind of biased statements by various opposition leaders.

A Congress leader, who, when in government, had slammed the Prime Minister's comments in the Jisha case, criticizing the then state government saying it was "most unfortunate that a person like the country's Prime Minister was playing politics" did exactly the same thing when, in this present case, he stated that the case reflects a collapse of law and order in the state. He then took umbrage at the response of the CPI(M) Secretary that a single case does not warrant such an assessment. The Central Minister for Women and Child Welfare Menaka Gandhi has demanded dismissal of the state government and imposition of President's Rule. In response, someone suggested that it would be better for the Minister to advise her colleague Rajnath Singh, who is in charge of law and order in the capital and is presiding over the shocking increase in cases of violence against women there, on how to ensure that the capital of India is made safe for women. The country has never heard her express such sentiments when tribal women are gang-raped by men in uniform under the patronage of the BJP state government in Chhattisgarh, incidents which occur repeatedly warranting intervention by the Supreme Court. Such statements are political rhetoric with little value except for point-scoring.
 The level of political discussion in cases concerning atrocities against women, including in this particular instance, actually diverts attention from the most pressing issue: the reality that having the best social indicators of gender equality in many spheres such as sex ratios, health, education, does not translate necessarily in Kerala into a weakening of patriarchal notions and practices. It is true that a woman walking down a street in Kerala would feel much more safe than in many other states. And yet, it would be entirely wrong to underplay the gravity of the situation. 

The present case highlights the utter degeneration of basic values. The rate of crimes against women in Kerala has been on the rise and has crossed the national average. Crime rate is measured per a hundred thousand of the female population. According to the NCRB (National Crime Record Bureau), in 2014, at the all-India level, it was 56.3, whereas in Kerala, it was higher at 63. The number of cases of child sexual abuse are also increasing. Some argue that various studies have shown that the rate of registration of crimes against women in Kerala and the percentage of charge sheets filed is far higher than in most states. That may be so, but for a progressive state like Kerala with a strong Left-oriented political and cultural framework, it would be self-defeating not to recognize that the alternative to market-based values that commodify and degrade women into objects to fulfill male lust, needs to be much stronger, more active in fighting back degenerate social trends reflected in increasing crimes against women.

How to reverse these most disturbing realities is a most important challenge before the LDF Government and for all those committed to gender equality in word and deed, in theory and practice.

Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.

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