Guilty Without Charge

 

It is strange how the mind triggers responses. A couple of days ago I was watching a movie on TV called “The Other Guys”. The movie is a blend of satire and slapstick—hardly one that should have triggered thoughts of rape. Yet, that’s exactly what it did. Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (the protagonists) are cops who are having a conversation about the need for heroes. Wahlberg’s character is of the view that the world needs heroes and he plans to do something dramatic to fill that void. Ferrell on the other hand talk about always having done the right thing, and if everyone did the right thing, we wouldn’t have any problems. While it might be a truism, he does have a point. And when he went on to say that when he was 11, he audited his parents and got grounded for it, it struck something.

There is always the urge for newsmen to go with dramatic headlines. “We are all rapists” is what I was thinking of, because the time has gone when those of us who have not committed a sex crime should consider ourselves non-offenders.Where crime against women is concerned, I believe we are all guilty.

The barbaric rape of a 23-year-old in New Delhi so outraged civil society in India that for weeks people like you and I have gone onto the streets and demanded justice and change. It was the tipping point, for what reason, I cannot say with any amount of certainty. It was close to us—physically and metaphorically—but so are hundreds of other cases. It was exceptionally barbaric—but since when do we have the moral or legal objectivity to decide that one rape is better or worse than another? What about the girl from Kerala, who was raped repeatedly by over 40 men for over 40 days, 16 years ago? A girl who has had to move home, deal with unending mental torture from her neighbours and the community at large and who still hasn’t received a measure of justice?

These are the stories that get reported. Cases where the victim is brave enough to seek some kind of retribution. To take on the perils of a legal system that victimizes far more frequently than it protects and supports. And all this goes on on the outside. 

The whole system has to change in India. That is a given in virtually every conceivable situation—not just in sexual assault cases. The rot that we are in goes so deep that nothing works the way it is supposed to. The scenes on the streets of Delhi, of middle-class India coming out and demanding action, come thanks to a government that has been so rapt in its self-imposed paralysis that it has done little other than fatten itself. Very rarely has a democratically-elected government so obtusely and single-mindedly mocked at the teeming millions it is supposed to govern. I don’t think “government” is a word that has been uttered by anyone (outside of the government machinery) in this country with anything other than contempt for generations. But the current lot are so comfortable in the realization that the nation has no alternative, that they are trying to push the already over-stretched envelope over the edge. Over-stretched it so much that even we, the politically inactive armchair intelligentsia, are out for blood. And of course we have hit rock-bottom, so any change can only be for the better. So I salute the activists and students and ordinary people who are out demanding change. But I also believe we need to stand up and take the blame for our own crimes.

What Happens on the Inside

 

When I think of rape, or sex crimes perpetrated by men against women, I first think of two women I know personally. Their stories are not mine to tell, but to me they form the basis of a problem that is so deep rooted that no amount of reform in policing, legislation or gender sensitization can ever change.

So here is why I am an offender. I know these women. And I know the men who have violated them. My crime is my silence. When these crimes were committed, both women were very young. The men who committed them were not just known to them, but very closely involved in their lives. When I found out about both cases my morals, as a man who does not commit sex crimes, were outraged. I kicked up a fuss about what I would do to the fiend the next time I saw him. I did all this behind closed doors. The next time I met the man, I behaved like everything was normal.

Sure, I can say she promised me not to do anything. I can argue that it isn’t my place to come out with a story like this because of the implications it will have on the life of women involved, and their families. I can say all sorts of things in my defence. But I know that my silence is not just my admission of guilt, but also proof of my complicity in a horror and injustice that no one should ever be subjected to.

There are plenty of figures from rape studies on how many of these crimes are committed by men who know the victims (call them survivors or whatever else you want to couch the fact, but the truth is that once you have been raped, you have been raped). Some studies indicate that the figure is as high as 80 percent. Why then are we out on the streets demanding better policing and stronger laws, when 80 percent of the perpetrators of these crimes are being sheltered in our own homes?

And forgive me, but I do not agree with assertions that 98 percent of criminals in these cases are men. In both the cases that I have cited here, there are grandmothers, mothers, sisters, female friends, some who know and some who don’t. All of them chose to remain silent. The ones who don’t know are as involved as the others because they are the reason girls all over this country—I daresay the world—keep quiet about sexual assault. Mothers have told their daughters to “forget about it and carry on with life” or that “these things happen, don’t make a fuss about it”. Educated women, men, you and me, the people who are demanding justice for the unknown 23-year-old on the bus, are the same people who failed, time and again, to seek justice for the girls they were meant to look after, raise, protect. That makes us all accomplices not just in this rape case, but in every such crime committed anywhere in the world. And when you multiply that by the impact our attitudes have on successive generations, our guilt multiplies a million fold.We might not mean to, but we are perpetuating a culture of abuse and a cycle where the depraved act with impunity simply because they can.

When I discussed this post with my most regular critic I was told, "abuse and the silence around abuse is complex, even where justice may not be." I agree with the premise that this is a complex issue and dealing with it requires not just the ability to understand complexities, but also the willingness to make difficult decisions; to deal with the inconveniences that will arise from those decisions. That is the kind of courage we need.

Why should we escape punishment? 

I am a criminal and my punishment is having to live with my conscience. I don’t think that is good enough. I don’t think it is good enough either, if I say that next time I hear of something like this, I will do something. I believe I should be punished for not shaming the men who perpetrated these crimes. Men who have since grown and started families of their own. Men who are regarded as upright citizens and bread-winners and even heroes, when instead they should be made to live the rest of their lives constantly reminded of the filth they are.

I also find myself shamed that it took a national protest to wake me from my own delusion. The time for introspection has come and gone. It is time that we take charge of ourselves, and our chemically castrated brains, long enough to process the crimes we perpetrate in our homes. Only then will anything really change.        

And to the scum who put these two girls through more mental anguish than they will ever know, the next time you see me know this—I know who you are. I know what you have done. Next time I see you, I hope I will have the courage to no longer pretend.