PRESENT IMPERFECT. The many uses of rape

To some of us, rape is a violent, heinous crime. The fact that it has dominated public and private discourse in the last year-and-a-half indicates, shockingly, how widely prevalent it is. Whether we march in protest or stew in silence, we hope there will be an end to the act and the many references to it that we now find ourselves unavoidably privy to. (At the local Mother Dairy, the other day, for example, one old man to another, “Rape toh aaj kal trendy hai!” which easily translates to rape is trendy now) Trendy or not, what is true though is that rape today has many uses. It’s versatile and nifty and can be used to fit many needs. Here are some examples:

Rape as a marketing strategy

Last year I was working on a story about an infamous mall in Gurgaon. Every few months, this particular mall was in the news for rape or sexual assault. During the day the mall was near-empty save for an odd shopper and a cosy canoodling couple, and when the manager of one of the nightclubs told me he has over 1,000 visitors a night and that most of them travelled 60 or 80km to party at his club, I was circumspect. But I went that night and sure enough, the road outside the building was choked with tractors and SUVs. Inside, the mall was packed. Young men in gym-toned bodies — tight T-shirts stretching around their chests and jeans — ran up and down the escalators. Jostling with them were older men in white kurtas and dhotis, their faces weather-beaten, their heads turbaned. They were all headed up to the third floor where the nightclubs were. In all, that night, there may have been 4,000 men and less than 10 women on the floor. I located the manager again. “It’s all the stories of rapes here,” he told me, “they hear about it in the news and then want to come here and see the place for themselves. The rapes get the mall into trouble with the police, but it’s good for customers.” His tone lacked any trace of irony, and seeing the throng shoving and pushing, it was easy to understand why.

Rape as an honour mechanism

Last week, The Hindu published a report after analysing data on 600 cases that came before Delhi courts in 2013. Of the cases fully tried, over 40 per cent dealt with consensual sex, usually involving the elopement of a young couple and the girl’s parents subsequently charging the boy with rape, the paper reported. The parents of the girl (usually), fraught by the damage this would wreak on the family’s ‘honour’, file a complaint of abduction and rape. In some cases, the girls depose about their parents beating them up, confining them to a locked room, forcing them to have abortions and plead with the court that they be allowed to go with their husbands. In others, even though the girl initially confesses to eloping with the boy of her own will, she later changes her statement to that of being abducted and raped. In families where an inter-caste, inter-class or inter-religious marriage is taboo, rape — or an accusation of it — is a useful tool to save their honour.

Rape as creative inspiration

And just as you are ready to seal these off with a class argument (often disguised as an education argument) out pops a photo shoot inspired by the horrific gang rape in Delhi. The album places lissome models in glamorous clothes and perfect accessories in a bus. There is one girl and four boys captured in various not-so-subtle poses of domination and distress. The feature is titled One Wrong Turn. The fact that it was inspired by what is now known as the Nirbhaya case was flaunted. And voila, hundreds of thousands of eyeballs were registered. About 24 hours later when the number of commentators mentioning the absolute lack of taste and sensitivity was significantly high, the photos were taken down. Rape had served its purpose.

Rape as a prayer

“Will pray that she (activist Kavitha Krishnan) gets raped by the madrasawalas n is forced the don the hijab permanently (sic).” This was the tweet of one Rati Parker ( >@ratigirl ) on Tuesday. @ratigirl turns out to be more woman than girl and has over 16,000 followers on Twitter, which includes the prime minister, Narendra Modi. Rati Parker seems like your average neighbour in urban India — her blog posts detail her adventures through Vietnam, Thailand, Dubai and Oman. Her photographs show her with shiny hair and lovely clothes, sipping a beer and smoking a hookah. And evaluated through the framework of education and exposure, her words sound even more barbaric.

Even allowing for the premise that we are now a nation firmly divided into ‘us’ and ‘them’ as well as the fact that activities on Twitter are rarely polite, this prayer to rape is a fresh new use for an old act. One that was in fact endorsed by a large number of people. “Let’s pray someone gets murdered…” has an ominosity to it that cannot be denied. In most cases, murder affects both the victim and the perpetrator. But this, this is merely rape. Rape is a useful tool. It can be used to teach someone a lesson. Let’s pray.

(Veena Venugopal is editor BLink and author of The Mother-in-Law . Follow her on Twitter >@veenavenugopal )

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