“Asking for it”: Delhi police blame rape on the victims

This article was originally published here on The F Word, an online UK feminist magazine.

A recent sting exposé in an Indian magazine, Tehelka, well-known for its investigative journalism, showed police officials in New Delhi, blaming rape on the victims. Their views ranged from “it was about the money”, “she was drinking alcohol”, these “girls wear short skirts”, “she had sex with her boyfriend, and so his friends joined in” and the all-encompassing “she was asking for it”. The insensitive, misogynistic and deeply horrifying commentary given by high-ranking police officials in the capital and its satellite towns, Gurgaon, Noida and Faridabad, are representative of the embedded misogyny still so prevalent in Indian society.

The problematic nature of casual jokes about rape in the UK have been discussed on The F-Word, and are taken note of in the mainstream media, but what about a society which brushes sexual crime under the carpet, refuses to introduce sex education in schools, and still holds men superior to women in a myriad of ways?

In much of India, women’s rights remain paltry. Recent reports have detailed dowry deaths, child marriage, honour killings, trafficking and domestic violence as rife in both rural and urban areas. These facts are widely noted by human rights organisations, are covered in the media but a culturally lackadaisical attitude (“this is India, anything goes”) has meant that little has been done to combat these issues.

Tehelka’s exposé very baldly paints a damning picture of the attitudes towards women. The fact that these men are police officers, are educated, have been trained and supposedly sensitised, are entrusted with the safety of India’s citizens, gives us an insight into how safe the city really is. Known as the rape capital of India, hardly a day goes by when a case of molestation, rape, or gang rape is not reported by the mainstream media. And yet, for every rape case, studies show that 50 go unreported, because of the social stigma attached to rape. According to the police, only 10% of cases are genuine, because no true victim would report the crime. They claim: “In reality, the ones who complain are those who have made rape a business”.

The propensity of these officers to speak so bluntly about sensitive issues shows a complete lack of sensitisation to the proliferation of rape cases in India. The lack of safe public transport at night limits female independence, so much so that the Gurgaon administration recently told women to stop working after 8pm because they could not guarantee their safety. Instead of attempting to weed out the corrupt, sleazy and untrustworthy forces within the police, the administration chose to restrict women’s freedom. The mentality then that women are to blame is pervasive not just through the police force, but also the government who prefer to blame the victims instead of indicting the actual criminals. This move would take India back decades, creating a greater skew towards men, as employers will resent being told to ensure women have safe transport home. On April 13th, 200 women protested against the 8pm curfew demanding a safer city: these are women who refuse to take this attitude lying down. The feminist movement is most definitely alive then and acting as a counter to a misogynistic and patriarchal society.

As an emerging power on the global stage, which is being considered for a place on the United Nations Security Council, which has gained a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, the hypocrisy of India’s ruling class must be addressed. While most articles on India note the economic disparities which permeate the country, rarely do they consider India’s human rights record, its treatment of the stigmatised and unfortunately of women, who remain a vulnerable group. The continued use of the archaic and heinous “two-finger test” to determine a victim’s “virginity” and “habituation to sexual intercourse” merely provides another mode by which women can be subjugated. If the two inserted fingers are easily admitted, the victim is quite literally describes as a “loose” woman. The fact that a victim must be further abused, that her lack of virginity calls into question her moral character, is a sickening violation of human rights. It is no wonder then that so many rapes go unreported.

For India to sit up on its high horse and ignore the extreme rights violations perpetuated by its own forces is quite blatantly ridiculous. The exposé has caused a flood of outrage on both social and mainstream media by activists, advocates and public figures; however, there has been little coverage in the international media. Activists, feminists and indeed, anyone who believes it is the perpetrators not the victims who should be punished, should take note of the vitriolic attitudes towards women still alive in the vibrant, power-hungry and emerging power-to-be that is India.

Garib or Ameer?

India’s Planning Commission recently filed an affidavit that sets its poverty line at Rs. 32 or just under 50 pence a day in an urban city, enough to buy a bus or metro ticket and a packet of milk. The rural poverty line is set even lower at Rs. 25. The Government claims that this is enough to pay for food, healthcare and education for a family of five.

There has been outrage across the country against this piece of legislation, with headlines reading ‘Jokers of the planning commission’ and similar. Anyone who is able to spend Rs. 985 or more per month (urban) or Rs. 781 per month (rural) is deemed to not be poor and is no longer entitled to many of the government’s entitlement schemes. These schemes, already flawed, do not actually reach enough of India’s ailing population; if the poverty line remains where it is, this can only get worse.

Much of the commentary surrounding this considers the fact that this brings down the percentage of India’s poor in the world’s eyes, seemingly proving a continual economic growth without the ensuing social gap that seems to run parallel to it. This, however, is not the case. As capitalism reigns, people continue to get poorer. The GDP remains a fallacy which does not effect the mass population of India.

The societal apathy, however, which affects a large majority of India’s upper class, continues to remain in play. Although people have jumped on the anti-corruption bandwagon (flawed as it is, see my article here) or taken over the ‘fasting’ movement, the absolute dire poverty that most of our country lives in seems to take to the back-burner. The ever-present site of the little child in rags squatting on the side of the road becomes merely part of the scenery, and irrelevant to lives looking out of (rose) tinted window-panes. The Government, it seems, is not immune to this view of the world. Parliament’s own ivory tower remains far removed from the garbage that lines the streets and the people who live among it.

Tehelka and the New York Times India blog have looked at case studies of workers around India and in New Delhi, respectively, where people who would be considered ‘poor’ by global standards are not considered part of the group that is below the poverty line (BPL). Who then is left to be poor inIndia?

If the Government of India is right, why do we still receive billions in aid from around the globe? It serves their purpose to receive aid money, which is whittled down to the bare minimum before it actually gets to those who need it. The horror stories of those who just barely get by need to resound in the hearts of those who are actually part of the planning commission; the media rhetoric itself will unfortunately not make a difference.

The Government of India claims that only 26% of people are poor. However, Arjun Sengupta's 2007 report doubles this figure. Since his report, the population has increased and with it, poverty numbers.

The Government is constantly launching anti-poverty scheme after scheme, but what needs to be strengthened is the bridge between the theoretical scheme and its implementation. The Public Distribution System (PDS) is supposed to supply subsidised grain and kerosene to those who require it. Unfortunately, it is often ineffective with ration shops squirreling away part of their produce to the black market. The fairly meager amount that people with a ration card actually receive is barely enough to make a difference to their livelihood. To reduce this even further by saying that anyone who can spend Rs. 32 a day is not poor is a shocking understatement, and in fact, a violation of human rights. The Government is essentially admitting that 40.74 crore (407 million) people live under the newly established BPL, and consequently are on the brink of starvation. According to Arjun Sengupta’s 2007 report, the number is actually double these Government figures (836 million). Since 2007, the population has increased, as has the numbers of people living with poverty. In fact, then, there are possibly over 50% of Indians who are actually living in dire poverty, and more who do not come under the new poverty line.

Everyone has a right to food, to healthcare and to basic education. The ineffectiveness of the Government’s anti-poverty schemes coupled with this new Poverty Line ensures that those who are garib (poor) will remain so, and those who are ameer (rich) will turn their faces away. Although the MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) scheme has been effective, as has PDS in some states, its unsystematic implementation has meant that certain areas have been ignored.

Coming back to the poverty line debate, an issue is brought to the forefront that is often left dusty and forgotten – it suits the Government’s purposes to keep its population poor and uneducated. I would like to see an official from the Planning Commission living on Rs.32 a day, considering Government wages have just been doubled. It comes back to the problems of urban development (see my last blog-post here), which causes prices to rise, but does not allow wages to rise in accordance. Those on the streets are left behind, the Government blusters publicly about all it does to combat poverty, whilst presenting doctored figures to the world.