Rape and Prevention: A Deviant Woman’s Two Pence for Those Who Care – Part I

While in office a few days ago, I got an SMS from a dear friend asking me about my opinion on the recent rape incident in New Delhi and about my opinion of Indian men in general given the view doing the rounds that Indian men are a particularly despicable lot. That set me thinking seriously and doing some soul-searching.

At the outset, let me deal with a couple of important preliminaries.

I consider the Delhi incident a heinous crime and expect the criminals to be dealt with sternly under the law of the land; the brazenness of it all makes it a particularly fit case for extremely stern handling. I hope the investigators would do a thorough job and ensure that the guilty do not get away from paying for their crime.

I pray that the girl, a victim of rape, and her friend, a victim of assault, recover from the physical as well as emotional trauma and lead normal lives again. I pray for the friends and relatives of the victims who too must be going through a harrowing time.

Though it has been our policy at Spectralhues to present ourselves to the world as a faceless, asexual entity and to post all our articles under the joint pen name of “Sprightly Spirit”, I make a departure now and present myself as the feminine half of the founder-owners of Spectralhues. That should be sufficient for now in order to place what I plan to say in its proper perspective.

The thoughtful mood that my friend’s SMS had put me in continued as I returned home and I started doing some reading beyond the emotionally charged declarations of men and media alike.

Women, women’s groups, and the media seem to be unanimous in their opinion that there is something wrong with Indian men – Indian men alone or in comparison to the men from other parts of the world (like the liberal US and UK) – and that they are a particularly despicable lot in need of a change in attitude, values, and upbringing.

That set me thinking about my friend’s seemingly innocuous question: “What is your opinion about Indian men?”

Then I thought about all the wonderful men I had come into contact with: my father, cousins, bosses, colleagues, acquaintances … While it would be rash and reckless to give them all a blanket “Clean Certificate,” it would be equally rash, reckless, irresponsible, and uncharitable  to brand them all as potential rapists or people devoid of values and upbringing. I thought it would be a good idea to check where our native villains stood compared to other similar villains across the world.

I looked up Wikipedia.org for “Rape Statistics” and I reproduce some little information from the Wikipedia article that was thrown open.

Here is a short list (culled from  the Wikipedia article on “Rape Statistics” of the incidencs of rape per 100,000 of population in some countries for the year 2010 (the latest available in the article):

U.N.Rape Statistics

Rape at the national level, number of police-recorded offences

    (Year 2010)

Now, this table makes interesting reading. In India whose men our women and women’s groups believe to be a particularly depraved lot and in need of some proper upbringing there are 1.8 rapes per 100,000 of population, i.e. 18 rapes per every million of population. In a surprising and stark contrast, there are 27.3 rapes per 100,000 of population, i.e. 273 rapes per every million of population in the US whose men our women and women’s group would have us believe are better brought up and have better value systems.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau data for 2011 (cited in the article “Executing the neighbour” by Nilanjana S.Roy in the Hindu dtd 20^th December 2012), the offenders were known to the victims in as many as 22,549 (94.2%) of all cases reported in India in 2011. We have it here,  a crisp summary of the NCRB data, in Ms.Roy’s words: “These statistics have been remarkably consistent over the years: you can say with confidence that on average, 90 per cent of rape cases in India are perpetrated by people known to the victim, from their neighbourhoods – perfectly ordinary uncles and brothers and fathers.”

Flawless summary, it is.

But most readers make a mistake here. What MCRB says is that 94.2% of all rapes are committed by known people – or, as Ms.Roy put it, by “perfectly ordinary uncles and brothers and fathers”. It does not mean that 94.2% of all known people -“perfectly ordinary uncles and brothers and fathers” – are rapists. Thank God! I feel relieved as I realise that. I have no reason to look at all my uncles, brothers, friends etc. with rabid suspicion. But that does not prevent me from being moderate and guarded in my interaction with the “perfectly ordinary uncles and brothers and fathers.”

Going by these statistics, Indian men do not seem to be all that bad a lot as our vociferous women, women’s groups and media would have us believe. In fact they seem to be a good lot – on the whole!!

But does it mean that “All’s right with the world!” as Pippa would have us think? Certainly not. God may or may not be in His Heaven, but not all is right with the world – or India. There are a good number of rapes everywhere in the world everyday and they seem to be increasing in most part of the world, and even a single rape is enough cause for concern – just as even a single crime of any sort should be a cause for concern.

All this exercise so far has been meant merely to put things in a perspective and correct the wrongly held but widely accepted opinion that the Indian Male has gone beyond the brink and needs a lot of repair. Having accomplished that aim to my satisfaction, I refrain from commenting more elaborately on the data cited earlier.

Having established that the Indian Male is actually better than his brethren from the US, UK and several other countries, I settle down to examine the issue of rape in two parts: Causes and Prevention, Punishment.

I know by now that I have not endeared myself to my sisters and the media in India. I am confident of attracting their ire even more as I press on. I am not interested in pleasing anybody. I am interested in finding a solution, at least a partial solution, to this problem – and being the small person I am I just hope to achieve nothing more than make people, the innocent people whose lives are under this perpetual risk of rape, start thinking beyond what the media bombard them with.

Link to the second part of this two-part article by Susmita Bose: 

http://spectralhues.com/our-voice/2012/12/rape-and-prevention-a-deviant-womans-two-pence-for-those-who-care-part-ii/

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. Spectralhues is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this article. The information, facts or opinions expressed in the article do not reflect the views of Spectralhues and Spectralhues does not take any responsibility or liability for the same.

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About Sprightly Spirit

“I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares more is none”. And all, may be. It may be the vigor. Or the spirit. Or the courage to avoid being “politically correct” or bent. And, ban all averse with immaculate overture of graciously fathomable words firm in views. Subtle. Justifying the undying conscience. Values. Knowledge. And, dares to stay true. True to own. True to the world. And, to the words. With a dream in eyes it exists. In you. In me. In all. The sprite that never shies away. The spirit that never dies!