BackPublic Debate | The year of PhDs in rape theory
Be it chowmein and lingerie mannequins or disc jockeys and early puberty, everyone from politicians to local goons had an opinion on why rapists rape
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This was a significant year in India’s intellectual history—never before have so many original theories of what leads to rape been generated in such little time.
Our statesmen became scholars. Mamata Banerjee insisted that the increase in the number of rapes was caused by increased male-female interaction, claiming that “earlier if men and women would hold hands, they would get caught by their parents and reprimanded but now everything is so open". Haryana minister Geeta Bhukkal claimed that “the way in which the statistics (on rapes) are being projected for Haryana, it is a conspiracy against the state". Mohan Bhagwat, head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, blamed it on either Western culture, deforestation, or urbanization, saying: “You go to villages and forests of the country and there will be no such incidents of gang rape or sex crimes. Where ‘Bharat’ becomes ‘India’ with the influence of Western culture, these type of incidents happen." Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s Raj Thackeray, to everyone’s surprise, blamed immigrants, claiming that “all these rapists are from Bihar". Ritu Tawade, a corporator in Mumbai, moved to ban lingerie mannequins and ads, claiming that “lingerie mannequins promote rapes. Skimpily clad mannequins can pollute young minds." Chhattisgarh home minister Nanki Ram Kanwar blamed massive luminous spheres of plasma held together by their own gravity, saying, “Harm can come on a person if the stars are in adverse positions."
Haryana’s khap panchayats turned out to be particularly fertile grounds for radical theory. Sube Singh Samain claimed that “girls should be married at the age of 16, so that they have their husbands for their sexual needs, and they don’t need to go elsewhere". Jitender Chhatar claimed that “chowmein leads to hormonal imbalance, evoking an urge to indulge in such acts". Mahender Ghimana attributed the rise to the spread of “vulgar programmes on TV and cinema...which leads to early puberty and some of (the youth) are unable to handle it, which results in such incidents". Inder Singh claimed that disc jockeys were responsible because “with DJs around, youngsters dance under influence of liquor and sometimes misbehave with women". Rameshwar Sharma, a member of the Brahmin Samaj in Uttar Pradesh, said that women “should...not use mobile phones, as these are things that provoke criminals to assault them."
Our religious leaders shared their wisdom with us. Asaram Bapu, speaking of the victim of the Delhi gang rape, said: “The victim is as guilty as her rapists.... She should have called the culprits brothers and begged before them to stop.... This could have saved her dignity and life." Swami Agnivesh said, “I think rapes will come down significantly if people stop eating non-vegetarian. ... Rapes will come down significantly if alcohol consumption is not there."
The police lent the full measure of their experience. Gurgaon’s police department ordered employers to seek permission for women employees working after 8pm. Andhra Pradesh barred women from clubs, pubs and bars after 10pm. Andhra Pradesh’s director general of police till September, V. Dinesh Reddy, blamed fashion, claiming that “even the villagers are wearing salwar-kameez from coastal Andhra villages where it used to be very traditional. All these things provoke these type of things, which is not in control of the police."
Of course, our intellectuals were at the forefront of theorizing. Abhijit Banerjee, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, believes that rape arises due to the “inequality of access to sex" and claims that high housing prices deny poor men “the right to a normal conjugal life. If you are poor in urban India or even middle class and 25, you have to be very lucky to have a room of your own in the family home, let alone a separate apartment that you can call your own." Journalist Praveen Swami blames the high price of movie tickets: “Increasingly, cities have no recreational spaces for young men. Films, long one of the few cultural activities that a working-class audience could participate in, now target elites; ... in its place, the street becomes the stage for acting out adulthood, through substance abuse and violence."
Ratna Kapur, a professor of law at the Jindal Global Law School, believes that female empowerment is causal: “As women enter the workplace and the public arena, their boldness and confidence seem to trigger a sense of insecurity in a society where men are used to being in charge."
Many people blamed capitalism. Writer Arundhati Roy said: “There is a widening gap between the rich and the poor. Earlier at least the rich did what they did with a fair amount of discretion. Now it’s all out there, on television, all the sort of conspicuous consumption, and there is an anger and a psychosis building up ... young urban women ... are very very vulnerable to this kind of psychotic rage." Activist Kavita Krishnan claimed that gender violence is the result of “the imperatives of global capitalism and imperialism and their local agents". Journalist Patricia Mukhim blames class conflict: “There is a palpable estrangement between the categories—rich, middle class, poor—in India today. ... The only way that some ... feel they can kick the system and hurt the high and mighty at whose hands they suffer daily reprimands and insults, is to commit acts that shake the very foundations of what we call ‘decent’ society. Rape then becomes a way of venting all frustrations."
Activists turned into thinkers. Ruchira Gupta blames the caste system for rape, noting that the December rapists were “all upper-caste men whose sense of traditional entitlement based on their caste may have been challenged in the big city of Delhi". She speculates that the rapists were “socialized into believing that sex was connected to violence through countless hours of watching porn". Kalpana Misra successfully petitioned to get Yo Yo Honey Singh’s New Year concert cancelled, claiming, “These pornographic lyrics are unacceptable and it is because of women-hating sentiments like these that men think that it’s fine to do what they did on that bus, that December night in Delhi." The musical preferences of the rapists in question have not yet been released to the public.
Navin Kumar spent the year trying to teach mathematics.
Kumar is an associate professor at the department of economics,Gargi College, University of Delhi. This article originally appeared on his blog: nationofbeancounters.wordpress.com.
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