Regarding Protests against Delhi Gang-rape
The level of spontaneous protests that have erupted all over India, particularly in Delhi, against the brutal molestation & gang-rape of a student on Dec 16, has not been seen in recent times. All sort of rapes are devastating, but the way the girl was raped for nearly two hours inside a bus, thereafter was severely beaten with rods & was finally thrown away out of the running bus in a near-dead condition is beyond all imagination & spontaneous protests that have emerged against this ghastly incident is natural, just & valid.
It is true that students, particularly of two Universities of Delhi initiated the protest, but soon large number of common men women took part in it. They rallied neither at the call of any established political parties/organisations, nor was drawn by the charisma of any individual leader. And in this respect, it happened in consonance with the recent phase of protests that we are now witnessing in different parts of the world. As the call for protest spread like wild fire thru' social networking sites like Facebook/Twitter etc, not only participation started to increase, it also spread to all major metro cities.
Undoubtedly, majority of the protestors were from those of the upper stratum of the society who have emerged during this era of neo-liberalism. But, it did not remain limited only among them; it also made some impact among the lower stratum of the society, in particular, women among them. We have watched spontaneous protest rallies not only in & around Metro cities, but also that of the women at a village named Khannyan in West Bengal; we have also seen the poor Dalit women in Mumbai taking part in the protests.
All these people took part in the protests primarily out of sympathy for the raped girl. They rallied to express their deep hatred against the perpetrators, to voice their anger against the indifference of the government & administration, to demand the harshest penalty for the offenders. But at the same time, behind this spontaneous protest, there was an accumulated anger & rage against the crude & humiliating verbal abuse as well as physical torture faced by the women each & everyday at home & outside. The faces that we have seen at the lights behind the candles lit in the protests reflected not only sympathy & anger, but also anxiety, affliction, tension for the same horrid situation that may surface at any coming day in their own, or their nearest one's, lives. So, they demanded in an unambiguous voice: we seek justice.
Initially, the police & administration did not take the protests very seriously. At that point, they tried to suppress it by force, to influence the Post Mortem Report, even to accuse the protestors for murder in connection to the death of a policeman. However, once the intensity of the protest started to increase, once the locations of the protests started to spread, they had been forced to become active. The perpetrators were arrested soon, charge-sheet against them were also framed rapidly. It may also be expected that the stringent action would be taken against them. So, if we treat the demand for justice only in the context to this particular gruesome incident, then we must say that we have got justice; but, the question still remains in air - is everyone getting justice?
"Maine nyay chahiye" - I seek justice; in 1994, at the time of taking the award for bravery from the then Prime Minister, Bhanwari Devi, a Dalit woman from an interior village of Rajasthan who was gang-raped by the upper caste men, voiced this demand. Her ?offence' was that being an employee at a Government project, she took an effort to stop child-marriage of an upper caste family. So, she was "punished"! But, even after 20 years of that gang-rape, her waiting is yet to be over. And this is no exception; far from Rajasthan, there is Manipur. And it also speaks of similar stories. Innumerable women here have been raped by the Indian Armed forces since its annexation by the Govt of India some more than 50 years back. One among them was Thangjam Manorama Devi - she was raped & murdered by the Jawans of Assam Rifles in 2004. Till this day, we shiver in chill when we recollect the faces of those mothers of Manipur who had shown their guts with that daring naked protest in front of the Kangla Fort waiving the banner "Indian Army, Rape Us". At that time, the rest of the India watched with awe the bravery of those mothers. There was uproar for some time. But, a decade has been over since that protest, still, has any of the raped women of Manipur got justice yet? Has justice been showered upon Neelofar & Aasiya of Shopian district of Kashmir, who were abducted, raped & then murdered by the para-military forces in 2009? What happened to those muslim women of Gujarat who had been grotesquely raped & murdered by the ultra-Hindu fascists in 2002? Will ever Soni Sori, the tribal school-teacher of Chattisgarh & a Maoist-suspect, get justice who had to face the horrid torture in police custody making her nude & pouring stone chips in her vagina & rectum?
It does not need any description, how each & everyday, women in India are becoming the victim of oppression, facing severe insecurity. Even when uproars were continuing in different cities against the Delhi incident, media remained overcrowded with the reports of newer & newer rapes. And it has not changed a bit even today. Everyday, women of different ages & of different sections of society are facing rape, facing oppressions of varied forms - it is irrelevant whether she is from the affluent, from middle-class or from the poorer sections of the society. However, it is indisputably evident that among them, the sections who are much more victims of sexual oppression in India, are the women of the rural, poor, dalits-tribal communities-minority nationalities. As because they are branded as Dalit, or tribe/sub-tribe, or as minority nationality, each & everyday they become the victim of caste or national oppression, just like the rest of their community; in addition, as being women, each & everyday, these lowest sections of the lower stratum of the society are forced to face silently the varied forms of sexual oppression.
Most of the political leaders, the so-called guardians of the society, try to convince us that rape occurs due to sexual lust. So, they try to convince us that the girls also invite the danger of rape by wearing provocative dresses. What they want to conceal is that the main reason of rape is not to satisfy the sexual lust, but an attempt of keeping the dominance of the male, to show that the males are the real authority of the society & if ever women try to challenge that, they need to pay the price in this way. Not only has, for most of the time, rape happened simply as the crime of an individual, but it becomes an instrument in the hands of some sections of the upper stratum of the society to coerce the sections of the lower stratum. It is often reflected thru' the oppression of the upper castes on the Dalits, as we have seen in the incident of Bhanwari Devi, or at Khairlanji; or thru' the terror unleashed by the police-military to crush the rebellion of different sections of the society; or to repress a nationality by the military of the dominant nationalities, as being seen in Kashmir, Manipur, Assam, Nagaland, or Chattishgarh.
It is comparatively easier to punish the offender in case of incidents like Delhi, just because here the perpetrators of the crime are primarily from the lower stratum of the society & they don't enjoy the blessings of any of the influential sections of the society. But does the police or the administration have any power to take any punitive measure when, a male or a family from some upper caste rapes or sexually represses a Dalit woman! Who will take the actions when the police themself become the rapist, particularly to suppress & terrorise the struggles of the poor! Who will take the measures against those army officials who abduct the women, rape them, and kill them only with the sole purpose of suppressing, terrorising the struggles of the minority nationalities! Or, are these not at all the incidents of sexual oppression on the women?
Let us take the incident of Thangjam Monorama Devi of Manipur. When she was raped & killed by Assam Rifles, initially the army authority tried to deny the incident, they tried to present it as an incident of ambush operation against a militant organization in which Monorama was supposed to be a member. Then, only when the [outbursts of the] people of Manipur erupted against this murder & rape, the Manipur government was forced to order an investigation. However, the army did not accept this investigation; even the High Court told that since AFPSA remained applicable there, the government or the Court had no jurisdiction to prosecute the army.
What's the need to go that far? What happened in the case of Bhanwari Devi? In her case, merely a family of a higher caste was involved. Still, neither the government-administration, nor the judiciary took any action. Initially, the police was not at all willing to register a case. Later on, even when they registered it, they proceeded for medical examination of the victim only after 52 hours, so that no evidence of rape could be detected. Finally, in the face of the indomitable perseverance of Bhanwari Devi, they were forced to initiate a criminal proceeding. But, the verdict of the lower Court was against her. The observation of the judges was that the higher caste people can never rape a lower caste woman!
Hence, when the remedy of rape is prescribed as creation of a stringent Act, we become nothing but flabbergasted! Are these people not at all aware about this reality of India, when they prescribe such gibberish? Is it at all possible to draw up such a stringent Act thru' which severe penalty would be imposed upon those high level police/army officials responsible for perpetration of sexual offence, upon those babus responsible for the unabated sexual torture & harassment over the tribal women, upon those high level police officials for humiliating the women at every step?? In that case, would not they be armed with the protection of the administration??
In any case, even though the government, under increasing pressures from the recent protests and criticisms, has ultimately moved ahead by passing a more stringent law against all sorts of sexual oppression including rape, in which penalties have been extended up to death sentence and the definition of sexual crimes has been more expanded, still the question that remains unresolved who would implement that Act. Those police forces, who themselves are sometimes the main criminals of sexual offences, & sometimes, even when they themselves are not directly involved, they often act in aiding the perpetrators! Finally, even when they do not aid the perpetrators, does not their role remain limited to either that of a silent spectator, or to a dubious role to shift the onus of rape on the victim woman!! Examples of all these are so numerous that recently the Home Minister Sushil Shindhe has been forced to recognize that "there is lack of training and sensitization of police in dealing with crimes against women" (www.ndtv.com Jan 4, 2013). How ridiculous! Mr Shindhe is expecting sensitivity from the police (the police not as individuals, but as a collective group)!! How can we expect sensitivity from these forces, which are specially built up, trained & organised to suppress the majority of the society, utilized at every point for the interest of the ruling exploiting classes & against the struggle, resistance & rebellion of the working class-peasantry-dalits-tribes-minority nationalities, howsoever the struggles etc be justified, peaceful or democratic? Is it at all possible to perform so brutally without stripping off all sorts of sensitivity & humanity from its mind & body? We often say that the police-forces are corrupt, they are inhuman - but who is responsible for this, the individual human being working in it, or the ruling classes & this state structure, which are making them corrupt, brutal, inhuman, and insensitive?
Same is true for the judiciary. We have mentioned earlier how it protects the armed forces. Not only that, is it not true that in general the judiciary is also very much biased against women-dalits-tribes-minority nationalities? The example of Bhanwari Devi itself is an eye-opener. It is just natural that judiciary would act in such a way when the whole society is dominated by the capitalists-big landowners-upper castes-developed nationalities & above all by the male & most of the guardians of judiciary are recruited from these sections.
So it is almost impossible to formulate a stringent Act against the oppression & torture on women, but more impossible is to implement the Act. If it ever happens, it would be just an exception. Some are even pondering that recruitment of more women in armed forces might change the situation, but this also is a matter of big question. According to a report, when Bhanwari Devi went to the police station to record her allegation, the two lady police present there did not behave in much better way than their male counterparts. Even though they were women, they are very much part of the system, so they also become transformed to brutes once they become part of the armed forces. Furthermore, it is irrelevant to think that every woman would react against the male-dominated social customs, against male-domination. Had it happened, then the role of the mother-in-law in many of the tortures on housewives would have been different.
The actual fact is that the root of the problem is much deeper & hence can never be solved only thru' some superficial reforms of the society. It we truly want permanent resolution of this problem, i e, of the problem of oppression on women, then we must dig deep up to its roots, we must identify how this root has spread over in all parts of the society.
None need to be a very deep-thinking person to understand the point that the incidence of rape is a crude, extremely perverted manifestation of the general existence of inequality between men & women, of torture & oppression on women, & finally of an utterly crude undemocratic atmosphere, all long-persisting in our society. Undoubtedly, only a very small section of women become victims of rape, but probably there is none among women who has never faced any form of inequality inside the four walls of home, or at the workplace; probably there is none who has never faced any lewd comment, any verbal or physical abuse. Unless this general condition is not changed, unless the root causes behind this condition are completely eradicated, rape & sexual oppression can never be stopped.
It has often been heard during this phase of protest that oppression on women can not be checked by making some tough law, or thru' some administrative measures taken from above; the psyche needs change. The point has its strength. Unless the psyche of viewing women as subordinate to men, as object of desire, prevailing not only among men, but among the women also, is changed, the overall condition will not change. To stop all sorts of inequality-oppression-suppression, women must have to attain equality with men - equality, not merely as a declaration on paper, but, to be manifested at every step.
But the question remains, how the psyche would be changed? Would it be attained thru' Seminars-Classroom education etc? As a Marxist we should know that the values, mental make-up, etc prevalent in a society at any particular point is the product of the socio-economic system, more specifically, of the pre-dominant production relation prevailing in the society at that time. In the present society, a woman is the victim of inequality since her birth, she is bound to grow up & live under the domination of man. Her role is already determined - an obedient housewife & to give birth to the child. The root cause of her role in the present society - the subordination to man, disparity with men etc - lies in her alienation from social production & to keep her chained inside the four walls of household.
Remaining alienated from social production the women are detached from the world outside and fully dependent on the men for their living. Their entity as separate independent human being cannot develop. Hence all talk of equal rights of men and women does not mean anything in reality. Even if equal rights are declared legally it is bound to remain only on paper. In this society the women are only objects meant to satisfy men's whims and pleasure and as the women are unable to develop their independent self entity they also think of themselves in the same way.
But is this the only reality of India? Isn't it also the reality of this country that women have started stepping out of their homes and competing with men in different spheres of life? Definitely it is also a fact. Capitalism has brought out women from their homes and engaged them in production. They are stepping out into the world outside and to an extent their independent, separate entity is also developing. But has it still become the principal feature of this country. Anyone knows that things haven't reached upto that till now. Such changes have only occurred in very small pockets of this country. Within the big geographical boundary of this country in the midst of a big sea of villages like some minute islands there exists a few big cities, mainly where only we will find women to some extent engaged in social production, not fully dependent on the men of their families, having developed to some extent their independent entity, giving birth to sense of self rightfulness and eager to earn those rights. Secondly, that transformation in production relations is also occurring not only at a snail's pace but through reforms. As such changes are occurring not through any revolutionary transformation, the old values and thoughts are prevailing to a great extent in the sphere of consciousness, ideology. For that very reason we see that even where the capitalist production relations have developed there also besides scientific, rational thought unscientific thought, blind beliefs and prejudices etc... exist largely. In the same way where women as a result of development of capitalist production relations have entered the world outside there also the old values prevail within men and even those women. Thirdly, though women have become engaged in social production through development of capitalism, even considering those areas where women have entered in a larger scale, as a whole they are still engaged in very limited spheres of productive activities. This is not only true for backward countries like India; even the situation in this respect is no different in developed capitalist countries. As a result, even where capitalism has developed there also the domination of men over women, the inequality of men and women prevail. In all spheres of capitalism we find that equal rights exist only formally, never does it turn out to become equal rights in reality. Even in the case of equal rights for men and women nothing different occurs. Capitalism declares establishment of equal rights for men and women. But it remains only in the formal sense, not in actual life.
In the urban areas, even in the big cities, where the legacies of old production relations are less, there the roots of the continued incidents of oppression and torture of women lay obviously in this inequality of men and women which capitalism is unable to do away with. But there is another important aspect or reason behind this. Like all things in capitalism women are also considered to be commodities. Women are not fellow travelers of men in life. They are merely things for pleasure. Reflections of this are seen every now and then in this society. Hence, indiscreet exposure of the women's body in advertisements of commodities, perversions involving women in literature and movies, wide prevalence of pornography is continually being fostered by capitalism thus encouraging the perverted mentality among men regarding women. Throughout the society it is at the same time increasing tendencies towards crime. In this stage of decaying capitalism what else can be expected. What else can it contribute to society. Hence, till capitalism remains, crime will remain, perverted mentality will exist and spread further and due to the presence of inequality between man and woman to a large extent this will manifest through sexual oppression of women.
Does that mean that until the end of capitalism any change of perception regarding the relation between man and woman won't be possible? That will also not be correct to assume. Within the old society the values of new society germinate and develop. But more so when the struggle to demolish the old society and establish a new society emerges and becomes powerful enough to spread its influence throughout the society on a wide scale.
Undoubtedly the spontaneous protests and demonstrations that took place just after the Delhi incident was justified and legitimate. These demonstrations showed that how even the women from the upper stratum of society are becoming victims of insecurity. The dissension of the masses aggravated with the indifference and utter failure of the police and administration to provide security. The agitation also revealed that the people are no more ready to bear with this oppression silently. Another significant fact is the agitators did not allow the reins of their movement to be taken up by any political party or leaders. How much disgusted the people have become about these established political parties and their leaders of varying shades that has once again been proved. That the people had participated in the resistance struggle is definitely a positive incident. But we must notice that the agitation had some limitations. The biggest limitation of this agitation was that the issue centering which the participants raised their demands, the problem with which they got agitated, that has been mainly about the insecurity of the upper stratum of women of the cities. The continuing incidents involving dalit, adivasi, religious minority or other poor toiling women who are victims of torture and oppression over wide regions of India did not agitate these men or women who were participants of the movement. When the problems of crores of poor, toiling, women of this country did not agitate them it is quite natural that caste, nationality or any other social oppression also could not agitate them. One reason definitely was the class nature of the participants. But at the same time there is another reason. It is the fact that the stream of struggle of the working class and toiling masses is absent. By its presence it could have, even if not all but, at least attract some sections, shown them the correct path and direction. Due to the absence of this stream of struggle and the particular class nature of the participants, all the sections assembled in the agitation remained confined within their narrow boundaries. Even though staying aloof from the established parties and leaders they were controlled by the bourgeois media, led by them and successfully kept bound within narrow boundaries. Such a kind of struggle because of this very reason will not effectively play any role to stop the oppression on women. Only the united struggle of the toiling, poor masses for real democracy can truly end the inequality of men and women, the oppression and torture of women. Those who want the end of inequality between men and women, the end of all kind of oppression of women, big or small, in the real sense, they have to unite with the struggle for real democracy of all the toiling masses under the leadership of the working class.
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