SHAKTI STORIES

RK: Political people… men of influence in this country have also helped in creating that culture.

 

MP: Of blaming the victim.

 

RK: Blaming the victim… even to the extent that some shameless politician in Haryana said that women enjoy rape.

 

MP: Oh my god.

 

RK: This kind of stuff, is something we have to confront every day. You know, even Nirbhaya’s judgement came, and I was on television talking about it…. We can debate the death penalty [for rape]. Should a democratic progressive country have the death penalty or not is a big debate. And we should get into that debate, but to justify saying that the death penalty should not be given [for Nirbhaya’s rapists], is to say “I don’t care! What happened to Nirbhaya, I don’t care!” I started describing, you know, the way [the rapists] brutalized her, inhumanly. There’s nothing human about these men who have done this.

 

MP: They were monsters.

RK: Monsters! Let them go to the gallows, because the rarest of the rare case has been established, and so rarest of the rare punishment should be given! So that punishment is capital punishment, at the moment, in India!

 

MP: So then what is the debate?

 

RK: The debate was that “why should there be capital punishment”.There is no execution in India of the law. From 2004-2018, there have been only three executions, one of which was a rape execution. Yakoub Memon and Afsal Guru are the two others.

 

MP: So what is your position on this?

 

RK: My position is that there should be a debate about this. But the Nirbhaya case is non-negotiable. Because we can change the law of the land, if there is a majority of people saying that as a progressive human rights protector and as a democratic state, we should not give right for state to kill the people. The state should not become as brutal as people are. Eventually, we should do away with capital punishment.

Another story. We have 97,000 cases of rape pending in India. Okay, 50% will be acquittals. 30% may not be as gruesome as Nirbhaya or others. But the 10% that is child molestation, the kind of brutality and shame that has happened, may be 2,000 cases. But in a nation that has only managed to execute 3 people, how do you execute so many people? For me, it should be 50% of the perpetrators should be hanged, because I know how they handle the cases… what details come up.

 

MP: And the courts can be completely useless in most cases.

 

RK: Useless! Streamline the system. Surety of punishment and swiftness of punishment, that’s what we want. We don’t want you to give us these political gimmicks that “we are going to hang them, and do this and that”, even though we know you’re going to do nothing!

Men have sympathy, in this country, for rapists. Politicians have sympathy for rapists. Mulayam Singh Yadav said that “boys will be boys”. For that, you’ll hardly hang them.”

 

MP: But what do you think of Prime Minister Modi? What has changed after Nirbhaya? Any improvement?

 

RK: One improvement is his movement to give women sanitation, as well as the Beti Bachao (save your daughter/don’t abort her), and also Ask The Boys. In Ask The Boys, he tries to teach them not to rape. I would consider those as positives. But overall, nothing much is happening.

 

MP: You know this whole Asifa case that is happening… how is that affecting the current political climate?

RK: I went to Kathua, where the rape happened. In Kathua… you see, the thing is, this whole case is so political. It is so political, that they were trying to suppress this issue/case. And when the boys came to us, I mean, what they did to the girl [Asifa Bano] was unthinkable. But anyways, you had a question?

 

MP: Yes.. So you said that your job is to go and petition and get these victims justice. Other than the Nirbhaya case, what other cases have you worked on?

 

RK: In the Center for Social Research, we have been running a rape crisis center for minors, people who get raped who are 18 years and younger. When a rape happens, they inform us… they means the police. THe police gets the message, and they inform an NGO, one of which is us. We have trained our counselors to go to the spot… You know sometimes, even the parents blame the victim. One 7-year-old girl was raped, and her mother beat her saying “I told you not to play there”! SOmetimes, you need very serious medical attention, so those are the things that our counselors do, in addition to calming the family and the victim down. But, with the new government, they cut off our funding, so the whole project collapsed.

 

MP: But you mentioned the culture of blaming the victim. How do we change that culture, in India?

 

RK: It is changing. It is changing through us, through some other women activists… we don’t spare anybody. We really confront them..

 

MP: So in the case of Asifa, how did you do this?

 

RK: We brought it to the media’s attention, mostly. They played a significant role in making the public outraged enough to do something about this.

 

MP: Asifa’s case was a political rape. But is there a common reason why rape is prevalent throughout classes in India, and indeed, around the world?

 

RK: Rape is a tool of patriarchy to terrorize, to instill fear, and to control women’s bodies. If you want to really define why men rape, they rape in the army, when they have conquered a country or a land. Whether it was Iraq, whether it was Afghanistan, army men rape the women of the area where they have had so-called victory. This is to show their power over the bodies of the women. Same way men rape a girl to shame her family.

 

MP: The international media has said that from Nirbhaya till Asifa… nobody has been able to glean what kind of progress has been gleaned.

 

RK: To understand progress, you must understand that this society has always suppressed, from the families, to the police, to law enforcement, have always suppressed the issue of rape. In my time, we couldn’t even say the word “rape”. So you have to save your izzat, or your honor, from being destroyed. Sometimes girls hang themselves, sometimes the family tries to over it up. WHen rape happens today, people report it. It is a debate in this country, it is a discourse! We are asking for justice in this country, saying that men cannot get away with this! That is a huge change.

 

MP: So how do you react to statements like “India is the most unsafe country for women”.

 

RK: You know, there are more rapes in France and America than here! There, at least 75,000 cases get reported compared to the population! But there, justice is delivered, and all kinds of rape gets reported. Intimate partners rape, marital rape.

 

MP: Is marital rape criminalized in India as a crime?

 

RK: No. Because you give away your girl in marriage, so you give the husband complete control. Also, our society is not evolved enough to understand consent. Also, there are different layers of India. Girls like you will not even understand the reality of the lives of women in the most primitive India. So you can’t make one statement saying this is how India is.

 

MP: What kind of change are you starting to see?

 

RK: Well, our country is going from very primitive to very modern. Girls are working, being educated, are ambitious, but when you go through that period of dramatic change, there is some tension. Gender has been so backward and behind, that it is really creating tension.

 

MP: What key hurdles do we have to jump over to get to see gender equality in India?

 

RK: The criminal justice system has to be streamlines, we are asking for fast track courts. This is how the West handles it. The law must be effective. Somebody is watching you.

 

MP: So other than rape, what other issues do you deal with?

 

RK: Domestic violence, dowry. My first book was called “Brides are not for Burning”. All my online trolling is about dowry, but that only means that we, and the law, have been most effective in that. The book that I wrote generated huge debate, even in Parliament.

 

MP: I want to know a little bit more about dowry. Why is it so harmful? Why did we need to outlaw it?

 

RK: Because no marriage happens in India without it. And, if you don’t bring in enough dowry, then there are comparisons and power structures within the family, and the marriage may not happen. Dowry is nothing but a greed for money, and entitlement. Parents have to buy a million rupee lengha. No more Honda, the family wants a Mercedes. The boundaries have been pushed and the markets have been taking advantage of this.

 

MP: You also worked on female foeticide, which has a direct connection to dowry.. They say that because you have to pay dowry, you may as well kill the girl.

 

RK: You know, in gynecologist hospitals that perform abortions, they say that “spend Rs 5000 today, you’ll save Rs 500,000!”

 

MP: Have female foeticide rates gone down?

 

RK: In some districts, yes. The worth of girls is starting to go up, because people’s attitudes are starting to change. Also, the government is starting to take action with law enforcement. Ultrasound machines are getting confiscated, girls are earning, the family gets money when the girl is born. Basically, the economic value of a girl child is zero. Actually, it’s negative, because of the dowry. She is a liability, because the honor must be protected, which is a huge responsibility, and an economic one as well.