Misogyny is part of our culture

A candlelight vigil held in protest against the alleged rape and murder of a trainee woman doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, in Kolkata, on September 4. Pic/PTI

I don't want to talk about the case that has brought thousands of women to the streets in recent weeks. Enough has been written about it, and more will inevitably appear before the event fades into our collective memory. I say this because of how often it happens. Whenever a horrific act of violence against women is brought to light, a predictable narrative follows. There is a lot of outrage at first, because we have learned to do that rather well by now. Then come the public protests depending upon the seriousness of the crime, demands for strict action against the perpetrators, multiple tweets and posts about how not all Indian men are the same, and complaints about how the world will now think of all Indians as awful human beings.

The thing is, by this point, I believe it is time we accept the truth that Indian men truly are beyond redemption. I recognise that I implicate myself with that statement, but what else is one to do after recognising that women in this country simply don't feel safe whenever there's a man around? A simple Google search restricted to the past month alone will reveal a sordid list of crimes that would lead to declarations of emergencies in most countries. Here, we get a tweet from the Prime Minister instead.

To be fair, I sometimes believe the Prime Minister has long subscribed to the view that misogyny is an intrinsic part of our culture. After all, one of his allies, an honourable former member of the Lok Sabha, has allegedly been accused of sexually assaulting as many as 400 women. India was never the kind of country associated with crimes this heinous, but it is testament to how common they have become that the politician's name no longer appears in most newspapers. The message we now send to the world is this: One of our elected representatives may have assaulted multiple women, but we would rather you look at the new iPhones we have begun assembling in India instead.

Twelve years ago, a gang rape and murder in Delhi shook many of us, prompting what we believed at the time to be a reckoning of sorts. There were protests across the country, clashes with police, and demands for severe punishment by members of Parliament, until rape finally became a capital offence. How wrong we were, how naive, to assume that things would change, that a law could be powerful enough to act as a deterrent. We should have focused, instead, on what a politician said at the time: ‘Boys will be boys'.

I thought of that remark earlier this week while looking at video footage of a group of men in Agra harassing a female rider on a scooter. One of the comments posted below the video referred to the harassment as routine. It's when I realised just how toothless the law was in the face of this entrenched hate against women.

I believe it is time we give up our pretence of being a civilised country and celebrate this misogyny instead. It is obvious that a majority of Indian parents have failed to raise their sons with decency or morality, and also obvious that Indian women are not welcome in public spaces, corporate spaces, or any space that men have already claimed any right to. The world thinks of most Indian men as depraved and degenerate, so maybe we ought to lean into that narrative and embrace it instead.

As if I needed further proof of how far we have fallen, I came upon a report published a week ago, of about 151 sitting MPs and MLAs declaring cases of crimes against women. I was not surprised to see which party had the highest number of criminals masquerading as legislators. Apparently, according to the report by the Association for Democratic Reforms and New Election Watch, 16 sitting lawmakers have declared cases related to rape. Of these, two are sitting MPs and 14 are MLAs.

There may come a time when younger generations will ask how we sat back and watched as women were stripped of their fundamental rights; how they were forced out of the public sphere into homes and prevented from walking our streets with the ease accorded to men. We may be asked to explain why we recorded crimes but took no action, and why we focused on what women were wearing instead of what men were doing. We will have no answer.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira

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