In India, The Female Population Bear The Brunt Of Humiliation From Birth Itself

By Krishna Jha

The girl was molested barbarically. She has asked to be shot. She hates life, a woman’s life. Even after hours, she is unable to face the horror of reality. She has refused to give the statement …and thus bring back the episode live. That was September 11, this year. Little before that, on August 9, there was the R G Kar incident. Still smouldering, it was not the bare facts that were all, there was a deeper conspiracy. There are so many questions left… awaiting the replies.

Why should there be the need to opt for the woman’s own socio historical context? Why should she be treated particularly as a separate entity in a world that has open space for everyone, except women? Why the oppression for woman is not only an experience, it cripples her for life, makes her intensely conscious of her disability? She always suffers from the inhuman indignity, or this ‘otherisation ‘.

She was one of those two ladies, allegedly assaulted and molested by unknown men. They were sitting in the firing range of the army campus along with two army officers in the early hours of September 11, when unknown men came to them. According to police they were the ones who used to wander in their motor bikes in the area looking for those whom they used to harass, snatch costly usables, and if they had money with them, loot them. It was near Mhow, in Madhya Pradesh. According to police, one of the army officers said that they were without face mask and threatened to kill them if they did not pay Rs Ten Lakh.

FIR has been registered with a complaint by one of the army officers. According to him, one of the women must have been victim of demonic torture. He also said that his suspicion was something very wrong was done to her. Her words were ,”Shoot the accused and shoot me.” It shows the depth of the hurt she has been suffering with. For her, death and the following silence descending around her is the only solace she craves for. This pining for silence is not unknown to women in India.

If Kolkata and Indore incidents are out of family bounds, the data shows that there is unprecedented growth in violence within the family itself. According to National Family Health Survey, 29.3 per cent women under the age group of 18 to 29 years have faced physical and mental torture in domesticity itself, while six percent have gone through the assault violently victimizing them. There is also growing trend of asserting power of one section over the other, in terms of communalism, casteism, and ethnicity. Violence against Women is a popular weapon used frequently in this context.

For us, the days are difficult. Despite the fact that in the Preamble of the Constitution, equality, liberty and fraternity are mentioned with the deepest commitment, there has been growing rate of crime against women. Since the beginning of 21st century, such crimes have grown steadily. It reflects the morbidity that prevails almost in all sections in the society. The growing incidences of violence against women indicate the extent of criminality in a society. According to a study based on the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data pertaining to period from 2000 to 2021, the crime against women has increased much faster than the increase in total crime in India. Thus, while an absolute growth of about 18 per cent has been registered in total crime during this period, the crime against women increased from 1,41,373 in 2000 to 4,28, 278 in 2021. In percentage terms, the share of crime against women in total crime has increased from 2.74 per cent in 2000 to 7.03 per cent in 2021.

The metropolitan cities are worst hit, with disproportionate accumulation of total crimes as well as crimes against women. In 2021, for example, 23 per cent of crime incidents and 15.5 per cent of crime against women were recorded in metropolitan cities.

One has also to consider the extent of inequality as well as joblessness. Then there are also incidents of women getting assaulted by their close relatives and even husbands. According to the NCRB data, out of the total 4,28,278 crime incidents against women registered in the country, 31.8 per cent of them were cases of cruelty by relatives and husbands. There were sexual assaults also included separately. Cruelties of this level were also mostly shrouded in silence till it reached the limits of tolerance.

Violence against women is defined in a resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly as “any act of gender-based violence that results in or is likely to result in …harm or suffering to women” (UNGA 1993). Thomson Reuters Foundation declared India in a global poll as “the most dangerous country for women”, even ahead of Afghanistan and Syria.

Suffering for women starts the moment she lands. She goes through horror as her share, and that too if she lives longer than the moments she enters the world. India has not only a past, but also of present, when baby girls face elimination. (IPA Service)