By Sushil Kutty
“If a girl is dressed decently, a boy will not look at her in the wrong way.” That was Manoharlal Khattar before he took charge as Haryana Chief Minister in October 2014. “If you want freedom, why don’t they just roam around naked? Freedom has to be limited. These short clothes are western influences. Our country’s tradition asks girls to dress decently.”
And, as if to prove him right, Haryana’s young men piled on the rapes. The Haryana girl responded differently. They sought to make the best of a bad deal and brought medals and glory at international sporting events “dressed indecently.” Some excelled academically, topping exams. But it seems Khattar and BJP’s heart wasn’t in “Beti Bachao.”
Khattar is the archetype Haryana male. His view is that “Khaps maintain the tradition of a girl and boy being brother and sister. They are just making sure that a girl and boy do not see each other in the wrong way. These rulings help prevent rapes too.” Dwelling on premarital sex, which is rampant in Haryana from before Khattar was a young man himself, he called it ‘ulti seedhi cheezein’.
Haryana’s average Joe seems to give Khattarisms much thought. They are keen on putting fantasies into practice. Anyone familiar with the Haryana landscape will visualize green fields and tube-wells gushing water. Standing squat, the tube-well is the Haryana male’s domain where he sleeps his tired limbs in its shade and if the occasion presents, gang-rapes girls in its protective shield.
To stop rapes 100% in Haryana, an “honest cop” must be posted at every tube-well in the state. But there aren’t as many cops, forget honest cops. Incidents of rape have only kept rising in Khattar’s Haryana. At one point, Rahul Gandhi asked Narendra Modi to spell out his plans for stopping rapes in Haryana! This, after Modi in one of his ‘Mann ki Baat’ asked “countrymen” to suggest ideas for his next heart-to heart.
“Dear Narendra Modi, since you’ve requested some ideas for your Mann Ki Baat monologue, tell us about how you plan to: 1. Get our youth JOBS. 2. Get the Chinese out of DHOKA-LAM. 3.
Stop the RAPES in Haryana,” Rahul tweeted. Modi’s silence was typical of Khattar’s eloquence. Khattar, for some mysterious reason, has the ear of the two top BJP guns – Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah.
The two have confidence in Khattar and on the anti-rape measures taken by him, the most important of which was not to order cops to get cracking but to announce that rape and molestation accused will not benefit from state schemes. Bah! Who was he fooling? The guy with rape in his mind wouldn’t be thinking of old-age or disability pension. No wonder, the state government’s decision to stall all government benefits to rape accused was a cropper.
The Chief Minister’s actions would all happen post-rape. Like the promise to provide up to Rs. 22,000 to rape survivors if they want private lawyers to fight for them. That must have helped the Haryana woman/girl to sleep well at nights. The CM also ordered that police officers complete investigation in rape cases within a month and cases of molestation in 15 days.
He also announced that fast-track courts would be set up in districts where more than 50 cases of rape and molestation are registered. Four districts promptly took up the offer – Gurugram, Panipat , Sonepat, Nuh and Faridabad. Funny, these four districts lap or overlap into the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, where Capital influences are seen in dress and behaviour.
The frontiers of a patriarchal Haryana are constantly being challenged by the 21st century progressive and women are the face of the change. Khattar with his beliefs rooted in the khap and feudal is an anachronism, a misfit to see the change coming with no idea as to how oversee the transformation. His views on sexuality and ‘dress sense’ single him out a lost in the woods babe!
In March, the Haryana Assembly unanimously passed a Bill which provided death penalty to those found guilty of raping girls aged 12 years or less. That did not stop rapes. The above-12 were fair game. The Rewari gang-rape of the CBSE topper has 12 in the loop, and will soon be overtaken by others sure to follow, each more horrendous than the one before.
CM Khattar and Modi-Shah should know that it is not “Beti Padhavo” which will enable “Beti Bachavo”. With Haryana, it is “Beta Padhavo” which will count, and “Padhavo” what to “beta”? That women/girls have a right to exist independent of the male will. That patriarchy has frontiers. That the men have “purdah” they have to lose.
Narendra Modi and Amit Shah should know it’s no longer comedy night. That the woman is not a doormat for the man to step on after an evening of ribald sexist jokes. Reform should start from indoors to stop rapes at tube-wells and in borrowed rooms of ‘friends’ who don’t mind joining in on the “fun”. If Modi and Shah have any sense, they will ASAP send Khattar packing. The man doesn’t even have the knickers to get into a twist. He appears to be impervious to condemnation. (IPA Service)
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