A very ostrich mentality

The new political dispensation in Delhi seems incapable of understanding divide between exposing religious bigotry and damning religious prejudices to which the powers-that-be are attached

Rape in India is considered as a punishment on women for being bold and trying to assert themselves. As such it is not surprising the ban on the documentary ‘India’s Daughter’ by British journalist Leslee Udwin has not sparked much uproar.

Barring criticism by a few intellectuals, writers and artistes, there is conspiratorial silence on the part of the vast majority of political and hieratical class. The documentary, which focuses on the assault of Nirbhaya (name changed as the law prohibits identifying the victim) on a bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012, may not contain much that is not known to vast majority of people in this country. But its central theme to shed light on the country’s rape crisis is meant to encourage change in the mindset of people. India is witnessing a rape in every 20 minutes in its capital.

The gang-rape in Delhi and unprecedented protests, besides police beating up demonstrators, who were protesting peacefully, happened before Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office. Otherwise, his government would not have shelved plans by the UPA government to open 660 crisis centres across the country to deal with increasing number of rapes. Now the NDA government has agreed to set up just 36 centres. The next step taken by the government is banning the film on the gang-rape to paint a rosy picture about India.

When it comes to the film, the interview with Mukesh Singh, one of the culprits in the gang rape, should be seen not as something that gives voice to a criminal, but as something which demonstrates the misogynist culture that pervades the society. The quite dignity of Nirbhaya’s parents, who celebrated her birth by distributing sweets as if they were blessed with baby boy, contrasts with the foul-mouthed statements of two lawyers, who went on describing woman as a personal chattel. They said there was no place for women in “our culture.”

They not only trained an unwavering eye on the evil deed but also exposed the wider prejudices that continue to remain entrenched. But the government failed to realise that banning a documentary that has exposed the chauvinism cannot help it sweep incidents of rapes in the capital under the carpet. The new political dispensation in Delhi seems incapable of understanding the divide between exposing religious bigotry and damning the religious prejudices to which the powers-that-be are attached. Even the criticism of Devadasi (a nautch girl) system, which dedicates girls to a life of sex work in the name of religion is considered an attack on religion.

In South India, particularly in the Telugu-speaking states, a strong foundation was laid by reformers to keep communal elements at bay. Right from great social reformer and the first investigative journalist in South India, Kandukuri Veeresalingam, to atheist campaigner Gora (Goparaju Ramachandra Rao) and Communist veterans Chandra Rajeswara Rao and Puchalapalli Sundarayya fought battles with fundamentalists and succeeded in weaning away the youth from the evils of bigotry. Veeresalingam’s campaign helped the society free itself from the clutches of religious bigotry and child marriages to large extent. He was able to carry on his campaign in those days when the country was under the yoke of colonial government. But, if he were alive and launched such a campaign, he would probably have earned a sobriquet ‘traitor.’

Over a hundred years ago, the greatest Telugu playwright, Gurazada Appa Rao, produced a famous play Kanaysulkam (Bride Price) to stop child marriages. A character Madhuravani, a young concubine, accuses her lover Ramappa Pantulu, a karnam (revenue department servant) of “cheating” when he fixed a person’s horoscope to ensure that an 80-year-old-Lubda Avadanulu married a 11-year-girl by shelling huge bride price. Ramappa Pantulu replies, “Call it politics.” Well, if our powers-that-be calls everything “politics,” one day they will all become fair game among people.

By K Sriramulu