Sunday, September 15, 2013

Minor Marriages

Every day as you sift through the headlines, you expect to get a quick glimpse of the general political, social and economic state of affairs in the country. But the most common headlines you end up seeing these days are reports of incidents that tell stories of horrendous rape cases & sexual assaults on women taking place all over the country. Even foreign tourists who have always been eager to visit our country and learn more about its culture and heritage are literally discouraged by the news reports on Indian rapes. But even then, do the real stories really come to light? Is there more to these stories that we never find out about?


16th December Rape case: A shame for the entire nation!

The incidence of rapes in India showed a marked rise since the inhuman 16th December (2012) Rape Case. It was an inhuman gang rape & murder of a Paramedical student aged just 23 yrs in Delhi, who was gang-raped in a bus when she was on her way back to home after watching a movie with a friend. When the four gang-rapists approached to harass her and begun their lewd behaviour, her friend who worked in a private firm protested and was thrashed badly with iron rod. After the girl was raped, her vaginal passage torn off with the iron rod and her intestines spilling out, she along with her friend were stripped and flung out of the bus to bleed on the streets. This horrific incident of the December 16th Delhi Gang rape shook the entire nation and received a lot of media hype.


The naked truth revealed:

Not only this one incident, but numerous such brutal incidents that followed in a train after the Delhi rape case reflects one naked truth but a very significant one; i.e. the highest number of rapes in India occur in the Metro cities. The main reason for this is the huge influx of small town population especially women from small towns moving to the big cities to make more money and ending up in a horrible, poverty-stricken life. 

Has anyone ever wondered what the male psychographic behind these rapes is? Psychographic outlines of the men who assault the women in the metros reveal that they are seething with aggression and are often slaves to some kind of addiction, most commonly alcohol or narcotics. However, sometimes this aggression comes from the general attitude of Indian men to dominate females. When these small town girls come to the metro cities and start earning, some are successful – they work long hours and rise on the ladder of success; something most men cannot tolerate or accept. On the other hand, some aren’t so successful and work extra hard to prove themselves, often outshining their male counterparts, which again is unacceptable to a chauvinistic man.  

They feel these girls are intruders in their city, are posing threat to their manhood. They want to teach them a lesson; something that comes from the very core of their conservative nature that tells them a woman can never be better than a man, and they must show a woman that her true place is always beneath a man. Sadly, this aggressive attitude is heightened much when these men are under the effect of some addictive.


Lines blurred between what’s criminal & what’s not:

Recently the four men who raped the Delhi girl have been given a death sentence, though from some sections of the country debate is being raised on the punishment’s quantum as there are some who favour life imprisonment for the convicts. Actually, the horrendous manner in which this poor girl was raped & murdered makes one think that any punishment would fall less for the convicts. 

Today the line between what is ‘criminal’ and what is not has become blurred. Laws in India have a number of loopholes and due to legal deficiencies, non-criminals receive criminal punishments and the real ones are dealt with leniently. Also another way of putting this issue is that today it’s really unpredictable to read a man’s mind. Men with no prior criminal or sexual assault records are often the ones responsible for brutal sexual assault crimes. And as per law, a first time offender is usually given more leeway. 


Significant confessions made by the north Indian perverts: Look into the statistics

After the Delhi Gang rape incident, statistics were collected to see how much this evil of rape has ruined our country. It’s shocking that one out of every four men in Northern India confessed of committing or wanting to commit acts of sexual violence sometime or the other. According to 2011 Rape Statistics, out of 24206 cases of rapes that took place in the country, the maximum cases occurred in Northern India; i.e. about 6227 cases. In rural India too rapes occur, but the only difference is that the cases do not get such great media exposure as in the metros. The victims there are forced to marry their assailants to hush up the matter. In many cases, the illiterate rural women do not even realize that they are being raped!

It can be said that while media is trying its best to bring all rape and sexual assault cases to light so that justice can be served, in all earnestness we still only get a partial picture of the reality. We need to spend less time talking about it, and more time trying to find out WHY rape is becoming so common in India, so that we can find a real solution to the problem. 



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