Vishal Sharma
The continuous redefining of paradigm of sexism and women abuse has not stopped. It had already been elevated to the levels of near pedagogy: Men were pedantically telling women what to wear; what time to venture out of their houses; how to conduct themselves publicly, so on and so forth. Now, it has been taken to the terrible retributive levels. It is as if now an acceptable normal that men of power and influence can speak in the tone and the manner in which TMC MP Tapas Pal has allegedly done to shamelessly suggest how women can be slighted and even threatened to be raped even when they have apparently done nothing to cop it.
In man vs woman duel, women have been at the receiving end any way. In man vs man face off, it is an incredible thought in itself that retributive norms have been rewritten publicly to involve women in the affair in such a demeaning way. Tapas has allegedly called upon his supporters to go and rape women of the CPI(M) workers. His call is political and driven by a desire to intimidate his opponents.
There is everything ususal about it. That he wants to do so by putting the women of his adversaries at the forefront of its vengeance is, however, what makes his idea of politics deranged. That his idea of politics sits cosily with the one of the government headed interestingly by a women chief minister is what makes the ideological choices of the TMC inexplicable. That his rant has not been unqualifiably rejected by the TMC is indeed bizarre and raises questions of TMC about its expedient posturing. That he has not faced any disciplinary action is even more mystifying and calls into question the TMC’s claims of being different.
In making rape a rallying cry on his political battlefield, Tapas has underlined the not so covert shift in the societal norms that has take place recently. Societies take their cue from their leaders as they evolve for the worse or the better. Societies which are at ease with themselves are generally well led. On the other hand our leaders have not been particularly sensitive towards the transit to the modernity of our women. Some of them have insinuated about their sartorial sense. Some have said rape should not be made into such an issue. Some have even said boys will be boys and their penchant for momentary comfort should not so heavily militate against them legally. It is possible to understand their apprehensions about strengthening the law against women abuse and make such loaded statements at the time of the legislative debates. But it is impossible to figure out their grotesque insensitivity in going public with their views when not occasioned by any legislative debate.
Their posturing on the issue suggests the imagination deficit that exists in the political system. It is not that our leaders’ worlds end with rule making and executive functioning only. It transcends beyond that away from the black and white of the defined legality into the grey of undefined morality. If they can’t convince us that what they say is what they actually mean, the passionate dogma in their speeches at the time of debates preceding the rule making will only be ceremonial. The real life travails don’t need wooden faces in the parliament just as much as they don’t need teary eyes and throats parched with endless speeches caused by fake emotions.
Institutional apathy is also at the heart of it. Often institutions don’t respond when put on notice. What’s worse, most of the time, they are complicit. They have come to represent the thought processes of those who helm them. Remember the CBI chief’s comment about rape made in a cavaliar tone. The comment was no doubt light hearted and casual, but the word rape was at the heart of it. That it could be so indifferently used reflects that rape as a cultural issue has not still broken out of our society’s accepted ethical structures. Even judiciary when persuaded by the most serious credibility crisis has responded only with glacial pace. Justice Ganguly’s case is the most recent example. This institutional inertia is to do with the general societal acceptance of the women abuse as only so much as a minor cultural issue. Institutions are not set up by the people who are not from amongst us; and the values they espouse are not borrowed from elsewhere. The problem is rooted in the social systems; in us.
Despite media outcry and a semblance of institutional response to some serious cases of women abuse and the demeaning language used against women recently, the unedifying chatter has not stopped; the abuse has not diminished. It appears it is, in part, to do with the nature of response that is still elitist and restrictive in scope. Even though the malaise cuts across the rural-urban and rich -poor divide, the prescriptive precepts are still essentially owned, managed and led by the rich and urban. The remedial discourse is not universalized. And unless the anger that surges in the drawing rooms of the elite and the cut and thrust of the debate in the media houses is consumed and internalised by those who inhabit the dark and far out recesses of the India’s hinterland, any response will merely be academic.
For the political class, who has acted more like loose cannon, it is important that it tempers its discourse on women. Already it is looked at with suspicion on gender issues. There is not much it has legislated to equalize gender discourse in any case. Women reservation bill is a case in point. In the circumstances, its penchant, therefore, for denigrating women is outrageously obnoxious. It must, therefore, come up with a strong conduct code of its own to regulate its members. A mechanism presently exists in the parliament to deal with the deviant behavior of the parliamentarians. But it is limited in scope and invoked sparingly, mostly in graft cases. The extent of this mechanism can be enlarged to, interalia, include a provision for ostracism as well. In doing so, the political class of this country needs to bear in mind that a functioning democracy can’t live with the ignominy of an abiding irony of women being worshipped and abused at the same time.
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