Plight of Indian Women: Hypocrisy, Patriarchy and Rape Culture

India is one of the lands that has considered women as the epitome of purity and love. In Hinduism, it is mentioned that the universe derives its essence from feminine energy. It is shocking to know that the people of this country, whose ancient scriptures tell us to worship women, are behind some of the very brutal attacks they face these days. The attacks vary from offensive speeches, verbal abuses, slut-shaming to murders and rapes across the country. 

The basis of a majority of attacks women faces these days arise from a flimsy outdated concept of patriarchy, a system where men control women in every aspect of their life: from their dressing, what they should speak, when to speak, what to do, and even what to think. This system denies women their fundamental rights. An individual who develops such an attitude can become a threat, an anti-social or even a rapist. It is shocking to see that a non-neglectable fraction of women also support this (though not always directly).

In a regional edition of a very popular house-guest reality show, a contestant with a huge fanbase was eliminated, for applying chilly paste in the eyes of a fellow contestant, though other contestants who attacked him earlier were never eliminated for injuring him multiple times. His fans gathered and welcomed him at the airport, amidst the COVID-19 protocols. 

All these are not problematic in the context of what we are speaking right now. Fandom on the basis of his activities within the house is not at all a problem, but the problems arise when his fans and followers start explaining the extremely anti-feministic comments that he made around 7 years ago. He said that women are not supposed to do activities that men generally do, especially ones with heavy physical strains, "if she wants to live as a family". Things get worse when a fraction of women even start supporting him in these comments. The worst are the people, who support these statements and consider him as the incarnation of God who took form in the 21st century, merely because of the words he spoke with a mindset of a 19th Century man. If women never did physical activities, there wouldn't be a P.T. Usha, an Anju Bobby George, a P.V. Sindhu, a Sania Mirza, a Saina Nehwal, or a Smrithi Mandana.  

Around a lakh rape cases reported across the country are still under the consideration of law in various levels of courts. These are the numbers that are officially reported. There are many more cases not reported by the victims, and some even purposefully neglected by the authorities. This is the situation where people lose their faith in the judicial system of the country and they start to react. Let us see what happens when people react against such incidents.

Recently, a video went viral in Kerala, of a man who criticized acclaimed women from various fields like literature, film industry, etc. The criticism crossed its limits and went to a level of slut-shaming these women. After a month of release of the video, few women (one of them being a woman mentioned in his video) went to his residence, slapped him and poured charcoal oil over him. Any normal person who has seen the video will never point out anything morally wrong in what they did, even if what they did is illegal. And the fun fact is, instead of opposing social threats like this YouTuber, the majority is raising voices against these women by asking them where were they when there occurred other bitter incidents against women.

Whataboutery, according to Google, is the technique or practise of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different issue. Generally, people practice this method when they have very few or no points to rationally explain their stand in an issue, by strictly sticking to the same. This is what happened here, and is always happening whenever there is such a movement from women.

In my opinion, we should face people who promote whataboutery with counter-whataboutery, as they will not stop making their comments, and there is no point in beating around the bush by asking them to do so. To those people who raise questions like what is the point of doing an illegal activity like attacking the YouTuber to eradicate other illegal activities like what he did, we should ask them the counter-question about the number of cybercrimes that are being reported in the country against women, the time for which the victims have to wait, so that the criminal is nabbed and the years that have to remain as victims, so that justice is given to them. Afterall, JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED. When they ask, what did they do when there were other attacks, rebound the same question to them by asking what they did in that scenario other than merely social media status updates and hashtag re-tweets. 

We are elated to see movies in which the hero slaps and attacks the antagonist who mistreated a woman whom he cared very much. We even claim it politically correct when a heroine slaps the person who abused her. Then why is the attitude different when we see it in real life..?

Many people come out with their stand by asking who gave them permission to break the law. If people stand and act for themselves against a person who abused them, we need to understand that it never reveals the arrogance and attitude of the common people, but it reveals the fragility and failure of a hopeless system of legislature, executive and judiciary.

All these issues arise from the basic fact that a considerable fraction of men silently enjoy such derogatory comments made against women (mostly against popular women), even when they wear a mask of a respectable and progressive person. Such hypocrites silently propagate the wrong message to the most vulnerable groups of the society: YOUTH.

Rape is becoming a common term under usage in our news hours. It is such huge violence that nobody with a mentally stable mind, supports or promotes. The worst scenario is when the people involved in these crimes have political influences, due to which even the faintest possibility of justice for the victim, fades away. 

Very recently, a 16-year-old boy was detained in Gujarat, for raising rape threat against the Indian cricketer, Mahendra Singh Dhoni's 5-year-old daughter, in a social media platform, due to the failure of his team Chennai Super Kings in an IPL match. This marks a point beyond obnoxity and disgruntlement and reveals that rape has become a tool for anti-socials to promote and propagate their agenda of rape culture.

From speeches to rapes, a humungous number of activities are happening today against women. The fact that in approximately every 20 minutes a woman is being raped in India urges the Indian youth to realise the depreciating standards of Indian society. We need to realise that status updates and twitter hashtags are good, but not enough. Realising the plight of women in our nation and considering them as equals, we need to spread the fact that we have to act now by correcting people with wrong thoughts of patriarchy, which will be way better than reaching a hundred million tweets for a hashtag.

 Act now, or else, your dear one will become a hashtag one day...!

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