Unpardonable comments by SP leaders Yadav, Azmi.
By Shree Venkatram
NEW DELHI: The recent statements by two Samajwadi Party leaders, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Abu Azmi, on rape are a direct slap on the face of the Indian women.
The Indian Constitution has given Indian women an equal status. But Mulayam declared on April 10, as India was getting ready to go to polls, that it was unfair to award death penalty to rapists for their ‘mistake’. Mulayam, who has been chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and the defence minister of India, is the leader of Samajwadi Party that is currently ruling in the state. Speaking at a election rally in the town of Moradabad, he promised to bring about changes in the tough anti-rape law if his party comes to power in the 2014 general elections. Read the full story here. It was his terming rape as ‘a mistake committed by boys’ that did not go down well with the women.
Abu Azmi went a step further. He called for punishing a woman who is raped! He is reported to have said the following when a reporter asked him for a solution to the problem of rapes: “Solution is this: any woman if, whether married or unmarried, goes along with a man, with or without her consent, should be hanged. Both should be hanged. It shouldn’t be allowed even if a woman goes by consent.” For more on Azmi’s comment, click here.
Later, after facing the ire of women’s organisations and some political parties, he retracted. By that time his son had come out with a statement citing a generation gap between senior members of the party and others who were of the view that a rapist deserved strict punishment. But that was a little too late. The message of what the leaders stand for had been made loud and clear.
When rape is termed a ‘mistake’ by boys and men, it completely negates the enormity of the crime that is known to scar a woman for life. At the same time, the blame is put squarely on the woman for the crime. Mulayam Singh Yadav epitomises this mindset that treats girls and women as second class citizens, as commodities and puts boys and men at a pedestal, worthy of special treatment.
With their utterances, Azmi and Mulayam join a chain of men in positions of power, whose statements keep the women subjugated and shackled in a society that is already heavily biased against the woman. In fact, these statements can be said to lead to greater violence against the female of the species, not just physical and mental, but that which stifles her very existence: rising number of female foetuses being aborted, neglect of the female child, poor literacy and education levels, poor participation in the organised workforce.
Statements like these negate the work of many individuals and organisations which have been trying very hard to bring about a change in the status of Indian women. When a common person finds a leader endorsing such a view, he is only emboldened, and once again the notion that a woman can be treated any way one wants, reverberates through the society.
The woman has traditionally been blamed for the violence on her. Rape has been used to keep women subjugated, ensuring that they do not step out of the many restrictions imposed on them: of dress, of behaviour, of their place in society, of being second to men. It was after decades of silence and inaction that the rape law was made stringent. It was a gang rape of horrific proportions in a bus moving on the roads of South Delhi, the most affluent of India’s neighborhoods, that shook the nation and finally saw a lax law getting some teeth.
Before that, India had seen some of the most inane judgements on rape. A former Chief Justice was once quoted as stating that a victim should be allowed to marry the rapist, a throwback to some medieval practice. The Bombay High Court actually reduced punishment for a man convicted of sodomising a 10-month-old girl baby, accepting his contention that he lost control over himself as he was living away from his family! Click here for the full story. Panchayats have let off rapists with punishments like five shoe smacks, and small fines, sending a message that rape is not a big crime.
And now, we have these statements by men from a party dominant and in power in one of the most backward states in India: Uttar Pradesh. The state performs poorly on all social indicators like maternal mortality, child sex ratio, age at marriage, nutrition for women, life expectancy, education and workforce participation, but a rising crime graph.
It is important for women to feel secure in the knowledge that they matter, that any injustice done to them will be dealt with, that they are not second class citizens but enjoy the same status as men in the country, in society and family. Only then will there be progress.
(Shree Venkatram is an independent journalist and writer. She has worked for The Times of India and The Pioneer. She is committed to working for the development of India and set up Unnati Features, a media consultancy focused on social and development issues. She now works in the development sector.)
1 Comment
NO GOONDAS AND CRIMINALS LIKE VAJPAYEE, MODI AND SONIA-RAHUL; WORSHIP “INSANELY HANDSOME” AVATAR OF SHIVA, SATISH CHANDRA
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(April 9 ‘14) Azam Khan says India’s Muslim soldiers won the Kargil war for India. I have said for years that the Kargil war was started by Pakistan’s army chief Musharraf on the CIA’s orders to make Vajpayee win the election that was pending after he had lost a vote of confidence as prime minister; that Hindu-Muslim conflict before 1947 was created and managed by the Intelligence Bureau leading to the partition of the country and its Indian and Pakistani successors (RAW & ISI which cooperated in the Kargil war & terror attacks such as the November 26, 2008 attack on Mumbai, etc.) continue to do so after 1947.
(April 4-6 ‘14) The opinions and votes of India’s slave population suffering from mass-psychosis (below) do not matter; only nuclear weapons matter — to simultaneously destroy Washington, New York, RAW headquarters, South Block and North Block with a warning that additional U.S. cities will be destroyed, with nuclear warheads already emplaced in them, if there is any retaliation or sign of retaliation. In a letter dated July 27, 1982 to Indira Gandhi as prime minister I referred to an act, by American Jews, that was “the equivalent of an annihilatory nuclear first strike on India”. In her reply dated July 29, 1982 she wrote “Dear Mr. Chandra, I have received your letter dated July 27, 1982 and am passing it on to my Principal Secretary to deal with it. Sincerely, Indira Gandhi”. In December, 1982 I wrote to her “There was sudden, terminal, overwhelming violence against me during a seminar at Harvard University and rather similar occurrences earlier… India can expect sudden, annihilatory violence … with nuclear weapons … against its population … unless it can mount a decisively superior force to stop it”. Following my advice, India’s strategic program, including the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme and the Centre for Advanced Technology, was started to give India victory in a nuclear war with the United States and because of my influence on her, Indira Gandhi as prime minister was assassinated by CIA-RAW and later when Rajiv Gandhi realized the truth of what I had written to her after the American invasion of Iraq which was the first Gulf War, he was also assassinated by CIA-RAW. In the past few years, I have had India’s nuclear forces emplace nuclear warheads in Washington, New York and other U.S. cities and India is now in a position to destroy the United States without being destroyed. In fact, India is in a position now to destroy the United States without itself suffering a single casualty by triggering its nuclear warheads emplaced in Washington and New York with a warning that additional U.S. cities will be similarly destroyed if there is any retaliation or sign of retaliation. Note that Vajpayee could not have done that because of his relationship with the CIA which brought and kept him in office. The same is the case with all other Indian politicians because of their participation in the CIA’s crimes against me which the CIA can threaten to expose.
This is what I said when asked if India is just a pawn. “Yes, it is a pawn, a slave, a society suffering from mass-psychosis. Despite the recent revelations about M. K. Gandhi being a homosexual who reveled in his “slavery with a vengeance” to the white man, who engaged in a fake ‘freedom struggle” with the British managed by the Intelligence Bureau, the entire Indian government went to his memorial on his death anniversary this January 30, 2012 to pay tribute. India is a very sick society. (I had urged that all his portraits in government offices, etc. be burned). … By saying that India is suffering from mass-psychosis, I am being generous and kind of giving it the excuse of being ill (of the several hats I wear, I am also a mental health professional) but a country of 1.2 billion people being so terrified of much smaller numbers of people from half way around the world cannot really be excused. … ” (see RAWsTraffickingOfIndianChildrenDOTblogspotDOTcom ).
(The above is about one-sixth of my comment; the full comment can be found at IndiasLegitimateRulerSatishChandraDOTblogspotDOTcom ).