Is it a capital of sexual violence?
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While it was the Election Commission's vote-rigging practices, which are constantly being exposed that played a major role in bringing down the Mamata Banerjee-led government in this year's Bengal Assembly elections, the main reason for the widespread anger among women and young people against the Mamata government was the tragic rape and murder of a young doctor at Kolkata's R.G. Kar Medical College. Lakhs of people took to the streets in protests that shook the state capital. The 2012 Delhi gang rape case, known as the Nirbhaya incident, had sparked massive protests across the country. It was a major factor in the downfall of the then Delhi government led by Sheila Dikshit. What brings up memories of these unfortunate events is the shocking news of increasing sexual assaults against women in the national capital.
The latest rape that came to light is of a 17-year-old girl, who was with her friend at Astha Kunj Park behind the famous Kalkaji Temple in the capital, was abducted, threatened and gang-raped by a group posing as undercover police officers. The police arrested three accused after students of Lady Shri Ram College staged protests. Classes at the college were switched to online mode to prevent the spread of the protest. In addition, public entry to parks after sunset in Delhi has been banned. Parks here are places where families and ordinary people come out of their matchbox-like homes in the scorching summer to seek some relief. Will simply blocking entry to them solve the problem?
In September alone, 13 cases of rape and sexual assault were reported in the national capital and its surrounding areas. That means one rape case every two days. Most of the victims of violence are minor girls. With the BJP in power at the Centre and in the state, neither the Sangh Parivar nor the media under its influence will come forward to incite protests like those held in Kolkata and Delhi at the time. With the opposition virtually non-existent, there has been no significant protest or discussion from its side. Neither the Chief Minister nor the Prime Minister, nor the Union Home Minister, who is directly responsible for law and order in the capital, is responding. It would not be surprising if someone feels that the moral outrage of the national conscience will melt and flow only if sexual assaults escalate into murder or if the victims belong to the upper-caste, economic or social classes.
It is a bitter but shocking truth that Delhi is becoming the rape capital of India, where women's lives are becoming increasingly unsafe. The experience posted on social media by a young woman who recently attended an interview for an executive position at a music store in Delhi underlines this. The main question in the interview was whether she would be willing to travel for three or four days with senior male colleagues as part of her work and have physical relations with them during the trip. If three or four men sit in a closed room and ask a girl such a question in the name of a job interview, that itself constitutes sexual harassment and verbal rape. Such undocumented rapes are taking place in workplaces, educational institutions, research centres, police stations and even in the courts where we seek justice against perpetrators.
Senior advocate and former Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising recently spoke out about sexual harassment in the Indian judiciary. She said that sexual harassment is the dirty secret of the Indian judiciary and that she has appeared in court on behalf of several women judges who have faced sexual harassment and exploitation by male judges and seniors. There is also a tendency for complaints by women judges to be dismissed on the grounds of lack of evidence, or for the complainant to be transferred to distant places as punishment in order to protect the accused.
Slums and poverty may be temporarily hidden from the eyes of foreign heads of state with curtains, and civil rights activists may be locked up in prisons. But how long can increasing cases of such rape and sexual assault be covered up? Moreover, how can people, including their children, live in peace in a city where predators live?
