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PRAFUL BIDWAI COLUMN

Male insecurity drives aggression

Praful Bidwai
GROWI NG violence against Indian women, such as the aggravated sexual assault on a young student in Guwahati, has deeply shocked the public. Violence against women is the fastest rising crime among all cognisable offences under the Indian Penal Code.
National Crime Records Bureau statistics show that between 1953 and 2011, the incidence of rape rose by 873%, or three times faster than all cognisable crimes, and three-and-a-half times faster than murder.
In India, a woman is raped every 22 minutes, and a bride burnt for dowry every 58 minutes. The number of crimes against women, including sexual harassment, cruelty by the husband or his relatives, abduction and trafficking, annually exceeds 2,61,000.
Separate numbers aren't available for the harassment faced by women for not bearing sons, and for that South Asia barbarian speciality called acid attacks, which disfigure a woman for life for rejecting a man's advances.
The sexual assault on the woman outside a bar in Guwahati was aggravated by a media-person's apparent instigation to strip her so a TV channel could scoop the story.
The police failed to respond in time to distress calls, trivialised the incident, and delayed arresting the molesters. Even more unethically, the victim's identity was disclosed by the media, by a member of the National Commission for Women, and worse, by the chief minister's office.
Guwahati has a relatively calm, polite public culture. Beneath the surface hides a lot of sexual frustraother fast-growing cities. Most of its 127 bars are only a few years old. But they are marked by raucous music, vulgar display of wealth, testosterone-driven competition for female attention, swagger and rowdiness, lubricated by alcohol.
Such behaviour, Bollywood-style gangster mannerisms, and boastful cellphone conversations are now commonplace across India.
Young men are often exposed to sex primarily through Bollywood songs choreographed to suggestive movements or Internet pornography. They are in constant search of objects of desire whom they must conquer by showing off and aggression.
Such conquest has nothing to do with a natural, easy, passionate relationship of affection or love to which physical contact comes organically. It's devoid of values such as compassion, sensitivity, cooperation, and caring.
Male conduct sometimes bursts into lascivious mob-style violence. More often, it takes the form of lewd taunts, or forced contact with and groping of women's bodies. No wonder women feel unsafe in every city — even in broad daylight.
Beneath the aggression lies deep insecurity among young men, who are typically under-socialised and denied an opportunity to interact naturally with women.
In our societies, boys and girls rarely meet or play together. Sexual segregation occurs early, and stereotypes are formed well before adolescence.
Under the stereotypes, male "virtues" like bravery, physical strength, "toughness," and refusal to cry, are celebrated. Girls must imbibe "feminine" characteristics like modesty, gentleness, soft speech and hard domestic labour.
These retrograde patterns of inequality are changing, but not rapidly enough. Meanwhile, a new culture bred by India's "fast-track” capitalism and the market forces is superimposing itself, producing an awkward amalgam. For instance, female foeticide is more common among the more educated and affluent than the underprivileged.
As women get educated and join the labour force, they become more visible, independent and selfconfident. For more than a decade, girls have dominated school-leaving examinations' toppers' lists. And women are proving more diligent and reliable than men in call centres, offices, factories and outdoor sales jobs. This is producing new insecurities among men, who seek to control women in various ways. Recently, a village panchayat in Uttar Pradesh decreed that no woman can use a mobile phone. The all-male panchayat fears that women might talk to strange men and lose their "purity." However, no restrictions are imposed on the men they might talk to!
Other examples include conservative dress codes imposed on women by colleges and religious leaders, attacks on women in pubs by Hindutva fanatics, and public stripping of "inappropriately" dressed women even in supposedly cosmopolitan Mumbai.
Why, even police chiefs in many cities warn women against dressing "provocatively." In 2007, the Delhi police issued "security tips" for students from the Northeast, who frequently face harassment: "Revealing dress be avoided. Avoid lonely road/bylane when dressed scantily. Dress according to sensitivity of the local populace."
The NCW chairperson herself has now joined the chorus advising women "not to ape Western culture" and "dress carefully." (Read, blame the victim for her harassment!)
In South Asia's patriarchal society, where gender discrimination is pervasive from cradle to grave, many women internalise male prejudices. A recent medical survey found that only 8% of Indian children with poor eyesight regularly wear glasses. 49% of the girls who need glasses say they don't use them for "cosmetic” reasons, and 83% refuse because that would hamper their "marriage prospects."
Even worse, a Unicef report this year finds that not just 57% of Indian males but also 53% of females in the 15-19 age-group believe that wifebeating is justified. Such sanctification of domestic violence doesn't speak of a civilised society.
It won't be easy to fight entrenched patriarchy and male chauvinism without a campaign of Social Reform. Social Reform, which combats male chauvinism, casteism, communalism and other forms of parochialism and hierarchy, and promotes Enlightenment values such as reason, freedom and equality, was an early component of the Freedom Movement.
Social Reform lost momentum long ago and has fallen off the agenda altogether. There is no alternative to reviving it. Progressive intellectuals, teachers, enlightened politicians and concerned citizens must contribute to this revival. This is a litmus test of their leadership.
As for now, our administrators, and especially the police, must all be put through gender sensitisation courses. We must hold their feet to the fire in demanding that they provide the security and freedom women deserve.
The writer is an eminent Indian columnist, email: bidwai@bol.net.in