No good, only bad and ugly

Vandana Shukla

The silhouette of two teen-aged girls hanging from a tree in a village of Badaun district, UP, triggered worldwide outrage. The image nagged and haunted the conscience of the nation for months till the CBI silenced it. The girls had committed suicide: The central agency concluded absolving the tangled web of caste, class, patriarchy and political muscle that breeds crimes against women. But it left several questions unanswered.
Does it call for a celebration if 14-year-olds commit suicide for falling in love, if at all we assume that the younger of the Dalit cousins decided to die in solidarity! The questions, dropped out of the discourse, are repeated like a leitmotif in most cases of crimes against women. How else does one explain the murder of Jyoti, a 24-year-old Scheduled Caste woman from Bhunga village of Hoshiarpur district, whose body was found on a road in Panchkula. The accused, Ram Kumar Chaudhary, a Congress MLA of Himachal Pradesh, was acquitted with 11 other accused in the murder case. Chaudhry, a married man, allegedly had an extramarital affair with Jyoti, who was insisting on a marriage.
A 24-year-old, mother of two, was allegedly gangraped and thrown out of a moving auto-rickshaw, in South 24 Parganas district of Kolkata. As the case unfolded, the police found the woman was in a relationship with one of the five accused. More than the crime, the woman’s relationship became the rallying point of enquiry. In crimes against women, affixing motive on the victim suits the larger narrative that helps maintain the patriarchal management of society. Has the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, that was supposed to speed up the legal process and protect women against any kind of violation of their rights been of any help?
On one hand, cases like Shakti Mill gangrape, where a 22- year-old photojournalist was raped, resulted in a Mumbai sessions court convicting all five adult accused; awarding death penalty to three and life imprisonment to the other two. On the other hand, it brought to the fore the laxity of system that encourages repeated crimes. The gangrape accused had  committed rape with impunity and were emboldened further. Ditto goes for the Uber Taxi rape accused. Law alone cannot help till the society harmonises women’s space. Also, the minors accused of rape in both Nirbhaya and Shakti Mill case, continue to challenge the legal book.
If the death penalty for rape was to work as a deterrent, it has done little. In Delhi alone a15 per cent rise in crime against women was observed as against 2013. Even school-going kids are not spared. Be it in Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata, the stories are repeated.
It seemed the year would end on an optimistic note for the women of India, with images of two gutsy Haryanvi women bashing up their molesters. But, this unusual tale soon got buried under layers of counter accusations that suited the more acceptable narrative of women’s subjugation in a male-dominated society. And, Modi’s election promise to women — of providing better security —  continues to be a promise.