I
was planning to post this a few days ago and I am going to pay the price for
the unconscionable procrastination. Given that a terror strike happened last
evening, women issues have to take a backseat for now. That is, readership of
my posts will reduce beyond zero. Let that be, I am resigned.
In
India, women are raped at the rate of on(c)e every 20 minutes [1]. This
translates into an annual rate of 26,300 (rounding off) rapes. This number
seems to be OK as Wikipedia gives the number for 2010 at 22,172 [2]. Assuming
that the national population stands at 1.21 billion, the annual rate reifies to
2.17 rapes per a population of 100,000. This again compares OK with what is
given in the Wikipedia article, at 1.8 per 100,000.
For
the sake of discussions, let us take the higher number. Oh, you say it is not
high enough. I would not dispute you.
As
far as estimating the prevalence of rape, the metrics stand confused and
confusing. There are the questions of under- and over-reporting, simultaneously. Given that inconsistent
definitions of rape, different rates of reporting, recording, prosecution and
conviction for rape
create controversial statistical disparities, the claim that "no other major category of crime – not
murder, assault or robbery – has generated a more serious challenge of the
credibility of national crime statistics" than rape may not be all that
far off from the true situation. Further, the India-specific cues, like rapes
in rural areas, of women of disadvantaged groups, must add more, indeed more
significantly. Therefore, let us take the higher number; indeed take it higher,
by a factor of, say, 1.5. All said, let us settle at 35,400 rapes per year, 2.9
rapes per 100,000 population.
If
you looked at the Wikipedia table, you would see that the rates for the various
countries are all over the place. And, there are huge surprises. The stand out
amongst what we would consider anomalies is Sweden, coming in at 63.5 rapes for
100,000 population. At a population of 9.3 million, 6,050 women were raped
annually.
This
is so surprising that Wikipedia deemed it necessary for Sweden to be given a separate
sub-section in the article! It quotes the Swedish National Council for Crime
Prevention “that it is not ‘possible to evaluate and compare the actual levels
of violent crimes... between countries’, but that in any case the high numbers
are explained by a broader legal definition of rape than in other countries,
and an effort to register all suspected and repeated rapes.” This is what I took
as the justification for raising the Indian rate by about 50%.
Let
me now shift southwards and get to the Levant, Israel, from the Nordic country,
Sweden. Why Israel? In the aftermath of the recent-horrific-gang rape-of-a-23
year old-female-student-in-a-moving-bus-in-Delhi, the Indian situation was
blamed on patriarchy, son preference, commodification of women etc. On all of
these, I have a strong feeling Israel leads the way. Hence, Israel.
Israel and Satan
I
do not know what came over me one day when I was browsing titles in a book shop
in a mall. My eyes happened on the book The
Last Temptation by Nikos Kazantzakis (faber
and faber, ISBN 0-571-17856-1) and I reached for it and made myself poorer
by Rs. 450/-. After suffering through the book, I now realize that the Satan
made me do it. As per the book, Satan almost succeeded with Jesus.
I
was lucky the first time, when I escaped from the grips of Satan, after daring
to watch the movie based on the book, directed by Martin Scorsese: for better or worse … a Catholic filmmaker.
"I'm a lapsed Catholic. But I am Roman Catholic -- there's no way out of
it" [3]. “Scorsese … seems unable to escape the mark of his formative
faith.”
I
saw the movie in 1988 and in the middle of a huge furor fuelled by Christians,
denouncing the movie as blasphemous. But luckily I had moved away from any and
all religions by that time.
I
took a risk and let Satan tempt me again. As I remember now, after 24 years
after seeing the movie, some portions of the story as given in the book seem to
have skipped me. Or, perhaps the director felt too uncomfortable to include them
in the movie.
On
page 529, I read Satan in the guise of an angel consoling and counseling Jesus
thus: “Only one woman exists in the world, one woman with countless faces… Mary
Magdalene died, Mary sister of Lazarus waits for us, waits for you… Within her
womb she holds–holds for you, Jesus of Nazareth-the greatest of all joys: a
son, your son.”
In
my way of thinking, the above is an endorsement of commodification of women –
women are not differentiated, they are there only to produce sons of men. This,
the Satan tells the Son of Man! Further,
it obviously also endorses son preference.
In
addition, Kazantzakis has Jesus saying these words, admittedly when the latter
was hallucinating on the cross: “An infant sits mute and numb in the womb of
every woman. Open the doors and let him out. He who does not beget, murders …”
[p. 534]. The longing for son pervades the book. We know that Jews practice
patriarchy; it is, after all, the patriarchs who are venerated in that set up,
Abraham at the top. Of course, defenders of the faith will point out that to be
acknowledged a Jew by the state of Israel one has to prove that his/her mother
is a Jew, no matter who the father is.
I
was wondering whether Christians were taking exceptions to these small
vignettes in the movie! Were they arguing that Jesus never espoused such
misogynist views? I suppressed these thoughts and let other facts that stared
me in my eyes dominate my mind.
I
did raise my eyebrows when I noticed that Israel is way ahead of us in the
Wikipedia table, at 17.5 rapes per 100,000 population in 2008 when the
population was around 7.3 million (some quick back-of-the-envelope and backward
calculations). The total number of rapes in 2008 then works out to about 1,300.
About 4 per day, about one in six hours, vis-à-vis three per hour in India.
Now,
this sent me into a tizzy. One way of looking at the numbers, India comes out
on top of Israel, one sixth of the rate per 100,000 (it does far better against
Sweden, if you can believe it). The other way, for every Israeli woman raped,
27 Indian women are. So, where do we place ourselves?
What the numbers do not tell
The
numbers do not help in establishing the cause-effect connection. India and
Israel stand shoulder to shoulder in lowering the status of women in society –
son preference, patriarchy, commodification of women. Historical and cultural
legacy. But Sweden is in a different league by itself, a lot more enlightened
on gender equity – they have mandated paternity leave! Yet, the numbers speak
so totally ill of that Nordic country. On every developmental metric Sweden is
near the top among the comity of nations. Yet, the rape numbers seem to murmur
a different story.
Do
the numbers lie?
We
have to say yes.
What
comparison, if any, can be made between India and Israel? None. The basic,
undeniable conclusion I come to is aggregate or average /per capita numbers are
most irrelevant in discussing as involved an issue as status of women and its
consequences for them in society. No, this is not a call to put up one’s hands
in total surrender.
Suppose,
as a consequence of the current, highly justified huge cry for ensuring safety
of women in public places, we find that crime reporting gets better. The
numbers will show an uptick, will they not? This must be taken as good. But, if
your position on the issue is pre-decided – that is, the government has failed
in its efforts to provide a safe environment for women – you would skew the
argument towards the higher number sans any further analysis.
This
is precisely what the talking heads on TV channels do, to garner higher TRPs.
It is not in their interests to let you think through the issues. The more
passive you are the better it is for them. Now, they want the numbers to do
their jobs. The fact that the numbers can be made to tell any story that you
want them to tell is exploited to the hilt by motivated analysis and analysts,
from the media, from the party in power, parties out of power, progressive as
well as regressive (including religious) social outfits. Do you like to be
buffeted by such winds?
Moral of the story
If
you noticed, unlike any of my other posts, I have thrown a lot of numbers at
the readers in this one. These were not well calculated, yet carried, even if only
I were to say so, pseudo-legitimacy, merely by obfuscating the issue. This was
deliberate.
If
one wants to be a concerned citizen, the first thing to be done is to avoid seeking
solutions from others. Develop a solution based on one’s own analysis and see
what ideas that are floating fit best with it. Source numbers widely and analyze
them independently. Then, give oneself to that line of thinking and take it
further and take others along. This is “Satan avoidance”.
This
is what Jesus failed to do on the cross when he cried, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” [4]
Never,
even in moments of extreme distress like discussing highly fraught issues,
never go begging to the media. If it is commodification of women, son
preference, patriarchy that you wish to see the world rid of, do it yourselves
at the scales you think you are capable, within your family even if only as
pushing the ignition button. Never take the help of media. Verify numbers.
Raghuram
Ekambaram
Reference
2 comments:
You've brought in a number of issues together as the title of the post indicates... But I do agree with your conclusion: the media cannot save anyone - we are our own saviours.
These issues fused themselves into one in my mind Matheikal, when they are taken in by the public exclusively as presented in the media. Media do not have the time for nuanced reading, much less detailed analysis.
Why would people not want to source their information widely is very difficult for me to understand.
RE
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