September 12, 2013
by Linda Scott
An Indian charity has launched a controversial campaign against domestic violence. The posters depict the three most revered goddesses in Hinduism with bruises and cuts on their faces.
Each of the three images in the campaign shows a different goddess: Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity; Durga, the goddess of power and strength; and Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and wisdom.
These goddesses are admired and even worshipped by millions of Hindus.
The charity, Save Our Sisters, aims to call attention to the plight of women in India, where violence against women has become a more prominent issue since the gang rape and murder of a woman riding a bus in Delhi last winter. The charity intends to increase the salience of rape and trafficking as well as domestic abuse.
The ads themselves are striking, with each goddess depicted with her traditional attributes, in a typical posture and setting. Around the main image in each case are smaller photos showing how the central picture was produced and composed. The text says:
Pray that we never see this day. Today more than 68 per cent of women in India are victims of domestic violence. Tomorrow, it seems like no woman shall be spared. Not even the ones we pray to.
This is an intriguing campaign in that the images are interesting and beautiful enough to draw the viewer in, even if he or she is not particularly interested in or sympathetic to the fight against domestic violence. The campaign also demonstrates that advertising, so long characterized as fundamentally unfriendly to women by feminist theorists, can be used for feminist purposes and to the end of raising consciousness about the oppression of women. The Indian agency, Taproot, has won a Lotus award for the posters.
The response in India must be mixed. Nihita Ja’s article, “Durga Doesn’t Need Saving,” written for Tehelka.com, gives you a sense of how this is affecting people there. It’s a passionate (and heart-breaking) litany against those who would pretend this violence is not a problem. You can imagine that a campaign with the Virgin Mary as an abuse victim would elicit a big response in the Christian world, with the people who would otherwise wish to ignore such issues drawn into the debate by the confrontation. This contradiction between the reverence of religion and the brute facts of daily life seems a powerful way to frame the debate.
Indian Cinema and a culture of violence against women
In an article published by Global Health Action, published online 2014 Jul 21, Whose problem is it anyway? Crimes against women in India, by B. L. Himabindu, Radhika Arora, and N. S. Prashanth, Indian cinema is referenced:
The portrayal of societal themes in popular cinema could be considered as a reflection of popular societal attitudes. In Indian cinema, ‘kissing’ was not allowed on-screen on the grounds of modesty until the mid-2000s. However, rape or izzat lootna (dishonouring) of women has been a recurrent theme and sub-theme in mainstream Bollywood cinema for decades now, examples are movies like Insaaf Ka Tarazu or more recently Woh Lamhe. Rape and subsequently avenging rape often forms the central narrative of many films.
Rape also appears as a sub-plot to reinforce the heroic role of male actors in films. The familiar portrayal of rape and sexual assault of women in cinema, however tacit, is disturbing in its lack of censorship (versus censorship of acts like kissing, for example) and its conflicting pervasiveness in a mainstream form of entertainment.
However, this is not to deflect from the limited, but realistic representation of rape and forms of sexual abuse in alternate films such as Bandit Queen (Shekhar Kapur, 1994) and Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair, 2001) which used the film media to bring the issues into mainstream discourse.
Another genre of mainstream media the saas–bahu serials (translation: mother-in-law and daughter-in-law soaps) have been acknowledged for their role in featuring other forms of violence and discrimination within Indian households.
At a time when the country is introspecting its treatment of women, it would be useful to remind ourselves that sexual violence in the popular media may be a way of highlighting issues of violence against women and may also, in many cases, be an echo of pervasive prejudices in our society. Although the presence and acceptance of violence against women in mainstream media in India warrants further research, its existence as a reflection of societal attitudes is indeed indisputable.
The article authors give this example:
In the 1978 film Ghar, a newlywed couple on their way home, are attacked by a group of young men (drinking, driving a car and listening to music). The wife is abducted and raped. The rest of the film/script aside, the construction of the 3 min sequence from 1978 could be considered reflective of society even today.
The point to note here is the portrayal of the woman.
She is portrayed as an honourable or a virtuous woman owing to the fact that she was (a) married; (b) she was walking with her husband when she was attacked. The rapists’ portrayal however was as men not known to the victim, but rather as indulgent young men out to have a good time in a car, under the influence of alcohol.
According to 2012 NCRB data, rapists were known to the victim in as many as 98.2% of the cases.
Earlier in the article the authors say:
In a democracy, it is said that the politicians are only as good as the people. The deep-rooted patriarchy of Indian society lay exposed when several people, including senior politicians, type casted the victims of sexual violence, as possibly having contributed to the perpetration of the crime. Some of the typical characterisations of the victims included women who dressed ‘provocatively’, ‘was out late in the night’ or was ‘behaving in a suggestive way that invited trouble’. Others suggested in an apparent gesture of sympathy that the rape victim becomes a living corpse indicating the life of shame that the victims of sexual abuse will be subjected to in the country.
The problem of gender-based violence runs very deep in India. The rape crisis is just one facet of the multitude of problems that reflect the gender discrimination scenario. These prejudicial attitudes are seen right from womb to tomb. They start with the practice of sex-selective abortion and infanticide, and continue through adolescent and adult life with high levels of female infant mortality, child marriage, teenage pregnancy, lesser wages for women, unsafe workplaces, domestic violence, maternal mortality, sexual assault and neglect of elderly women.
India has made great strides in terms of economic growth in the past decade. The increase in female literacy rates from 54% in 2001 to 65% in 2011 and improved maternal mortality ratio from 327 in 2001 to 178 in 2012 suggest a movement towards greater gender equality in the country. However, the 2011 census showed that the child sex ratio dropped to its lowest value since independence to 914 females for every 1,000 males, showcasing the continuing trend of boy preference. What is surprising is that socio-economic development alone does not modify this trend.
This is their summative conclusion . . .
Gender-based violence, especially violent crime like rape, is a multifaceted problem. To address this, it is essential to tackle various other concurrent issues that act as contributing factors and thus play an equally important role. An example for this is the portrayal of women in Indian cinema. This bears evidence to the deep-rooted prejudicial attitudes towards women and other deeper societal issues that are contributory to these crimes. Although the incorporation of stringent laws and stricter punishments are important to deter people from committing such crimes, the solution to this is much more than just promulgation. Though the amendment to criminal law addresses a few of these issues, it still falls short in many aspects. It is important to acknowledge that judicial reform is only one aspect; there is a more humane side to this whole issue. Legal solutions in the form of amendments to improve conviction rates could function as deterrents to such acts. However, in such a scenario health workers could play a key role in applying a gender lens to their work as healthcare providers, researchers and policymakers. In a country with gender discrimination operating at so many levels and in so many ways, bringing about the needed change requires dedicated and combined efforts of multiple agencies. While education and empowerment of women is a larger social process to which public health professionals may not be able to contribute directly, we urge health workers and public health professionals to facilitate improved access, utilisation and coverage of women in the services that we study, plan, implement and evaluate. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers, researchers and public health professionals need to respond to this social predicament individually and engage with this problem in their own families, organisations and communities.
A dark trade: Rape videos for sale in India
In kiosks in Uttar Pradesh, videos of what appear to be rapes from around the country are sold for less than $3.
by Asad Ashraf
31 Oct 2016
Uttar Pradesh, India - In this industrial northern state, you can buy footage of a woman being raped for the price of a cheap meal.
Al Jazeera found several videos that appeared to depict rape for sale across the state. They cost from Rs 20 to Rs 200 (30 cents to $3) and are transmitted to a customer's mobile phone in a matter of seconds.
The faces of the women are visible in these films. Their voices are clear. The attacks on them are brutal.
In Meerut, a city in western Uttar Pradesh, an area mostly known for the manufacturing of sporting goods, local contacts indicated that the movie files, marketed as "rape videos", were available in nearby villages.
With shopkeepers cautious about selling them to non-locals, one local man in the village of Incholi - roughly 15km from Meerut - agreed to buy one and show it to Al Jazeera.
Shahnawaz, who declined to use his real name, said that the videos are not generally made with the intention of being sold on the open market. Still, he's heard a lot about them.
"They make it to blackmail the victims [of rape] ... so that they don't go and file a complaint in the nearest police station," Shawnawaz explained.
Sometimes, he said, the videos are stolen from the perpetrator's phone when he takes his device to a shop for repairs. The stolen footage is then sold to anyone who asks for it.
Most shopkeepers are careful to sell the videos only to locals, and generally deny any knowledge of them. Some, however, agreed to share explicit videos, including rape clips, with Al Jazeera.
One of them admitted that he had many such "local films", as the videos are euphemistically referred to. There are watchwords in the trade - akin to a secret handshake - that let the sellers know that a customer seeks rape videos - as opposed to other pornography, which the kiosks also sell.
Once a rape video reaches one dealer, it spreads like wildfire, through applications such as WhatsApp, to other parts of the country. In fact, "WhatsApp sex videos" is one term used for rape videos in this part of the country.
In the village of Saharanpur in western Uttar Pradesh, one man who readily admitted that he frequently purchases pornography - particularly videos of rape - told Al Jazeera that he buys them from other nearby villages.
The videos he buys at shops and kiosks come mainly from other customers who sell the footage to the shopkeepers, he explained. He has a collection of these films on his laptop and described the rape footage as "pornography".
He watches the videos, he said, because they give him "peace of mind".
"One can only wonder what would have happened to these victims whose videos are being sold in the market. I don't doubt that many of them might have resorted to committing suicide."
Shaikha, a rape victim
'Rape video, what is this?'
While customers seem to be savvy to the availability of the latest rape video, local police appear to be oblivious.
When Al Jazeera contacted the Deputy Inspector General of Police for Saharanpur Range, J K Shahi, he said he did not know what a rape video was.
"Rape video ... ye kya hota hai (Rape video, what is this)?" he asked.
Upon being informed, he said that if provided with the video, he would take action.
The Inspector General of Police for Meerut Range, Ajay Anand, told Al Jazeera that he was too new to the job to know anything about the videos.
"I have been posted here recently. Hence I don't have any idea of these rape videos being sold in the market," he said.
"I am not in a position to comment. I don't know the authenticity of these rape videos. I need to see them first before making any comment."
Al Jazeera was able to buy several of the videos with relative ease from different locations.
A senior leader of the Bhartiya Janta Party, Sanjeev Balyan - who is also a member of parliament for Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh - said that he believes the government's insensitivity towards women is a major factor in the rise of sexual violence in the country.
"In my constituency, I have heard about such videos being sold but police have taken no concrete action to stop this social malice. This proves how insensitive this government is towards the safety of women and their dignity," he said.
"In states like Uttar Pradesh, there is no supremacy of rule and order. Police act at the orders of politicians; even local politicians have an influence on police forces," he added.
Dominance and extortion
The videos Al Jazeera saw were deeply disturbing, and included what appeared to be a minor. One woman begged her rapists to stop, saying that her only recourse would be suicide. Another begged her assailants to at least stop recording the attack.
Anti-rape activists said the making of such videos is largely a display of dominance.
Mangla Verma, a Delhi High Court lawyer, who also works with the Human Rights Law Network, explained: "Rape is seen as an assertion of power by a man over a woman. It is in this process that he films the act, showing that he can not only commit rape, but also record the same and circulate it among others."
"This is how patriarchy works," she added.
While it is difficult to confirm that all of the videos show footage of actual rape rather than emulating rape, their presence on the market is particularly troubling given the prevalence of sexual assault in the country.
"This reflects a culture of rape in this country. Rapes are not just being committed but also glorified through [the] sale of such videos. It is shameful that such a market exists right under the nose of the governments and there are buyers of such videos," said Brinda Karat, a former member of parliament in Rajyasabha and also a Politbureau member of the Communist Party of India.
"The state machinery has completely failed to curb it. It is ironical [sic] that ... a country where there are governments which are sending people to jail for possessing bottles of alcohol is so insensitive towards such crimes committed against women."
Indeed, despite introducing stringent laws to curb crime against women after the high-profile 2012 gang rape case, crimes against women continue to rise.
According to the National Crime Record Bureau of India, in 2014 a total of 337,992 incidents of violence against women were recorded, showing an increase of 9 percent over the previous year.
In 2015, the number of rape cases declined by 5.6 percent to 34,651 reported cases, down from 36,735 in 2014. However, other sexual offences, such as sexual harassment, stalking, voyeurism and "assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty", increased by 2.5 percent.
The news that such rape videos are being sold is of particular concern to victims of the crime, who fear that they will further perpetuate violence against women.
Sixteen-year-old Shikha (not her real name) is a victim of rape. She told Al Jazeera: "It is obnoxious to know that now such videos are being sold. I can only imagine the ordeal of those victims who have been filmed while being raped."
After she was raped in her village in March 2015, Shikha endured "shaming" by her classmates and had to drop out of school.
Her family pressed charges against her alleged rapist, who is currently incarcerated, awaiting trial.
"[The videos] will bolster the morale of the perpetrators who would now know that they cannot only commit such crimes with complete impunity, but also circulate the video of the crime," she said.
"I can only imagine what the women have to go through ... one can only wonder what would have happened to these victims whose videos are being sold in the market," said Shaikha.
"I don't doubt that many of them might have resorted to committing suicide."
A role model?
BRAINLESS BEDLAM
The damage that a rapist guru has caused to life and business in north India
By Manu BalachandranAugust 28, 2017
Over the past four days, India has helplessly watched a rapist hold parts of the country to ransom.
On Aug. 25, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan, a self-styled spiritual leader and head of the 70-million-strong Dera Sacha Sauda cult, was convicted of raping two female followers.
The verdict sparked an orgy of violence, with thousands of his followers going on a rampage killing 38 people and damaging property worth millions of rupees.
The turmoil began at the group’s headquarters in Sirsa near the Indian city of Chandigarh, the shared capital of the northern Indian states of Punjab and Haryana. It soon spread to India’s capital of New Delhi, some 250 kilometres away, forcing the police to bar the assembly of four or more persons at a public spot.
In Punjab and Haryana, mobs set fire to government buildings and attacked police and TV journalists, forcing the police to use tear gas, water cannons, and firing in the air.
With the court scheduled to read out the sentence on Aug. 28, panic has gripped the region with schools and colleges remaining shut and mobile and internet services across Punjab and Haryana being suspended. Meanwhile, the violence has reportedly spread to other northern Indian states, including Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
“I had said it in my address at the Red Fort that violence in the name of faith will not be tolerated whether it is communal belief systems, following a particular political ideology, whether it is allegiance to a person or customs and traditions,” prime minister Narendra Modi said on Aug. 27 as part of his monthly radio talk Mann ki Baat. “No one has the right to take law in their hands in the name of faith.”
Modi was speaking a day after the high court of Punjab and Haryana pulled him up for his government’s lack of preparedness, particularly since intelligence agencies had warned of trouble. “He is the prime minister of not the BJP but of India,” the court had said.
While there are no official estimates on the damages caused by the violence, the court has asked the government to attach the properties of the convict to pay for the damages. Here is a look at the destruction caused over the past few days.
Public transport
Soon after the conviction, Singh’s followers set two railway coaches on fire in New Delhi. Some 445 trains were cancelled across Punjab and Haryana while two stations in Punjab, Malout and Balluanna, were partially gutted.
The government now says service has been restored. However, the Delhi-Rohtak-Bathinda section is not yet operational and Indian Railways awaits security clearance for it.
With trains and bus services hit, airlines raked up fares. The one-hour flight between Chandigarh and New Delhi now costs between Rs9,000 and Rs15,000.
Hotels
Hotels in both Punjab and Haryana have faced severe loss.
The state has lost around Rs100 crore almost everyday since the verdict, Satish Arora, president of the Punjab Hotels, Bars & Restaurants Union, reckons. “The hotels began suffering losses three days before the verdict was to be pronounced. The guests staying in hotels checked out anticipating tense situation in the city post the verdict in the case. Only those guests who are stranded due to suspension of bus and railway services had stayed back in the hotels and the occupancy rate has fallen down to only about 10%,” The Tribune newspaper quoted Arora as saying.
In Haryana, too, bookings were cancelled between Aug. 25 and Sept. 05. “I have talked to most of my association members and they have informed me that around 80% of the bookings have been cancelled due to fear of any untoward situation in Haryana,” Manbir Choudhary, state president of the Hotel and Restaurants Association Haryana, said.
Traders
In Punjab, traders have lost between Rs5 crore and Rs6 crore every day over the past few days.
“The losses began not on Friday but a few days before that since people stopped stepping out, anticipating violence as Dera followers made their way to Panchkula,” Rajinder Raju, district president of the traders’ body, Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal, said.
It will be a few days before normalcy returns, the traders fear.
Garbage
With civic routines stopping abruptly, garbage has been piling up in many of the affected cities in the region.
In Bathinda, for instance, the municipal corporation had suspended collection of garbage for three days. “Owing to the curfew for several hours over these three days, garbage was not picked up from close to 64,000 households of the city and the secondary garbage picking points could be seen littered with trash,” The Tribune newspaper reported.
Schools
Schools and colleges across the two affected states have been shut for the past few days, including on Monday (Aug. 28).
Internet
Internet services in both Punjab and Haryana had been suspended since Aug. 24 and will remain suspended till Aug. 29.
“The Haryana government has extended the suspension of mobile internet services, including 2G, 3G, 4G, CDMA, and GPRS, all SMS services, and dongle services provided on mobile networks, except voice calls, in the state till 11.30am on Aug. 29,” Ram Niwas, an additional chief secretary in Haryana’s home ministry, said.
Broadband internet services at the Dera Sacha Sauda headquarters in Sirsa have also been suspended.
Update
Tragic rape cases have shocked the country. But the everyday suffering of 650 million Indian women and girls goes unnoticed
India is at war with its girls and women. The planned rape of eight-year-old Asifa in a temple by several men, including a policeman who later washed the clothes she was wearing to destroy evidence, was particularly horrific. Asifa’s rape has outraged and shaken the entire country. Yet sexual abuse in India remains widespread despite tightening of rape laws in 2013. According to the National Crimes Records Bureau, in 2016 the rape of minor girls increased by 82% compared with the previous year. Chillingly, across all rape cases, 95% of rapists were not strangers but family, friends and neighbours.
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