India is not a country for women and I say this after having lived in this country for twenty-four years. The nation was shaken to its core when the news of brutal rape and murder of a 26-year-old veterinarian from Hyderabad came to light. We cried when a 17-year-old girl from Harayana was gang-raped twice in five months. And completely lost our faith in the judicial system when a rape survivor from Unnao was set on fire a year after being brutalised. The past two weeks just brought to the forefront what we’ve been trying to say all this while, that women here are treated as second-grade citizens.
As a society are we going to look at the staggering sexual assault statistics and say, “Enough is enough”?
According to the most recent government data, more than 32,500 cases of rape were registered with the police in 2017 that makes it about 90 a day. That year, only about 18,300 cases related to rape were disposed of by the Indian courts, leaving more than 127,800 cases pending at the end of 2017. Unfortunately, it isn’t limited to only India. This blatant display of sexual dominance is a worldwide phenomenon.
Maybe this is why the anthem against sexual violence, The Rapist Is You, struck a chord with everyone across the world. Created by four performance artists from a Chilean feminist group, this song has got women together saying that no really means NO.
The group called, Las Tesis, said that they had never imagined that this protest song and its powerful message would be so widely accepted and echoed by women across the world. On November 20, it was first performed in Valparaiso in Chile and has now been replicated hundreds of times by women everywhere. The video has gone viral with millions of views pouring in.
The women in unison sang- “The fault is not with me, nor where I was, nor how I was dressed… The rapist is you!”
Stomping their feet, dressed in black, wearing red scarves and blindfolds, women waved their arms in a choreographed routine and chanted, “Patriarchy is a judge who punishes us for being born and our punishment is violence that you don’t see.”
There have been similar performances by women in Paris, Barcelona, and Mexico City.
Watch the video here:
Now, Indians have joined in the movement by starting a Facebook page A Rapist In Your Way Intervention India Chapter In Solidarity. They even translated the powerful Chilean anthem in Hindi, challenging patriarchal norms that plague our country. Talking about ‘Brahmanical patriarchy’, nuances of caste and gender in the country, the song brings to light the plight of people from different sections of society.
Here are the lyrics of the Hindi anthem:
Women gathered at Jantar Mantar, Delhi blindfolded and stomped their feet singing the anthem in unison. The videos and photos are now going viral with similar flashmobs being organised all across the country. It also happened in Mumbai at 3 PM today.
Watch the video here:
We are still acting as bystanders as crimes against women are increasing throughout the world. No amount of words and condolences can ever be enough for the survivors who deal with the trauma of being sexually violated for the rest of their lives. Our judicial system struggles globally to come up with any concrete decision on how to enforce laws to make the country safer for women. Our lawmakers still cling on to regressive laws on sexual violence and in many cases fail to protect the survivors from the perpetrator even after the crime has been committed. However, social consciousness is increasing and these worldwide protests are proof. We just hope that men join this fight too because leaving this reckoning to only half the population is not fair.
Featured Image: India Today
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