The Nirbhaya episode sounded a chilling alarm to the urban Indian woman. The peals of that alarm have been kept from dying down and even amplified by the Shakti Mills case and the many other cases of rape and sexual assault that have been reported since. Recent reports from Bangalore of a 22-year old's being abducted and ravaged in a moving car, and a 19-year old inebriated and assaulted by a one-time boyfriend have kept the IT capital from feigning ignorance of the alarm. Yet, it was the story that jumped at Bangaloreans in between these two reports that shocked them into focused silence: the story of the six-year old girl who was molested at her upmarket East Bangalore school.
The reaction to this story has come alive in the physical word, breaking free from the condemnations and demands for justice on the internet. Unchecked outrage has been directed at the school authorities for their insensitive attempt at hiding the horrid happening on campus, and at the police for a slowly progressing investigation into the crime. After a suspect was rounded up, there has been a clamor for a quick trial and exemplary punishment that can preclude a similar occurrence in the future.
Yet, given the tepid response to earlier reports of assault, it seems the unequivocal and united campaign has been forged by how old the victim is, the site of the crime, and the position of intrinsic trust that the suspect had. Her age has ensured that even the most cynical conservative has been unable to politicize the matter, charge her with implicit complicity, and insensitively suggest that she brought it unto herself because of her liberal comportment. And on a school day, during school hours, the school is where one would expect her to be, and more secure there than at any place else. Also, even if her parents were to have had her memorize a list of people she needs to be wary of, ranking each individual she comes across every day, an instructor would have figured only above a teacher, who would be propping up the list.
In essence, this episode has been the culmination of the shattering of stereotypes that has been afoot ever since we collectively grieved for Nirbhaya, dispelling all previously held putative classifications of rapists and their victims based on age, familiarity, educational qualification, profession, spiritual and cultural predisposition, reputation, eminence, modern and antiquated world views, India and Bharat, among others. Certainty prevails only with regard to the genders of the perpetrators and their victims.
Strange as it may seem, there is a certain security in stereotypes, a comfort in classification. Now, it seems that every woman should beware every man, for in him lurks a rapist biding his time, awaiting the right setting in which he may emerge. Going strictly by the legal definition of rape, only the wife may not have to fear her husband. Trauma, however, has no technicalities.
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