India’s Escalating Crisis of Violence Against Women

There are helpless victims, with parents too vulnerable or weak to protect their children from the mafia. It goes without saying that in this bleak scenario, politicians are too busy distracting the masses with provocative tactics by Humra Quraishi

Rapes and sexual assaults continue… one after the other. In the last two weeks, news reports of rape and sexual assault cases have come in from Uttarakhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Mind you, these are the reported cases. And what about the hundreds of rape and sexual assault cases that go unreported!

There is perversion and total anarchy! Today no woman, child or teenager feels safe and secure. There is fear in every sense of the word. Let us not overlook a related fact: hundreds and thousands of women and girls are going missing in the country. A total of 10,61,648 women went missing from 2019 to 2021 across the country. At the same time, 2,51,430 girls went missing during the same period.

Last summer, on July 26, 2023, Home Minister Ajay Kumar Mishra told the Rajya Sabha: 10,61,648 women above 18 years and 2,51,430 girls below 18 years went missing across the country between 2019 and 2021. “In 2019, the number of girls and women who went missing was 82,084 and 3,42,168 respectively, while in 2020, 79,233 girls and 3,44,422 women went missing.”

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB): 82,619 girls went missing in 2019 and 49,436 were recovered. In the same year, 3,29,504 women went missing and 1,68,793 were recovered. In 2020, 79,233 girls and 3,44,422 women went missing. Of these, 2,24,043 women were recovered, while the number of girls recovered in 2019 was not given. “In 2021, 90,113 girls went missing and 58,980 were recovered. 3,75,058 women went missing and 2,02,298 were recovered.”

Safety and survival of a woman or even a child is difficult… getting more difficult. Let us not forget the Kuki women raped and murdered in Manipur, the Hindutva campaigns in favour of the rapists and murderers of 8-year-old Asifa Bano living in Kathua, and the cover-up of the Hathras rape victim who was cremated in the middle of the night by the state machinery!

Helpless victims, with parents who are simply too vulnerable or weak to protect their offspring from the mafia. Needless to say, in this bleak scenario, politicians are simply too busy distracting the masses, with provocative tactics along the Hindu-Islamic stream!

Even when murderers-murderers-rapists are arrested, don’t forget that even convicted rapists are now released on parole… on furlough. All those Who’s Who rapists can be out for long or short periods. To name a few, Asaram Bapu is out of jail on parole for seven days. Gurmeet Ram Rahim of Dera Sacha Sauda has been granted twenty-one days’ parole… And don’t forget that last year those eleven men convicted of raping Bilkis Bano were released prematurely, until they were re-imprisoned, of course, by order of the Supreme Court.

And if one wonders why this acceleration of crimes against women, it is best to quote Brinda Karat from her latest book – Hindutva and violence against Women (Speaking Tiger Books) – “In India, through the experience of our own history and through the freedom struggle, we have understood the status of women, including the various forms and methods of violence against women, within the context of political, socio-economic, cultural realities, including the caste system. If we look at the problem of violence against women in this broader framework, we see the changing dimensions of violence against women in India today. By change, I do not necessarily mean something ‘new’ – the intensification of existing, negative and sometimes toxic trends, which are becoming the dominant trend due to a host of factors, are also contributing to change. These changes are taking place as a result of the dominance that the right-wing communal and sectarian forces have acquired in the political and social life of India…”

Today we dare not call ourselves educated, when only last week those disturbing images came out of a man in Rajasthan tying his wife to his bike and dragging her everywhere, in full view of the public. Why? Just because she dared to visit her sister’s house! This is the level of barbaric cruelty we have reached!

Have we bothered to think about the sad aspect that if this level of abuse and attacks is happening in the public domain, what must be happening in the so-called ‘maximum security places’ where prisoners survive within those guarded gates and high walls all around. What could happen there!

And not to forget the blatant violence unleashed on women and children during riots and pogroms and forced shifts-cum-displacements. Easy targets, they are forced to keep quiet about all sexual assaults. Otherwise, the political gangsters along with the mafia could tear them to pieces. Several victims of sexual violence during riots told me that they had no choice but to keep quiet for their survival and that of their families and clans.

Today, the safety and security of women seems to be at the lowest level, with the political mafia calling the shots. No wonder; with general degeneration, the vulnerable are not only being attacked but are being ruined forever. Look how helpless the national and international champions were – Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat and a few others. Their careers ruined, because the tainted men had to be protected under the various political guises!

And with the latest trend of bulldozing homes, women and their entire families are forced to sit, squat or stand outside their demolished homes. One wonders: where are all those people who are harping on about the safety of girls and women? Don’t they realize that with homes and homes demolished, entire families are forced to survive without a roof over their heads? Vulnerable they are! Yes, their vulnerability at its peak, when they are forced to sit by the side of the road.

And where are the day and night shelters where the human forms can survive? Absolutely striking is the sad situation for those whose homes have been bulldozed or where bulldozers are parked right in front of their lanes and side streets.

Homeless-jobless-poor, is perhaps the worst combination to survive in these tough times, but thousands are faced with exactly this reality. Made worse by the fact that the all too powerful country and the political mafia are watching them. As if the hawks are just waiting to pounce on the property of one of the unfortunate vulnerable!

In this atmosphere of political pollution, chaos continues. Instead of addressing the root problem in all its dimensions, politics takes over. It is sickening to see the perverted levels we have reached, where even rapists could gain some level of advantage, could go along with political trends. The glaring case was that of the three rapists accused of raping a student of IIT Varanasi. They were formally arrested only after 60 days! Why the delay when their whereabouts were already known? The accused men were said to be close to the top! Ample photographic evidence of this has surfaced, in which they are seen posing with the rulers of that time! Mind you, this is not or was not one of those rare cases.

And in the midst of these barbaric attacks we are told that we are moving forward…progressing…Where to! Only towards disasters that befall the vulnerable human being, fed on the stale diet of communal hatred and friction and insane attacks!

Where is our collective outrage! Where are we going in this atmosphere where the rulers of the day play games, while our bodies and souls are being torn apart… hundreds of our fellow citizens are being attacked, ruined and numbed!

Let us stop the empty speeches of the political party on Women’s Day and Human Rights Day! Empty promises mean nothing when the reality on the ground is getting worse day by day.