Topic- Rape and Its Impact on Indian Contemporary Society

INTRODUCTION
The practice of Rape, or the concept of it, perhaps, came from the Latin language, the
word rapere, meaning “to steal, seize, or carry away.” Throughout all of history, this was
also subjected to women and throughout most of history, rape was not viewed as a
crime because women were considered property, and, therefore, without rights. Like
taking land, men took women as an act of aggression; an affirmation of their strength
and masculinity showcased to the rest of society.
Whether it is Christian biblical stories of Lilith or ancient Greco-Roman mythical figures
like Medusa, mythologies are permeated by rapes. They are neither questioned nor
critically examined, but simply accepted as part of gendered bodies’ lived experiences.
They are constitutive for the preservation of rape myths and the normalisation of
sexualised violence against gendered persons.

A crime is an act that violates law. But until then, there were no laws or amendments
pertaining to women’s safety, so would Rape, i.e. Sexual Assault, really be considered a
crime? When talking about this you also have to consider the different aspects of a
crime. The legalities, the social significance, the impact, and so much more. In order to
understand rape you have to ask when the transition happened to something like our
modern rape consciousness and our contemporary rape laws.
The relative absence of a crime or even of a political consciousness of rape does not
mean that women did not suffer, did not have their dignity and selfhood stripped away,
were not invaded or defamed or left powerless or afraid over hundreds of years. Of
course, in this sense, rape began when the first woman’s body was breached through
penetration against her will, when she could not fight back, when she was too scared to
say no, when her body was occupied. But from the perspective of the state, or even of
most of civil society, the women who survived this, which we now call “rape” had no
remedy.
The legal recognition of rape, was indeed recent. It was made possible by the new
ideas associated with the rise of capitalism from the sixteenth century onwards, and by
the campaigns of the “second wave” of women’s liberation from the 1960s onwards.

But all of that that is discussed above has pertained to the Western ideals, western
geographical proximity. This particular project file discusses the concept of Sexual
Assault and its societal impact on India, our home. It will then, obviously, not conform to
Western theories. It is incredibly important for us to understand that India, as a
nation-state emerged under very different as well as difficult circumstances. By the time
it took the West to emerge with technological advances, India was still navigating the
throes of independence. In Indian mythology, there are several instances of sexual
violence. Ahalya’s story is one of the most known ones where Indra disguised himself
as her husband Gautama, had sexual relations with her, for which both of them were
cursed by Gautama when he found out. She was turned into a stone, forced to be
invisIble until Sri Ram came and broke her curse. Support of numerous more examples
depicts how patriarchal standards appropriate the character of a woman to her sexual
relationships, and reduces her purpose to child-bearing. Most cultures are so obsessed
with the lineage of chastity, and virginity that imposing restrictions on women’s sexual
freedom and agency became a norm , especially in Indian societies.

The weaponizing of women’s bodies has always been part of the fabric of South Asia,
with mass rapes in 1947 and 1971 being integral to the birth of the three most populous
countries in the region. Women’s bodies became a battlefield for national honor, and the
shame continues to be laid on the door of the victim while perpetrators face no
repercussions.
The India-Pakistan Partition exposed this deeply ingrained misogyny in the most brutal
fashion. When Muslim, Hindu and Sikh men wanted to take revenge for their peers
being killed by the other, they deliberately went out searching for women of other
religions to rape and kidnap. When villages were confronted with angry mobs, the
women were told to commit suicide by jumping in the well for their own benefit rather
than fall in the clutches of the others.
However, in recent times, the concept of Marital Rape has also gained increased
attention, both in Indian and Western Societies.

Starting off, The relationship between rape and marriage was and is key. Most rapes
happen in long-term relationships; and even now the large majority of long-term sexual
relationships are marriages, The judicial hostility to the idea of rape in marriage (and
therefore, to a significant extent, to the idea of rape itself) derived from a certain
understanding of the family which now seems rather stereotypical, but was the idea of
the family which dominated under capitalism until recently. Once society started to see
long-term relationships as being capable of resulting in rape, the policing of rape and its
judicial punishment were utterly transformed. Marital Rape was criminalised both in the
United States and the United Kingdom in 1993 and 2003 respectively.
India is disappointingly one of the fewest countries, out of 36, in the world today that
explicitly decriminalises marital rape, despite being a signatory of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Exception 2 of section 375 of the Indian Penal
Code states that “Sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife
not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape”. This regressive law is based on the
patriarchal notion that a woman irrevocably consents to sexual intercourse once she
enters matrimony.
The National Family Health Survey found that between 2019-2021, 32% of married
women experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence by their current husbands
(15.6.1), and 82% of married women aged 18-49 who have experienced sexual violence
reported their current husbands as the perpetrators (15.3.2). However, it is important to
note that, according to the same survey, 9.9 out of 10 cases of sexual assault go
unreported in India, which shows how sexual violence may be much more prevalent
than survey data appears to show. This project file also surveys people’s opinion on the
Marital Rape Exception.
One of the critical issue to address is with the relationship between predatory sexual
violence and urban destitution — an enormous, unsolved challenge in India. The Delhi
rapists inhabited a very brutal environment, with sexual and physical violence,
degradation, and extreme destitution facts of daily life. Being exposed to violence from
the get-go does not promote a sense of the integrity or the delicacy of the human body
or a respect for civic values. It generates despair, anger, fury, a sense of desperate
social rejection. Men are not naturally violent. India still has extremely high rates of child
marriage, of teenage pregnancy, domestic violence. There’s still a sense that boys and
men are fed before girls and women, so that if there’s not enough milk to go around in a
family, it goes to the boys. Ways in which women are not valorized are endemic in
society. Once the sense that women are less important in some way is endemic and
accepted, as it is, once large sections of Indian society accept that women are there to
service men, that men are justified in hitting their wives, then pervasive gender violence
comes as no great surprise.
The effects of rape to a community or society will essentially revolve around the
response the community makes. In the “First World” or more highly developed
countries, community response will commonly be positive and encouraging for the
victim. Communities provide emotional support for the victim and help her get over the
trauma she has faced. But the scenario is notably different in certain societies like Asia,
Africa, and other developing or underdeveloped countries where rape victims are
neglected or the crime itself is not prioritized, community response would often be in a
negative way. India being a conservative country, many Indians look down upon girls
who are outgoing and prefer to wear western clothes. People often blame the girl for
sending out wrong signals to men, thus making her vulnerable to rape. In cases where a
woman is raped, she is always in fear of being marked a woman of bad character, which
ultimately prevents her from reporting the crime. Again, society plays such big role in an
individual’s life.
In India, where the battle against sexual violence has been ongoing for years, the role of
the media in shaping public perceptions and influencing policy decisions cannot be
overstated. The way rape cases are portrayed in the Indian media has long been a
subject of concern and debate. Indian media has a tendency to sensationalize rape
cases. While it is essential to bring such heinous crimes to the public’s attention, some
media outlets go to great lengths to garner eyeballs, often at the expense of the victim’s
dignity. The 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape case in Delhi serves as a prime example of
sensationalized reporting. While the incident rightfully generated widespread outrage,
some media outlets used sensational headlines and graphic details, which many argue
contributed to a circus-like atmosphere during the trial. The focus often shifted from the
crime itself to the gruesome nature of the assault, overshadowing the larger issue of
gender-based violence.
A few days before a sexual assault case in Hyderabad in November 2019, a Dalit
woman who sold utensils and balloons was raped and murdered in a village in
Telangana, 129 km from Adilabad. The Deccan Chronicle carried a story about her
husband complaining that the state government did not respond, perhaps because they
were poor and Dalit, nor did the civil society. Nor did the media.

The lack of interest in the media about crimes away from regular beats and metropolitan
areas has a direct impact on our understanding of the extent of violence against
women, especially poor and marginalised women, and the reasons for it. In fact, in the
week before and after the Hyderabad rape, several such horrific incidents were reported
from different parts of the country. But only one was pursued by the media.

Media coverage sometimes inadvertently reinforces stereotypes and victim-blaming

attitudes, which can have detrimental consequences for survivors and society as a
whole. For eg- The 2018 Kathua rape case, involving the brutal rape and murder of an
eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir, saw some media outlets perpetuating harmful
stereotypes and communal narratives. Instead of focusing on the crime itself, certain
media reports gave undue attention to the religion and community of the accused and
the victim, thereby diverting attention away from the need for justice.

However, as the times have moved forward, so has the media and its outlook on what
they wish to represent to the viewers of the country. Media is the one thing that actively
promotes criticism towards the nation, its infrastructure itself. It challenges the people to
ALSO ask questions. In recent years, some media organizations have taken steps to
adopt more responsible reporting practices. They have started using more sensitive
language, respecting victim anonymity, and focusing on the broader issues surrounding
sexual violence. Additionally, these outlets have provided platforms for survivors to
share their stories in a dignified and empowering manner.

Further mentioned in the survey attached is India’s rather unfortunate title card as the
‘Rape Capital’ of the world, along with the respondents’ view on the statement.
Articles in the news media about why India is the ‘rape capital of the world’ are often
based on perceptions, superficial comparisons, and incomplete — or incomparable —
statistics. There are no international standards, and different nations collect and classify
sexual violence in different ways that comparisons — as this article clarifies — need to
be made with utmost caution. Writing up rape and sexual violence as an ‘Indian
problem’ and decrying ‘India’s rape culture’ are problematic not just because this gives
India a bad name.

Rape culture is a sociological setting in which rape and sexual violence are normalized.
This type of culture grows from rape jokes, sexist behaviour, acceptance of toxic
masculinity, victim blaming, and violent acts against women. In simple words, it is a
culture where victims are blamed and shamed as in, they asked for it, and perpetrators
are protected. It trivializes sexual assaults and acts and makes them seem very normal.
This type of culture judges the affected women and places the onus on their safety on
their conduct.
Phrases such as 'Boys will be Boys' is a known examples of the shield which these
perpetrators get which supports rape culture. I have always hated this saying as it let
them make mistakes without fearing consequences while girls on the other hand suffer.
In doing so, the news media also help shift the focus away from what is happening in
the West and elsewhere, helping to hide away the ‘rape culture’ there from public
attention.
While we do recognise that rape is a global issue and not just ‘India’s problem’, the
instances say something else. Seven men have been accused of brutally gang raping a
Spanish tourist in the Dumka district of the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand. The
28-year-old vlogger, in March 2023, was traveling with her husband to India. In a
separate incident just days after the attack on the Spanish tourist, police said a
21-year-old stage performer from Chhattisgarh was allegedly gang raped by her
co-artistes in Jharkhand's Palamu district.These horrific attacks come on the heels of
another incident over the weekend when a 17-year-old girl was allegedly gang raped by
two men when she was returning home after attending a wedding function in the
Hathras district of northern Uttar Pradesh.
The crude and frighteningly brutal nature of these attacks have shocked Indian society
and once again thrust the issue of women's safety into the spotlight. Brutal rapes have
been reported in India on a near-daily basis, and reports of ghastly sexual assaults have
risen in recent years. An average of nearly 90 rapes a day were reported in India in
2022, according to data from India's National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
The true figure is likely to be much higher, as many such crimes go unreported due to
fear of reprisal, prevailing stigmas around victims and rape hysteria.

The advent of the ‘internet’ and ‘world wide web’ in India has significantly influenced
pornography distribution and access. It has provided legal loopholes and made
monitoring difficult, aiding the manufacturers and distributors, while for the consumer
round-the-clock availability, easy accessibility and anonymity were served. Internet
access in India has grown from 5 million in 2004 to 40 million in 2007 and continues to
grow at the rate of 17% a year, according to web metrics firm.[6] India's growth rate is
the third highest in the Asia Pacific region.
The well-known feminist dictum: “Pornography is the theory — rape is the practice” has
raised serious concern,[8] especially among parents and policy makers. Defining what
constitutes pornography plays a crucial role in research, policy, and law making.
The term pornography is defined as “the portrayal of sexual subject matter exclusively
for sexual arousal, which can be presented in various media like video, film, video
games, writing, magazines, and animation.”2 Pornography has appeared in various
cultures around the world in some or the other way. Excess watching of porn is now an
emerging social and public health concern. The main controversy of pornography
revolves around pornographic addiction, and its consequences.3 There might be a
significant association of sociofunctional and psychological impairment with addictions
to pornography.2 Internet pornography addiction also comes under substance
dependence.4 People use the Internet as a source to access sexually explicit material,
sexual interactions, and cybersex. Alongside Internet access in India, accessing
pornography material has also increased, with 12% of websites related to pornography.5
Most people have convenient access to pornography. It has been estimated that 90% of
boys and 60% of girls under the age of 18 have been exposed to pornography, with the
average age of first exposure being 12 years.
It is a popular notion that pornography influences the behavior of Indian men more than
in other cultures. Trans-cultural variations are described as the common reason. In
India, any discussion about sex is considered “taboo,” and most people do not have
even basic sex education. Sex education provides factual information about sexuality,
which counteracts the messages about sexuality presented in pornography.[37] Without
adequate sex education, it is suggested that pornography would serve to act as a
“permission giving” agency by promoting wrong notions about the sexuality of women
and children, thus breeding sexual violence.
The Indian judiciary has shown a mixed trend over the years. While the period
immediately after independence, up to the seventies witnessed a conservative and
narrow minded judicial system, the late eighties and nineties have seen the emergence
of the judicial activism which reached its highest in Saakshi vs. Union of India[iii].
Nevertheless, instances of injustice being heaped on the victim have continued to
persist.
The Nandan Kanan rape case of Orissa of the nineties, where a pregnant woman was
raped by three NCC cadets while her husband was held hostage. The Supreme Court
interpreted it as a case of consensual sexual intercourse where the consent
purportedly was given by the husband of the victim since she was not his ‘legally
wedded first wife’. The court also stressed on the point that she was a midwife and
therefore experienced andeven the strongest man could not ever dare to rape her.
Ridiculous it may seem, but the truth stands out harsh and naked.
A number of constitutional protections are also available to an accused under Articles
20, 21 and 22 of the Constitution of India 1950;[vi] but, unfortunately, very few legal
provisions exist in our criminal law and Constitution to provide succor to the victim. In
the public mind, the interests of the offender seem to have greater attention than the
interests of the victims.
Over the years the offence of rape has been an issue which is dealt by government only
as a result of public outrage after new and more barbarous incidents take place.
Because of this our system still fails to provide the victims a safe and protective
environment.
Even though there have been progressive reforms in the laws, there are some debated
issues such as marital rape, gender neutrality in rape laws etc., as reported by the
Justice Verma Committee, which need to be taken into account with immediate effect.
There are a number of cases which are not reported because of the fear of being
humiliated by the society. Victims are harassed at every step, from police stations to
courtrooms. From the inadequate healthcare system to law enforcement system, every
step during the struggle of seeking justice adds up to the trauma of the victims. The
society we live in plays a vital role in becoming a barrier in obtaining justice. Thus, the
impact of the laws can never be fully realized until and unless the change comes from
within the society along with the legislative reforms.
Rape impacts society by attacking the cohesion and mutual protection that makes a
society.

Rape is a hate crime, expressed in the violent exercise of physical violation as a means to
an end (the delivery of the hatred).

When we allow such crimes to go without the most vigorous, the most vigilant investigation
and punishment we allow for whole segments of society to be diminished - to put it more
bluntly, we are saying we are ok with that.

Rape as a tool of terror and subjugation in war. If we do not punish it, we are ok with it.
Rape as a means of control and dominance in primitive and backwards - sorry, not inclined
b to mince my words here - societies. If we do not punish it, we are ok with it.
Even for those of us living in comfortable, established societies with laws about how often
we have to cut our grass and taxes and everything, have conviction rates for rape far out of
kilter with conviction rates for e.g. Grevious Bodily Harm [1]. If we do not correct this, at the
very least we are admitting it is is not a collective priority and you could argue - we are ok
with it.

We've recently - very recently - crawled out of the sewer in terms of how we handle other
hate crimes: crimes of racism for example. It is about time we stopped thinking of rape as
having any other characteristic other than that of being a hate crime and approach its
detection and punishment accordingly.

That we do not at present do so is an acid on the bonds of society. If we are ok with it, it will
continue to eat at those bonds until we no longer have a society that we would recognise as
such [2].

In contemporary times, the clichés set by mythologies are often subconsciously followed
to justify/normalise sexual violence. Often just like the mythological stories of the past,
the victim/survivor is reduced to be a symbol of bravery, face of activism or a subject of
popular media. The rape victim/survivor is converted into some kind of a “beacon” for
symbolic activism, vigilante justice or just publicity marches and protests. The victim is
even sometimes denied her name and is granted a forced nomenclature, like Nirbhaya
in the case of Jyoti Singh.

Several socio-cultural factors that possibly contribute to sexual aggression

against women; the psychological consequences of rape on the victims; and the
role of societal norms that indirectly result in increased incidents of sexual
assaults. The results would facilitate recognition, development, and
implementation of social interventions to control the prevalence of rape in the
country.

RATIONALE
The increasing number of sexual assault cases in Indian contemporary society signify
the need for effective and systemic changes at the local level, and need for change in
their societal mindset.
Measures start at societal level. And, a society is organized by its administration.The
State and the police. More effective arrests, more police accountability, speedier trials,
adequate criminal justice resources so that gender justice is delivered properly.
Secondly, social measures. People generally are not comfortable talking about sexuality
or reproductive rights or issues like menstruation or sexual desire, even within the
family, let alone within the classroom or the workplace. As a result, there’s an enormous
amount of ignorance and denial.The problem is not one of curriculum, it is of society’s
understanding of gender-based violence and crimes.
What is needed is a dramatic shift in the gender norm balance. There are all sorts of
ways one can do that: formally in the classroom, but also through extracurricular
activities, through sports, through parent groups, through soap operas on television.
There are a large variety of different ways for attempting to change public culture.
Unfortunately, the lack of initiative and the normalization of people’s attitudes towards
GBV is also prevalent in contemporary Indian society.
Effective measures by both people and the administrations should be implemented.
This research project includes a survey, in which responses of both genders, from
varying age-structures have been collected.

OBJECTIVES-
The objective or desired outcome for the conduction of this study are as follows:
1. To understand the societal behaviour when an individual suffers from such a
traumatic event as Sexual Assault.
To further elaborate, everything is done for a reason, or has a reason. When a person
commits a crime, he or she does so for a multitude of reasons, reasons s/he himself
may not be aware of. Psychological or Behavioral tendencies play a vital part here.
Consequently, when a crime is committed, it impacts the individual, their close ones,
their surroundings, their financial environment and so much more. It is never limited to
the individual alone. This study is done to inquire deeper into the behavioral tendencies
that lead people to commit this crime, and also examine the societal impact, collateral
impact and damage it creates, both to the lives of the victim and the assailant.

HYPOTHESIS-
This research project illustrates that an individual’s perception of rape, or its impact, is
always affected by their societal environment, which is a hindrance to the development
of a nation state in itself. Common misconceptions and ideas about rape will prevail in a
developing society such as India, than those societies that have already developed.
The notion that women are incapable of taking care of themselves alone is ingrained
when they are instructed from a young age to keep a woman—their future wife or
sister—under their care and control.

SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE-
The reason I have chosen this particular topic for my research project, i.e. Rape and It’s
Impact on Contemporary Indian Society, is because of the intertwined phenomenon of
Psychological tendencies and Sociological Impact that lies at the centre of the heinous
crime of Rape. With the context of India as a developing society, people’s mindsets and
ideas must develop too. It does not do well to stay rigid while the world, the nation
around you, is moving forward.
While it is agreed that so much change has taken place in India, whether its new laws
that have been put in place to punish those who commit crimes against women, and the
evolving urban structures that have developed, this misperception of India being ‘unsafe
for women’ still exists. If it’s still considered acceptable to beat your wife, then it’s
certainly considered acceptable to beat your children, and that’s the first hurdle.
I have chosen this topic to examine WHAT exactly is preventing the social mindset of
people from moving ahead, for breaking out of rigid standards. While I, as a researcher,
cannot do anything for such a drastic and major change on how people see Rape, I can
certainly try bring a change in what houses their ideas, i.e.- their mind.

METHODOLOGY-