Surgical strikes against sexual violence, the need of the hour

With the government having changed hands in the amorphous 2014 elections, today India seems to be passing through another taxing phase. The political climate underwent a change, though the BJP was in power before. But the way it decimated the Congress in what was termed the “Modi wave”, it indeed washed over many states. No matter some states were won by political chicanery. 

But the country has been making news for all the wrong reasons. The so-called economic reforms have turned sour. Not only the ATMs have run dry, but the government has become porous, leaking in all possible ways. Allied with these ill winds, there has been the moral decay of the society. Rapes and other atrocities against the minorities is just a ripple, and would be forgotten with the passage of time. 

It’s not that the governmental machinery has broken down, but the will to act has gone missing. The cash crisis as the cause of demonetisation seems to have come to haunt the government. The trust deficit in the BJP has gone up, and the final verdict will come in 2019. 

To add to its woes, the string of rapes, the one in UP allegedly by a BJP MLA, has created a climate of fear. Rape is a rape by any other name, and religion matters not. Unless Beti Bachao has to have any meaning, it’s now or never that Modi sarkar must act.

That the Kathua rape happened in a temple makes it all the more agonising. The other subsequent rapes elsewhere, including one in Modi’s home state of Gujarat, shows India is slipping into moral decay. The rapes woke up the conscience of the nation and hope the voices of the people keep ringing in the ears of the government. 

It’s heartening to see a young female lawyer take up the Kathua rape case despite the threats and absurd, illogical strike by the bar association. In such a defiant stance, one can see a glimmer of hope amidst the engulfing gloom. To the 38-year-old lawyer, Deepika Thusoo Singh, goes credit and deep recognition of her bravery. India’s womenfolk need such valiant warriors to carry on their fight.

Earlier to this national disgrace, the violence unleashed by the Dalits over the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Schedule Caste/Schedule Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act is a grim reminder that the underclass of Indian society is still under duress. In this respect, one is surprised to see Modi attribute his success as PM to Dr BR Ambedkar. Add to this the forceful and needless addition of “Ramji” to Ambedkar’s name by the UP government. How low can the BJP get in its lustful greed to win the Dalit vote?

The latest gimmick was to pay homage to Bhagwan Basaveshwara in London by Modi and by Amit Shah in Bengaluru, as the duo often acts in tandem. Will the Bhagwan deliver the Lingayat vote in the forthcoming elections in Karnataka? Which way the dice will role in the state is hard to tell, though the BJP harps on securing at least 150 seats and dislodge the Congress. It’s Machiavellian politics at its best, to say the least.

As usual, Modi was at his eloquent best when addressing the Indian diaspora in UK. He boasted that Pakistan should know that it’s Modi they are dealing with, the one and only person who can deliver a “surgical strike” into the very heart of nations or, for that matter, people. Well, speaking to “converted” people is one thing, and speaking to dissenters is another.

I just finished reading a book, Ants among Elephants, by Sujatha Gidla, where the author gives anecdotal as well as a telling commentary on the lives of Dalits. She writes that as an “untouchable Christian girl”, she saw “abject poverty” around her, and how these “traditional Christians” are not eligible for reservation quotas. At the Jaipur Lit Fest, Gidla called Mahatma Gandhi “casteist and racist”. That Gandhi was looked down by Dalits was first brought to my notice in a photocopied book given to me by a Dalit acquaintance in Toronto. Dalits believe that Gandhi calling them Harijans (Children of God) has forever caged them into a social hole.

An IIT alumnus and now working as a bus conductor on New York’s subway system, Gidla pays tribute to her maternal uncle, SM Satyamurthy, a Robin Hood-type leader of the Naxalite movement in Andhra Pradesh. The armed struggle was crushed but the fight of the oppressed people continues in other forms to this day.

There was a recent Hindu-Dalit clash in Punjab, just as it was in Pune and Mumbai in January. These communal flashes of violence bring back memories of the Worli riots during my days in Mumbai in the 70’s. The Dalits’ struggles – and lives – brought to me visually in films, Jai Bhim Comrade and In the Name of God, by Anand Patwardhan, makes me realise why these oppressed people are angry and frustrated. 

Just when I finished writing this piece, came the news (late on Friday) that more rapes, involving infants, have been reported in MP and UP. This forced me to include this para and resend this piece. As much as India is outraged by anger knows no bounds. 

Surgical strikes against sexual violence and efforts to empower Dalits are the need of the hour instead of appropriating Dr Ambedkar and playing identity politics for electoral gains.

(Eugene Correia is a senior journalist who worked for the Free Press Journal, and The Hindu)