No country for men

“Their parents died in a road accident. Poor things. When they came back to school we found out they were living with the father’s sister because their grandmother was too old to take care of them. She should have tried more, after all they are her grandchildren. Who knows what the uncle is like. And with the girl so young...”

And so, with these few, simple words a mans character was called into question. I have many uncles. And none of them have looked at me as anything but a kid (albeit a misguided one sometimes.) And this is normal. That is to say that these are not abnormal saintly people, they are absolutely normal people with tedious faults which I would be glad to point out. And also, this whole not being molested by your relatives is also a normal thing. The opposite situation, is actually not. 

And yet, when I looked about me in that room when she made that statement, they were all nodding. Why? Because he is a man and men are pigs you know. As simple as that. Maybe he was a Delhi man. They’re the absolute worst kind of men. The kind of men who make Delhi the most unsafe city on the face of the earth. Thankfully for me, the journalists are out there in hoards today to make sure that I know exactly what is wrong with Delhi and well, India too. They know how to set it right too. Death Penalty – that will fix ‘em.

Although somehow, it didn't. Then we figured out what the real problem was. THE SYSTEM. The police move too slowly; the judiciary don’t convict enough people. Conviction rates for rape cases is about 25% - and this is for cases which were decided. They are letting all those rapists get away!!! And that my dear friends, is what makes India so unsafe.

The numbers unfortunately, do not seem to agree. The “rape rate” in India is 2 per 100,000 people (2008 to 2012) period. For US, the same number is much higher at 28.6. Sweden at 66.5 and South Africa at 114.9. Now of course, we have the problem of unreported cases. Obviously that number is much higher. However, studies indicate that even there, India is not on the top. Meaning, Delhi really may not be the most unsafe city in the world.

All this is not to say that rape in India exists only in our imagination or that India is a safe place for women. But heck, it ain’t very safe for men either. In fact if we go by the reported rape cases in Delhi, they paint a bleaker picture for men than for women. The Hindu, in its article “The many shades of rape cases in Delhi” came up with this fascinating piece of information. “Of the cases fully tried, over 40% dealt with consensual sex, usually involving the elopement of a young couple and the girl’s parents subsequently charging the boy with rape. Another 25% dealt with “breach of promise to marry”. This is to say that of the fully tried cases, a massive 65% is not the violent crime we associate with the word rape.

No wonder the “system” moves slow. And thank god it moves slow. And as long as it needs to deal with this tangle of deceit, it will have to move slow.

So next time you light candles for rape victims, maybe spare a thought for the people who get pulled into fake cases. And the next time we ask for death penalty for rapists, let us also negotiate a  stricter punishment for those who misuse the law to try and achieve their own twisted purposes. And also maybe go a little slow on the hyperbole.

As a s(n)ide note – I did want to mention another factor which leads to rapes. Alcohol. No one really says it out aloud, but it’s there -hiding in the corner of the article a inconspicuous – “the men were intoxicated...” As if that has anything to do with what follows.