Indian women fight back against mounting rape cases

NEW DELHI: For years, rape victims in India were too afraid to speak out, traumatised by the assault and fearful they would be blamed themselves. Many don’t trust the police.

Now, they are learning to fight back.

Rattled by a series of brutal rapes across the country, almost 3,000 women from 15 to 50 packed into a park in the Indian capital last weekend for self-defence classes that included elements of judo, karate and taekwondo.

“Women have enough weapons on their body,” said Vimla Mehra, joint commissioner in the Delhi Police women’s crime squad. “We teach them techniques for self-defence that make use of things like their nails and elbows.”

The class was so popular, more are planned.

Apart from self-defence classes, many are turning to new weapons such as pepper spray to protect themselves.

Especially popular is a non-toxic spray called Knockout, which causes uncontrollable sneezing, coughing and an intense burning pain.

Although India is famed as an ancient civilisation and the homeland of Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of non-violence, crime against women is commonplace.

Molestation, especially on crowded public transport, is rampant, particularly in northern India. Activists say there are two rapes every hour across the country.

Instead of providing protection, the police are sometimes the perpetrators. Last month, a constable in Bombay was arrested for raping a teenager on Marine Drive, the famous sea-hugging road in India’s financial capital.

A recent survey by the India Today magazine showed one in every two women in leading cities felt unsafe and more than one in three was sceptical of police handling of cases.

“The system works against the victim,” said Aatreiyer Sen, assistant director of the Human Rights Law Network. “It’s a very cumbersome system and not a very sensitive system.”

Activists say one in every five victims is a child and 19 of 20 accused walk free. Official figures show more than 18,100 people were tried for rape in 2003. Just 4,645 were convicted.

Some critics say women are to blame for rapes, especially if they wear tight jeans or revealing tops.

“It’s a daily nuisance for us. Harassment is rampant — whether while travelling in a bus or while walking through an isolated area,” Priyanka Gupta, a Delhi-based sales executive, told the Hindustan Times.

“I don’t feel switching from jeans to salwar-kameez (a loose shirt and trouser) will change men’s attitude towards women, as far as crimes like rape and molestation are concerned.”

Activists are scathing critical of the argument that women are to blame because of their dress.

“This argument about women dressing provocatively is all nonsense. Men can walk around in their underwear and nobody says anything to them, but a woman completely covered in a sari can be a target,” said Sunita Thakur of Jagori, a women’s group in Delhi.

The cases that make the papers are ugly: a pregnant woman killed herself after being raped in the city of Pune, an 80-year-old was raped in Delhi and a principal raped a 16-year-old Delhi student by luring her with the promise of a matriculation certificate.

In another, a Hindu priest’s wife was gangraped in a temple.

One rapist caused an outcry when, pleading to be let off, he told the court he would marry her because no one else would have her now. The judge jailed him for life.

With crimes against women on the increase, anger has been building up among women in India for some months.

Last year, a group of women in the northern city of Nagpur bludgeoned a man to death in a courthouse who they said had been accused of rape and murder. The slum women were sure he would be released, as he had always escaped punishment in the past.

In another incident, around 40 women marched through the streets of the northeastern state of Manipur last July to protest against the rape and murder of a 32-year-old woman by soldiers.

Faced with the growing number of cases, women’s groups are not just offering conventional self-defence methods such as judo and karate, but are also training women in the Canadian Wenlido method, which uses several forms of verbal and psychological defenses against potential male harassers.

But women who are raped usually stay silent because of the stigma.

Those who dare to speak up rarely find justice.

One woman was gangraped more than 10 years ago by five high-caste leaders in an Indian village because she dared stop a child marriage.

Although the case hit headlines and she became a national hero, the five were acquitted of all but a few minor charges.—Reuters