Business in rape

Only a male-dominated establishment would consider making a business out of rape. It is impossible to imagine how the promoters arrived at a scheme as absurd and offensive as the Rajrajeshwari Mahila Kalyan Bima Yojana which offers to insure women in the age group 10 to 75 against damage from rape. The General Insurance Corporation which thought it up and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee who presented it proudly to the nation deserve the harsh criticism they are receiving from women8217;s groups. Everything is wrong with the scheme starting with the concept. It is unique only in the sense that no one else has been so insensitive to or ignorant about the meaning of rape. Rape is treated like any other disaster waiting to happen by those who undertook the actuarial exercise, calculating the statistical risk of rape for the female population of the country, the scale of compensation and degree of liability which the insurers could profitably assume. No doubt detailed, cold-blooded comparisons were made betweenthe cover for rape and cover for fire, theft, road and air accidents, heart surgery and death.

The conclusion evidently is that the risk of rape is very high and therefore compensation for disability should be kept low. Thus women who have been traumatised for life can claim Rs 12,500 for the loss or an eye or a limb and no more than Rs 25,000 for disability of 8220;a permanent nature8221;. In this outrageous scheme, rape victims come off worse than the uninsured victims of rail accidents. At the same time, the assumption is that some kind of social service is being provided to potential rape victims, hence the low Rs 15 annual premium. No one seems to have stopped to ask exactly what they were dealing with. It was all a matter of juggling with rupees and paise.

The male establishment persists in regarding rape as an unfortunate mishap and occasionally as another form of violent crime. The concept of rape insurance grows out of that same indifferent attitude. The fact that women have been demanding a muchstricter view of rape in courts of law and some are demanding capital punishment for rapists should make it obvious that rape is the worst form of violent crime against women and an assault on their being that has no equivalent. To ask them to buy comfort or security with an insurance policy is offensive in the extreme. Insurance executives should talk to some of the victims of political rape, one of the commonest forms of rape in rural India, or the young girls in traditional societies whose lives have been destroyed beyond all hope. They would learn that rape prevention is what women want, that every rape involves far more than the loss of an eye or limb, that the damage is always of 8220;a permanent nature8221; and that insurance cover could increase the risk of rape of minors. The victims of rape certainly need monetary and legal, medical and other professional assistance and a large part of that should come from the state through well-managed trauma-centres, for example. But the best and only insuranceagainst rape is rigorous implementation of the law and severe, condign punishment for rapists.