Casual,insensitive

In an unusual instance of proactive investigation,the National Commission for Women says that women were stripped,paraded,and molested by security forces,and that rape was a distinct likelihood in Bhatta-Parsaul. Given that no woman from these villages has,so far,stepped forward to make that claim,the NCW must weigh its words very carefully. All too often in our politics and public culture,talk of rape is wielded as a point-scoring weapon,trivialising the deep injury and psychological battering of rape.

Rape is not an easy matter to ascertain,and not just in India,where it is very reluctantly reported and there remains a patriarchal overhang in the manner in which the woman in question is portrayed. It takes patient investigation,in many cases,to sift through the euphemisms and understand the extent of the aggression. We are still a long way from creating,by example,a climate where women can say they are confident that the system will not take their allegations lightly,that the inquiry will respect their individual dignity,listen to them and work with their testimony,instead of hurriedly jumping to conclusions. In the continuum of sexual violence,rape is the worst kind of calculated assault on a womans bodily integrity. It is violence,and yet it is more than violence. This is not to buy into the patriarchal idea that sexual crime carries an unspeakable shame for the victim that is,first you burden women with inflated associations of izzat and honour,constrict their lives,and then you further shame them if this izzat is assaulted but rape is clearly intended to cause both physical pain and psychological violation. It is an attempt to degrade,in the most extreme way possible.

It is worrisome,therefore,that the NCW has jumped into the Bhatta Persaul controversy by levelling allegations of rape so casually. By casting its net wide and giving every appearance of invoking an inquiry as a fishing expedition,it plays to the same stigma of a public trial that we are trying to defeat. Rape is a very grave matter. It must not be used as a tawdry rhetorical tool.