World News

Its the upbringing. The poverty there is not just financial poverty, it's moral. Life in India is about the cruel exercise of power to benefit oneself. by dominating, subjugating, & mentally breaking the other Patriarchy, caste, religion all have the same aim so do their physical manifestations of abuse, domestic violence, rape, caste atrocities, and religious extremeism. This is common across India & to all Indians, irrespective of whether they're rural/ urban, rich/ poor.

Rapists get the velvet glove treatment from their family, their community, the justice system, & even political parties, while rape victims & survivors get the iron fist. Victims are socially shunned & vilified by their community. Most of the time, their own families deny/ hide the rape because knowledge of it will bring shame the victim & her family. plus knowldge of rape will increase the dowry they'll have to pay to her future husband's family, because she'll be "soiled/used".

Its a food-chain, where the mighty abuse the small, the small abuse the smaller, the smaller abuse the .... . And Dalit girls & women are the bottom of this food-chain. they face gender atrocities from the men & women of thei own family & their community, and they face caste atrocity from men and women of othercastes since every caste sees them as legitimate prey.

Socially rape is not treated as a crime, but as a matter of exercising right of the strong over the weak. Mothers lead in defend their rapist sons saying 'boys will be boys.', 'its her fault for wearing what she was wearing/ doing what she was doing', 'its her fault, she tempted my son'. 'girls from decent families don't get raped, her family upbringing caused her rape' , 'what was she doing there at that time?', 'it was mutual, now shes lying to trap my son/ take revenge on my son/ save herself'. If she didn't take the lead, her marital family & her husband will blame & abuse her for not raising her son right and for not supporting her own son.

The police behave the way society does, Law for them is a tool to exercise their power, to benefit themselves. Rape cases rarely come to light, when they do they rarely get registered, When the case gets registered, they rarely make it to our courts bcause the police ask the families to settle their 'dispute' or the rapists family files a counter case against the victim's family to pressurise them to withdraw. Once the case is registered, the rapist gets taken to judicial custody for 15 days, and then they get released on bail. Once out on bail they, with the active support of their family & community & political leaders, terrorise the victim's family to withdraw the case against them. The police might give them a slap on the wrist if the victim's family complains.

When it does make it to our courts, years will have passed, the victim will not be willing to re-live her trauma due to the legit fear that the rapists' lawyer will have her narrate the incident repeatedly with invasive and trauma-inducing questions in a court-room with her family and the rapist's family & community as audience, The rapists's counsel will try to get the case postponed many times, the judge will oblige. The rapis will change his counsel so the victim will be questioned again by the new lawyer , again in open court with an audience.

All this while, the victim & her family will be socially shunned & financially strained because of the lawyers fees & court fees.

If the rape trial finds the rapist guilty, he will after a short time in prison be granted bail/parole and will be free to terrorise the victim & her family. the rapist might even get early release.

If the rape is committed as an act of religious extremeism, then political parties wanting to woo the rapists commuity for votes, will welcome the rapist with garlands and give them pride of place in their public meetings. you can read up on the Bilkis Bano or the Ram Rahim case, if all this sounds made up.