Nirbhaya Murder Case: From The 'Correction' Pan To Jail Fire

The clamour for not allowing the juvenile convict in the Nirbhaya case to walk free after serving his sentence, because he cannot be reformed, is symptomatic of a society in denial of its own complicity in turning him into a rapist.

- Srija Naskar And Nikita Lamba

What happens when fear runs so deep that every accusation of rape is followed by blaming the victim and making her sexual history and lifestyle the focus of society’s response to it? Does it help reduce incidents of rape and other forms of sexual violence, or does it add to the misogyny that breeds a culture of rape? Does it contribute to reining in the illegitimate exercise of power — the capacity to impose one’s will on others, which in this case translates as forcing the victim into a sexual act against her consent — or deepen the rampant fear of sexuality, especially female sexuality, that is key to identifying a society as patriarchal?

One date and one name come to mind every time people in India talk about sexual violence against women: 16 December 2012 and Nirbhaya. Sometimes, in the face of extreme brutalisation such as this, outrage takes forms that end up strengthening rather than attacking the forces responsible for the brutality. The trajectory of the Nirbhaya case could not remain untouched by the misogynist culture in which the crime took place. It helped unleash society’s collective inchoate rage, which crystallised around the demand to “hang the rapists”. In other words, the focus turns to the criminal, almost to the point of diverting attention from the crime and what it reveals about society.

And for the woman in the street, it meant the threat of even more gender-based segregation, more barriers between her and the world, and everyday life made even more nightmarish with the fear that any stranger could be a rapist if he is a male.