Rape: Peak of Violence and Nadir of Love

 

The modern civilization has a rapist approach. With recklessness and impunity we are plundering natural resources. Ambition and materialistic greed has reached each and every nook and corner of earth. It will now get into space. Well, if we are on the path of evolving as some far more monstrous species, then my criticism may be unwarranted. But from what I see, as a common human being, the endeavor counts as raping mother earth. Species are becoming extinct, forests are vanishing, pollution poses as the agent of death and whales are dying with quintals of plastic in their guts. To me all this qualifies as rape. The modern man is rapist by nature.

However, the idea of a rapist species may not be too appealing to most of us. So let us limit our discussion to rape as we know it. Rape: the act of criminality perpetrated by a man on a woman, forcing his will on her against her consent, thus objectifying, violating her body and bruising her soul forever. Rape is the catastrophe, the most loveless infringement, when the rapist hits the rock hard bottom of most beastly existence. It’s an act aimed at harming the soul. The world appears glaringly violent with rapes.

Long before we see the flower, the process starts at the roots. There are seeds of rape. Fruits are the result of a long process that began with the seeds. The deeds or misdeeds are not sudden sprouts; they also carry their seeds, their incubation, their structural building and growth before the final appearance.

With geometric progression, another crime happens against women in India. It happens so many times that it doesn’t sound like news anymore.

Harassment, molestation, eve-teasing, domestic violence, rape and murder, there is a long list of the evil deeds. These don’t occur just randomly. They have their poisonous seeds and incubation processes. Long before they sprout with thorny branches, the soil is generated. It is a common social soil. It’s a cumulative shit that piles over generations. It takes a long time, this process of soil formation. Tradition and patriarchy rake it up over generations.  

The rapist only doesn’t carry the burden of culpability on his sick head. The social system that breeds such thorny seeds shares the cumulative crime. A poisonous seed doesn’t land from another planet. It has its supportive forces. It has its environment.  

Rules of conduct and tradition certify your sociality and civility if you pander the taboo. Avoid women. Stay away. Only pour out your frustration through passable, ignorable acts of minor mistreatments. These are somewhat acceptable offenses.

Away from the skin-deep purification of the taboos, the beast lies in the mind, tied with the ropes of patriarchal conventions. The ropes are strong, it takes some time to break and claim criminal freedom. Before that there is a long drawn out phase of passing remarks, molestation, eve-teasing, staring and criminal visualization in mind.

The beast is struggling against ropes. The ropes aren’t getting stronger. The beast is claiming power at a furious pace. The beast of skewed ideas in deprived brains has unlimited potential to grow strong and break the ropes. It comes of age then. It is no longer satisfied with passing lewd remarks and brushing against the taboo in crowded buses. It wants more. It’s an untamed criminal now. It has got a helpless body to carry out its evil design.

A rape happens. And of course murder in its wake.

So if we tell our children about excellence, why don’t we emphasize respect for the opposite sex, which is the best human trait. Respect is the seed that fruits as love. Much as we focus on pandering the sense of insecurity and fear in our girl child by telling her the risks and adding to the consequent lists of taboos, why don’t we groom respect for the opposite sex in our male child?

Mass rape of earth, rape of women and other crimes are nothing but symptoms of the bigger malady: love and empathy have taken a backseat because neither socially nor institutionally these get any support. From biggest to the smallest criminality, the only roadblock to the evil and its various forms lies in loving kindness. The subject of loving kindness, compassion, empathy, joy, happiness and peace needs to be taught like any other subject at the socio-academic level.