Salman Khan is not alone;
when he said, “I felt like a raped woman”, comparing his ‘extreme exhaustion to
the condition of a raped woman”. This was during the now infamous interview
with the video film magazine that has led to this huge media uproar. His
defenders and opponents, men and women, family and friends, fans and critics
have the most predictable arguments for or against it. Those apologizing on
behalf of Salman attribute the faux pas to something like these, ‘His
intentions were good”, “He did not mean it”, “He should not have said it” or “I
know he respects women so he should apologize for hurting women sentiments”. I
even heard rightly that a famed feminist Madhu Kishwar on live television went
ahead highlighting Salman’s sensitivity towards “raped women” by comparing “his
fatigue and pain” with their sorry state.
While all those who
wait for this Khan to falter, found this the most apt opportunity to take him
to class. “He must apologize”, “He has to”. From his antecedents to his
present stardom he was made accountable for all in the present context.
But wait! Is it Salman the
only one out there naïve enough not to exactly understand the analogy of “how
it feels like a raped woman”. And if he is not, shouldn’t all those apologizing
or objecting men and women talk out loud and clear that “Rape remark is not about
hurting women sentiments” but “undermining an extremely heinous gender crime that
has afflicted generations”. The issue is
not what he said but how simply he said, trivializing “a condition
of victims of extreme violence”.
It is certainly not
just the loose talk of Salman the hero that brings in the outcry. It is actually
the triviality, belittlement, ridicule, the indifference, the insensitivity, the
callousness, the bigotry, the discrimination, the injustice towards someone’s worst
fears and misery that makes it the gravest offence. Salman’s casualness just
brings forth the deep sickening mindset scaring women up to the extent of deep
despair and panic that nothing’s going to change and never will.
No women would deny
that if not “Raped” they still have spent all their lives in fear of being “Raped”.
That’s why the foremost thing a woman would look for in this world is her safety
and security. Not from a wild animal or a weapon but from fellow beings!
So women break open every
door, climb the mountains, cut open your heart, create upheaval, turn the world
upside down until fellow men understand and estimate your pain, trauma, anguish,
anger for your “raped state or your persistent fear of being in a raped state”.
Sometime back during
the 2014 elections Bengali filmstar and a heart throb of Bengali movies Dev,
presently an elected member of parliament had made a similar comparison. He had
said about the hard work he was putting in during election campaigns, “It is
just like getting raped, Yaar..you can shout, or you can enjoy.”
Seriously, he thought
“being overworked” was “to be like being raped as a woman”. And that “as he
enjoyed his extra load of work so did women being raped”. He later apologized
for his absurd and disgusting remark but that the apology was for “hurting the
sentiments of women community” and not for “the state where women lived in perpetual
fear and despair”. He still won elections with huge margin with blessings of the
woman party chief Mamata Banerjee. But when he had said this in presence of no
woman in the public space, no one could show him the anguish, the humiliation,
the pain he brought to those who also chose him as their leader and thought would
bring in a change to their “state of fear and terror of being Raped”.
Mulayam Singh Yadav
highly respected for his political acumen actually to a big and loud round of applause
in a public rally had said, “Ladkon se galti ho jati hai. uske liye kya unhe
fasi di jayegi”. The men laughed and jeered while the fewer women present curled
up into a bonsai state, not venturing to invite attention or else who knew in
what state they would have had been pushed into.
“Rape?
Blame it on the short skirts!” BJP MLA from Alwar, Rajasthan had said that
sexual harassment arises from the fact that schoolgirls wearing skirts drew
attention from miscreants (who!) on the way to and from school. Madhya Pradesh BJP leader Vijayvargiya
now a prominent face of national TV gave the example of “Sita-Haran’ in the Ramayana- how women who step out of their boundaries (restricted area) are
bound to get into trouble”.
A close male journalist
friend recently while comparing “reservations for communities in the country”,
compared “women to be a reserved section only because they have a right to take
men to court “for rape”. “Being a woman is a privilege, you do enjoy
reservations. You can charge a male colleague with rape and get him punished” was
his scholarly observation. He really believed “women use rape privilege to overpower/control
men” but he conveniently overlooked the “persistent state of under privileges women
have been living in for ages until to be raped and killed”. Also that it easily
passed off his mind that, being a man he enjoyed rights for a larger space
in public life, larger share in the world, larger say in dealing with crime and
violence only because women have been pushed to their self-afflicted safe
zones due to the persistent terror of ‘Being Raped”.
Examples are umpteen
and everyday ones, simpler, usable and acceptable. Some say “If the roads are
not safe for women why do they venture outside”. Truly, women should be
furthered in their bonsai-ed state so that one day they are just invisible so
as to escape “Being Raped”.
Look around and see
through at homes, roads, offices, schools, colleges, cinema halls amongst
ordinary men and women all like you and me talking and taking so casually the ‘terrible state of women and they being raped”. A regressive remark will not make much of a difference as an
apology would not set all things right.
But still this needs to
be told loud, clear and noisily over and over again to ensure it reaches all eyes, ears and minds. Had the crime been so slight
why would fellow women find it so difficult to fight it out all by themselves?
Why would men threat women with ultimate punishment as “Rape”? Why would men
warn opponents with raping their women folks to teach them a lesson? Why would
raped women commit suicide? Why would the law make “Rape” to be such a grave
offence?
Dear Salman and all men
and women alike who really think or even don’t think that “Rape” is a gravest level
of violence against any fellow being only because of their gender; Yes, hear it
loud and clear!
Women have not just
felt like raped, but lived in fear of being ‘raped’ all through their lives. This
is not the fear and uncertainty of some accident, illness, fatigue or torture
it is the abject distress of violence perpetrated by fellow beings sharing the
same worldly space.
There could be nothing
as brutal as being ‘raped’ for women because of the levels of violence
perpetrated towards human beings, an additional one and the most torturous all
due to their sex. It is not a wound that would heal with medicine.
And that’s why the
hyper reaction!
Next time don’t compare
on behalf of a woman saying “it felt like being raped” because you have never
lived with the fear of such violence day in and day out today and all days. Ask
her how it feels when she cannot step out of home out of fear, how insignificantly
she has lived because of her gender, how she has endured captivity just to
escape “being raped”.
It severely hurts
Salman! Don’t compare, “Rape” to a general situation. It is certainly not the
pain that you would go through either as an ordinary man or the hero “Sultan”.
