Just claiming that rapes should not take place, or justice for the victim, does not even scratch the surface of the problem. Discussions, forums to look into the context of rape from the lens of power, caste hierarchy, gender hierarchy is completely missing, writes Pritha Sarkar.

A couple of months ago, the whole of Bengal (or to be precise Kolkata) was out on the streets. The topic of debate was the rape of a junior doctor in one of the government hospitals. Following this incident, the protest circled around the main parts of Kolkata with the demand to ‘Reclaim the Nights’. Here reclaiming the nights means claiming independence and safety for women’s movement at nights. Women in large numbers flocked to the protests. Interestingly, in 2012 there had been another rape that had shook the country. It was the Nirbhaya rape case. Here again, a junior doctor was raped while returning from her work at night. Unlike the 2024 incident, the 2012 incident did not call forth reclaiming the nights, but there was the famous demand of Bekhauf Azadi.

As per The Hindu, “India registered 31,677 cases of rape in 2021 – an average 86 daily – while nearly 49 cases of crime against women were lodged every single hour, according to the latest government report on crimes in the country” (Hindu). But strangely enough, it is these two cases that grabbed the attention of the Indian subcontinent. The long fight of Bilkis Bano failed to capture such huge audience irrespective of the fact that it had been a direct battle against the recognised rapists by the rape-survivor. The acquittal of the culprits also failed to grab the mainstream popular attention. Long back two major rape cases had taken place that led to a change in law. The first was the Mathura rape case, where the victim was raped in police custody. The second was the Bhanwari Devi case, where she, the survivor, was gangraped while returning from her work. Both the cases brought changes to the Indian legal system. For the Mathura rape case, the presence of women police constable or officer became mandatory as far as arresting a woman or keeping a woman in-custody was concerned. The Bhanwari Devi case led to the incorporation of gender grievance cells in workplaces. However, these historic events also failed to capture the popularity of mainstream media or public. Then why are these two rape cases gaining such attention?

Let us analyse these incidents. The similarity in both the cases lies in the fact that both are working professionals. And here, I use the word professional as a term. In economics the term professional refers to the white collared jobs. If we scratch the surface of these white collared jobs, we can see the class composition of these job holders. Sumit Sarkar has traced the features of the colonial middle class of Bengal. One of the most dominating traits of the colonial middle class is their association with clerical service or professional service like teachers, lawyers, doctors, and so on. In fact, the popularity of the nationalist movement began when white-collars emerged as the leaders of the masses. A.R. Desai has pointed out the political assertiveness of the Indian middle class. Fifty years later there emerged the new middle class. However, similar characteristics are sustained. Now the middle class intend to move outside India, they aspire to work in MNCs, and are fed with the global capitalist market. Irrespective of it, their innate features remained the same. The trait of association with professional service however remained unchanged. This trait is so relevant that it has become an identity of the middle class. This feature can be noted in the class composition of contemporary professional service holders especially the lawyers, professors, teachers, and doctors. In fact, there is an unofficial saying in Bengal that every parent wants their child to be doctors and engineers! Here, every parent refers to the middle class. The other classes are almost invisible. If we look into the caste composition of this middle class, they are mostly upper caste kayasthas. According to Rural Middle Class in India (2020) “among the SCs and STs in urban India the majority of households belong to the labouring households (36.36 per cent of SCs and 31.84 per cent of STs throughout urban India), which is much higher than the average percentage of the total population in the labouring classes in urban India. Furthermore, almost 56.5 per cent of Brahmins and 40.17 percent of Forward Castes belong to the top two categories of the middle class, while only 19 per cent of the SCs and 28.9 percent of ST households in urban India belong to the top two categories of the middle class” (Aslany 32). Thus, the middle class consist of the forward castes who dominate the economic as well as the social capital. Thus, the lower caste, who also belong to the non-middle-class, are completely absent from the picture. Hence, the absence of other classes and castes in colloquial proverbs and sayings relating to professional services and education is not surprising. Returning to the rape case! Here, the rapes had taken place on professional service holders, that is, the middle class.

The second characteristic is both the rapes had taken place while the woman was in her way or inside the hospital, i.e., her professional space. In both the instances, the rape is therefore an attack not on the individual woman’s body, but on the whole identity of the middle class. Thus, the outrage is not against the particular incident, but because it happens to be an attack on the middle class’s identity. Looking back to the historic affiliation of this class, I have already noted that political assertiveness through leadership is a major element of this class. The leaders of the anti-colonial nationalist struggles had been able to amalgamate the independent peasant struggles into a singular movement, and had successfully achieved the transfer-of-power. Hence, the capacity to unite the masses is not a question here. If we analyse the political role of the middle class through Gramsci’s lens of traditional and organic intellectuals, the middle class clearly fit in the category of traditional intellectuals. It is due to their ability to combine different problems under one banner with a single hegemonic agenda. The same follows post-independence as well. However, here, one problem is addressed: it is rape followed by women’s safety. So, it becomes easier to gather masses to raise protest against rape, and individuals from every class are happily joining the protests. Here, the association of family or community’s pride with the woman’s vagina also played a major role. While the attack on the doctors threatened the pride of the white-collared middle class, the other classes also fear that the next victim might be from their community. It is because the middle class is usually the privileged section of the society, and an attack on their women meant a possibility of attack on other inferior class’s women as well. Hence, people from every section joined the protests, though both of them were chiefly dominated by the middle-class leadership and participation.

Interestingly, the same politically assertive class remains absolutely silent when non-professional or non-middle-class women are affected. When the contemporary Chief Minister of West Bengal had equated the rape of a woman equal to dealings with customers, the entire middle class was silent! This is clearly because their personal causes or their identity was not attacked. It was simply another rape and not an attack on their identity or on their white collared jobs. Even while the protests were in full force, two rape cases had taken place; one being inside a police custody. In the mid-September, one woman was molested and harassed in the police station, where she had gone to complain regarding the harassment of few men in her way home. However, the ongoing protest failed to include it on the pretext that they were protesting against Bengal rape cases. Further, throughout the protests, there is not a single reference to the patriarchal culture that leads to rape. Just claiming that rapes should not take place, or justice for the victim, does not even scratch the surface of the problem. Discussions, forums to look into the context of rape from the lens of power, caste hierarchy, gender hierarchy is completely missing. The power politics related to rape is completely missing in the speeches, dialogues, conversations, as well as the songs. The pertinent question of rape getting more priority than the murder of the woman subverts the entire protest as far as feminist lens is concerned: rather, it culminates the notion of woman being reduced to a vagina.

This leads to my final section ending with two questions: would the protests be this powerful and popular, had there been a rape beyond workplace, or a rape to a non-white-collared woman? Because, history suggests that no major upheaval or gathering could be noticed among the middle-class in cases like Bilkis Bano. In both the instances, it was the attack on white-collared women, particularly professions like doctor, over which the middle class has always had their autonomous hold. Secondly, what about the regular rapes of Dalit women? What would be the standpoint of the protesting middle-class if the raped woman would be a sweeper, a contractual worker in that same hospital? I am not even going to the frequency of rapes among prostitute women and the absolute silence of the middle class in their protests on women’s safety, freedom and rights. Thus, while I am in all support for women voicing their rights, I want to point out the shortcomings and superficiality of this current protest.

Reference

Aslany Maryam. (2020). Contested Capital: Rural Middle Classes in India. Cambridge University Press.

Desai, Neera. (1977). Women in Modern India. Vora & Co.

Desai, A.R. (1948). Social Background of Indian Nationalism. Popular Prakashan.

Sarkar, Sumit. (1989). Modern India, 1885-1947. Palgrave Macmillan.

The Hindu. “India lodged average 86 rapes daily, 49 offences against women per hour in 2021: NCRB data.” Updated – August 31, 2022 06:03 pm IST. Published – August 31, 2022 03:40 pm IST – New Delhi.

Pritha Sarkar is currently working as an assistant professor in SLA, XIM University.

(Views and opinions expressed in the article are personal.)