Any culture worshipping misogyny will become the epicenter of rape

Yet another rape in India, this time of an eight-year-old child by eight men. While that is gruesome in isolation, the nature of the event and the religious frenzy which followed has made it extremely gut-wrenching. This has resulted in an avalanche of sexual abuse cases getting reported, mostly against minors. To me, this is India in a nutshell. For the rest of the world, India is a secular democracy with a majority Hindu population. It has seen a tremendous growth over the last few decades, thanks to information technology services and globalisation. For some Westerners, India and China are the embodiment of eastern mysticism. They somehow think there is more to these cultures than mere age. I do not share that view. For me, it is an epidemic of problems with a culture of misogyny. It is the epicentre of rape and sexual abuse in the world, stemming from a strong religious value. I do not intend to take a cheap shot at religions to gain mileage from these atrocious crimes. I want to reflect on growing up as a man in this extreme misogynic culture.

Sometime in 2013, I had an argument with one of my lady colleagues in India. I told her, I believe that sexual abuse in India is a bigger epidemic than what gets reported. In order to test my hypothesis, I told her to check with the 60+ women working in the office if they have ever been groped or sexually assaulted at least once in their lives. My test was, if more than 80% of the people say yes to it, then my hypothesis is valid. To her surprise, the result for 100% and what is worse the most of them have multiple harrowing stories. While most countries talk about discrimination at different levels, sexual abuse is definitely a red line. Misogyny is pervasive globally but some cultures protect and worship it more than others. India worships misogyny through its religious ideologies. An average male is more chauvinistic than most other cultures. Let us drill down on this further.

According to the 2011 census in India, India has close to 79.8% Hindus, 14.2% Muslims, 2.3% Christians and 1.7% Sikhs. The rest of the religions and non-affiliated population constitute around 2%. For the sake of ease, let me take the top 94% of the population for this study which comprises of Hindus and Muslims. It will definitely not require a massive leap of faith if one were to look at India through the history of these two religious faiths. Both Hindus and Muslims claim that their religion is one which respects women. The reality is any nation which has these religions as a majority doesn’t seem to be a friendly place for women. Then how do these religions claim to be so pro-women. Both Hinduism and the Abrahamic faiths find a strong reason to protect and defend their women. They do not believe they can do that themselves. They also believe left to themselves they cannot be as moral as their male counterparts. The other countries which feel subjugation is a form of protection include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan etc. The connection is very obvious to see. India is rather unique in this coalition of rotten chauvinists. India has a ‘Secular Democracy’ or at least a constitution which says so. By giving each religion a unique right to practice its chauvinism, India has projected an image of religious tolerance. This dissonance is hard for most people to assimilate and understand. It is easier when Saudi Arabia or Pakistan do it. But when there are multiple religions and one defends the other in this act, the process is tricky. So, we need to unpack these religions one by one.

Let me start with Hindus. It is a polytheistic religion. These are the people who worship, Rama, Krishna and Shiva as Gods. It is also true that there are just as many female Gods in Hinduism as there are male gods. However, that is the bait. If people listen to the myths, they will understand that these ‘Gods’ are not just immoral normally but extremely misogynistic. Rama’s wife Sita was kidnapped by another king who fell for her beauty. When she got freed, Rama wanted his wife to prove her chastity by walking into a pyre of fire. He didn’t trust her ‘purity’ because she was kidnapped by another guy. Years later as a king of a nation, he asked his pregnant wife to do the same when his citizens doubted her. When she refused, he sent her into exile. He later wanted her back as he wanted to do some prayers which required him to have his wife. However, he wanted her to do the purity test once more before she gets back to the kingdom. This “God” is worshipped and is considered as an ideal husband, someone every woman should hope for. Half of India is fine with waging a war to get a temple built for his person.

Let’s take the next God Krishna, who goes an extra mile with his libido. The stories of Mahabharata, various Upanishads and Gita Govinda describe his amorous life in great detail. Somewhere I feel the sick intentions of the author come out in these works. His crude and despicable sexual escapades with both married and single women in his village are romanticised through songs and dance. My intestine rolls over when I see women dance for these songs. It is an insult to human decency.

The third major God worshipped in India is Siva. As the legend goes that Siva disapproved of his wife(Sati) attending a pooja done by her father. She goes in spite of that, gets disrespected and self-immolates herself as she has disobeyed her husband’s order. She is considered a great moral example. There is no wonder, this is also the reason behind the practice of Sati, where a widow immolates herself on her husband’s pyre. It has taken centuries for people to come out of this practice and there are still some fringe forces which want to restart this.

Looking at all this it is rather bemusing when the ruling party in the Government of India wants to establish a ‘Rama Rajya’ meaning rule of Rama. When a majority of the country think it should happen, we have wonder about the state of their minds. No wonder every religious scumbag wants to molest the girl hoping to use these examples to get away.

Let us now go to the Muslims. These are worshippers of Allah through the words of their prophet. Muhammad, a conquering warlord in Arabia is said to have married 13 women. This perfect prophet married his wife Aisha when she was six and consummated the marriage when she was nine. It is worthy to note that Muhammad was 53 at that time. In many countries, it is legal for parents to get their daughter married at age nine. In India, it is allowed only for Muslims. Further men are allowed to have up to four wives at any time.

Hadiths which are interpretations of the Quran offer 72 virgins to martyrs. Husbands are legally permitted to beat their wife if they follow the Sharia laws. In 2005, an Islamic seminary told a woman who was raped by her father-in-law to start treating her husband like her son. He used the Quran to justify this. When she defied these orders she was punished instead of her rapist father-in-law. This is what Muslim leaders want, a special court for themselves where justice is based on their medieval beliefs disseminated by a horny and deluded warlord.

There are a great number of examples of the culture of rape and sexual assault in India but nothing exemplifies it more than the events which happened on the western border of India during 1947. The Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs ganged up to rape the women and sometimes minor girls in the other communities. The documentary below shows men who are proud of their act.

Now, let us look at some statistics. In this age, twenty-two girls die every day in India due to dowry-related violence. One the average there are 70 rape cases reported every single day. This means by the time you read this blog post there has been a new rape case reported somewhere in the country. Again, this is only a reported crime. Most rapes go unreported as it is considered a social stigma. Further marital rape is not considered a crime in India. Then there are sexual abuses, eve teasing and groping cases which will include every girl in every city. Almost all of these go unreported. The other major crimes against female include infanticide, forced prostitution, domestic violence, forced marriage and worst of all chemical attacks.

International Men and Gender Equality Survey conducted a survey which showed some disturbing results.

• A man should have the final word about decisions in his home – 81%
• A woman should tolerate violence in order to keep her family together – 68%
• There are times when a woman deserves to be beaten – 65%
• Perpetrating physical violence against partner – 37%
• Carried sexual violence against a female – 24%

When 65% of men think that woman deserves to be beaten, you cannot brush it as a fringe group. When 24% of men have admitted to sexual violence, it is not a fringe group. The common excuse that most religious people are moderates and law-abiding citizens is not actually true. My thoughts go back to Christopher Hitchens book, ‘god is not great. How religion poisons everything?’. I want to quote the American physicist Steven Weinberg here, “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

It is also noteworthy that there is a large number of religious priests and gurus who have been involved in sexual abuses. While this is pretty much a global phenomenon, India is special in its complete lack of respect for evidence and prolonged support for these people under the pretext of religion is something to cringeworthy. Here are some of the high profile cases from my recent memory. In each of these cases, the followers continue to believe that the alleged rapist is innocent.

1. Asaram Bapu, a septuagenarian godman has been accused of raping a 16-year-old girl.
2. Rajneesh or Osho had practices within his ashram, which earned him the nickname ‘sex guru’
3. Jayendra Saraswati, a Hindu seer was accused a sexually assaulting a female writer.
4. Gurmeet Ram Rahim a self-styled spiritual leader has been accused of rape and murder
5. Father Robin Vadakkumcherry has been arrested  for raping a minor girl and making her pregnant

Seeing this in practice

If you want to further evidence of this archaic belief system and misogyny worship, one has to witness Indian weddings. I have witnessed quite a few wedding during my life there across the three major religions. I will call out two really ugly practices.

1. In Hindu weddings, the father of the bride performs a ceremony where he donates his daughter to the groom as a gift (of a virgin). The girl has to consider her husband a form of Vishnu, a Hindu god. This ugly practice is supposed to give salvation to the bride’s father as he has done the ultimate sacrifice. Some scumbags call this practice a testimony to the respect women have in Hinduism. This happens at every wedding and is a soul-crushing activity ( http://www.csuchico.edu/anth/mithila/kanyadan2.htm ).
2. In Muslim weddings, immediately after the ceremony is over a priest or imam explains the role of a wife. I was a distressed participant to one of these weddings when my friend’s sister got married. The priest speaks about how the wife has to be obedient to her husband, be ready to meet his needs and desires, content with what her husband provides, do household work and honour her husband. She is expected to be a sex slave who does household work for free. (http://eng.islam-today.ru/women-in-islam/what-are-the-duties-of-a-muslim-woman-toward-her-husband/)

I can go on and on about the pervasive misogyny and its roots in religion. One of the most touching and hard-hitting work is the documentary ‘India’s Daughter’. A 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern was brutally raped and killed in the capital of India. The religious leaders from all major religions were quick to blame the girl and society for the lack of modesty. Here is the documentary for you to watch.

http://watchdocumentaries.com/indias-daughter/