One morning, two months ago, I read a horrific news report in the Hindustan Times about the rape and subsequent gangrape of an 18-year-old girl in Delhi. She was first raped by her brother’s father-in-law, who had asked her to his home on some familial pretext; she managed to escape him, found a taxi driver in her catatonic state, and asked to be dropped home. Instead, the driver and his companions took her someplace in Dwarka and gangraped her.
It was the use of the word ‘allegedly’ littered throughout the very short report that I first registered. It made me so angry, for some reason. I don’t think the word has been used or drawn my attention as sharply in reports about other crimes. Allegedly. Supposedly. Apparently. Maybe. We’re not sure.
Perhaps it is to do with my own ghosts, perhaps not. Reportage on sexual violence has, in recent years, become far more prevalent; popular, even. The typical ‘progressive’ response to this is one of affirmation, validation; the willingness to talk about it in public. My response was different. My entire being revolted against the ambivalence of the writing, because if anything, its uncertainty made the monstrosity of the act palatable. It gave me the option of feeling a passing horror at the article, and moving on. Then, there were responses from people on Delhi and its total lack of safety. That appalled me too. Is geography central to this story? I don’t believe it is. Relevant as an aside perhaps, nothing more. The cab driver and his mates raped her again. Because she told them what happened? Because she was already a tainted, violated body? Did it excite them?
Sexual violence and abuse are primal and unspeakable. It is far more comfortable to denounce them in terms of morality, emotionality and religiosity than to actually engage with them. They defy historicity, context and the narratives of modernisation. They are liminal, suspended, beyond the reach of articulation. Predicated upon cornerstones of morality, anything remotely related to sexuality is always exciting press, but it’s a fine line—you don’t want to offend sensibilities. People ask me if talking about experiences of rape, abuse and violence help “get over” it. “Is it somehow therapeutic?” they enquire sweetly and cluelessly. No, I tell them. You never “get over” violence. The experience of violence is always constitutive of our beings, our identities and sexualities. The reason I speak is because I can; because I want to; because it affords some navigability through a maelstrom which holds no “rationale”, escape or solace.
The one thing that always haunted my own experiences of violence; sexual abuse as a child and as an adult, from familiars and strangers; relatives, friends, men who worked in the house, was validation—a desperate search for a reason, for it to somehow be explained. I realise now that this intellectual privileging of explicability and causality in our societies is almost as abusive as physical violence.
This is why I find the rhetoric of ‘justice’ so difficult to digest; as much as I think it imperative, it leaves no room for ambivalence, guilt, or just unmitigated grief and rage. Pop cinema either kills its raped women by way of suicide, or conjures a bloodthirsty story of vengeance. The real story, though, cutting across borders of class, ethnicity, education and colour, is one of silence, which sinuously metamorphoses into either strength or culpability; narratives of morality. As I read the story of this woman, my own memories bleeding copiously into it, I wondered: how do we transpose the story of our bodies, our corporeality, into the realm of our minds, making it more palatable, an abstract matter of societal morals and justice?
I have for some time now been interested in the exclusion of the body within the ‘intellectual’ strongholds of our societies—politics, law, medicine, culture. I have, in my academic bubble, been reading and writing about the forcibly silenced knowledges, experiences and narratives of the body. The idea that our bodies are systems—perfect, machinic and self-regulating forms—is at the core of our internal and personal definitions. Miracles of science, miracles of God, whichever you fancy.
Every time I come across an incident of sexual violence in the papers or on the internet, I have a total breakdown. Every bit of feminist writing I’ve ever read swirls in my head. I try to remember it, hold on to it and be able to articulate it. Everything except a searing shame forsakes me. It’s in my body that this shame is branded. Not in my mind, not in the papers I write, or the endless debates I’ve had and continue to have. None of it abates my increasing terror at the realisation of the Foucauldian nightmare: that we’re either diseased bodies that must be cured, or docile bodies that must regulate themselves. When I choose sexual freedom, I’m almost constantly haunted by the spectre of disease or the nagging doubt of whether I’m complying with the hetero-patriarchal regime. I forget whether I was a desiring body or not. I forget if I revelled in my freedom of choice. I forget if agency had anything to do with it, or if I just needed validation from the fascist, violent, aesthetic laws of a system that categorically elides the stories that bodies tell. And I wonder; if I can’t tell stories of freedom and celebrate them without fear and shame, because I’m never sure if they are in fact stories of freedom, how will I ever do it with stories of violence and pain?
After facing unspoken judgement and humiliation at several medical stores in the city, I finally read a news snippet informing me that there was state opposition to the free availability of emergency contraception in pharmacies because it ‘promotes free sex and irresponsibility amongst unmarried people’. I’m still not sure how to respond to this. At every level it invisiblises my body, my agency, my choice. It denies me medical safety, it silences my desire. It tells me that the only reason I should need to have sex is if I was married, or wanted children. Not only must I struggle with the biology of my body, but also with the moral depravity that my society inscribes it with.
Among most women and many men I know and love, stories of violence and abuse are not uncommon. Our minds may hold the narratives, but our bodies bear the scars, memories and stories—a young child in the afternoon, when nobody is home to hear her scream. A teenager in her cousin’s home for the summer vacation, the gardener who came home every week, the cook who lived at home, her father, his sister. All these are stories of silenced bodies. I wonder what will become of the girl—the relentless media, the moral boulders she’ll be made to swallow. The ‘objective’ investigations, the panels, the decisions of arbitrary people about whether or not she’s telling the ‘truth’. Her body will become an altar, dead and unspeaking, upon which ‘justice’ will play out. What of us, you ask? We will forget, and drink deeply of our amnesia until the next time there is an alleged rape. My daughter, my sister, my dearest friend.
OLDER COMMENTS FIRST
22 COMMENTS
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So so inexplicably strange, isn't it? The idea of shame after being sexually abused.
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I have some idea of what you are talking about but what I detest now about those episodes is the very sense of culpability and unspeakability. Beyond threat to life or safety, why should a child not feel free to speak of violation to a parent? Why do parents continue to bring up children, particularly girls, to dread their bodies, to protect its boundaries, to guard against the possibilities it opens up. I agree that the grief and rage are all personal, but I am convinced that speaking of it in a clear-eyed fashion, as we would speak of any other tragedy, will deprive it of this element of secrecy, shame and above all, guilt. Let the body be what it is, not some delicate vial of honour we lug around all our life.
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i was going to cut the net out and go eat my lunch...since after 1 hour of FB i felt like a criminal...i know why! the stories ruin my culture and peacefulness and happiness!!!! that's for stories...
well that's when i got this post !!!!!!!!!!!
when it comes to sexual violence and invasion it cannot become a war-story
words cant address it
a warm hug and a sympathetic, not overtly, touch and instilling security by our very presence is the only thing that will work
making news out of it numbs me ...inspite of what i am i just don't care...the effect of something as palpable as the body invaded by words, news, the story............ ?
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Thank you for this!
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yes thank you for this. i have often felt feelings exactly as you have described when i pick the news paper up and day after day read news on sexual violence....no body i have ever read has described it as prolifically as you have...thank you... wish more writers were like you, instead of being just third party ,nonchalant, detached commentators of morality.
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Dear Ranganayaki,
In writing this article in this manner, you've expanded the boundaries of our awareness. Those of us who were spared this shattering experience often find ourselves silenced by our own sense that somehow we are not qualified to say anything and saying anything would come off as so contrived. I am not at all on any solid ground when I read your article: it feels as though you and I (the reader I) are on a different worlds, forever separated, and it feels frustrating to be separated so absolutely. Sure, one can write about hills and mountains and lakes after taking a weekend trip, and recalling the fresh wind and the godly smell of the green earth we can write about it, though the experience was not really enough. But this? No. But that can't be the answer, I know.
I have a strong view on this matter and it is this: I think almost every thing we read in newspapers is an unreliable indicator. Facts are facts so if a rape incident is reported then yes that is a reliable statement that we can believe in. But everything else that surrounds this fact, an adjective ("allegedly" is perhaps a legal requirement, I am just speculating), the reporting of other people's responses to this fact of rape...all this is unreliable. I think this is because nearly everyone is abused in some way or the other. Sure, the degree of the abuse is very important. And almost everyone is in denial of it, and in almost all cases this "intellectualization" suffers being unreliable because everyone is so not confident of their audience. There is a terrible sense of isolation that people express by superficiality and dismissiveness.
The only key I can think of to break this isolation is to share the experience, but not the intellectualization of it. The very form of journalism is insufficient to convey human experience. Stories, novels, blogs might be a small answer but not enough. We need a radical redesign of the forms, structures and the platforms through which we communicate to one another and these structures should adapt to the intensity of our experiences, not the other way round of our experiences flatteing into sound bytes to fit into the structure itself.
And so another pedantic ramble ends...
Regards
CF
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every women carrying a shame ful body which can be over powered by some one else.I some where read about species of spider who can exude a venom to shoo away the men if she not feel intrested , oh better then women.Healing healing throuht our own strenth!
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Thank you all for your responses. I think the politics of articulation are always complicated and dense. Like I said in the piece itself, I am no advocate of a "talking cure". There is a definite positionality, and a painful onus that I take, in articulation. That said, I think it is imperative to find "other" ways of framing and speaking- outside of rights and justice and reportage. We must be able to abide by our bodies, to speak of and from them. That is why I wrote this.
CF, of course news is not a "credible" source. Any claim of credibility or authenticity is already inscribed with a challenge to itself, in the way that Marx spoke of it. The point is not to alienate the reader from the writer, in my mind there is no privileging of either one, on the basis of experience. That to me is just another hierarchy, another violence.
Once again, thank you for your comments, a real, sensitive engagement with these voices and stories is ultimately something that I constantly hope for, so keep writing in.
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Dear Ranganayaki,
Pertaining to the "voices and stories," any way we can connect over email? My Gmail id is: crazyfingerorg.
CF
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I may not wish to speak about it because thinking of it makes me sick.
Or I don't think you have the right to know.
Or because thinking or speaking of it ruins my mood.
Or because I am above sympathy, or vengence. Because I realise that all this will achieve nothing, and that I need to make a fresh start or move on in life and not bind myself to that one incident. And I move on when I say, let's get on with life and not write everything else off because life sucks now that it has happened. And not by saying, "No matter what I do, I can't forget it. "
Or just because.
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I just want to say that, articulation isn't touted here as some white knight saviour. Some choose it, some don't. It's entirely your prerogative.
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Dear Ranganayaki,
To start with, i agree with a lot of points that you have tried to articulate in the essay but there are certain points which i fundamentally disagree. i totally agree that using the words allegedly or supposedly or apparently definitely makes the act palatable, turns it something that doesn't shake up our conscious, but i have to painfully inform that the usage of these terms are journalistic protocols(albeit very good ones which allows an event to be reported without them being absolutely and completely sure of facts but know that something very close to it has happened-serves the concept of reporting something asap). Thank you for pointing these out as i would definitely never use them again as i realize it is completely insensitive. I would also agree with the 'talking it out' logic of yours as it doesn't help a person move on.
perhaps i being a guy, can never fully comprehend what women feel after a sexual assault on them, but i do not promote the stance of romanticizing the idea of body and victimizing themselves for no reason. This is exactly the kind of viewpoint that women should change. Gender equality is a unnatural thing(pls pls pls do not take unnaturally with a negative connotation). We are moving from an inherently patriarchal and male dominated society to one based on equality. this shift is created by the society itself and not by nature(as in there is no genetic or anatomical or mutative change but a change in mindset which we humans are very much responsible) as we as a society in general have decided, and rightly so( am as much as a feminist as you are) to treat women equally. Now there is a cross-section of the society that doesn't believe in it, then there is the natural instinct of men being more aggressive and the equality is not something they can't totally accept and accept it jus partially(ever wondered why the porn videos are becoming more and more violent in a society where women are getting more n more of space and equality) then there are the uneducated, the premarital sex being accepted and the divide it creates among males; all these have created very complicated sexual equations between men and women. My reason for explaining this is to tell you that in near future the no. of rape cases will increase than now but it is just a passing phase...a few decades or perhaps centuries later rapes will decrease. Rape was, is and perhaps always will be a part of the society. The best way to minimize is a gender neutral society.
The other thing am strictly opposed to is your descriptions of fear and shame you are talking about, especially coming from an educated person like you. You should be telling other women that there is nobody to be feared from, nothing to be ashamed of after an assault. it is you who should teach your daughters and others as well as that what is a right touch and what is wrong, it is you who should take up the mantle saying to other victims "look your bodies are scarred, your mind doesn't have to.", you should be the one telling on a platform like this that there is nothing humiliating, amoral to let officials conduct a medical test on your body to prove that rape has happened. A platform like this should have been used to provide tools not validate fear, the same reason why women always remain secondary, its in your head to get victimized. Instead of saying what the hell, this happened, this is what i should do in this circumstance and these are the actions i should take u are saying that sexual violations are primal and unspeakable. maybe in real life even u believe in the things that i mentioned but why is it that i get a strong sense of helplessness in your article? Or perhaps you can dismiss this as being the same intellectual privileging you were taking about, perhaps am "progressive" that i want to talk and make sure that atleast a part of my generation and most of the future ones are better educated about this subject.
A question for the author and other women who have read it-I believe women to be much stronger than what is being written, question is do you?
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I'm glad the writing prompted you to respond in such detail. Firstly, I must disagree with your fundamental binary oppositions between male- female; weak-strong and so on. I don't think this piece is about victimisation. It is about articulation. This- "what the hell happened, I must move on" is the dominant ideology most of us live with, and of course, everybody navigates their lives in different ways. The very fact that you think shame and guilt should not be articulated suggest an exclusion of narrative, voice and experience. Sexual violence is brutal, endlessly layered and complex. Submitting to the "get over it" philosophy is something I and many people I know, men and women have faced, and struggled with. Engaging with trauma cannot be and is not a gung-ho, happy process. It is precisely the preclusion of the articulation of emotionality- that you seem to consider "negative" or "weak" that I speak to. Just because we live in a patriarchal society does not mean that critique must be absent, quite the contrary. I know many men, dear friends of mine, who have faced sexual violence and rape. I cannot engage with body politics in any detail here- but there is enough and more literature that you might want to read before you use terms like "romanticise" and "victimise" the body. This is the story of silenced bodies as much as it is of silenced voices and minds. I am also unable to agree with your conception of increased rape as a societal "phase"; it may be true that the number of cases increase, but that is all the more reason not to wait in silence for this "phase" to pass. I have no romantic notions of a society without violence, or the capacity of humans to find utopic peace. As for strength, all I can say is, if you have missed the centrality of strength in articulation, then I can do little to alter your perception. Thank you for your comments, and taking the time to respond, though I too am in disagreement with you, on several counts.
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This piece of writing has left me completely stirred. I have been a victim myself and to this day, that incident affects my relationship with men to a great degree.
Ranganayaki, thank you for writing my story and the story of so many others like me.
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Thank YOU, P, for expressing your solidarity. I'm so glad that I was able to speak with you, in whatever small way.
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I am sure you have voiced those silent thoughts many thousands who have gone through violation including myself. It is hard me to be reational when I read an article or televised story of sexual abuse of man, woman, child anyone. I am haunted for days agitating about the narrative and the so called "justice". Very well written article. Feels good reading it, living miles away from family and comfort zone.
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I am a survivor of sexual abuse and have been speaking out about it since i was 15 years old, with support and love of the organization Elaan, which i founded, after all those fancy educated dumbass shrinks made me feel like a bigger whore for the abuse i endured at the hands of over 24 people.
I never spoke about rape.
Never.
Whether by the grace of a higher power or just via willpower, we have reached out to a lot of people and the media too, has been relatively kind to us.
It is possibly because of this that i never really said "rape", when it came to that one incident which remains foggy because it hurt so damn much.
I do think it was rape. And till this afternoon i was bloody afraid to say it.
But what the hell.
You have touched my soul with your writing, and the other amazing people who have written in response have given me courage to just say it and not be afraid of being hurt more for it.
Yes it was rape.
I was 14.
Please, Please, keep writing about this. Our country will slowly but surely progress if more of us take notice of issues and respond to them instead of being quiet.
i am here to help in any way that i can and i don't care about what the "public" thinks.
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Thank you so much for this Pranaadhika. I can't even begin to tell you how important, brave and valuable your response is.
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I am surprised that Open mag published this shoddy piece of writing. I dont think I will be reading Open gain. The sharp decline in standards is shocking!
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KN: You appear to have made this declamation several times, yet have been back each time to declaim some more. Feels like a slightly abusive relationship. PS: I can't even call your comment shoddy, it's just too banal to make any sort of impression.
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@KN, I have to agree with you bro. Its been some time I read the Open magazine. It is sad the way such articles are making its way for publication. I hope Open will scrutinize articles and get back to its former glory.
p.s. Is Manu Joseph still with Open? I must confess I read Open because of his connection to the mag.
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A poorly written article...
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