If you are an Indian woman who has been raped. Here is a handy guide to know what are the chances of you getting legal justice. These are the Ten acceptable reasons for committing sexual crimes against women in India.
Reason no. 1
If you wear “provoking” clothes
Read anything other than a saree or salwar kameez. If you are planning on being a rape victim in India pray to god you are wearing either a saree or a salwar kameez when it happens. You see, the intensity of the crime reduces if you were dressed in jeans/ trousers/ skirts. God forbid if you were wearing shorts! What were you thinking woman? You weren’t even raped! You were begging to be forced upon. The poor guy just did you a favor! Now stop whining!
Reason no. 2
If you were out at ‘night’
First let me define ‘night’. It could mean anything after sundown, depending on the kind of city you live in. The first thing an Indian woman does when she moves to a new city is finds out what is the “acceptable” time for her to be out. So while it may be ok for women to be out at ten in Mumbai, in Delhi a ‘good girl’ should be home by eight. Maybe even seven, depending on the locality she lives/ works in. God forbid if you happen to live in one of the smaller cities! The best thing to do is stay home after sundown. You see Indian streets become like jungles at night. Now if you walk into a jungle, you can’t blame the ‘tiger’ (read men) eating you up. Isn’t it enough they let you share their kingdom during the day. God you’re never satisfied!
Reason no. 3
If you are out to have fun
As an Indian woman you must always have a ‘respectable’ reason to be out of your home. Read (to study or work ). Going to watch a movie, to hang out at a cafe, to meet a friend – specially a male friend, are just not acceptable.You are a woman! Don’t you know? Women don’t need to have fun. They don’t need to take a break or meet friends. All that base stuff is for the men. God has created us for higher purposes. If we forget this, it is only right that men remind us. So if you happen to get raped when you were out for any other reason than the two above, just treat it as a friendly reminder of your amazing superhuman abilities and move on!
Reason no. 4
If you are a prostitute
If you accept money for sex not only are your users allowed to treat you like a ‘thing’ and do anything to get their money’s worth they are also allowed to not pay you. Further, even those who are not your ‘customers’ are allowed to have their way with you. Selling sex for money is not like selling a service or a product. Imagine walking up to an architect and demanding he design your house, beating him up if you don’t think the design was up to the mark, snatching the design from him and never paying him or forcing him to design your house at knife point cause that’s what he does do for a living anyway! isn’t it!!!!
Reason no. 5
If you have a boyfriend
Having a boyfriend allows you to be ‘raped’ in many ways. Firstly, the boyfriend himself can rape you whenever he wants because hell! he is your boyfriend right? (eye roll) In fact, even his friends can have their way with you. You ask why? Because if you are brazen enough to allow him to touch you then you are obviously okay with all his friends touching you too. you dimwit! If you have been raped by your boyfriend with his friends, you have no credibility. so what if he claimed he loved you, said that he couldn’t live without you, that he wished to marry you. You should have held on to your honour. The day you allowed him to touch you, you gave him the permission to exploit you. He will obviously take your pictures, make your videos and share you with his friends. Now don’t go saying, he cheated me, he lied to me, made use of me. Men can do anything to get ‘sex’ it’s your fault you fell for his lies. Come on! I am sure even a baby can understand this.
Reason no. 6
If you are married
We are not even sure if your husband can rape you. Ya, we know there is a provision in the law and all that. But honestly speaking. If a husband can not force himself upon his wife then where will he go? I mean isn’t that the reason most men get married in the first place. To get it when they please, however they please without having to pay for it or being nice to their partners. If you as a married woman “are not in the mood”, “don’t enjoy the way your partner does it”, “want to be loved and cared for and not just used” you are using fancy jargon to encroach upon men’s conjugal rights. Surely you need to be ‘cured’ rather than him.
Reason no. 7
If you are not married
This we are very clear about. If you are above the ‘marriageable age’ (Marriageable age being anywhere between 25 and 30) and not married. You are so starved for physical attention that you send out these strong signals asking for help. Like an SOS from a sinking ship. Now can you really blame the middle-aged boss at your office or your Didi’s husband at home for trying to ‘rescue’ you. Poor things!
Reason no. 8
If you or anyone in your family have broken a caste rule
We are a modern country but our villages still follow the caste system. So do our panchayats, leaders and political parties. Even our police understands these rules. The rules lay down stringently who is allowed to marry who, wear what, eat what, have how much land, do what kind of work, speak against who. If anyone in your family gathers the guts to break any of these thousand or more unwritten rules no one can save you from being stripped naked, paraded and gang raped. If you are the victim of this kind of rape heck the crime is not even about you, it’s a ‘caste’ crime and not to be interfered with by the system. Now just pray that the men of your caste are strong enough to take revenge for the crime done upon you by similarly raping one or more women from the other caste. The more the merrier! Or that the local leader from your caste is cunning enough to use your ‘plight’ to propel himself into front line politics. Who knows he may even ensure 5 percent reservation for your caste in all government jobs eventually!
Reason no. 9
If you are raped in one of the disturbed areas
Disturbed areas being those affected by naxalism or terrorism or both. It doesn’t matter then whether you are raped by the terrorists/ naxalites/ police or the army. In either of the cases you are just a number. Just curse your luck at being born in one of these areas and pray that next time god sends you to a mother in Delhi or Mumbai whose daughters at least have names!
The same reason applies to you if you were raped during a communal riot.
Reason no. 10
If you are born poor
Lastly, in India it is ok to rape you if you are born to poor parents. Now poverty is a relative term in India where almost seventy percent people are poor by most standards. Here by poor I mean starving poor. Poor in a bone crunching, hunger gnawing kind of way. Poor in a way that forces your parents to sell you as a little girl to the ‘local’ agent for a few rupees. Knowing fully well the hell they are sending you to. But doing it anyway cause somehow that hell is better than the hell they are living in. And because the few rupees will mean a few more months of existence for the rest of the family. This kind of poverty allows you to be raped by your local agents (to initiate you) the wholesale buyer (to test you) the buyer (to enjoy what he has bought) and then the second buyer, third buyer till you eventually fall into one of the thriving (but invisible to government) red light areas where reason number 4 begins to apply to you.
This is in no way a complete guide. if any of you know anymore reasons feel free to add them up!
The Delhi gang Rape incident is proving to be a watershed moment for the callous way in which incidents of sexual violence against women are dealt with in India.The last few days have left us all in india quite shaken. We have always been aware of the violence, crime and injustice that exists in our society, but have somehow managed to turn a blind eye to it. This profoundly sad incident has forced us all to take notice and react. As we welcome 2013 let us take a pledge. Lets pledge to never turn a blind eye again. Lets us pledge that Every time we see a girl being teased on the road, at school, college or office, we will stand up and protest. No matter who she is. That is the only way we will ensure the safety of our daughters, sisters, mothers and friends. Let us also pledge that we will remain angry with the government and continue to ask questions and demand that they listen to us. Let us pledge to not let fear overtake us . Let us make sure that we continue to occupy the streets late at nights, in even larger numbers. That we use public transport systems even more. That we continue to break the rules. That we do not let such incidents fulfill their larger purpose . Which is to push women back into homes and reduce them again to helpless dependence. Instead let’s make this an excuse for even greater strength. Let us all pledge to make the New Year safer, more peaceful and secure for each one of us…..
Just another wake-up call 
As a woman ,a mother of a girl child I would appericiate your efforts. I really loved the way you have portrait the truth.
thanks meetu 🙂
The violence of that rape, her death and the ‘blind eye’ turned is stunning. India remains brutal, but not alone. It is time, time for all of us born as women to begin to stand together across the world and say enough and no more. We are more than 50% of the worlds population and yet we still do not prevent this from continuing, what is wrong with us?
I know valentine. we are 50 percent but most of us don’t have a voice and remain invisible. Those of us who do have a voice need to shout louder, act more emphatically and be firmer. maybe then things will change ! thank you for stopping by
I can’t stop thinking about that poor girl and what she suffered. I don’t know WHY people do things like this? I am glad to see people protesting… I hope these boys face the justice they deserve. These kinds of people don’t understand OR CARE what they have done!
these boys are a product of our society and its imbalances. while they do need to be punished severely we must never lose sight of the larger issues of patriarchy, gender inequality and social injustice inherent in our society. unless we take steps to correct these many more daminis will continue to suffer, and mostly in silence, out of the eye of the media
One of my favorite quotes is we should stop teaching how to NOT get raped and teach to NOT rape!!!
thats a good one! and very apt 🙂
Thanks for this great article, will repost it on Facebook. We need a system change, much of women problems are due to Inequality in our ability to support ourselves, if we lived in a supportive system, women wouldn’t have to sell themselves to marriage, sexually or just simply not standing up in fear to lose their Life giving support. Inform yourself on Equal Money, share it with the women in India, get involved, participate on our Forums, read or WIKI, we are redrafting a Global system for support of All living Beings to affirm the Equality of Life and the need for accountability for All to put an end to All Abuses.
sounds interesting! whats the name of your site? please send a link
Until a few days ago i hadn’t realised quite how terrible the double standards are in India. You are doing a wonderful job helping to make all women safer. Good luck teaching men that misogyny is not a cultural heritage. Nicola
thank you nicola. though i must say that I am really not doing anything concrete. But I am proud to say that a lot of girls, women and men have taken up the issue and are fighting hard to bring about a change. lets hope some positivi changes come out of this struggle
Sad to say I agree..all the above reasons are true indeed.
Great post…will share 🙂
The article is an eye opener and absolutely TRUE and not an exaggerated version. The pledge is really the solution. KEEP IT UP!!!
thank you rinaya and anju! 🙂
🙂 rinaya
Your anger shows in the sarcasm Jas, and is much needed too. I hope that things do turn for the better. Yes, we as women need to take the first step and stand up against injustice. There’s a lot in our hands too. I know not to trust politicians and expect anything from the law and order departments anymore. Sigh.
the law and order departments are ridden with the same patriarchal thinking that we need to change thus its foolish to expect that they can bring out the desired change. they will have to be pushed into it by the people
Addresses the discriminatory issue very well. Women need to be empowered. Women need to play a more active role in educating their sons about mutual respect. What we see is women bringing up their daughters to be humble, obedient, subservient to the other gender. This is esp true in underdeveloped places. This needs to change.
I agree amira that women need to be empowered etc. but girls are raised to be humble, obedient and subservient in a lot of economically developed countries too…. sons the world over need to be taught about mutual respect. 🙂
The sad thing about this is it is everywhere. Men really have lowered themselves. These men think women are inferior but then what, waste their time on inferior, have to have inferior? Have to bash the women down because they are stronger?
This cruelty towards women is horrible but to the mans reputation it is still horrible. “The man must bash them down to be better.” That is a total male self defeating statement as well and also sad because for the men that do things like this to women, all others are better women or not.
Shame being “Manly turned into be smaller more worthless.”
The psychology of this is quite baffling! And I agree with you there is an element of insecurity in there and the wish to “keep women where they belong” ! thanks for stopping by here.
I don’t believe it to be baffling at all. Women have one muscle and men have 2. We both have brain muscle that works out the same way. Men have those arms muscles that when worked out the same way on a woman are not as attractive to the female body or female hormone.
SO when a man gets beat and feeling weak, in their weakness turn to the arm muscle. All people in weakness have a problem separating issue. Men need to work on separating brain muscle issue and stop using the arm muscle more then the brain muscle when they feel weak and/or beat in any govern thing. Even the arm muscle is better lead by the head muscle first.
Women are stuck with the brain muscle to beat them both. Men must learn this on their own. Women can’t do it for them. Pushed, forced education is not as effective as pulled.
🙂
Thank you for what you’re doing!
I’m not doing much travel spirit! except for ranting! 🙂
I like the way you made your point. The Republican party in the USA lost a election over a foolish statement. “Rape is God will.” 58% of woman voted for Obama. Rape is a crime. Woman are our daughter, wife, mother and grandmothers. I believe children must be taught respect. No excise for rape or abuse of anyone. Thank you for the blog.
i wish Indian voters would react like that. A large number of our politicians have not only made such statements but are accused of crimes against women themselves. Still they brazenly continue to be in office and get re-elected. The public outcry against the delhi rape case may bring about some amount of change, I hope! thanks for stopping by and the encouragemnet