On the Delhi Rape

In December 2012, India was shaken by the ghastly rape and subsequent death of a young woman, pseudonym-ed as Damini or Nirbhaya. While India has a shamefully high number of rapes (many of which supposedly go unreported), the capital city of Delhi had in recent years acquired the title "rape capital" for the particularly high (even by Indian standards) number of rapes happening in it. Even then, this one has received huge media coverage and has provoked unprecedented outrage in Delhi, (partly?) because of its horribly brutal nature. 

The public reaction to this horrible incident has mostly been centered around vociferous demands for stricter laws and more severe punishment (including death penalty) for rapists. But whether stringent laws and tough punishment can actually reduce rapes or not, will not be clear unless the causes of rape are understood correctly. In the wake of the mentioned incident, there have been analyses of why so many rapes are happening in India. The most important factors which have been highlighted are 1) with the increasing emancipation of females, egoistic males are feeling threatened, and rape is their method of trying to subdue women, 2) the proliferation of "Western Culture", 3) Influence of certain advertisements and movies (especially item numbers) which "objectify women", 4) Lack of sexual freedom in India etc.

I am no social scientist. Nor do i have access to data to give opinions on how important these factors are. But personally, I find it hard to believe that rapes have anything to do with lack of sexual freedom. Rape is an enormously violent activity, and no one can possibly get sexual pleasure out of it. If at all someone does get pleasure, it would be sadistic or some such perverted form of pleasure. I do not quite understand what is "Western Culture", so nor can I comment about it. It is true that some item songs of Bollywood and regional movies seem insensitive in their portrayal of women, and personally I do think it is possible that they give the impression to people that women do not mind getting raped. However I also do not like the idea of blaming Bollywood or the movie industry as a whole for this matter. Surely there are many movies which do portray women nicely. While it can be argued that such movies are usually "flop" in the box office, the film industry cannot be blamed for that. Rather, I would believe (again, without data) that the non-uniform and non-inclusive economic growth in India in recent years is a more important factor.

But another point on which I do not see much discussion is about what are the implications of rape on the victim. In India, rape is viewed as "dishonoring" a woman, or robbing her of  her modesty. Most anti-rape activists say that rape is worse than murder, because a raped victim has to live through hell for the rest of her life, because of the social stigma that gets associated with her. But why should that be the case? Why cannot rape be looked upon as simply a horrible form of violence on women? Why at all is there any talk of dishonoring? No one can be dishonored by subjecting him/her to violence. Rape victims must not feel dishonored, they must not feel ashamed, they have no reason to. The society too must not attach any stigma with a rape victim- neither cringe at her sight, nor consider her a slut and nor pity her, but consider her as just another normal person. I do not know how to stop rapes, but can we not ensure that rape victims do not have to feel  that they have been dishonored? And if the feminist theory regarding rapes is true (rape is a way of subduing women), then indeed this should reduce the number of rapes, as the rapists will understand that women cannot be subdued by raping!!