Authored by Shreya Singh and Adhya Pandey, Batch of 2027
Caricature by Adhya Pandey, Batch of 2027
It is not the best time to be alive. Every day, the newspaper headlines uncover new atrocities, limits of apathy are surpassed and humanity seems to dwindle away. There’s a mechanical quality to the whole routine. Just like clockwork, we read of these terrible acts of violence with bone-dry eyes, feign incredulity, point fingers and then do it all over again. It’s like walking, without pause, through a gallery of paintings but every canvas on the wall is splattered with the blood of victims. The muffled shrieks fall on deaf ears as we, the spectators, hurry past this uncomfortable spectacle. We as a people, aren’t ready to change or budge. Perhaps, we are too afraid to introspect, fearing what might crawl out from the deep, dark recesses of our minds. What if that thought tells us we aren’t as guileless and innocent as we believe? No, that must stay unacknowledged and unspoken. How else will we mount our high horse and play this very important role of pointing fingers and deflecting blame?
This culture of avoidance and denial is ingrained in our everyday lives, manifesting in forms of microaggressions and systemic failures that normalise sexual violence. We have created an environment that perpetuates and enables such crimes.
We live in a culture that teaches potential victims how to not get raped instead of telling potential rapists not to rape others. Seemingly content with these counterproductive measures in place, we do nothing and sit on our hands. Then the rapist strikes again, ravishing another victim. Another life, another soul claimed by the evil in man, another painting added to the gallery of indifference. But who is answerable? It must be the victim! Now let us all gather around and scrutinise their suffering and pain, make sure they followed the unwritten handbook. Do they fit the archetype of the ‘perfect’ victim? First and foremost, are they a woman? The rules suggest only women can get raped, because surely– having another gender identity makes you immune. Was she young, beautiful and sober? How hard did she fight back, how loud were her ‘NO’s and ‘STOP’s? Was she intoxicated? What was she wearing? And where did the crime occur? Was it on a moving bus, a hospital’s seminar hall, a school, a nightclub or a party? It is pertinent, we must know.
We love to ignore one simple fact: rapists are not born, they are made. It is easier to pretend that rapists are these deviant perverts, the devil incarnates, and not people like us. In reality, rapists are just a product of the rape culture we so dearly uphold. The countless everyday microassaults, like the overtly sexist jokes we laugh along with and the Bollywood movies that romanticise stalking and harassment, all feed into the problem. Even the profanities we use have sexist and misogynistic undertones. The actual rapists and wrongdoers are only the tip of the iceberg. The ‘good guys’ on the internet who haven’t done anything wrong but deem it fit to encroach on safe forums for survivors and go around writing #NotAllMen make up the rest. They try to make the issue about their gender being demonized and shut down victim’s voices. “Real men don’t rape” is another tone-deaf and problematic rhetoric often used to somehow dissociate rape from the male gender. The truth is, the men who rape are men too; we can’t pretend otherwise.
The purveyors of justice are often more sympathetic to the perpetrators than they are to the victims. This is why most women choose not to report the crime. The humiliating questions and the character assassination that occurs in the courtroom frequently result in a miscarriage of justice. In fact, only one in four rape cases in India result in convictions. This is hardly surprising, given how slowly the wheels of Indian justice turn. Moreover, the history of our high courts making outrageous and patriarchal statements about rape victims only compounds this issue. We’d rather let the rapist roam free than believe the ‘not visibly distressed’ or ‘unchaste’ woman. Embolden the rapist and punish the woman. After all, it is the woman who failed– she failed to protect herself and failed to convince us.
Trauma survivors often encounter prejudice and harsh treatment when pursuing justice, which re-traumatizes them in a system meant to shield them. Media portrayals can fuel harmful stereotypes, pushing them further into isolation. In the workplace, they may face discrimination or retaliation, making them fear for their economic stability. Social stigmatisation in close-knit communities can cut them off from the support they need to heal. As a result, survivors live in constant fear and distrust, taking every precaution to avoid reliving their worst nightmare.
Most rapes aren’t even committed for the purpose of sexual gratification. Instead, they have become tools for taking revenge, settling vendettas and asserting dominance and ownership over women. It’s infuriating to see how often these violent crimes that make the news have communal and casteist motivations. Yet, for some curious reason, the rape of Dalit, Muslim and poor women never evokes as much outrage as the rape of upper-caste Hindu women. Why are we so selective in our outrage? The deep-seated patriarchy cannot stand it when a woman exercises her choices. The wretched agents of patriarchy do everything in their power to subjugate women. Ultimately, rape has become a mechanism to dictate in what way, to what extent and at what time a woman should participate in society.
She now gets terrified by flashbacks every time she walks down a dark alley. So, she returns home before the Sun sets. She fakes a call whenever she is all by herself in a cab, making sure that the driver knows there is a “man” waiting for her at home. In an effort to stay “vigilant”, she never listens to music while out or even strikes up a conversation with strangers. Yet in the back of her mind, that one dreadful day that still haunts her, she sees herself. Fear consumes her, making her feel as though she is burning alive, as she realises how that day the Sun couldn’t save her. The “man” who was waiting at her home couldn’t save her. Her vigilance couldn’t save her. If anything, she comes to believe that she didn’t do enough to keep herself and her virtue safe.
In the name of precaution and protection, we have caged women. Writing down guidelines, preaching loud beliefs, and creating tutorial videos have all manifested a world that is ostensibly safe for a lady, yet it is so small that she can never fully thrive on her own, never on her own accord. Victim blaming is so deeply rooted in our society that even time-old tales and ancient myths questioned the virtue of goddesses. It is a tragic reality that the victim has to defend herself to the entire world and after those countless justifications, she eventually begins to blame herself for her own actions.
This harsh reality is no accident; it is the result of a deeply ingrained patriarchal system that upholds women’s subordination in all contexts. Patriarchy subtly perpetuates the notion that a woman’s autonomy is negotiable and her value is secondary, a belief that is reinforced by the family, religious doctrine, educational institutions, and the state itself. These structures are designed to maintain control, to ensure that women remain confined within roles that serve the interests of a male-dominated society. True emancipation, therefore, requires more than just addressing individual acts of violence—it demands the absolute dismantling of the patriarchal system that underpins them, a system that views women as objects to be controlled rather than as human beings with their own agency.
The most heartbreaking reality, sadly, is that behind every headline and statistic, is a person. A life irreparable, dreams shattered and a future forever tainted by the blood shed through an act of violence. The victims are not mere numbers. Their pain is a searing reminder of our collective failure, a stain on our conscience that cannot be washed away by empty words.
The gallery of indifference we’ve created, where victims are scrutinised and blamed while perpetrators walk free, reflects the deep flaws in our society. This is not merely a call for awareness but a demand for action. We must dismantle the systems that perpetuate rape culture, challenge the narratives that excuse and trivialize sexual violence, and hence create a world where justice is not a distant ideal but a lived reality for all.
Yet, as a society, we bear responsibility for the desensitisation that allows these issues to persist. Over time, through our media, our conversations, and even our silence, we have become numb to the gravity of sexual violence. Stories of assault are too often met with apathy or even a misguided attempt to rationalise the behaviour of perpetrators. All too frequently, reports of attack are greeted with indifference, doubt, or even a foolish attempt to justify the actions of those who do them. This desensitisation manifests in the form of normalisation of harmful jokes, the dismissal of survivors’ experiences, and the reluctance to confront uncomfortable truths about the prevalence of such violence. Recognizing our shared accountability and refusing to turn away from hard-realities are the first steps toward change. It is only by facing these truths head-on that we can hope to build a safer, a more just society, where the cries for help are heard and answered, not silenced by fear and apathy.
It is time we get off from our high horses, stop pointing fingers, and commit to real introspection and reform. Next time around when your classmate cracks a “joke”, are you still keeping quiet?