Beyond women as 'liabilities'

Crimes are despicable. Some crimes reveal such sickness of mentality that they cease to be just crimes.

A 75-year-old woman was raped and murdered in Chandigarh; she belonged to a well-known family. I mention this because such acts do not take place only in 'backward' localities.

A five-year-old was sexually assaulted.

We already know about the 'tandoor murder' and the cannibalistic cases
of Nithari.

They never fail to shock me. We know that rape is not just about sex but power. Yet, a man can only flash his power when there is the possibility of a real struggle, by a woman trying her best to save her body and soul.

What resistance can an old woman or a child give? What can any man get out of this? Pleasure? Conquest? For a few goddamn seconds of ejaculation, why would any man go through such inhuman behaviour?
I cannot even picture this. I think of an aging face being stunned and a kid's wide-eyed stare that blanks out when she does not even know what is happening, that there is a part of her body that can be abused.
And when these men are done, they kill their victims. These big men with big weapons and tiny minds are afraid that they will be exposed by such helpless people? What an irony it is.

In rare cases, the dead bodies too are devoured. This is the male who cannot deal with anything living because he is dead inside.

Some of them are caught but the cases drag on. When did you last read a headline that said, 'No one killed this old woman/child'? Is there fast-track justice for them?

Corruption that is taking up prime time these days is a two-way crime. Rape isn't.
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Last week the papers reported that the Supreme Court's only female judge, Gyan Sudha Mishra, had listed her two daughters as liabilities in the proforma.

Today, her secretary has clarified that the liability is the cash outflow that would result in their future resettlement. Education loans fall under this category,too, he mentioned by way of example. He also wondered if the issue had been about sons would there be any discussion about gender?

I think this is a cavalier attitude. How many people mention expenses incurred on sons as liabilities? The subtext here, and stated too, is marriage expenses. What does this mean? Dowry? 'Stree dhan' (a woman's wealth, literally, but generally what her parents give her during the wedding)? Don't we know that the latter is often considered as covert dowry unless the marriage falls apart and the case is in the courts and the woman often has a tough time proving that the jewellery and other items are her's.

And this patronising nonsense flaunted as a rescue to reputation operation about the Judge Ms. Mishra's daughters being assets to the parents only underlines the transactional nature that human relationships have stooped to.