Since Rajen passed judgement on the article reading the first
paragraph, and since netters' curiosity might have been piqued, here
is the whole article.
Note the comments of KPS Gill, which I highlighted.
cm
Why is he such a menace?
The Delhi male's rogue gene
Thirty percent of rapes that take place in India's 35 big cities happen in the national capital. It also accounts for 35 percent of abductions of women. What is it that drives Delhi's men? Poornima Joshi finds out
Monster Behind the Veil: the accused in the Dhaula Kuan rape case being produced in the court
'Man cannot digest the fact that women are
claiming public spaces that he thought were his
domain. He comes from a cultural background
where women are disposable'
Except C-grade Bollywood villains, who else enjoys violent street fights, relishes assaulting women in cars and routinely beats up his wife? Who would shoot a Jessica Lal dead just because she refuses to serve him drinks or brutally kill a Nitish Katara because he dares to fall in love with the wrong girl? We are talking about the average Delhi male - an aggressive, violent, misogynist who refuses to grow up with times.
One doesn't really have to whip up statistics to prove the obvious. But even a cursory look proves shocking enough. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Delhi reported over 30.5 percent, 406 out of the total 1,329 rape cases in a survey of 35 mega cities across the country in 2003. For kidnapping and abduction of women, Delhi counted for 35 percent (673) of the total 1,921 cases. In the same year, Delhi reported a 793 percent increase in cases of cruelty by husbands and relatives. Among the big cities, Delhi tops the crime graph with an average rate of 328.1 as against 156.9, 81.1 and 133.5 for Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.
Statistics apart, understanding the Delhi male psyche is an exercise that is repulsive to even the objective academics. According to Dr Rajat Mitra, a psychiatrist with Sanchetan Society for Mental Health who has done exhaustive work with sexual offenders in Tihar, 90 percent of culprits caught for heinous crimes against women in Delhi have absolutely no regrets.
Ritu Beri
fashion designer
I think the problem lies with men. What they need to do is understand their manhood. I feel men need more exposure to the world and see a doctor.
"After a point, I felt really repulsed. I interacted with them every day but the conversation left me numbed with the level of perversion. Most of them were repeat offenders. The only thing they regretted was being a little careless which landed them in jail. But about the act, mostly violent sexual assault, they had absolutely no regrets. In fact, they never believed that the victims suffered any pain. Most of them believed the victims also felt the same pleasure that they did," he says.
According to Dr Mitra, their notion of pleasure is so distorted that they think a woman is screaming because she is enjoying herself. "We had a long contact programme through which we tried telling them that the relationship with a woman is enjoyable when there is intimacy, friendship, tenderness. I don't think we went too far because none of them ever believed that such a thing was possible. Their sexual and emotional lives are so skewed that raping someone is the highpoint of their existence. Most of them told me, 'Iske alawa aur life main rakha hee kya hai (What else is there to life)'," says Dr Mitra.
Rani Jethmalani lawyer
North Indian men don't
respect a woman's sanctity and practise patriarchy of the worst kind. They lack cosmopolitan instinct.
This attitude, say experts in gender studies and masculinity, is typical of a society that segregates men and women. It acquires a different dimension in Delhi because of the unique cultural ethos of the city. According to feminist-publisher Urvashi Butalia, violence towards women exists in every society but in Delhi, it finds a certain _expression_ that is unique to the city.
The Delhi male's rogue gene
Thirty percent of rapes that take place in India's 35 big cities happen in the national capital. It also accounts for 35 percent of abductions of women. What is it that drives Delhi's men? Poornima Joshi finds out
Monster Behind the Veil: the accused in the Dhaula Kuan rape case being produced in the court
'Man cannot digest the fact that women are
claiming public spaces that he thought were his
domain. He comes from a cultural background
where women are disposable'
Except C-grade Bollywood villains, who else enjoys violent street fights, relishes assaulting women in cars and routinely beats up his wife? Who would shoot a Jessica Lal dead just because she refuses to serve him drinks or brutally kill a Nitish Katara because he dares to fall in love with the wrong girl? We are talking about the average Delhi male - an aggressive, violent, misogynist who refuses to grow up with times.
One doesn't really have to whip up statistics to prove the obvious. But even a cursory look proves shocking enough. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Delhi reported over 30.5 percent, 406 out of the total 1,329 rape cases in a survey of 35 mega cities across the country in 2003. For kidnapping and abduction of women, Delhi counted for 35 percent (673) of the total 1,921 cases. In the same year, Delhi reported a 793 percent increase in cases of cruelty by husbands and relatives. Among the big cities, Delhi tops the crime graph with an average rate of 328.1 as against 156.9, 81.1 and 133.5 for Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.
Statistics apart, understanding the Delhi male psyche is an exercise that is repulsive to even the objective academics. According to Dr Rajat Mitra, a psychiatrist with Sanchetan Society for Mental Health who has done exhaustive work with sexual offenders in Tihar, 90 percent of culprits caught for heinous crimes against women in Delhi have absolutely no regrets.
Ritu Beri
fashion designer
I think the problem lies with men. What they need to do is understand their manhood. I feel men need more exposure to the world and see a doctor.
"After a point, I felt really repulsed. I interacted with them every day but the conversation left me numbed with the level of perversion. Most of them were repeat offenders. The only thing they regretted was being a little careless which landed them in jail. But about the act, mostly violent sexual assault, they had absolutely no regrets. In fact, they never believed that the victims suffered any pain. Most of them believed the victims also felt the same pleasure that they did," he says.
According to Dr Mitra, their notion of pleasure is so distorted that they think a woman is screaming because she is enjoying herself. "We had a long contact programme through which we tried telling them that the relationship with a woman is enjoyable when there is intimacy, friendship, tenderness. I don't think we went too far because none of them ever believed that such a thing was possible. Their sexual and emotional lives are so skewed that raping someone is the highpoint of their existence. Most of them told me, 'Iske alawa aur life main rakha hee kya hai (What else is there to life)'," says Dr Mitra.
Rani Jethmalani lawyer
North Indian men don't
respect a woman's sanctity and practise patriarchy of the worst kind. They lack cosmopolitan instinct.
This attitude, say experts in gender studies and masculinity, is typical of a society that segregates men and women. It acquires a different dimension in Delhi because of the unique cultural ethos of the city. According to feminist-publisher Urvashi Butalia, violence towards women exists in every society but in Delhi, it finds a certain _expression_ that is unique to the city.
"Delhi has not had a working middle class like Mumbai had. So, while in Mumbai men have been forced to develop a certain attitude because of the thousands of women who have long back claimed their public space, Delhi never developed that culture. Men are not used to seeing women on the road or in public spaces. But now, when women want that space, they react in the way they do. What is particularly disturbing is that there is no outrage against these incidents among the ordinary people. They think such things are normal," says Butalia.
KPS Gill
former Punjab DGP
former Punjab DGP
Delhi is the worst city. For this I would blame the women who
try to wear certain clothes just to keep in tune with the trend. They
are the ones who provoke men.
Not only are incidents like the one in Dhaula Kuan, where a college student was abducted and raped inside a car by three men, accepted as normal in Delhi, the reactions, not just from the ill-informed but also from the empowered like the state Minister for Women and Child Development Kanti Singh, tend to blame the woman for her misery. "Some people I have met say that girls should not wear provocative clothes," Kanti Singh told a group of journalists in an informal meeting just the day after the young woman had been brutalised for hours. This, according to cpi(m) politburo member Brinda Karat, is a typically objectionable statement that sums up gender equations in the city.
"This city is drenched in social values that encourage practices like female infanticide, as if a woman is expendable. Men display completely irresponsible behaviour on the streets and get away with it because it is acceptable for men to be sexually aggressive," Karat says.
Vidhu, student
The police need to become strict with offenders. It is unfair that women are forced to limit what they wear and where they go.
To writer and publisher of the literary magazine Hans, Rajendra Yadav, Delhi is a city of grabbers, small-timers who make it big through questionable means. "They grab power, money, property, everything. Women are also seen as property, so you can grab and discard them whenever you want. In cities like Kolkata, for instance, you would be lynched if you so much as passed a comment at a girl. But here, everything is acceptable because, as I said, you think everything is up for grabs. The male here has never thought of a woman as anything else but an object," he says.
The character of the Delhi male also reflects a social and cultural ethos derived from its neighbours - Haryana, Rajasthan and western UP, places where couples are still hanged for daring to fall in love, places that have the worst sex ratio and record of female infanticide. According to film-maker Rahul Roy, who has done extensive work on masculinity and male sexuality, beautifully depicted in his film When Four Friends Meet, the male in Delhi is unable to adjust to the change in gender equations.
Rachna homemaker
Delhi is dangerous.
It's a male-dominated society. Walking on the streets scantily clad at 2am is asking for trouble.
"He cannot digest the fact that women are claiming public spaces that he thought were his domain. He comes from a cultural background where women are disposable. Theoretically, he might still be the head of the family, but the reality has changed. His sense of entitlement to power is being challenged. The woman, even in the working class families, is probably doing better than him. In the last 10-15 years in Delhi particularly, women have made a mental and intellectual journey that men have not done. This imbalance finds its _expression_ in violence and aggressive behaviour," says Roy.
Roy agrees with Dr Mitra's analysis of the skewed perception of man-woman relationships. He refers to his discussions on gender equations with men from all strata at a seminar in Delhi recently. "Their perception of relationships with men was actually frightening. All of them thought that marriages were fine as long as there was an element of discovery of sex. But very soon, they disintegrated into just managing equations between wife and mother or just routine haggling over mundane chores. In effect, we live in a society where an average male finds absolutely no enjoyment from his relationship with women. It was a very disturbing discovery," says Roy.
Not only are incidents like the one in Dhaula Kuan, where a college student was abducted and raped inside a car by three men, accepted as normal in Delhi, the reactions, not just from the ill-informed but also from the empowered like the state Minister for Women and Child Development Kanti Singh, tend to blame the woman for her misery. "Some people I have met say that girls should not wear provocative clothes," Kanti Singh told a group of journalists in an informal meeting just the day after the young woman had been brutalised for hours. This, according to cpi(m) politburo member Brinda Karat, is a typically objectionable statement that sums up gender equations in the city.
"This city is drenched in social values that encourage practices like female infanticide, as if a woman is expendable. Men display completely irresponsible behaviour on the streets and get away with it because it is acceptable for men to be sexually aggressive," Karat says.
Vidhu, student
The police need to become strict with offenders. It is unfair that women are forced to limit what they wear and where they go.
To writer and publisher of the literary magazine Hans, Rajendra Yadav, Delhi is a city of grabbers, small-timers who make it big through questionable means. "They grab power, money, property, everything. Women are also seen as property, so you can grab and discard them whenever you want. In cities like Kolkata, for instance, you would be lynched if you so much as passed a comment at a girl. But here, everything is acceptable because, as I said, you think everything is up for grabs. The male here has never thought of a woman as anything else but an object," he says.
The character of the Delhi male also reflects a social and cultural ethos derived from its neighbours - Haryana, Rajasthan and western UP, places where couples are still hanged for daring to fall in love, places that have the worst sex ratio and record of female infanticide. According to film-maker Rahul Roy, who has done extensive work on masculinity and male sexuality, beautifully depicted in his film When Four Friends Meet, the male in Delhi is unable to adjust to the change in gender equations.
Rachna homemaker
Delhi is dangerous.
It's a male-dominated society. Walking on the streets scantily clad at 2am is asking for trouble.
"He cannot digest the fact that women are claiming public spaces that he thought were his domain. He comes from a cultural background where women are disposable. Theoretically, he might still be the head of the family, but the reality has changed. His sense of entitlement to power is being challenged. The woman, even in the working class families, is probably doing better than him. In the last 10-15 years in Delhi particularly, women have made a mental and intellectual journey that men have not done. This imbalance finds its _expression_ in violence and aggressive behaviour," says Roy.
Roy agrees with Dr Mitra's analysis of the skewed perception of man-woman relationships. He refers to his discussions on gender equations with men from all strata at a seminar in Delhi recently. "Their perception of relationships with men was actually frightening. All of them thought that marriages were fine as long as there was an element of discovery of sex. But very soon, they disintegrated into just managing equations between wife and mother or just routine haggling over mundane chores. In effect, we live in a society where an average male finds absolutely no enjoyment from his relationship with women. It was a very disturbing discovery," says Roy.
Anshuman consultant
I think Delhi is safe as long as you do the right things. It's unfortunate that people cannot roam around at night but we have to learn to accept it.
What proves the theory about the Delhi male having a 'skewed' idea about man-woman relationships, marriage, etc is the infamous case of a nurse who was raped in the city's Shanti Mukund Hospital. The rapist, Bhura, assaulted her in a filthy bathroom, thrashed her badly and blinded her. But when he was to be sentenced for the crime, he actually proposed marriage to the girl. What topped this extraordinary proposal was the judge's reaction. Having conveniently forgotten what Bhura had subjected his victim to, the judge actually asked the girl to consider Bhura's proposal and tell the
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