The Delhi December 16 gangrape case has been followed by a sharp escalation of rape cases around the country. Delhi alone is witnessing four cases of rape a day as against around two cases a day in 2012. What is alarming is that rape today is being combined with a veritable Molotov cocktail of masochism and increasing levels of brutality.
Clinical psychologists working at the community level explain this brutality as part of the consumerist culture in which objects can be “ used and then thrown away”.
Clinical psychologist Pulkit Sharma with VIMHANS, who has counselled several boys in juvenile homes in the NCR and Noida, pointed out, “Many of these boys have themselves been raped as young kids. When an individual undergoes severe forms of trauma, it leaves him very hard. Kids at that vulnerable age often identify with the aggressor and will then model themselves along the lines of their tormentor.”
He also regrets that the image of sexuality has become very consumerist. “There is a lot of male and female prostitution going on. Increased commodification of sex has combined with increasing levels of pornography which is throwing up extremely masochistic videos that people are being exposed to leaving them very brutal. Lack of emotional support allows for a rage to build up and become toxic,” he said.
“When I asked juveniles why they have committed rape, their reply was that they enjoyed intimidating young children. They confess to being overpowered by their own needs and see kids as easy prey. When you go into their background, you realise there is an absence of emotional warmth in their lives. They are unable to develop feelings of empathy for others,” Dr Sharma said.
Dr Satish Kapoor, psychiatrist with the NGO Healing Hands, believes the dichotomies in our society are creating such a situation.
“People living in the cities will talk about free sex and girls drinking and all of that but the thousands of villagers that migrate to our cities hail from extremely conservative backgrounds. No attempt is made to educate them or change their mentality,” said Dr Kapoor.
Talking about the Gandhi Nagar case where a five-year-old girl was kept captive for four days and was found to have foreign objects in her private body parts, he said, “Young girls are easy targets and the tormentor must have had a pervert mind.”
But the police do not help to improve the situation. In the case of the Swiss tourist who was gangraped in Dalia forest in central India, the Madhya Pradesh police inspector Avnesh Kumar Budholiya reportedly said, “Why did they chose that remote place. They would have passed a police station on the way to the area they camped. They should have stopped and asked about places to sleep.”
Instead of addressing the issue of law and order, the blame was being placed yet again on the victim.