Grappling with patriarchy

The wrestlers protesting at Jantar Mantar have, in a highly anti-national way, swung the arc lights away from Hindu-pride-development-Vishwaguru-glory-glory back to the tedious national headache of women continuing to not like being harassed and taken sexual advantage of.

They first staged a sit-in in January, demanding action against Wrestling Federation of India head Brij Bhushan Singh, a many times BJP MP with a long criminal charge-sheet, at least one self-confessed murder and, the women say, handsy hands. The Modi government did what any government loudly sworn to totally saving women would do: Nothing. The women resumed their protest on April 23 -- you’d think they might be more nurturing of important men, but no -- and the government continued to ardently ignore the whole thing until the Supreme Court made the police register some FIRs.

Also Read | SIT formed to probe sexual harassment allegations against WFI chief Brij Bhushan Singh

Brij Bhushan Singh did what important men do -- he said the women are lying and if he’s guilty he’ll hang himself (because important men are not at all melodramatic, like the PM who once said, his voice breaking, that he would not stop working for the nation even if he were burned alive). Now the wrestlers say they’ll take a narco test, and demand that Brij Bhushan Singh take one, too. That ‘women are more understanding’ thing is a complete canard.

A patriarchal mindset simply cannot take sexual harassment seriously, because unless you got raped or killed, is it that big a deal? And if you did get raped or killed, it kind of depends on who you and the accused are.

Marrying your rapist seems like a good form of reparation. Erasing a murder seems like a good form of maintaining law and order (remember a certain funeral in Hathras?) Persecuting or killing an inter-caste couple seems like a good way of upholding social values. Patriarchy’s response to sexual misdemeanour/crime runs the gamut from outright appreciation to indifference to cover-up. What it never does is take sexual harassment and crime seriously -- unless that serves caste or political ends.

Also Read | NHRC notices to Ministry, BCCI, WFI over lack of panel to address complaints of sexual harassment

This same patriarchal government that is playing deaf and dumb with the wrestlers, this same government that released Bilkis Bano’s rapists, sprang into indignant action accusing Rahul Gandhi of not facilitating justice to women on the Bharat Jodo Yatra who told him their stories of abuse. The most patriarchy can do is to put out vote-harvesting Beti Bachao ads.

This is how patriarchy treats all women. It only gets a bit awkward when the accusing women are super-famous national sporting champions, unlike that 8-year-old nobody in Kathua whose rapist-murderers BJP members marched in support of. But patriarchy would like even high-profile women to see that their problems are simply not as important as the larger life of the nation, e.g., the social clout and votes represented by an accused. If these wrestlers love their country, can’t they just take one for the team, literally, and maybe try to see it as a compliment? Maybe if they focus on strong leadership, they won’t mind being touched without consent. Meanwhile, people are predictably taking out marches in support of Brij Bhushan Singh.

There is a school of thought that sees the Modi government’s inaction as smart politics -- ignore agitation until it dies -- in contrast to the Manmohan Singh government’s sacking of tainted people, which was apparently weak-kneed. That school of thought, too, reduces sexual crime to a management problem, the goal of which is not justice, but power.

But the Modi government’s management is backfiring spectacularly. It’s like when you develop a little zit just before an important date with the G-20 and hope it will disappear if you just do some deep breathing, but then protesters get manhandled by police and the zit gets all red and inflamed, and then some farmers show up and it develops a big white head, and then the police weld barricades together and now there’s a nasty yellow pus-filled halo -- the thing is really ruining your look.

Six women and a minor girl are proving harder to grapple with than patriarchy imagined.