Pal’s statements are in a whole new league: For the first time, an elected MP has on camera actually threatened rape as a form of political retribution.
Insensitive, ignorant statements about women by Indian politicians are now, sadly, commonplace. Even so, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Tapas Pal’s remarks, caught on camera in an undated video, mark a new low.
Unlike his predecessors who have sought either to justify rape or blame women for the rise in violence against them, Pal’s statements are in a whole new league: For the first time, an elected MP has on camera actually threatened rape as a form of political retribution. Pal has been an MP from Krishnanagar since 2009. “If anyone from the Opposition dares to touch any woman then I will send my boys and get women of CPM raped,” Pal said at a speech in Chouhama village.
TMC has been quick to dissociate itself from Pal’s remarks. Party spokesman Derek O’Brien tweeted that the statements were “very insensitive”. “We do not in any way endorse what he said weeks ago, being played on TV today,” he said.
Pal has been asked to provide a written explanation to the party within 48 hours. Meanwhile, his wife Nandini Pal has apologized on her husband’s behalf—with a caveat. “The comments need to be seen in context, but he shouldn’t have used the term ‘rape’,” she said. Pal himself claims to have never used the word rape. “I said they should ‘raid’ all people,” he told CNN-IBN.
A threat to rape amounts to non-physical but illegal assault, said former additional solicitor general Indira Jaising. Any rape or assault of a woman would render Pal liable for arrest as an abettor of the offence under section 107 of the Indian Penal Code, added lawyer Saurabh Kirpal. Pal’s remarks can be seen in the context of an ongoing spate of misogyny by those in power. In May, Samajwadi Party boss Mulayam Singh Yadav told an election rally that he is against the tougher new rape laws because “boys will be boys” and sometimes make “mistakes”. His trusted lieutenant, Abu Azmi, head of the Samajwadi Party in Maharashtra, followed up by advocating hanging for women who “go along with a man with or without her consent”.
When people in positions of power make remarks either blaming women for crimes against them or dismissing rape as a “mistake”, they embolden criminals. In May—just weeks after Mulayam’s election rally and Abu Azmi’s remarks—two teenage girls were raped in Badaun and their bodies hung from a tree. A few days later a 19-year-old woman was raped and hung in Moradabad district, one day after another woman was found hanging in Bahraich district.
And yet, the remarks continue. Maharashtra home minister R.R. Patil attributed the rise in crimes against women to “obscene images used in advertisements”. Even if the state were to provide one policeman for every household “we can’t stop crimes against women”, he said. A few days earlier, on 5 June, Madhya Pradesh home minister Babulal Gaur called rape a “social crime”. “It is sometimes right and sometimes wrong,” he said. Another Madhya Pradesh minister Kailash Vijayvargiya said in January that “such cases” happen because women are crossing “the limit of morality”. Chhattisgarh home minister Ramsevak Paikraadded his two bits when he said rapes happen “accidentally”. The misogyny infects women as well. Following the 2012 Park Street rape, TMC minister Kakoli Ghose Dastidar said the rape was a “misunderstanding between two parties involved in professional dealings”. Prior to the elections this year, Nationalist Congress Party and Maharashtra state women’s commission member Asha Mirje asked why the 23-year-old physiotherapy student was out so late at night on 16 December 2012.
And on it goes.
Every new statement is followed by a now predictable outpouring of outrage and an equally predictable denial: I was misquoted. I said it in another context. This is a conspiracy by my political opponents. In a matter of days, the controversy is forgotten, until the next one comes along and everybody is huffing and puffing again.
National Crime Records Bureau data for 2013 shows a sharp rise in reported crimes against women, including rape and assault. The number of reported rapes was up from 24,973 in 2012 to 33,707 in 2013. There might not be a direct connection between the rise in crimes and the statements made by politicians, but crimes, particularly against women, flourish in a culture of impunity. When politicians attempt to pin responsibility on women or their skirts or advertising, they provide an alibi to criminals (how could he help it, her skirt was too short, why blame him for just a mistake, etc) and lose their moral authority to remain in power. They become accomplices in violence against women through statements that either directly endorse it or seek to justify it. How do you stem such speech, particularly when it comes from party leaders? Outrage can be effective if it is sustained. Public outrage forced the Karnataka BJP to withdraw an invitation earlier this year to induct Pramod Muthalik, whose Sri Ram Sene had carried out a violent assault in 2009 in a Mangalore pub. And it was public outrage that forced the new laws on rape and crimes against women. But it is also incumbent for parties to send the right message.
Shielding a rape accused, as the BJP continues to do with Nihal Chand, or refusing to chastise a spokesman, Sanjay Nirupam, who dismissed a woman opponent, Smriti Iranias a ‘thumkewali’ (dance girl) on TV sends a message of laissez-faire. Regardless of their political compulsions, leaders need to speak up and stamp out hate speech.
At the very least, Mamata Banerjee must expel Tapas Pal for threatening his political opponents with rape. She must do it to restore her own credibility. She must do it to signal a new regime of zero tolerance to such speeches. But more, she must do it because it is the right, and only, thing to do.