As India Responds to Latest Rapes, the Unanswered Question is \'Why?\'

Mustafa Quraishi/Associated PressWomen at a protest organized in Rohtak, Haryana, on Oct.15, to condemn the recent incidents of rape and violence in the state.

As the north Indian state of Haryana reels from one awful rape case to the next, the question on many lips is, simply: Why?

Why would a group of drunken men drag a lower-caste teenage girl, known to some of them, into a building and rape her repeatedly while taking video of the assault, as was reported to the police in Hisar? Why would a fruit vendor repeatedly rape a 13-year old girl, and why would school officials expel her and her sisters after the family went to the police, as was reported in Fatehabad?  Why would two men in their 20s rape a 6-year old, as was reported in Gurgaon?

Haryana, which hugs the nation's capital, New Delhi, straddles the “New India” of Gurgaon, the outsourcing supercity, and the old India of farming communities ruled by unelected but all-powerful male village councils, known as khap panchayats.

There were 733 cases of rape reported in Haryana last year, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau, an average of 61 cases a month. But that rate isn't among India's worst, according to official figures. On a per capita basis, Mizoram, with 7.1 reported rapes per 100,000 people, is India's worst state for rape; Haryana, at 2.9 cases per 100,000, isn't in the top five.

India Ink asked analysts and activists to try to explain the motives behind the recent attacks in Haryana, and rounded up a handful of offic ial explanations as well. Edited answers are below:

The Powerful Are Trying to Dominate the Powerless: 

“What we are seeing is a discourse of power dominance,” Kavita Srivastava, national secretary for the People's Union for Civil Liberties, told India Ink after protests Monday brought hundreds to the streets of Haryana to demand better policing. “The people being targeted are the powerless - Dalit girls and minors,” she said. “A section of the dominant community is asserting their dominance on members of the lower caste.”

The Uneducated ‘New Rich' Are Asserting Their Feudal Privileges:

Shabnam Hashmi, a founding member of Anhad, a human rights group that works in the Mewat region of Haryana, said Monday that the violence in Haryana could be traced to a strong feudal mind-set in the state.

“In Haryana, so-called development because of globalization means that the government has taken over land on a large scale,” she said. †œThe families have been given compensation, and so there has been an influx of sudden money in families with almost no education. Sudden wealth combined with a feudal and patriarchal system means that we can see a certain type of machismo coming into play. All the boys ride motorcycles and it becomes okay to take advantage of women.”

The Government Lets Them Get Away With It: 

“The failure of the government to implement even existing laws has led to this state of affairs,” said Annie Raja, general secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women. “The state government and the central government must have the social commitment and the political will to make change happen and only then will gender justice be ensured,” she said.

So far, “the state is failing miserably in this respect,” she added. “Unless the government sends a strong message that they will not spare people who commit atrocities against women, this will not change. The num ber of rapes will increase because people will think they can get away with anything.”

Rape Is a Weapon in Caste Conflict:

Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research, who participated in the protests in Haryana on Monday, said she thought caste issues played a major role in the rise of rape in the region.

Most of the women being raped are Dalit, the lowest caste, Ms Kumari said. “When there is a state of class conflict, rape is often used as a weapon to teach a lesson,” she said. “Often there is no other provocation besides an attempt to drive the family out of the village and capture their land.”

Rising unemployment and the increased availability of drugs and alcohol in the area has led to an increase in gang rapes, she said.

Intellectual Development Isn't Keeping Up With Economic Progress:

Sampat Singh, a Haryana Congress legislator, said Monday, “Haryana has progressed economically, but it has not developed mentally and intellectually, leading to rising incidences of rape in the state.”

When Young Men and Women Mingle in Public, This Is One Result:

On Monday, the chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, said that rape is on the  rise in India because men and women interact with each other more freely now. “Earlier if men and women would hold hands, they would get caught by parents and reprimanded, but now everything is so open. It's like an open market with open options,” she said.

Television and the Movies Are Making Women More Sexual:

Following a shocking incident last week in which a teenage girl committed suicide after being raped, Sube Singh, a village council member, told IBN Live, a news channel, “I believe this is happening because our youth are being badly influenced by cinema and television. I think that girls should be married at the age of 16, so that they have their husbands for their sexual needs, and they don't need to go elsewhere. This way rapes will not occur.”

What Rapes?:

Dharambir Goyat, spokesman for the Congress Party in Haryana, said that he thought 90 percent rapes began with consensual sex.  ”I don't feel any hesitation in saying that 90 percent of the girls want to have sex intentionally but they don't know that they would be gang-raped further as they find some lusty and pervasive people in the way ahead.”

Malavika Vyawahare contributed reporting to this story from New Delhi.