4 types of rapists among desi men !

When Nirbhaya incident happened 7 years ago, I was shaken and outraged like the rest of India. I, like many others, wished and hoped for public hanging and castration of the perpetrators. I wrote an article Society Encouraging Rapists !!! and gradually moved on like the rest of countrymen.

Now Priyanka Reddy incident happened. I'm again outraged; people again calling for public hanging. Déjà vu ! But one welcome change is that all four perpetrators were encountered and killed like mad dogs on streets (current development as I'm writing this article), though I only hope this doesn't become a precedent to unchecked extrajudicial killings

Hope this makes other rapists think twice before remotely thinking of such heinous and gruesome crime but that's just a naive hope and I know that won't happen.

Within 3 days of the sad incident, 'Priyanka Reddy' video was searched for more than 8 million times in a porn site in a hope that rapists could have recorded and uploaded it. An young doctor full of life was RAPED, BURNT ALIVE and millions of bastards wanted to watch that video to jerk off. Let that sink in !

This mentality proves that rapists as we see in news are only tip of the iceberg while the society by and large is infested with men with some level of rapist attitudes within them. I tried to classify such beasts into 4 levels.

Level 1: Criminal Rapists

Hardened criminals who commit rapes aren't naive boys who don't know about legal implications. They totally know rapes are worst of crimes and also know they will be behind bars when they get caught. But their criminal mindset, psychopathic tendencies, sexual starvation, over-confidence in their own physical strength and wit or mere negligence of societal norms make them a severe blot on  humanity. They don't even bother if the girl they are victimizing is a stranger, colleague, neighbor or a friend. They are actually civilizational epidemic.

It's utter naivete and foolishness to assume that public execution or legal punishment of 3 or 4 such criminals will deter these animals from committing rapes. Killing one snake doesn't stop other snakes from biting. When a rapist is executed or convicted, just one rapist would be less in the society. That won't reform others, period

Level 2: Potential Rapists

Numerically there are only few criminal rapists, but there are many more who fantasize and celebrate rapes. All those millions who searched for rape porn video mentioned earlier form this bloc.

If that wasn't enough, there are guys who cheer and celebrate brutal rape-murder. If you see the screen capture of some comments that came aftermath Priyanka Reddy's gruesome murder, you will be appalled beyond disbelief.

Collectively all of them meant the girl was beautiful, rapists were lucky, girls enjoy being raped and all girls must be raped. There are hundreds of such comments, tweets and messages flooding all over social media. When you have time, listen to this audio clip of one of those guys who proudly endorse his comments and his 'ideology' of celebrating rapes.

If provided immunity from law, they all will commit rapes at their first given opportunity. They are sociopaths and potential rapists. And there are millions of them roaming around streets.

Level 3: Latent Rapists

Most level 1 and 2 rapists are sexually frustrated men whose anti-social tendencies make them a menace to the society. While they are dangerous and loathsome, their tendencies are more to do with sexual starvation and not outright hatred or prejudice against women.

There is a bloc of pathological misogynists who hate women out of sheer male chauvinism, superiority complex. They can't stand a woman standing up to them. They want to 'teach them a lesson' and show the role and status of women in the society. They epitomize patriarchy and male chauvinism.

While in most cases, these men don't commit rape as defined in the law, they would commit marital rape which unfortunately go largely unnoticed. Some men commit mental rape by oppressing, assaulting and harassing women around them. Though these people don't come under the gamut of law, they cause the most trouble to women on a day to day basis.

Level 4: Dormant Rapists

Dormant rapists typically don't rape, neither do they cause any direct offence but give credence to all above mentioned levels of rapists by giving them moral high ground through victim blaming and moral policing. These 'priviliged' men lay rules as what a women should dress and how should she behave so as not to 'tempt' them. They espouse men's inability to keep their dick in pants looking at women and hence absolve rapists and blame victims.

Most such men, unfortunately are supposedly wise, learned and senior men of the society. Garikapati's video to that effect here. They believe that a girl who dress to entice is the root cause of the problem without accepting the fact that infants, toddlers and fully clad women form the majority of rape victims.

For such people, rape is not a crime but something men are forced to do because of women's lifestyle and dressing. A man who asks or forces a woman to cover up, wear full pants, ghoongat, pallu, purdah, hijab, burqa or veil is a dormant rapist.

Possible Measures

Eliminating the menace of rape could take decades or centuries because changing the entire society's mindset can't be done through some laws or police action. So solution to this problem may not be immediately feasible but as a collective society, something can be done to mitigate or abate the social epidemic.

Proper parenting: It all starts at home. Every rapist or chauvinist would have an irresponsible or anti-social parent(s) who fail to teach him how to respect everybody in general and girls in particular. Proper parenting and correcting him at young age would nip the problem in the bud

Legalization of prostitution: While this may sound absurd, this could resolve some obvious issues.
Legalization of prostitution and access to responsible sex among young adults could change societal dynamics. That could as well restrict involuntary human trafficking because any kind of legal prohibition would only create vacuum for anti-social elements to fill in through illegal means.

Avoiding segregation: Indian society is largely segregated as far as gender is concerned. Due to the conservative societal pressures, boys and girls are raised and tied separately and involuntary celibacy (incel) is inadvertently encouraged, thus leading to some sexual starvation. This starvation could make some boys see girls as objects for sex instead of treating them as human beings like themselves. I know this may sound like promoting unregulated sex but advocating safe sex is more important for a society than penalizing young boys and girls for pre-marital sex.

Access to porn: Banning porn sites is the dumbest of laws any government can ever pass. Porn could be that much needed outlet for frustrated youth who could otherwise impose themselves on some girl instead. Jerking off in front of a computer is any day better than preying on women.

Dis-empowering moral police: While the above measures may help take starved boys off the street, stripping men who blame victims off their credibility is a major macro societal move. Young boys should be taught that those who blame women for their dressing are weak men who can't control their own senses from committing a crime.

I don't want to be called a FEMINIST !

Last year, I wrote an article critiquing patriarchy and typical son-in-law behavior (The great Indian 'Son-In-Law' syndrome !) which was endorsed and appreciated, especially by women. Whenever I raised my opinion against vulgarization, male chauvinism, misogyny against women, they complimented that I was raised well by my parents and called me a feminist; but each time I got a bit uncomfortable in my skin.

I could bask in the glory of being pro-women activist and appear a gentleman or knight in shining armor etc, but my ideological rant is not against just men or patriarchy but against oppression and hate. If I criticize male chauvinism and patriarchy which is one extreme, I equally rebuke radical feminism which is another extreme because these are two sides of the same coin called prejudice.

This could be an unpopular opinion and many women who earlier liked me may start hating me from now and label me a male chauvinist pig but I DON'T WANT TO BE CALLED A FEMINIST
for two reasons, one for the etymology of the word and second for the way radical hate-mongering and irrational rebellion against everything status-quo is being masqueraded with a fake garb called feminism.

First, I cringe when somebody describes  'feminism' as equality of men and women. There is a simple English word called "egalitarianism" which actually means equal rights and opportunities for everyone regardless of gender, age, race etc.

What if I call myself masculinist and define masculism as equality of both genders. Isn't it an oxymoron ? Feminism or masculism may not be intrinsically wrong but getting away by defining either of them as equality is wrong. Both these terms reek of a strong affinity towards one gender and disinterest towards another, if not hatred.

Secondly, while the movement against gender discrimination is very much necessary in this age and time, the term 'feminism' is somewhat hijacked by a section of hatemongers who turned a serious reforming movement to "all men are trash" movement.

Here are the major disagreements I have with new-age radical feminists:

Misuse of the word 'MISOGYNY': Misogyny by definition is strong dislike or hatred towards women. But when two individuals fight or mistreat each other and one of them happens to be a woman, the word misogyny is loosely inserted into the narrative. That's why 'Arjun Reddy' or 'Kabir Singh' was vilified as misogynistic while the couple in love slap each other. The problem with the movie, if there is any, was only about glorifying hot-headed and uncouth acts of the protagonist. But I haven't heard anybody calling out Alia's character in 'Gully Boy' which was equally uncouth too.

Overrating Independence: When two people get married, they are bound to be dependent upon each other physically, mentally, sexually, financially and in other ways. The moment man or woman in a relationship wants to be 'independent' of the other, the relationship only spirals down to abyss. Women must seek independence only if they have stomach to tolerate her man being independent of her in any ways he wishes to. Instead replace the word 'independence' with 'responsible freedom' for both, it makes so much better sense. Anybody advocating independence of either a man or woman in a union is only ripping them apart.

It's not just Man's world: Have you ever lamented that most among successful people in business or powerful positions are men with negligible or no female representation ? If yes, did you ever try to reason why almost 99% of sanitation workers, defence staff and prisoners happen to be men too ? Be it achievements or struggles, men happen to be majority because of the simple logic that men and women are made differently.

Anthropologically, historically, biologically or physically men are made to be bread-winners, fighters, hunters, go-getters and workers whereas women are made to be nurturers, teachers, caregivers. That's why almost all daycare workers or teachers are women. That's how our DNA is wired.

As a man coming from a family of women achievers and being a hands-on dad myself, I don't intend to say that women aren't made to achieve at work or men can't raise kids. Everybody can do everything if they are committed and dedicated but some things come naturally to certain gender whereas the other gender has to fight against their natural instincts and that's science, even if you don't like.

Nitya Menen in one of her interviews said that few women in their fight for feminism and attempts to be more like men, turning more and more masculine and losing their femininity. That gives a message that femininity is weaker or inferior and one should be masculine to be happy. That's a dangerous and incorrect message.

Pay Discrimination: I do agree that pay discrimination occurs at some workplaces because misogynists do exist. But I was gobsmacked when the female lead of 'House of Cards' Robin Wright whined that she should have been paid on par with the male lead Kevin Spacey who was hundred times more popular, audience-grabber than the lady. The person who gets more audiences, fans to the artwork, and who puts in more effort, screen time, injuries etc should be paid more regardless of the gender. Same is the case with any business. Pay should be proportional to numbers they generate. IT IS NOT A MALE OR FEMALE ISSUE.

Fairness Products: Girls in my family don't use fairness creams or products and I personally find dusky women more attractive. But I could never comprehend the trend of shaming those who use fairness products and even worse attributing this to feminist revolution.

Again this is an anthropology matter because historically men are judged based on their success, ability to provide security and women are judged based on looks. Hence men and women sub-consciously strive to be / look successful and beautiful respectively.

'Fair & lovely' kind of companies thrive despite criticism because sizeable section of women think that lighter skin makes them look beautiful and if that makes them confident, it is their choice and you can't ridicule them for not following your set of beliefs. Even if you believe such women are manipulated by the society to feel so, you advocating fair skin is not beautiful is manipulation too. Their skin, their choice, period. And don't bring misogyny or victimhood into this because men seldom advertise or advocate fairness creams or any make-up items to women.

Body shaming: When Vidya Balan was criticized for her weight, multiple articles spawned calling misogyny and body shaming. Movies and entertainment are show businesses and actresses (and actors) make-up to look good and presentable because looks are important for their line of work. Nobody must criticize looks of a female politician, teacher or an administrator because their KPIs (key performance indicators) are different. For actors and actresses, their presentability along with performance is the most important KPI and evaluating them based on their looks is not body shaming.

Even otherwise, describing a woman as fat is not always body-shaming unless it's used out of context and in a disparaging tone. It is like describing a man as short or tall. It's physical imagery and not always a cause to revolt.

Supporting women without merit: I know women who vote only for a woman contestant, support only women in any argument or fight and call that women empowerment. It's not. Actually it's gender discrimination if a woman is supported solely on basis on her gender instead of merits and demerits in the context. If a women loses an election and that's attributed to collective misogyny of the entire society, it's not a solution but a problem in itself.

CONCLUSION

India is an intrinsically and unfortunately patriarchal and male chauvinistic country and support, empowerment of women is a necessity. I always thought #MeToo is an important movement which needs to be sustained and endorsed as long as possible because it brought forward the menace which most men suppressed in the bud.

Men need to be taught a lesson that consent means everything and objectification of women needs to be demolished. The #MeToo movement also unfortunately resulted in innocent victims when con-women exploited the sympathy to their favor. But this is collateral damage. In any war, some innocent civilians die during attempts to annihilate enemy.

But this support to women in need is being diluted by a bunch of angry, radical and fake feminists who reduced a much needed movement to 'all men are trash' movement. Such women want the privileges of women, power of men but responsibilities of neither.

Presence of some scoundrels doesn't make entire gender a bunch of misogynist trash. Indian men, in particular must be lauded for their commitment to families because males of any species (including humans) aren't made to stick with families unlike mothers who are natural protectors of their offsprings. If a man is responsible enough to raise, nurture and show love and care to his family, he is acting against his natural instincts. Calling him trash just because he happens to be a man is loathsome and repulsive.

I know such radical feminists who claim that men like me who don't accept that all men as trash were actually a major part of the problem. Whoa ! To my surprise I found hundreds of articles on "all men are trash" and almost all articles engage in wordplay to suggest it's final, non-negotiable and anybody who counters that argument was a male chauvinist pig himself.

but I rarely bother being judged or hated upon. If that makes me trash, so be it.

A Cancer called Casteism

I just finished watching Ayushmann Khurrana’s hard hitting film “Article 15” and could not resist even a minute writing this post. The movie didn’t show anything we don’t know. It’s about abject caste discrimination, prejudice, untouchability etc which we read, hear and watch often and forget conveniently. 

There’s a dialogue in the movie which loosely translates into saying that more manual scavengers die on duty than soldiers at border. There’s also a scene where a manual scavenger is shown rising from filth in a gutter with lumps of sewage on his naked body only to dive back into the same gutter to complete his job. I honestly felt my stomach churned and guts blown. Been long time when some scenes in a movie made me personally guilty and shameful.

I hope everybody who reads this article, for a moment imagine themselves cleaning filth from the gutters under toilets of others or working on funeral grounds cleaning up after dead are cremated. Imagine others washing their hands after you shook their hands or others throwing the food you prepared in garbage just because you do menial job which they can’t and don’t do for themselves.

For us urban, educated, well-settled, well-informed people, our ego will be terribly hurt when our group of friends exclude us from their weekend gatherings. We feel upset when we don’t earn or dress or show-off like our neighbors or friends. Just think, there are 16% of Indian population who are untouchables just because they are born into a certain caste and hence forced to do a job which you don’t want to do. And if you think this happens only in rural pockets of India and caste discrimination doesn’t happen among ‘progressive and thinking’ Indians (or diaspora), you are either naive or living in denial or both.

I’m born in a supposedly upper caste associated with priesthood but never associated with any lifestyle that comes with that tag. The first time I ever contemplated about caste was during engineering college admissions where caste equations played a major role. And I hated caste-based reservations which denied me admission in any college in my city because I was put in a privileged category despite hailing from a working-class family. I had been a strong opponent of such reservations and also wrote earlier blog posts advocating merit-based admission against caste-based reservations.

But with age comes wisdom and with information change opinions. As I saw the world more, I started realizing that meritocracy (priority to merit or skill) would mean that only those with merit, skill, knowledge would be given all opportunities and only they can lead a happy life. And those lesser mortals who couldn’t develop skills for any reason (socio-economic, learning abilities or demographic) would be denied a happy life, which I believe, is gross injustice. 

A kid born to a manual scavenger who struggles for 2 meals a day for his family wouldn’t be in a same mental state of mind to compete with a privileged convent educated kid for some college admission because skill-development is dependent on various factors. If discrimination was done on the basis of caste, reservation too should be on the same parameter. So giving more opportunities to the lesser privileged is the obvious solution and reservations should remain. I know people from my community would lynch me for saying this, but this is how I have evolved today.

I know there are many people from scheduled castes who progressed, thanks to reservation and there should be a mechanism to take such people out of the reservations system and lesser privileged people from the same community should be offered such opportunities instead. But that’s easier said than done because vote banks and political equations mean more than social justice.

The irony of this era is that most of those who complain against caste-based reservations themselves aren’t oblivious of their own caste affiliations. That applies equally to rural parts of India to diaspora in US or Canada etc. NRI’s may not practice blatant untouchability because they are “modern and progressive” but most of them want to be friends with only those belonging to their own caste. They want only their caste people to occupy positions of recognition whether it’s at their workplace, community events, civic elections or even beauty pageants. The kind of unity they display and heavy lobbying they resort to for their caste is amusing and loathsome at the same time.

When I spoke about this sometime back, a wise man questioned me that when we get together with others belonging to our country, culture, language etc what’s wrong in grouping within our caste? Huh, there’s an inherent flaw in this logic. We associate with our fellow countrymen because we have a commonality whether in terms of culture, heritage, way of life but even that doesn’t warrant discrimination against others or nepotism towards our own. When we group with people who speak the same language, there’s a commonality, which is easy communication. In case of country, ethnicity, language, there is a group identity we associate for our own convenience, lifestyle or communication. WHAT THE HELL IS COMMON AMONG TWO PEOPLE OF THE SAME CASTE WHICH THEY DON’T SEE IN OTHERS?  

What’s a Reddy or a Yadav or a Brahmin / Kapu / Goud / Chowdary do within their own community which they can’t do with person from another caste ? N.O.T.H.I.N.G. It’s not group identity. It’s the way they were raised, they were told how important their own community was, how inferior or bad others were. When NRI’s too resort to such school of thought and inculcate the same in their kids too, it’s a travesty and a mockery of all their education and knowledge. It's cancer.

As long as the fake pride in caste identity remains, bigotry against other castes will remain too. As long as some castes live in superiority complex, there will be some others who will be discriminated against and their generations will live waging a war for self-respect and identity.

PS: For those who think I’m being self-righteous or sanctimonious, not even 5% of my friends belong to my caste. I never attend my caste-based events. I don’t follow or even acknowledge the existence of such events. I hope my kids never ask or know what caste they belong to because they don’t belong to any. And I’m not taking any pride in this because I believe this is how normal human beings should behave.

Signing off !

Open letter to my Kids - 1

Dear Bachchoos,

Since you are too young to understand big people stuff like wisdom and life, I'm writing this in a hope that someone would show this article to you when you grow if I'm not around. Generations evolve by gaining wisdom out of their parents' experience and it's my turn to tell you few things which I learnt it hard way, so that you don't make the same mistakes I did.

• Never get into revenge mode:

You would face many situations when you get angry, upset, outraged on others and your first reaction would be retaliation on the perpetrators. That's a bad idea because after you take your sweet revenge and look back, you would not have gained anything substantial for yourself except that insignificant sense of fake triumph. Rather try to channelize that anger, insult and outrage into ruthless passion and breach a new frontier. Every time I managed to do something, I used the anger in my mind as a fuel. Trust me, that works.

• You can't control others' impression about you

You can't cultivate or control an image about yourself. You must understand that as you grow leaps and bounds, you will attract hatred, criticism. In the world of internet to spread information and tools to edit almost anything, all it takes is a figment of imagination of your hater to slander, gossip or mud-sling at you without remorse. You can go only up to a certain level to defend or explain yourself and later you have to leave it at others' discretion. Negativity is attractive, can be spread faster, easier and can never be eliminated from people's minds even if you disprove everything. So my kids, the world is ruthless. Brace up ! 

• Avoid negative people

Even though some people don't hate you, they carry certain negative energy. If you have a means to resolve their temporary issues, go ahead. But if they are chronic complainers, whiners, pessimists, sympathy seekers and those who expect you to justify yourself all the time - AVOID THEM gradually. You are who you hang out with. The negativity rubs off to you making your life more miserable than it is. Instead if you talk to thinking people, nerds, innovators, those with high aims: trust me their positivity is infectious. The choice you have is a no brainer.

• Maturity is all about reacting to situations

People mellow down as they grow older not just because they get physically weaker but they begin choosing what to react and what not to. Teenagers or mid 20's kids tend to get hyper reactive because that's when they think the world is at their feet and they are invincible or because they aren't wary about consequences to their reactions. Understand that you are free to behave anyway you want but not free to avoid consequences of your deeds, words or to put it simple your reactions to situations. So react cautiously.

• Try to be innovators and entrepreneurs

The world saw very less of leaders and hordes of followers because most want security and make a living by working for others. I will try my best so you don't have to work for your livelihood. Dream high, so high that people around you ridicule and laugh at you first. Identify your passion, learn the craft and try to innovate or make a mark in the field not to gain appreciation of the world but to avoid any repentance during your last days. Zindagi milegi na dobara and I don't want you to waste this precious life of yours slogging in uninteresting jobs to make a living.

• Money is important

Yes, love is important but money is important too. Money gives you flexibility and luxury to love, live, make decisions, turning dreams to reality. People take you seriously when they know you have the ability to earn; not that you need anybody's approval but getting noticed by some people works for you (both personally and professionally). Always analyze how to turn your passion or hobby into a revenue model and then scale it up to greater heights. Saving money is as important as earning. Investing money so your money earns more money is the key you would want to learn early in your life.

• Health is more important than anything else

Even if money, love, success make one's life easy and happy, do you think one can enjoy those when they know they have a life threatening illness or an impending health hazard ? No money or clout in the world can save anybody from a health hazard and you need to keep yourself away from foods, habits, environment or situations within your control which could cause any kind of harm to you (physical or mental). 

• Addictions start harmless

Every addiction has a harmless start. Your peers and friends would inspire, challenge or introduce something apparently adventurous but enjoyable addiction to you which you may think would be easy to control or regulate later. Once you strike a liking to that addiction, you'll only find excuses and reasons to go back to that and soon you'll see you don't control your craving anymore because your central nervous system would't work without that inducement. It could be smoking, alcohol, drugs, gambling, betting or any such vice. Self-control doesn't work once your nervous system takes shots. Beware.

• Express your love

If you like somebody, express that in your gestures, behavior and words in right context. Everybody in this world likes to be loved and when they reciprocate upon your expression, life would be happy. But at the same time, don't expect everybody you like to like you back. If they don't, respect their opinion and stop spending your energy and time on them, yet keeping that liking alive.

• Don't be a bully

Bullying others is easy. But every thug will have a bigger scoundrel harassing them. For everybody wielding a stick, there will be somebody with a knife, and above them will be somebody brandishing a gun who will be scared of a terrorist. Victimizing innocuous people to show off your power or clout will someday result in you being victimized by a bigger bully than you. Never ever get into that territory, it's not worth it.

• Don't argue for unnecessary beliefs

Throughout your life, you'll be surrounded by people believing in different political ideologies, religions, lifestyles and opinions. Come to terms that diversity is the way of the world and never get into arguments nor try to convince somebody about your points of view. After putting your efforts in winning an argument, what do you gain out of that ? NOTHING. So only argue when your personal life or money or relationships are at stake. For all other arguments, just be an audience with popcorn.

• Don't underestimate anybody

Never be complacent or too proud of yourself. There are many people more intelligent and successful than you who just don't show off. Behaving with vain and conceit is annoying. Always respect everybody younger, or those with lesser means, less educated or not as confident as you are because you never know inherent skills, exposure or talent of a certain person based on their appearance or behavior. Try to learn or find inspiration from each one of them and realize the world is too big and your life too small to be overconfident.

My Dear Son,

• My father taught how not to be a male-chauvinist by example and I hope to inspire you. So always understand that your girl(s) are not your property. You don't own them. You are not entitled enough to dictate terms to them. Love more than anything else conquers women.
• Be a responsible man. Girls may appear to be attracted to charming, funny, handsome boys, but they want to marry a man who can be responsible for her and her to-be kids. You must keep your girl secure first and if you are charming with good sense of humor, that's bonus.

My Dear Daughter,

• You don't have to live with a feeling that you need protection from somebody else. I will raise you a strong girl who could take her decisions, stand by her ideals just like your mother. Also you don't have to comply with the society's demands of how girls should behave or dress as long as you have clarity and sense of thought.
• We all come from a school of thought that men and women are equal in every way and we call it egalitarianism, and not feminism. Hope you grow wise enough to understand the difference. Hate-mongering or prejudice of any kind is a big NO.

Other important suggestions to both of you

• Try to cultivate three hobbies - one to earn money, second to keep your creativity alive and third to keep yourself fit and free of unwanted fat.
• To achieve anything maintain consistency and discipline. Many people dream high and start well, but lack of consistency is the difference between achievers and random day dreamers.
• Fast decision making makes strong leaders. And know how to learn from your bad decisions.
• Don't let others dictate if you should be confident or not. Don't let others opinion affect your confidence

Each pointer I wrote in this post was addressed elaborately in one of the articles written and published by me earlier in this blog. I will keep writing more until I'm physically and mentally sane and sound so that you have my thoughts, ideas, words, guidance, presence around you beyond my existence.

PS:  I love you both more than anything in this universe. Hope you know your father always stands like a wall behind you. Whenever you face any hardship, take it for granted that I will always be around guiding you how to handle but I want you to develop skills and attitude where you don't need my guidance.