By: Priya Buddhavarapu
I was in New Delhi this August when a 31-year-old female trainee doctor in Kolkata, West Bengal, was found half-naked, brutally raped and murdered, on the fourth floor of the government-run RG KAR Medical College and Hospital.
Reading the news that day, pure disgust ran through me. As a woman, I was immersed in an acute fear that lashed at my core every time I roamed the streets of New Delhi in the days after. As an Indian-American, I felt overwhelming loathe towards the culture that I had always known as vibrant and joyous. Perhaps the most chilling aspect of my reaction, however, was my complete lack of surprise as I read the harrowing details of the victim’s experience.
The majority of Indian women would be able to tell you firsthand about the catcalling, staring, and vulgar body language that they are accustomed to when walking down a local street. I couldn’t even escape this unwanted attention in broad daylight with my dad, a fully grown man. The majority of Indian women would be able to tell you of the rules imposed onto them by their families–don’t walk alone, don’t stay out past dusk, don’t make eye contact with strangers, don’t go out without a specific destination.
Their daily experiences, I believe, are indicative of a much more threatening, parasitic force preying upon Indian society. From the 1992 Ajmer rape case, where over a hundred schoolgirls were sexually molested, to a more recent case in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, where a 23-year-old woman was gang-raped by six men, it is clear that institutionalized injustice against women has plagued India for decades.
What could be the root of the systemic sexual violence Indian women face? Why does the world seem to hate Indian women?
I believe the source of the problem is this: India’s sickening commitment to purity culture.
The term purity culture refers to an ideal, often in a religious and traditionalist context, where a person’s value is contingent upon their chastity and sexual abstinence. In societies where purity culture is prominent, the burden of keeping a community chaste typically falls to women. This also means that in cases of abuse or harassment, women are the ones who are left accountable for the actions of men–whether it be because of what they wore, what they did, or where they were.
On the other hand, men are held relatively unaccountable, sheltered by the pillars of the patriarchal society in which they were brought up in. They are inadvertently excused from any consequences; hence the burdens of their actions defaults to the shoulders of women. In a world where women are stigmatized, and women shoulder accountability, what might possibly stop a man from catcalling, molesting, raping a woman? Certainly not the fear of facing the consequences of their actions.
For this reason, I believe that purity culture is a vehicle of sexual violence.
Historically, an Indian woman’s value as a functioning member of society is contingent upon her perceived adherence to the values of purity and modesty. Her decision-making power over her own bodies, in both a sexual and reproductive context, is traditionally granted to the man who has power over her–her father, and then her husband. Virginity is sacred; sexual activity outside the hallowed bond of marriage is sacrilegious.
Purity culture, I believe, is also responsible for rape culture. In a world where Indian women increasingly dare to step outside the bubble they have been confined to, the coinciding spike in assault cases is proof of the following: sexual violence is a provoked response to women gaining ownership over their own lives. It is deep-seated, wrathful retribution to the fact that women have refused to exist solely within the roles their fathers and husbands have assigned them to. Sexual violence is an unmeasured, unequivocal response to a deviation from purity culture.
