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Fake rape as an instrument of
revenge?
It doesn't sound politically
correct, but fake rape charges are
increasingly used as weapons of
retribution
BY JM
In the 1989 Malayalam movie Oru
Vadakkan Veeragatha, (A Tale Of
Bravery From The North) a woman
invites her paramour to her house when
her husband is away. The man turns up
at the appointed hour, but the husband
returns without notice, only to find
the culprit in his bedroom. The woman
does a chameleon act, throwing things
at her paramour and screaming at him
for attempting to molest her when the
men of the family are away. Hurt and
humiliated, the anti-hero disappears
with his head bowed. It was a plain
attempt to deflect the blame of
extra-marital sex away from her and
shaming the man, who had turned up on
her invitation.
This long-forgotten story came to my
mind recently, when Pakistan's
President General Musharraf was quoted
in a Washington Post interview, saying
that many women in his country have
reportedly faked rape as a device to
earn sympathy and perhaps get a visa
to Canada. The Musharraf comments
kicked up a storm and the President
later denied having made the comments.
The Canadian government protested, and
women's activists spared no time
moving in with tar buckets and
brushes. Washington Post published the
transcript of the interview, which
showed that the President had indeed
made the damning comments. Since Musharraf's continuance on the
Pakistan throne does not depend on
popular will, the man did not lose his
job.
For ages, law enforcers and courts -
even criminals - have been on the side
of the woman whenever rape cases
sprang up. The understanding is that
if a woman makes an allegation of
rape, she would not make it without
substance, since it is her reputation
which is at stake. The rape accused
are instantly arrested, and the woman
usually gets the benefit of public
sympathy and understanding. It is
always the accused man, real or framed,
who faces public ire. Somehow, this
deep-rooted public belief fails to
recognise that honour is not limited
to the fairer sex. Therein lies the
rub.
In a recent case in a Mumbai suburb, a
former bar girl filed a petition that
a policeman had raped and extorted
money from her. Mumbai Police, forever
plagued with charges of rape and
corruption lost no time in arresting
the cop and securing his police
custody. Senior police officials went
on record that none of the guilty will
be spared. The day this rape case
filed, a similar incident took place
in another Mumbai suburb, where
another drunk cop took a beggar girl
away and raped her. The criminals in
uniform, we felt, had become the
biggest threats to civil society.
It did not take long for the case to
change colours, with the accused and
the victim swapping roles. The "rape
victim" confessed later,
that "rapist" "Qazi Saab bekasoor hain."
The woman claimed that in fact, she
had participated in a sting operation
to discredit the policeman. The cops
in the suburb were out on a drive to
flush out illegal immigrants from
Bangladesh. The woman's husband and
others - including some journalists
and a TV channel had reportedly
plotted the sting. The cop, it turned
out, was innocent of rape, but he may
be again sent judicial custody to find
if he as involved in extortion.
By the time the rape prank was
uncovered, many things had changed. The
TV channel in question refused to take
any blame. The journalist associated
with the sting attempted suicide. The
cop was stamped with the badge of a
rapist. Those who were baying for
the cop's blood - including leader writers
and women’s activists had egg on their
faces. Faked rape, as an instrument of
retribution, was out for all to see.
A couple of months back, there was an
incident in Mumbai suburb Borivli,
where a girl filed a police complaint
that she was kidnapped and raped by a
young body-builder in her locality.
The police promptly arrested the
"rapist", and secured police custody
for him. The rape accused spent
several days in custody, where he was
beaten up by cops to extract the
"truth".
The boy's parents, meanwhile, turned
up with evidence that their son was,
in fact, at a local body-building
competition at the time she was
allegedly raped. The boy had also won
a prize at the competition, photos of
which were produced by his worried
family to prove his innocence. Even
after days of investigation, the
police could not find a shred of
evidence to nail the "culprit."
However, the investigations revealed
that the complainant was chasing the
boy for quite some, and had pestered
him with SMSs. He had turned down the
girl's romantic overtures, which
infuriated her. The rape complaint
proved to be a dud, and it soon came
to light that the girl was with
another of her male friends at the
time the imaginary rape happened. The
boy became a mental wreck, vowed never
to marry anyone and burrowed into his
career. His mother and sisters cry
every time they see his face.
In 2003, there was this intriguing
case, when budding actress Priti Jain
(now she goes by the name of Preetii
Jaiin) accused director Madhur
Bhandrakar of raping her. She accused
that he had raped her over a long
time, promising her movie roles which
never came through. One wonders how
one could be raped over a long period,
time, since the woman could have put a
stop to it at any point of time by
filing a police complaint. However,
what appeared to the ordinary eye to
be a case of consensual sex or even a
case of sex under the lure of stardom
became a rape case once movie roles
failed to materialize. What followed
was, yes, a rape charge against
Bhandarkar. Priti Jain tried her best
to court the media - running to the
reporters after the case was heard
every time - but none of that saved
her the day the police arrested her
last month on charges of giving a
contract to Arun Gawli's men to bump
off the Chandni Bar director.
The case is still going on.
In the 1990 Hindi movie "Dil",
the character portrayed by Madhuri
Dixit charges Aamir Khan of rape to
get back at him. The hero later traps
her in an isolated shed, where he
menacingly tells her that since he has
already been wrongly charged with
rape, he might as well commit it too.
Also, think of the movie Disclosure,
where Demi Moore traps Michael Douglas
in a sexual harassment charge to take
revenge on him.
Rape laws have been framed with the
aim of protecting the dignity of
women, even at the cost of the man's
reputation. Mian Musharraf may have
been insensitive when he blurted out
that women get raped to get ahead, but
one cannot ignore cases of sexual
jealousy, greed or competition forcing
the fairer sex to target and implicate
gentlemen. My heart goes out to
Mukhtaran Mai, the Pakistani woman who
was gang-raped but successfully made
her voice heard from the cruel
environs of rural Pakistan. My heart
also goes out to the cop who did not
rape, the journalist who attempted
suicide, the body-builder boy who lost
his face, and the innocent gentlemen
in Dil, Disclosure and Veeragatha. How come the law blindly
believes that a woman cannot fake it
when she makes a rape charge? How come
it is the duty of the innocent to
always prove that the charge is fake?
What about lost reputations, cost of
litigation and the continuing social
stigma?
How come it is that women's rights
activists have not a word to say?
BY JM |
