Murder on the beach

Pornographic governance routinely grants impunity to perpetrators of sexual violence

The Goa chief minister’s remarks in the aftermath of the rape and murder of British teenager Scarlett Keeling are illustrative of what could be termed as “pornographic governance” in India. Pornography makes rape look like raunchy sex, and murder like a sexy accident. Pornographic governance fudges rape statistics, obfuscates patterns of systemic violence, and grants impunity to those who sustain such forms of violence to make rape look like sex.

On March 11, 2008, the Goa chief minister told a national news channel that if one or two incidents like this happen, there is no need to blow it out of proportion. This shameful statement follows the sexual violence complaints made by two women tourists less than two months ago. On January 11, 2008, a 32-year-old British woman was brutally raped in Goa’s capital, Panaji. The same week, a 27-year-old Russian tourist complained of molestation, leading to a complaint at the Verna police station.

Perhaps the Chief Minister will care to look at our archives. Four years ago, in January 2004, a Swedish woman was abducted, drugged and gang raped on North Goa’s Anjuna-Vagator coastal belt. This followed the rape of a Swiss woman in south of Colva beach in South Goa. In 1997, two Swedish women were gang-raped in Anjuna. Yet, we are told that Scarlett’s mother is going through extraordinary lengths to
malign Goa.

It is commonplace for all political parties to link the issue of sexual violence to identity politics defined by male notions of honour. The issue, however, is not only about rape of foreigners in Goa. Rather a culture of rape dominates our lives as women visiting or living in India.

Why were we surprised when the two women who stepped out of a hotel in Juhu, Mumbai, on New Year’s Eve were attacked and groped by a mob of more than 70 men? Pornographic forms of governance encourage such sexual riots. The policeman, the soldier and the politician enjoy impunity from prosecutions of rape.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, governmental discourse insists that not only are the rape and murder of women or children in one or two cases routine, but that they are not significant enough. We should therefore not feel disturbed when a minor is violated and killed since the number of such incidents is not significant. And, of course, it is the same police who refuse to register cases or investigate sexual violence that determine what the crime rate is. We, as citizens, are called upon to participate, endorse and even celebrate such pornographic forms of governance which make rape look like sex.

This form of governance uses the language of medical jurisprudence to legitimise its claims. So we are told that ossification tests and age verifications are critical to the case and require repeated autopsies. Scarlett’s passport, which provides verity of age, does not matter. The body of the child is ‘arrested’ by the state to convert rape into sex. At best, we are told that this is a case of consensual sex. It can at best be labelled as ‘rape’ since the victim was below 15 years — and this is a ‘technical’ rape.

However, the police are able to adduce the sex was consensual, as if they can speak to the body. Can the chief minister explain how a dead body can reveal whether sex was consensual or not, when no serious forensic scientist would make such a claim?

The use of forensics in politics is accompanied by the displacement of blame. Blame the mother for being negligent, blame the dead child for drug use or for not looking like a child, blame the tourist for ‘provoking’ violence, blame anyone who says, this is rape, not sex. What is totally shocking is that this politics of blame is now moving into the realm of the criminal law on negligence.

The displacement of blame to women tourists for ‘provoking’ sexual violence is racist. The white woman who does not subscribe to governmental notions of ‘good’ mothers, or the white minor, who does not behave like a ‘child’ are racist constructs. Clearly, tourism in India is erected on racist stereotypes that westernised/white women are ‘loose’, and ‘provoke’ violence.
 
The government, too, has chosen its agenda: expand the realm of sexual violence by allowing more and more people to adopt techniques of custodial violence against women and, thereby, engage in the capacity-building of structures of immunity and impunity. We are all reduced to voyeurs in such spectacles of pornographic governance.

The writer teaches law at JNU, Delhi; Courtesy: Women’s Feature Service.