Social Tolerance of Rape in India: An Analysis of the Case of Jyothi Singh

Abstract

This chapter presents a thesis of the social tolerance of rape in India in the context of the gang rape of Joythi Singh in New Delhi on December 16, 2012. Ending gender-based violence is a global movement and it is presently spreading across the world particularly in the context of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) of 1979 and the Beijing Plan of Action of 1995. In India, after the Jyothi Singh Case in 2012, renewed debates and discourses began to grow about how to modernize the rape laws in particular, and how to change the culture of violence against women in general. The global movement for ending violence against women became a local movement for major legal and cultural transformations in India in the context of the tragedy of the Jyothi Singh Case. In response to the new debates and discourses, India enacted a new rape law—the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act in 2013. The new act amended the India Penal Code of 1860, the Indian Evidence Act of 1872, the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1973, and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act of 2012. It has criminalized many facets of violence against women, made provisions for tougher sentencing and penalties, and brought many legal reforms for effective investigation and prosecution of rape and other cases of violence against women. The impact of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 2013, however, remains to be seen. Pervasive violence against women in India is not a matter of law alone; it is also deeply cultural in nature. There is a culture of social tolerance of rape in India, and at the core of this culture is the perspective of victim blaming which is both external and internal in nature. Externally, it is characterized by negative reactions, and internally, victim blaming leads to the internalization of a sense of guilt and shame in the mind of the victims. It is this culture that limits the role of law in ending rape and violence against women. Reforms in law and legislations are needed to end rape and violence against women in India. But changes in the worldview and the cultural paradigm of the social tolerance of rape will probably need far more fundamental social and cultural transformations.