Discourse of Sexual Harassment

Recent events entailing the Ruchika and Bajaj-Gill case has become an eye opener for the popular discourse sexual harassment in India. The discourse is not only related to the feminist ideology and upholding honor of women, but also to the responsibilities that come with position of power. Both the cases – Ruchika as well as KPS Gill – were related to women being harassed sexually by men with power. Though no two sexual harassment cases can differ in degree of severity but the former required more support due because the age of the victim. Rupan Bajaj was a senior IAS officer and more capable of defending herself than a 13 year old minor. This is so because the former case power as a resource is unequally distributed between men and women (in this case between Ruchika and Rathore, but not so much in case of Rupan Bajaj and KPS Gill).

Sexuality has been continuously hushed up through the ages irrespective of geographic boundary. What is the root cause of harassment as observed in both the cases? Surely power is used as a tool for domination. But is it always true? Not entirely. As pointed out by Foucault, modern power subjects individuals, in both senses of the term; it simultaneously creates them as subjects by subjecting them to power. Though Foucault denies that power is essentially negative, in these cases power has been used as a negative force. It is the case when power is used to delineate the sexual desires of the patriarch on women and then suffocating them through the system and institution, and eventually killing her.

The recent events related to Ruchika is no surprise to me for the very reason of deprivation of women in the society. Power and position corrupts people and the more you have it, more shamelessly you flout the rules of society and the society lamely turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to it. The case of Ruchika is not a case related to female right, but to justice in society. It is not only the girl who has become the victim, it is her whole family and people who were close to her. It is not a female issue, it is an issue of human rights and child abuse for the girl was a minor when she was sexually abused. Voice must rise for hundreds of Ruchikas who are strangled by the wheel of (in)justice and thousands of Rathores must be punished for the hideous (mis)use of power.