Rape Law: YES can mean NO

A woman in Chennai happened to notice a missed call alert in her mobile phone and returned the call. The recipient of the call was a man. What started off as a matter of curiosity quickly turned into regular phone conversations which, after a few weeks, culminated in a face-to-face meeting and, finally, a whirlwind romance.

A few months later, the man’s name and picture were flashed in a widely circulated newspaper, along with the news that he was charged of rape and arrested under sections 366 (Kidnapping) and 376 (Rape) of the Indian Penal Code. The woman’s version of the story was published in detail but her identity was kept secret for “security” reasons. The editor seemed to have run out of space or forgot to fill in the man’s version.

Nobody was surprised at the news. After all, we have been told, “a male is, prima facie, a rapist!”

According to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, a man is said to have committed rape if he has had sexual intercourse with a woman against her will and without her consent.

The definition of rape does not end there!

Even if a woman has given her consent for sex, the man would be deemed to have committed rape when

• her consent has been obtained by putting her or any person in whom she is interested in fear of death or of hurt.
• the man knows that he is not her husband, and that her consent is given because she believes that he is another man to whom she is or believes herself to be lawfully married.
• at the time of giving such consent, by reason of unsoundness of mind or intoxication or the administration by him personally or through another of any stupefying or unwholesome substance, she is unable to understand the nature and consequences of that to which she gives consent.

In addition, a male having sex with a female under sixteen years of age is rape regardless of whether the act is done with or without her consent.

What is striking, at the outset, is the inherent bias in the definition of rape itself. According to this law, rape is a criminal act that is committed by a man against a woman. Not only that, the crime is entirely in the mind of the female “victim”.

Another aspect that stands out in this law, as with many other “pro-women” laws, is the urge to protect the female AT ANY COST, even if it means innocent men are thrown into jail, the judicial system is taken for a ride, and public resources and time are squandered to satisfy the whim of a dishonest, criminal minded, depraved woman.

People often ask, “Why would a woman lie about being raped?” The answer is “Why wouldn’t she?” When a crime is so loosely defined and when the law is severely biased towards the woman, and when the sole testimony of the female “victim” is enough to charge or convict the accused, why would it not tempt a mischievous woman to misuse it?

There are innumerable cases of celebrities being threatened of rape complaints by fortune-hunting vixens. Successful businessmen, fashion designers, film producers, publishers, and many other simple, honest, decent men are among those who have been threatened and falsely charged of rape.

The judiciary, oozing compassion towards the “fairer” sex, has only helped in emboldening women to play both “Madame Bovary” and “Pavitra Bharatiya Nari” as per their own convenience.

The following excerpts from a judgment of the apex court of India illustrate the point:

“It is a settled law that the victim of sexual assault is not treated as accomplice and as such, her evidence does not require corroboration from any other evidence including the evidence of a doctor. In a given case even if the doctor who examined the victim does not find sign of rape, it is no ground to disbelieve the sole testimony of the prosecutrix”

What? The testimony of the victim is the gospel truth? What is the basis for such presumption of veracity? The judgment provides a simple answer to these questions:

“Indian women have tendency to conceal such offense because it involves her prestige as well as prestige of her family. Only in few cases, the victim girl or the family members have the courage to go before the police station and lodge a case.”

It is no wonder that former Union Law Minister Ram Jethmalani, said, “Before I could go to bed with a woman, I would have to call a notary public.’’

Legal experts have observed that rape complaints are often made by women who have been jilted, by minor girls who have had consensual relationships with older men, by commercial sex workers who have been shortchanged by their clients and by women who are just “caught in the act”. They have observed instances where women admitted to having consensual sex but claimed to have done it “out of fear”, thus, taking advantage of the loopholes in the law and the credibility they enjoy under the law. As the burden of proof is on the accused man, he has to produce evidence that he had consensual sex with the complainant woman.

Unfortunately, the sneering quips and serious observations by many legal experts and police officers have not been able to improve the situation with the rape law and its implementation.

The reason for this deplorable situation -

Radical feminists have successfully tied the hands of the police, gagged the judiciary and blindfolded the public to advance their agenda of hate and malice against the entire male gender.

Police officers claim that they are always under intense pressure from feminists and fear being attacked by women’s rights activists if they are not prompt in registering rape cases and framing charges.

While radical feminists over-zealously fight to make existing provisions harsher and demand more and more absurd laws, it is heyday for criminal minded women. News reports show that incidents of women extorting money from men under the threat of registering false rape complaints have become commonplace.

Despite having caused so much damage and creating so much fear in the society through the rape law, the female Taliban still feels that “Feminist Utopia” will not be achieved until they bring the legally wedded husband’s head under the guillotine too.

They claim that the rape law is not loaded against men. They, in fact, think that the Government should broaden the scope of the rape law by including marital rape.

We should not be surprised if our Government buckles under pressure and concedes to their outrageous demands, but we should not forget to ask the Government one question:

Which law is going to protect all the men, women and children of our country who are being gang-raped by the feminist Taliban?