Aheli Moitra
As came 2013, drunk and divorced Yanger launched a sexual assault on drunk and divorced Meren. He had met her a week back and decided she was to be his wife. For now, she was his girlfriend. On behalf of him and her, he let everyone at the evening’s party know this.
Meren laughed at the preposterous proposition. She had not a clue of the ‘girlfriend’ rumour he had established as fact. She was elegant, independent, polite and kept her distance from him.
That, however, mattered not to him or the other air heads partying into a fresh year. He nudged her on the shoulder for drink after drink, fell over her and said he’d hang himself if their “love” was left undone. She said, sure, and inched further away. Those gallivanting at the party thought her refusal mere foreplay. Why, if he wanted her and she divorced, should she refuse his proposal anyway? A young female divorcee—what place or chance does she have in life without an offer like this?
And then Yanger got very drunk. Short, fat, ugly, balding and strong, in his pointed-toe black heels, he moved in to brace her tall body; to kiss her, to establish her as his; his property. She, red faced, started physically resisting. No one at the party objected. It could hurt the social order and decorum if they did. So they danced on, the light now replaced with a red bulb, till it was clear his sexual assault was disturbing the decorum. On the pretext of severe drunkenness, he was removed from the party. The next day he apologized for his drunkenness not the assault.
She remained disturbed and obliged to her hosts for helping her. Alas, her life was devoid of social gatherings due to this. With no man to “own her”, men in her society think of her as free-for-all. Sexual advances are commonplace, disrespect to her independence a trend. But she is not just the divorcee. She is the artist who is sexually harassed when the services of her vocal chords are hired for public functions. Like a divorcee, in Naga society, the entertainer is free-for-all. As is a woman in any profession. Being an equal here is to be morally dubious. Good women here do not compete with men.
When the ownership of a woman’s body rots at the fermented level of the mind, that men have denied any political power to women in Nagaland should surprise none. 2012 has not only been the year of this denial but also a year where rapes remained rampant. Of course, they have all been turned to footnotes, the rapes attributed not to the existing perverse society but to outsiders. Migrant labour, lower classes, illegal citizens—they are responsible for rape. That an old upper class Naga man raped a pre teen lower class Naga girl remained outside the framework of thought. That woman professionals are treated as flesh on a ramp walk remains outside the framework.
If women like Meren cannot find recourse in law, leave alone in the society she has to live in, she needs political representation to change that. She needs representation in bodies that embody the being of a citizen here—in its traditional institutions, in its local boards. She needs feminism that can jolt the society to look out for her safety over their “social order”. She needs not just the hum and drum over a rape but for her to be secure every day of every year. She needs her independence and being (basic human conditions, for those wondering if this is asking for too much) to be acknowledged as just that.
Will 2013 give us that?
