Beyond bobbitisation

Thiruvananthapuram: A 23 year-old girl's bobbistisation of her sexual predator in Thiruvananthapuram the other day is not an act to be celebrated for many. It should be taken as a rude pointer towards a deeper malaise in society, including the lack of faith in the legal system and in the innumerous institutions society has created for the security of its citizens, especially the more vulnerable among them, they say.

A day after the tragedy struck the law student, sympathies and congratulatory notes of 'brave' and 'courageous act' are still pouring in favour of her in social media platforms. Amidst the hullaballoo, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's comments have courted controversy as well where he has said that the girl should have approached the police.

"I sympathise with her, as most people would, but we need a society where justice prevails, not one where every individual seeks it with a knife in her hand," wrote Dr Tharoor. There is "something gratifying about such swift justice but she would have been better off bringing the matter to the police rather than taking the law into her own hands," he wrote about the bebbitisation of Gangeshananda Theerthapada alias Hari Swami.

Dr Tharoor is not alone in airing a similar sentiment; Irene Elsa Jacob, first year MA English student at Baselios College, Kottayam, too, feels that more women should not take this as precedence and take law in to their hands.  "Though I fully support the hapless girl's self defence antics, I hope that more women don't make this a practice. We do not know what actually motivated her to bobbitise the swami," Irene, who is a columnist in Women Point, a digital platform of women, said.

She also recalled how women believers trusted the article appeared in pro-church Sunday Shalom which claimed the minor girl provoked Father Robin Vadakkumchery, who is now behind bars for impregnating the teenager. Irene feels that the law student in Thiruvanathapuram might have felt apprehensive about reporting the matter to the police as her perpetrator is supposedly a 'Godman'.

But activist and academic Dr. J. Devika was annoyed by Dr Tharoor's comments. "Where is Tharoor living these days? How can he say that the girl should have reported the sexual attacks to the police? Day by day it is being proved that girl children are not safe even in their homes," she said.

Dr Khadeeja Mumtaz, the physician-writer-activist who once wrote about a girl who used to carry a sharpened knife to attack her abuser, feels that the law student bobbitising the swami was a natural reaction. Dr Mumtaz, who wrote a short story 'Balyathil Ninnu Irangivanna Oral' almost a decade ago, feels that the victim in this era also faces the social stigma to complain against the oppressor and has to silently suffer the trauma over the years.

"Media reports suggest that she was being abused even when she was a child," she said. "At that time, she may not even know what happened to her. Later on, when she realised the gravity of the abuse she had been undergoing, she was threatened and silenced. How will the small kids attain courage to speak out the torture they suffered?"

The frustrated act of the law student has triggered another debate about what lay ahead for her. Actor and activist T. Maala Parvathi told DC that with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan hailing the girl's act as "ideal" and "courageous", the government would take a sympathetic attitude towards the girl. "Fortunately the social media has come out in unison in favour of the girl's drastic actions. I sincerely hope that the Left government will take the initiative to rehabilitate her and do the needful. She should be safe and taken care of. The Government should provide with her a job."