Schools for scandal

What is it about rape and cover-ups? Why is there this compulsive need in some quarters to hush up charges of sexual assault? Despite a slew of tough laws against rape, why do we repeatedly encounter an institutional reluctance to call it out?

This week it came to light that a 16-year-old girl in a boarding school in Dehradun had allegedly been gang raped by four boys from the same school. As if it were not horrifying enough that schools are no longer safe spaces for children, the principal and other officials compounded the horror by trying to cover up the matter. They threatened the girl with expulsion if she spoke about it and even gave her quack concoctions to terminate a possible pregnancy arising out of the incident, which took place a month ago. Evidently, this was “damage control” — controlling the potential damage to the school’s reputation rather than addressing the damage and trauma suffered by the girl. 

The principal and his cohorts have now been arrested. The boys in question are in custody as well. But let’s not forget that there’s nothing unusual about this shameful attempt to hush up an alleged gang rape. It fits into a larger, malignant, design of institutions shielding, and hence enabling, sexual predators — not just in India, but pretty much all over the world. It is as if in the precincts of power, sexual offences are regarded with a benevolent eye: boys will be boys. And men will be men. The powerful will do their power thing and indulge in a bit of assault and rape on the side. And if things get sticky, the institutional cabal will rally round the offender and grind the victim underfoot. 

Victim-shaming is the first resort of patriarchy  Photo: istock

Take the case of the Kerala nun who in June this year filed a police complaint against Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal, accusing him of raping her 13 times between 2014 and 2016. Though she has received support from her sorority — in Kochi nuns have been agitating for Mulakkal’s arrest — her own congregation pronounced the bishop innocent and even tried to slander her. For months the police dragged their feet about questioning Mulakkal. To top it all, Kerala legislator PC George called her a “prostitute” and remarked, “12 times she enjoyed; 13th time it became rape.” Very classy, but then victim-shaming is the first resort of patriarchy when called upon to answer for its sins.

Worldwide, the Catholic church itself has been beset with revelations of child sexual abuse by its clergy, and how, instead of punishing these predatory priests, it continued to shelter them. Last month, a grand jury investigation in the US state of Pennsylvania came out with a report that said church leaders had covered up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests since the 1940s. Victims were persuaded not to report the crimes and the police not to probe them. The Boston Globe’s shattering exposé in 2002 of the church’s complicity in the sexual abuse of children —  the true story of that excellent film, Spotlight — was obviously just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Indeed, whether it is the protection of paedophile priests, or Indian lawmakers trying to shield the men charged with the gang rapes in Kathua and Unnao earlier this year, or Hollywood’s decades-long tolerance of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse of actresses — they all spring from the same social reality: there’s an omerta surrounding sexual violence, the cosy club of the powerful keeps it going, and the victim often stays silent for fear of reprisals. 

But things are changing. Last year Weinstein went down under the tsunami of #MeToo; despite his huge influence and political clout, godman Asaram Bapu is in jail for raping a minor girl; public pressure has finally forced the Kerala police to subject Bishop Mulakkal to some intensive grilling…

Last week a professor in California alleged that US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her at a party 36 years ago when she was 15 and he 17. A probe into the charge could torpedo Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Over in Dehradun, though, the teenage boys are already facing the heat. If found guilty, they will face the consequences of their action — not three decades later, but soon. Progress comes softly, and perhaps it’s on its way.