Shahdara Survivor Was Stalked: A Crime Society Has Been Normalising For Ages

The Shahdara rape-assault case has rocked the national capital. In broad daylight last week, a woman was reportedly paraded and shamed around her neighbourhood in east Delhi. Locals garlanded her with slippers, tonsured her, blackened her face and jeered at her and all this happened not long after the woman was sexually assaulted. 12 arrests have been made in the case.

As per reports, the incident is being linked to a suicide that took place last year in the same locality. A teenage boy who was allegedly pursuing the 20-year-old woman ended his life after she rejected his advances. He was allegedly stalking her and proposed to her. The boy's family blamed the woman for his death, leading to personal enmity that resulted in the recent disturbing assaults on her.

A second complaint was filed this week based on the claims of the woman's sister that she was also being harassed by neighbours but that authorities failed to act when she flagged the issue to them. Follow updates here.

The extent of trauma that the survivor had to bear in this case is severe, but the circumstances it all began under are not. India sees tens of cases in which spurned lovers take to stalking women in a bid to woo them over. But these behaviours are so normalised that society doesn't pay heed.

How many more women must suffer such horrific ordeals before we begin taking acts of stalking or forceful pursuits of women seriously?

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Stalking is neither romantic nor endearing nor funny. But popular content and discourse have convinced us otherwise. Bollywood films have long been the champion defenders of men pursuing women against their will, glorifying them as heroes. Darr, Raanjhanaa, Tere Naam and Saawariya set toxic benchmarks for men over decades.

If she says no, stalk her till she tires into saying yes. Generations of men have learnt from these tactics that are not tactics really but criminally intimidating exploits.

A famous case from 2015 relates the kind of negative bearing Hindi films have on public conscience with regard to sensitive issues. An Indian security guard in Australia was accused of stalking two women and argued in court that it was "normal behaviour" for men from his country to target women obsessively. He also cited Bollywood films as his point of reference. The complaint against the man was adjourned.

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The rate of stalking in India is not amusing. In 2018, the country reported 9438 cases of stalking, which averaged at one case every 55 minutes, according to data by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). In 2020, a pandemic year, stalking cases dropped to 8512 but cyberstalking of women rose from 739 to 872. Experts agree these are severely underreported numbers.

">Stalking is entrenched in our social cultures and behaviours, which is why our society finds it hard to take it seriously or even give it any attention at all. How come a hue and cry was not raised in Shahdara when the boy allegedly stalked the woman, but all hell broke loose after his death for which all the blame was pinned on her? When will we begin teaching our boys that when a woman says no, she means no?

Right from the time she was allegedly stalked to when she was paraded after a gangrape, the Shahdara woman appeared to have been pushed around with impunity. The case exposes the terrifying reality of our times, where women survivors are traumatically condemned. Does this dishonour not belong to the perpetrators?

Views expressed are the author's own.