India, a land known for its diversity, rich heritage, culture, colourful and flavoursome food, a never-ending list of occasions and holidays and the slightly recent addition of rape and other violent crimes against women!
We though enraged by the death toll of Nibhayas’ in Delhi and the rest of the country are not here to write an infuriating open letter to the World Wide Web. When India’s daughter, the documentary made by a British film-maker made big news after its release on YouTube, the country’s protectors and ‘patriots’ jumped right in with a concoction of nicely cooked data showcasing how the rate of crime against women are similar in the UK as it is in India! But we as a data-friendly nation often forget the main utility of data analysis.
It is a tool we need to use, not to put up a false curtain of utopia in a world where our daughters, mothers and wives tremble to walk the streets alone, where the meaning of freedom is strongly biased with the silent war of the sexes. After all what is data if not a tool to state the truth in an almost blunt blow, if we only use it or rather misuse it to tell the false side of the story veiling the dirty truth of crime rates within our national borders; a country we refer to as Bharat Mata should therefore, genuflect in shame as her own children pull daggers of crime into her bosom every other day by attacking her daughters.
Here taking a deeper look at the recent tragic incident where Delhi claimed the life of another Nirbhaya, this time a minor dalit-child who died a painful death after succumbing to her assault.
What are the factors that are fanning the flames of crime against women in our country? Let’s look at what the numbers have to say…
The phrase crime against women has a semantic meaning and can include either direct or indirect physical or psychological acts of cruelty against women. Also these criminal acts are directly specified towards women only claiming female victims; thus, characterised as “crimes against women”.
Here is a graph showing an exponential growth in the crime rate against women from The National Crime Records Bureau:
Over the last decade the maximum numbers of cases filed within the category of crime against women are under the Section 498-A of IPC which dictates the assessment of cases where cruelty is conducted from the husbands or relatives of wives. The total numbers of cases filed under this section within the last 10 years are a whopping 909,713 and what is more appalling is that these cases were filed every 10 hours!
The second most reported crimes against women as per reports are cases of “assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty” this category was earlier labelled as molestation and was ruled under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Court.
Following these numbers are the crimes of abduction and kidnapping of women which amount to 315,074 within the years 2005 to 2014 which is the third most reported crime against women. Rape is crime category that precedes this ranking within this murky list of crime against women. Here are the figures on reports of rape incidents shown through a graph from the National Crime Reports Bureau.
Within this same time period a total of 66,000 cases have been reported under the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961. Here is the graph showcasing those numbers over the last decade.
The top states leading with reports against cognizable crime against women (till 2014) are:
What is causing this rise?
The authorities suggest that most such incidences of rape or molestation go unreported due to the stigma attached to such incidences where the victim is tagged with a label of being rape-victim condoning her usual social lifestyle.
The views of psychologists suggest a different side where they are pointing fingers at the emerging social disparities. They suggest that although the lifestyle of the people has developed but their mindset still remains narrowly confined within the wells of age-old beliefs. A case, if gets a lot a media attention does cause a big splash making the concerned authorities pull out all-nighters to bring down the perpetrators. But we need to look at incidents with a deeper more compassionate perspective. We must realize the pain and trauma of the women who are made the undue victims of perversion, frustration and other murky social evils that further germinate with unemployment, poverty and the patriarchal idea that men must be the ones deemed with the vague task of schooling women and teaching them lessons on behaviour. This whole idea needs a paradigm shift where the idea of freedom must obtain an equal status for both the sexes and other allied gender roles. In 2014 alone 11,209 FIRs were lodged with such cases but only 9 of the accused have been convicted!
Clearly the biggest agent fanning the flame of crime against women is the country’s legal system and policing. As data analysts we took a look at the data-side of the matters, now as citizens of a country distraught we must collectively take actions against the growing rate of crime against women.
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