Raja Raghuwanshi murder: What triggers crimes of passion?
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated June 23, 2008)The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world but the same hands are also stained with blood. A spate of cold, calculated murders masterminded by women, in the last few years, has challenged the basic norms of understanding 'feminine' behaviour. But who said women had monopoly over 'nurturance' alone.advertisementWhile interviewing women involved in the 1993 riots, three sentences uttered by them still ring in my ears: 'Hamare hathon me bhi taqat hai', 'Hum abhi chup nahin rah sakte', and 'Hum kuch galat nahin kar rahen hain'. Metaphorically, these expressions are a product of complex historical processes where chronic trauma has been a reality. The collective subconscious has been inundated with insults from eve-teasers, chauvinistic feudal families, rapists and many more. The visual of an honour killing in a village repulsively reverberates across the 'psyche' of the country, more so of women.Though a large number of women live apparently unscathed lives, yet the seething anger is passed on to their daughters. 'I feel like stabbing my relative who was all over me when I was a kid' and 'I have made my daughter strong so that she will not take shit like me' are sentences uttered by at least one-fifth of the women. News about women killing their lovers/husband fill crime pages today. All of them believe that the 'anonymity' of cities hit by reckless globalisation will be an armour.advertisement
None feels the need to talk to a sympathetic adult about their turmoil. Disconnection between human beings is a bigger virus than HIV and the large gatherings at religious discourses are just a superficial balm. The Indian woman is also asking for more. Equity, excitement and empowerment are global utterances which are now being echoed in Mera Bharat Mahan. The middle class bahu wants freedom in the kitchen, bedroom and the bank, failing which she is prepared to walk out.Cutting the murdered body into many pieces by the Mumbai couple is an extreme example of dehumanisation. The country is passing through a chronic disaster syndrome with terrorism, Naxal violence, and micro-macro disasters hitting us repeatedly. The angst of globalisation leads to a peculiar anger leading to violence, suicide, depression, addiction, sexual offences and dehumanisation.I have come across stories of young girls killing their severely-abusive alcoholic fathers and escaping punishment as the society justified it. These acts are a process of normalisation of women that is leaving men shell-shocked. 'We were conned in being made to believe like sacrificial martyr goddesses which we are not...we are as vulnerable as men...let us be simply normal', is an echo one hears repeatedly.advertisement—The writer is a social psychiatrist.Subscribe to India Today Magazine
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