A Moment of Madness

The first thing I read after I got up this morning was a piece called A Moment of Madness by Vinita Nangia in the Times of India. I read the text below the title and wound up annoyed. I then skimmed through the piece and felt furious. Do I not think that people have their moments of 'madness'? No. Do I think that they should be unaccountable for their actions? Absolutely not.
The author begins the piece by mixing history and myth, fact and fiction, giving one example after the other of men either treating women badly -- if not actually abusing them -- or of men allegedly simply losing their minds: the Buddha abandoning his wife, a fictional Othello murdering Desdemona, the Mark Antony of history supposedly being bewitched by Cleopatra thus determining his downfall, Shiney Ahuja allegedly committing rape. And at the end of it, somehow seems to be full of sympathy for those who behave badly in such moments of madness, as she calls them, without once talking about the effect of their actions on their victims. (I use the pronoun 'those' because through the dozen or so examples she gives, she does sprinkle some women .)
At any rate, our lady informs us that as far as Shiney Ahuja allegedly raping his 18-year-old maid is concerned, "Maybe if that flash in time had passed, he may have thought better of it and held himself back." Firstly, rape is not a crime about sex in itself, and restraining oneself from having sex with someone who doesn't want to have sex with one is really not that difficult. Deciding to rape is always a proactive choice, not an 'action of omission' so to speak. It doesn't matter that she's even found a shrink to legitimise her claims saying, "The libidinal impulse that takes birth in the brain may take over so badly that it demands instant gratification," although the shrink has thankfully added that a sense of power and narcissism play a role.
And then the author puts in two bits from some lawyer who says nothing more interesting than that premeditation or lack thereof is considered by the courts, but just in case the moments-of-madness theory isn't doing enough to exonerate rapists and other assorted idiots, the lawyer brings in the "but the woman might have encouraged him" to rape her line. Tried and tested, it certainly is. When all else fails in a rape case, or even before that, talk about what the victim was wearing, how she flirted, and how much alcohol she drank. Bingo, you have yourself an acquittal. Never mind that clothes, suggestive behaviour, or drinking are not in themselves invitations to rape anyone. And despite being repetitive, it's not that difficult not to commit rape. All a man has to do is ask if he has consent. Consent is not a default condition and asking if another person wants to do something is not beyond the realms of the possible.
But guess what, there's case law. And that clinches the deal. Or at least verifies the moments-of-madness theory. In one case, a woman was apparently treated leniently because she had PMS and while I doubt that's right, I am quite certain the next example isn't -- a judge apparently asked a woman to dress in court in the manner she was dressed when she was raped and then sided with the her rapist. And for our author and lawyer, apparently, the fact that the cases were British legitimises them.
Never mind that British judges have come up with a lot of questionable judgments when it comes to rape whether it be saying that a teen contributed to her own rape by hitchhiking or that a rapist 'showed concern and consideration by wearing a contraceptive'. Or that we have our own share of judgments which are best left uncited. Just for example, in one case — Idu Beg, 1881 — a husband who struck his wife on her left side while they were fighting (verbally) thereby causing her to vomit, bleed from the nose and die within an hour due to her spleen having been ruptured by him was not held to be guilty of murder — he was held to be guilty only of having caused grievous hurt. And in a far more recent case — Venkatasen v/s State, 1997 — a husband who suspected the fidelity of his wife and who assaulted her with a stone because her insulting words made him ‘lose control’ and kill her was held guilty of culpable homicide and not of murder.
And never mind that moments of supposed madness do not excuse criminal behaviour. (Yes, insanity is a defence but not when it's of the 'it's merely convenient for me to claim insanity here' variety. Or that, in my experience, I've rarely heard a man say that he was abusive in anything other than in a moment of madness for which, naturally, he is not accountable.
We somehow live in a society where the unqualified acceptance of the concept that women provoke men to abuse them ensures that, as Ptacek has pointed out, “abusive men are neither abnormal enough to be considered to be psychopaths, nor are they responsible enough to be held criminally liable for their actions.” But what still angers me the most about this piece is that there is not one mention of the effects of these so-called moments of madness on their victims.

Brojaweli

I’ve always been aware that my knowledge of Assamese is truly abysmal but recently, I’ve been hearing people speak in what they tell me is Assamese without understanding a word of what they’re saying, and I’ve begun to think that small though the state is, its language, like Marathi, could be different not only in different parts of the state but also among different classes of people. To me, as far as Marathi was concerned, the text which I read in legal documents was very different from the lingua franca at the law firm I spent time at, and neither one bore any great resemblance to the language which domestic help used. The words were different, for one thing. For example, at work, I never once heard anyone use ‘tu’ for ‘you’; it was always ‘tumhi’. Outside, I never heard ‘tumhi’ being used anywhere.
Initially, I thought that ‘tu’ and ‘tumhi’ corresponded to the French ‘tu’ and ‘vous’ but while that’s probably true, it clearly isn’t the whole story if one class of people opts to use only one form and a second class opts to use primarily the other form of the word.
Coming back to Assamese though, the other day, I watched a play heavily influenced by Ankia Naat Bhaona: an Assamese form of drama first created by Sankardev in Assam in the 15th century. It has since gone on to become a distinct form of art which comprised elements of Sanskrit drama as well as other traditional art forms along with Sankardev’s own innovations. Before the Bhaona itself begins, a lamp made of bamboo with nine flames is lit up to symbolise nine kinds of devotion.
There is a narrator called a Sutradhar who not only introduces characters and tells the tale but also keeps reminding the audience of the importance of devotion to God by repeatedly saying: “Nirantare Hari Bol, Hari Bol.”
I hadn’t expected to understand too much of the play but what surprised me when I watched it was that the language used in Ankia Naat is not Assamese at all. It’s a language called Brojaweli that’s used: a mixture of Assamese, Hindi, Oriya and Maitheli. Two of the four languages, I had absolutely no knowledge of.
Thankfully, the programme included a copy of the story of the drama in English.