Kavita Krishnan was invited by Rediff for a chat session, in which a person with a handle “RAPIST”, threatened her repeatedly and made abusive comments.
Feminists worldwide face online abuse of most vitriolic kind. One of my favourite feminist bloggers Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency faced horrendous online abuse when she launched her popular video series “Tropes Vs Women in Videogames” http://www.feministfrequency.com/
Its so easy to abuse anonymously. To take trouble to , you know, actually debate about the issue in logical manner takes brains, knowledge and honest interest in the debate. We will talk about this very modern and very prevalent form of harassment later.
Right now, I want to tell you that Kavita Krishnan responded to my last post https://indianfem.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/akshay-kumar-says-hang-the-rapist-kavita-krishnan-recommends-gender-just-laws-i-know-she-is-right-but-my-heart-doesnt-obey/?replytocom=38.
Her response is eloquent, and shows exactly why we need more people like her on the social front campaigning for human rights. Kavita, we all are with you, people with dumb handles like RAPIST notwithstanding.
I am simply copy pasting her very persuasive response that is rooted in hardcore Indian ground reality.
Kavita Krishnan
April 24, 2013 at 11:37 am wrote
This is Kavita Krishnan here – responding to your honest feelings. Gut reaction anger is understandable. But public hanging/flogging/stoning is horrible for a democracy – and lack of democracy and just process doesn’t help women. Look at Saudi Arabia, where they apparently have these draconian punishments for rape. Is it a country where women are free?? Making India into Saudi Arabia won’t help anyone. In India today, if the guilty go free in courts of law and innocents are often punished, the same will happen even where lynch mobs are concerned. Dalit or Muslim men who have married Hindu girls will be branded rapists and lynched – while many powerful rapists – MPs, MLAs, men in Army or police uniform, those who rape during communal or caste violence, as well as dads, cousins, uncles etc who rape within the family and whom the family will protect – will go scot free. In Haryana where the dominant caste rapes dalit women, who will do the lynching? Will the khap panchayats lynch the rapists of their own caste? Can the dalit community ever dream of lynching the dominant caste/community rapist? Moreover, do we want the men who raise slogans of ‘choodi pehen lo’ to the police, thereby revealing that they believe it’s a badge of shame to be women and a badge of honour to be men, to be able to lynch rapists on our behalf?? I fully defend and support a Kiranjit Ahluwalia or a Rupam Pathak when they kill their tormentor – a situation for which the system which protects the tormentor is to blame. But to extend that to say replace the legal system with the mob ‘justice’ is no answer. Change the entire system is the answer – and till then, fight to make this system we have accountable to us.
Indifem 