By Edha Singh in collaboration with Sam Verma
“I will rape her easily.”
That was the beginning of the screenshot that shook the nation over the past week. This is regarding the Bois Locker Room group chat which surfaced on Twitter last Sunday and was found to glorify rape. Currently, the Delhi police are involved and 20 boys are under suspicion. A First Information Report (FIR) has been registered under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 465 (forgery), 469 (forgery to harm reputation), 509 (insulting the modesty of a woman) and Sections 67 and 67A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The 18-year-old admin of the group has been arrested and inquired. This has blown up so much that aside from TOI, international platforms like BBC and The Huffington Post, have covered it. We would like to remind you that Shubham Singh, a cyber expert said that some of the screenshots look edited. The images circulating are mixed with some from Instagram and others from Snapchat. One of the Delhi schools has also lodged a criminal complaint about the same.
Afterwards, threats were seen thrown so casually that every teenager has taken this time to reflect over their actions and words and the ones they may have faced themselves. For many, this has triggered past memories and for others seems like a premonition for what seems set in stone for their future.
There is a rape culture. You see it in Bollywood movies, catered to a large audience of men, luring them by sensuous choreography in skimpy clothes, with the same old storyline following the same as the next Bollywood film - girl is not interested in boy, boy woos girl by not taking no for an answer and putting her in uncomfortable situations, preferably publicly and the cherry on top is a choreography that no one asked for but midway through the song, the girl realises that he is the love of her life and ta-da, you have your Indian modern version of Romeo and Juliet!
It is shameful to see our name in popular international newspapers like BBC. The rural men of this country are already joked about frequently on Twitter and YouTube because they are notorious for DMing women all over the world, telling them how beautiful they are and then out of the blue asking for provocative pictures and then hurling expletives when they don’t get what they want. Now, will the educated and “woke” youth of this country be viewed no better than these uneducated and unaware men of this country?
In fact, after the Bois Locker Room case blew up we were talking to a friend from Delhi who said, “The worst part is that none of us are surprised, because all of us have experienced some form of sexual harassment at some point in our lives. And then it ends up triggering a whole other bunch of memories which we never gave importance to.”
This led us to reach out and talk to girls and boys between the ages of 14-18 and we realised that there is a certain idea that feels like the truth of our lives- sexual harassment faced online and offline. Everyone agreed that it’s something women will face or have faced. And that's scary- to think that as a society aside from accepting we also expect harassment.
As this case blew up many of the perpetrators identified deactivated their accounts and allegedly threatened to leak nudes and hack accounts of women who had outed them. Instagram owner Facebook also reacted to the controversy. "We absolutely do not allow behaviour that promotes sexual violence or exploits anyone, especially women and young people, and have actioned content violating our Community Standards as we were made aware of it.” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.
Since then Instagram, Twitter, and all general conversations have been a whirlwind of hate and rage. There is a communal uniting feeling of abhorration that quite frankly has turned toxic. It’s bewildering how even for the right causes the mass of opinions available can drain you. A user who knew one of the boys wrote to us saying,
“So many people texted me saying “how do you know them?” and stuff. And honestly, I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t even answer them. My friend's brother is involved in that. I was frozen when I found out.”
We all can sympathise and many even empathise with the victims of this case. But that’s the thing, it’s not just this case. Cases like this have been seen year after year. For example in 2018 an IB school in Mumbai reported a similar case where teenage boys had a group where they harassed not just other girls, but even some boys and made lewd comments about homosexuality. Another classic example is a group chat of boys from Warwick University which saw horrific comments like “Sometimes it’s fun to go wild and rape 100 girls.” The schools, in turn, didn't do much except suspending these students. Which leads us to question the very institutions that should be providing education which prevents behaviour like this. No one for sure can take the individual blame in such situations, but it's natural to question parenting and schooling.
We reached out to Dr Dipal Mehta, child psychologist expert, who told us that, “There are 2 types of adolescents nowadays - one that does it just for fun and second that themselves have seen an ugly childhood.
Most of these kids have disturbed childhoods which have not healed. Most of the time these boys don’t realise that they are committing mistakes. They don't have anyone to guide them. Values have been lost in them.
This kind of behaviour can be noticed around age 10 to 13 years when someone sees them being disrespectful which can be easily reversible at a younger age.
Some may be suffering from antisocial personality disorder. As a society if they are suffering from any disorder or childhood problems then be sensitive towards them and if they are doing it out of fun or just to put the opposite gender down then very strict actions against those boys are needed.”
As Indians who are the future, we almost reassure ourselves by telling ourselves that our generation is more educated and the country will become more progressive and safer because we never expected the ones around us to talk about our body parts and objectify us. We don’t expect the boys who we bend over for to pick up a pencil to appreciate the cleavage rather than the gesture. We don’t expect the boys who we allow to follow us on social media platforms to go ahead and post those pictures on a private group chat with boys all over the country to discuss all the things they want to do to us. These are boys receiving education in prestigious schools in South Delhi, well aware that there’s a line between appreciating someone’s beauty and disrespecting the integrity of that person.
As one user said, “I always thought education could solve rape but this proves otherwise.”
A lot of the shock that females reported having faced was that other females stood up for certain misogynistic men. In times like these, it’s expected for women to unite as one and present a strong opinionated voice, but we can assure you there will be obstacles. As it was reported that,
“A few months ago, I was a victim of a really traumatic incident of sexual nature, for which I got tremendous support. But, there were people again who didn’t think it was too big a deal to be upset about, and there were people quick to blame me.”
The question here is what is the way forward? Yes, we’ve all seen the ‘block these accounts' and ‘such humans don't deserve to exist’ stories but is hate the only tool at our disposal? So to all women reading this, really think about what voice we’re presenting? Because let us tell you that for the purpose of this article men were scared to send in anonymous views also. We have scared them into silence. Is the way towards equality an uproar that ultimately shuns men and doesn't check their biases?
“They're calling out people like no tomorrow. That's not how we have to go about with it. I agree they have a politically incorrect, wrong opinion but you need to teach them why. Like the fact that their mindset is like that, it's sad it's bad but just publicly telling them that will make them continue with it. Punish the main ones, yeah! But for others, tell them why it's wrong. They don't even know what's wrong about it.” a user reported.
There is no better way to encapsulate the idea that calm and careful explanations are the way forward. And this needs men who have escaped misogyny and have been brought up with the idea of equality ingrained to take part in it. Don’t be silent spectators to something you know your gut tells you is repulsive, and women- please don’t frighten them away.
We started our work on this article before the tragic death of the 15-year-old (now 17), Manav, was reported. Even before that had happened many people had come up and told us that they found the environment highly negative. We know rape is heinous, but death is worse. There’s no coming back. We didn't just lose a life, we destroyed a whole family. No, we’re not decriminalising him because he committed suicide, we just want everyone to ask themselves if this much hate was needed? What face do you show to his mother when she says to you that he only may have written about rape, while you pushed him to death? Was it fair for everyone to suddenly take on the role of a whistleblower?
The loss of life is a burden you for sure do not want to carry, and yet you now do. What is gone is gone, but sit for a minute and imagine the trauma his parents must be going through and then think that if we had all just been a little more considerate this wouldn't have happened. Yes, his fear for what was to come played a role and this does not take away from his actions, but he was currently just 17 years old. Is it not part of our law that we’re innocent until proven guilty? Should we not have waited till the police gave their final judgement on the matter? This should come as a wake-up call for most that social media wasn’t meant to be weaponized and that it can become a sea full of raging abrasion that can destroy you.
Authorities should have gotten involved from the get-go and that child and all the other perpetrators deserved mental health help.
There was a girls locker room chat that showed up a couple of days ago too. While there is no complaint and official investigation regarding that to prove its truth what we can all agree on is that such groups do exist. Whether that particular one existed or not is up for a useless debate, but the truth is that women also objectify men and body shame other women. When women talk about shirtless men and flat chested girls it's okay? Why is it that we have accepted and glorified objectification of men and forgotten that women hate on women too in the name of gossip? Is it not hypocritical that those screenshots are not receiving similar attention?
Yes, the ”girls locker room” chats are horrible and expose the harsh realities of our society that is often overshadowed. Yes, we should take action against such talks and yes we shouldn’t normalise it but no, we should not use this as a reaction to female harassment. If we demand equality, we will serve it in equal proportions, plated the same exact way.
The dream for a sexual harassment-free world doesn't exist just with women in it, it has the opposite gender, right? So our request to you is that every time you come across a meme, tweet, video, comment, response that is either offensive or a normalised stigma take the time to explain to the person why it's not okay, and if you’re replying with a ROFL or laughing emoji, then don’t claim to be a feminist the next week. So this includes females. Oftentimes we forget that we are after all we are born in a patriarchal society and until we reflect upon our own instincts, thoughts, words and daily actions harassment will continue to exist.
Hold a mirror to yourself and really inspect all of what patriarchy has normalised. We’ll give you a simple one- have you realised till date working or not, aged or young, at all events and in their own homes, females eat last. They are okay with spending their time in the kitchen while everyone enjoys their food, they are okay with eating yesterday's leftovers or scrapping the curry after everyone took the main pieces.
Yes in this case data makes it clear that certain men were the main perpetrators.
Men know they can get away with it, because as much as we tell women to talk about it and stand up to it, do we tell them what to do after that? How do you support yourself if your family disowns you? What if you’re the housewife of your abuser? What if you’re a minor being abused by another minor? For that purpose, if you have faced such harassment you should know that Article 354A and 354D of the Indian Penal Code provide punishments for those caught committing cybercrime against women. 354C punishes those for voyeurism, which is defined as “Viewing and/or capturing the image of a girl or woman going about her private acts, where she thinks that no one is watching her is a crime. This includes a woman, using a toilet, or who is underdressed or in her underwear, or engaged in a sexual act”. POCSO (The Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Act, 2012) also condemns those who deal with pictures of any child under the legal age of consent of 18.
But we would like to point out that there are laws for general cyber crimes which involve females passing lewd comments or questionable pictures of men, so let us point the obvious and tell you that this is applicable for both the genders.
As much as the not all-male crowd may annoy certain feminists, know that if it's all men, it's also all women. It's not just a gender issue, it's a humanity issue. What this case has proven to us is that as a generation we have become propagators of hate. We have been provided with the tools of mass destruction and we play with it like psychopaths with matchsticks in their hands.
And finally, we should all take from this that Freedom of Speech does not mean freedom to evade consequences for your words. Whatever you say, whatever you post on the internet stays on there forever. The Internet never forgets. Take this as a lesson to think twice before you post anything and to think thrice about your words.
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