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'If Anjana can be gangraped, then no woman in Orissa is safe'

Arup Chanda in Calcutta

It is a strange world, this one of ours.

A world where, in the aftermath of the gangrape of a woman, discussion centres not around the heinousness of the crime itself, but of the political compulsions underlying it.

A world where the majority male reaction is of the 'she asked for it' variety, a world where graybeards lament not the rape itself, but the victim's fight for personal justice, her demand that the perpetrators, and instigators, be identified and punished.

Anjana Mishra is that anomaly -- a strong-willed woman in a conservative, male-oriented society. And she seems to be paying a big price for what, in Orissa, would be 'abnormality' on her part.

The scenario is not without its silver lining -- thus, sufficient numbers have been moved by her trauma to launch widespread protests, with even the non-political taking to the streets. The most recent manifestation came when students, cutting across political affiliations, took out a procession to the Raj Bhavan, demanding the severest punishment to the guilty, and the dismissal of state Chief Minister Janaki Ballabh Patnaik.

Unanimity on the issue remains, however, a pipe dream. Check out the elderly Joydeb Mahapatra's take on the issue: "Our society is conservative, and her actions might encourage many women to break up their marriages" he says.

Bottomline? In conservative Orissa, rather an unbroken marriage, even at the cost of untold personal trauma to a solitary woman.

It would appear that this has to do with the air in the state. Seema Padhi, who went for higher studies outside Orissa, shows signs of a more balanced perspective when she says, "Yes, she has shown the way. Divorced women in our society were looked down with shame. They were considered to be untouchables and women without morality. As such, women were expected to suffer all kinds of torture silently. Anjana's incident has opened up the eyes of many women in Orissa".

Interestingly, while they feel for Anjana Mishra over the rape, the majority of married women in Bhubaneswar -- including some who know her personally -- do not support her rift with her husband, Indian Forest Service officer Subhash Mishra. "Why break such a happy marriage?," they ask. "How many women could get husbands with such a good job? And what about the future of the two sons?"

That is symptomatic of the traditional line of thought -- that as long as the husband is well established, in a good job, everything goes, and the wife should still consider herself lucky.

Anjana herself points out that "happy" is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an adjective that fits her marriage. "I never wanted to be a career woman," she recalls. "All I wanted was a happy family life and to be a housewife. But I was living under constant threats and ultimatums. My husband even went to the extent of dumping me at the Kanke Mental Hospital in Ranchi where I was administered electric shocks. I wrote to the National Human Rights Commission, my father moved the courts, until I was discharged. And the psychiatrists there said I had no mental problems".

Rape, meanwhile, is not seen in its essence -- as a completely unwarranted, and most intensely personal, assault on a woman's psyche. Rather, discussion revolves around the motivation, with some indicating that her gangrape was stagemanaged by politicians opposed to Patnaik.

Haribabu, a Telugu porter at the railway station, said they "were told" that Anjana "volunteered herself to be raped in order to fix the chief minister. Anyway," he adds, "it is a fight between rich people and it will hardly change our lives."

For police officers, the incident is a headache. Press them on the issues, and you get the admission that "Rape is an indication of erosion of social values in our society. It does not," comes the addition, "indicate breakdown of law and order. But this kind of incidents can certainly bring down a government", they say.

There is no doubt it is the chief minister who finds himself in the centre of the storm, with even his deputy, Basanta Biswal, coming down hard on the deterioration of law and order.

"How many women in Bhubaneswar are provided with police security?" demands a BJP leader. "Anjana Mishra has a police tent in front of her home and she is escorted by a personal security officer whenever she goes out. She is the most protected woman in the state and if she can be gangraped, then no woman in Orissa is safe under Patnaik's administration."

The incident, meanwhile, is having an unlooked for fallout. A growing body of opinion supports the view that Anjana should be the combined Opposition candidate against Patnaik in the next assembly election, due in 2000.

"After being gangraped, Anjana has earned public sympathy even from those who earlier did not support her. She now has nothing more to lose. Such a woman can be very dangerous and is capable of bringing down an empire," said a local journalist.

The thought is widely shared -- vide the leaders of various political parties making a beeline for her door.

And that, ultimately, is the bottomline. Anything -- including the ultimate violation -- could have a political payoff.

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