Round - I

Read the beginning of the debate here. Table of Contents here.

Mr. Kumar Alok, I have only two things to say:

1. There is actually zero correlation between the age of victim / victim's dress and the probability of rape - and 98% of all rape cases in India are perpetrated by immediate family or persons known to the victim - also take into account that the vast majority of the unreported cases are of the Badaun variety i.e. motivated by caste. Source: NCRB statistics
2. The issue is not in our right to wear what we want. It is not about propriety. The key here is that rape is NOT theft or murder, our bodies are NOT objects to be locked up and guarded. We are not 'khuli tijori'. We're people.

You used a term - moral deviants. These people exist because WE have taught them that women aren't people - only 'khuli tijori'. 'Covering up' only reinforces that lesson.

I also direct you here - http://anabagail.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/research-on-the-relationship-between-rape-and-dressing/.

Reply:

Ishita Roy Thank you ma'am for your thoughts. Let me articulate my views in this regard: -

1.  Rape is a crime committed by a criminal. Even if someone were to put forward arguments that social conditions force otherwise normal humans into crime, the final responsibility of exercising a criminal choice stays with the one who commits a crime.
2. In the light of the point 1, dress can be one of the provocations; however, it cannot be considered as the "cause" of the rape because that would absolve the criminal of his/her crime.
3. If someone were to argue that dress has no influence on the onlooker, it won't stand the test of science or common sense. It is only in this context that I made my earlier comments.
4. To say that we need a dress is NOT to say that otherwise we are a "khuli tijori". It is simply to say that we need to adhere to conditions of social acceptance in a given society. These conditions are loosely called propriety.
5. I am not sure where it is taught that women are "khuli tijori". Need for decency is equally applicable for all civilized people irrespective of their sex, caste or creed.
6. Finally, it is one thing to be vulnerable to crime and quite another to absolve oneself of all responsibility to exercise caution. Prevention is usually better than cure. Therefore, whether people or things, preventive measures are more prudent than punitive measures that our rights can fetch.

Read the next round here.