The Deve Gowda family has revealed that economic, political and inherited social (caste) power was the basis on which a Prajwal Revanna could ‘claim’ the bodies of ‘hundreds’ of women of Holenarispur in Hassan. Not before his father (and his mother) paved the way, earning the reputation of exploiting, humiliating and browbeating the people, including women, of the region.
https://thewire.in/gender/time-to-rethink-dynasties-and-masculinities
Now, another son has joined the ranks of those who criminally assaulted people against their will. Yet the people of Hassan believe, and perhaps even tacitly support, the family that rules like a ‘palegar’ or feudal chieftain. The humiliation of women and men was folded into non-consensual access to women’s bodies, their labour, and their sexuality in the name of caste and dynastic privilege, a privilege that Prajwal and his brother exercised as a birth right.
And now we have the actor Darshan, Prisoner number 6106, in jail in Bengaluru for allegedly participating in beating a fan, Renukaswamy from Chitradurga, to death!
Women were hacked, beheaded, and snuffed out for simply having said ‘no’. Feminists have long and loudly argued, that sexual assault, molestation and rape are usually more about power, than about sex. That ‘access’ to all women or vulnerable men is also linked to ideas of masculinity that are charged with ideas of possession, and precludes entirely the concept of consent, or the right to say no. That it is the perpetrator and not the survivor who must feel the sense of shame, guilt, or remorse.
by Janaki Nair
07/07/2024