Father & daughter: Law is silent on a bitter shame

If and when the Mumbai businessman,accused of raping his daughter for nine years, is convicted, it will be forrape. So, too, the fathers accused in Amritsar and Nagpur. Indian law does notregard incest as a separate crime. The businessman would face charges underSection 376 of the Indian Penal Code, which covers rape. This is how India dealswith the shameful reality of incest.A man accused of raping a child youngerthan 12 can expect a minimum sentence of 10 years; the highest punishment islife imprisonment. But an Indian father accused of forcing himself upon hisminor daughter cannot be convicted for incest per se.
In contrast,many developed countries recognize incest as a serious offence. Britain, whichhas punished it since 1908, sets a prison term of 14 years. In the US,punishment varies from state to state. If it���s 20 years in prison inMassachusetts, it can be up to five years in Hawaii. In Germany, sex with aclose relative is punished with three years in prison. Two years ago, a brotherand sister famously challenged Germany���s law on incest. The siblings grewup separately and argued that the law against incest was out of date and theywere within their rights to continue their relationship free from the threat ofimprisonment. They lost the case and incest continues to be illegal inGermany.
Not so in India, where children���s rights activistshave long demanded a more defined law to prosecute perpetrators. In 1983, thelaw against rape was amended to include policemen, hospital and prison staff whoabused women in their custody. But it overlooked activists��� pleas toinclude sexually abusive fathers in the category of people who violatedresponsibility. ������In most cases of sexual abuse, it���s thefather who is responsible for the heinous crime. He is the custodian of thechild. So, a custodial rape should also look at father as asuspect,������ says Mumbai-based women���s rights activist andlawyer Flavia Agnes.
But a Mumbai court last year let off a fatherwho raped his daughter for years in the suburbs. His alleged crime ���incest ��� was not recognized as a punishable offence.
Why is asocial taboo like incest not punished by law? Social workers and lawmakersbelieve it is a reflection of society���s refusal to acknowledge that incestexists. Anuja Gupta, founder and executive director of an NGO called Recoveringand Healing from Incest or RAHI, ������By not legislating a strictpunishment, the law is simply reiterating that it���s not a serious issue.If stringent punishment were made legal, then it has to be accepted that incestexists. But we don���t even want to admit that. It���s treated more likean aberration and so there is no harsh punishment. And this is true across theworld.���
Countries that punish incest harshly have done so onlyafter years of ground work by social workers and institutes that worked withincest victims, she says.
Agnes adds that somewhere we������don���t want to interfere with our family values and as suchkeep quiet about it.������ Most often, the interest of the child issacrificed for the greater interest of the family.
There are nostatistics on incest here but a 2007 study by the Ministry of Women and ChildDevelopment on the sexual abuse of children found that 54% had been violated atsome point in their lives; 50% knew the offenders. The sexual abuse of children,of which incest is a major part, is a growing menace but little is done toaddress the issue. Interestingly, the sexual assault of a minor boy is coveredby the very law ��� article 377 ��� that criminalizeshomosexuality.
Nishit Kumar, who heads Communication and StrategicInitiatives at Mumbai���s Childline India Foundation, says it is appallingthat India, which has 450 million children below 18, allocated just 0.7% toprotect children in its last Budget. He says ������it���s a questionof priority������ and Indian lawmakers are yet to realize the enormity��� and spread ��� of the crime.
Every society has its owndefinition of incest. When the Romans ruled Egypt, sibling incest was common.It���s even believed that Cleopatra was the product of an incestuousrelationship. Closer home, particularly south of the Vindhyas, it���s commonfor a girl to marry her mother���s older brother.
Mohammad AbdulKalam, professor of Anthropology at the University of Madras argues that whatmay be right for one particular society may not work for another.������While amongst most South Indians, an uncle-niece marriage may notamount to incest, in north India it is frowned upon. But that doesn���t meanthat incest is not taking place in the north. Abusive words mentioningmother-sister are an indicator that there is an awareness of this so-calledtaboo but nobody wants to talk about it.������ He says cases of incestshould be seen as individual perversions. Stricter laws, he believes, would notcause the incidence of incest to decline.