No, the acid attacker isn't a jilted lover, he is just a criminal
"Guns don't kill people. People kill people." The words of pop prima donna Madonna. Not sung to a tumescent dubstep, but stated, in a bare, matter-of-fact way. So cruel, So culture-less, many would say. Our hackles are raised in stiff, righteous outrage each time the news of a shooting comes in from the "West". In the United States, mass-Indian opinion will tell you, people buy guns from a mall. People shoot down innocent people with these guns. These people, they have no culture, we will tell you.
Sophisticated and red-neck arguments alike rush to the defence of the liberal, gun-toting individual in the West. And here, we are outraged by the lawless, culture-less, value-less Western country. Because here, we don't buy machine-guns from grocery stores.
Because. Who needs guns when we have acid?
Not only can acid murder someone, it can also clean your toilet. Not only is the acidic baggage easy to carry, you can also pretend you're doing mumma's chores if someone accuses you, you know, of being murderous.Here, we are in the business of acid-ing young women, the younger the better.
In response to a young doctor who had acid thrown all over her face in New Delhi, by another doctor, the government has proposed certain changes. The sale of acid will be regulated. Finally, the feminists will say. But wait? What's the nature of the regulation? Taking down names and addresses of people who wish to buy acid. Great, that's a tiny, tottering baby step. But is an address going to stop a raving madman who believes, that the world, and specifically a woman whom he chooses, should be seared and deformed to his will? We need a more stringent method of sale, and less outlets where it is available. As the sale of SIM cards shows, addresses and names are produced at will and is not a major deterrent in procurement.
Secondly, the government wants to introduce a reservation, a quota of sorts. For acid victims to find jobs and support, becoming part of the category of people who are physically challenged, the sorts who get jobs in governmental set-up. This may seem somewhat effective and majorly patronising, but one must ask, does it achieve what the victim wants? By doling out a sop, are you in fact further de-constructing the victim's self-esteem? In many cases the victim may want a job of her choosing, not one chosen for her. In every case, she will want a full reconstruction of her face, and other body parts. It may be more useful to focus fully on the latter, and leave it up to the victim to choose what other support she wants from the state.
The New Delhi incident also unmasks another truth. Till now, the issue of acid attacks have been seen as something perpetuated by the unemployed, aimless, slightly ignorant young man. The media describes such a man as in wide flourishes. As a failed suitor. A jilted lover. Love gone awry. All this serves to water down the acid that should be part of the gaze on this man.
Who says there is "love" in any of this? Why are the perpetrator's "feelings" or forced associations coming in to headlines?
Who says the man was even a suitor? Is he a suitor only because he says so?
By that yardstick, his victim also belongs to him, body, mind, and face?
Just like that ridiculous term 'eve-teasing', terms like suitors, lovers and exes need to be done away within the discourse after attacks. Because that suggests some level of endearment, a whiff of innocence, the hint of "all's fair when in love", and the tender heteropatriarchal suggestion that this is what men do.
The young doctor who threw acid on the New Delhi victim shows us that it's not just the aimless ignoramuses that do this. "This" is being done by educated, upwardly mobile people, even people who are trained to save lives. This is being done because it is seen as the ultimate revenge, condoned within a heterosexual set up, where being jilted can be passed off as temporary insanity.
This is being done because you can still buy acid, and wish upon a young woman a hideous fate: taking away the very skin the outer world sees. Because today, the sort of acid done in private parties and nightclubs is still seen as worse than the sort that is purchased to disrupt an innocent's life forever.
We don't even need guns.