Pakistan blames Bollywood for rape and killing of child. Our neighbour is indeed a lot like us
When it comes to deflecting blame and avoiding introspection, both India and Pakistan are on the same plane. As per reports, fuelled by the recent rape and murder of seven-year-old Zainab Ansari, Pakistani social media soon found itself filled with a hashtag - #StopVulgarityOnMedia - conveniently placing all the blame for a brutal case of paedophilia and murder on a vague idea called media, accusing it of spreading something more vague called vulgarity.
Under the hashtag, many insinuated that the rape of a child was caused by the public’s exposure to nudity, sex and all things “un-sanskari”.
“[There] was a golden period of Pakistan when everything was pure and full of culture. Now everything is full of vulgarity, nudeness,” tweeted one user. Yet another tweeted a photo of Pakistani actress, model and singer Mehwish Hayat, captioned: "And if you don’t find this wrong then wait for more Zainabs stories to follow." One more user went a step further, placing the blame on the Indian film industry: "Vulgarity in Bollywood is one of the main reasons for [Zainab’s rape]... Better we learn from their mistakes instead of adopting their filthy culture of vulgarity."
There are a few things worth noting here.
First, there is no denying that Bollywood has an obvious role to play in rape culture. Hindi cinema, for years, has romanticised stalking, normalised misogyny and has added, more than any other form of popular culture, to toxic masculinity. But does blaming Bollywood absolve Pakistan of everything? Not in the least.
The tweets under the “stop vulgarity on media” hashtag are filled with casual slut-shaming. Citing sex and nudity as a cause of child sexual abuse is unacceptable when the premise of such an assertion is it goes against one’s culture. Sexual repression is a common theme in both India and Pakistan, two countries that continue to witness overwhelming amounts of gendered sexual violence. Is repressed sexuality in anyway related to that?
Yes. Jennifer Mathieu, in a Time article, writes: “If rape culture is defined as a culture that normalises sexual assault and finds ways to blame said assault on victims, modesty culture is certainly the twin to such disordered thinking.” She explains that often young men are taught to keep their lustful thoughts under control, and an obsession with a poorly defined idea of “modesty” makes it easy for men to blame a young woman for sexual violence.
And finally, conflating the idea of culture and rape is something that hit too close to home. It sounds almost like the Pakistani version of former CBFC chief Pahlaj Nihalani who tried to cover India’s film industry with "sanskar". As it turns out, despite a significant amount of “vulgarity” being snipped off by Nihalani in various movies, there has been no apparent change in the amount of sexual violence present in India.
“It’s just a terrible shame for all of us that 70 years after Independence, both nations, whose cultures are huge on the concept of “purdah” and “honour” of their women, today weep together at the lack of safety they have provided for them,” wrote Gurmehar Kaur, on the idea of rape culture and modesty.