The recent Lohagarh Fort case and several other cases particularly against men have ignited a social media debate. This has swiftly shifted the focus away from the victims and towards the all-too-familiar question: Who suffers more? Men or women? When violent crimes become ammunition in online gender wars, society stops seeing victims as human beings and starts seeing them as evidence in an ideological debate.
Social media platforms are divided into groups, one of which comprises of people who are advocating that recent cases are proof of how men should now be extra careful while marrying. Men have undoubtedly been victims in several circumstances but so have women been, for centuries. NCRB data consistently shows that offences specifically targeting women, such as rape, dowry deaths, cruelty by husband or relatives, stalking, and sexual harassment remain a significant concern in India.
At the same time, men too can be victims of homicide, domestic abuse, and other violent crimes. Recognising one reality should not require denying the other. The purpose of discussing crime should be to understand victims, systemic issues, and prevent future violence, not to rank suffering. The underreporting of male victimisation vs. normalisation of female victimisation, both exist and can be named without making it a competition
It is unreasonable to make this debate about who suffers more, instead the focus should be shifted to why and how these crimes take place and the possible resolutions. Within this algorithmic driven outrage, cases are compared with one another which blurs the distinctions between them, often done by people trying to score points against one another. What they often forget is they are doing more harm than good. With the victim’s death, the conversation around justice becomes distorted.
The reaction on the recent cases also highlights the double standards of social media. A person killed and cut into pieces or murdered during marriage for any reason by their spouse is not new when women are the victim. Here the moral panic theory becomes relevant. It explains how this incident became evidence for an ideological war. In the present case a shocking event occurs.
Then it is followed by media amplification in which the incident is talked about number of times using emotional rhetoric which can create a sense of fear and urgency for action in public consciousness.
People then identify a “folk devil”—a person or group to which is to be blamed for the problem. In the Lohagarh Fort case the folk devil becomes not only the accused but all the women. Society begins labelling women as dangerous or becoming “too smart” nowadays. People then demand drastic reforms.
Under these drastic reforms the real underlying issues get little to no attention and long-term structural problems remain unresolved. Here the potential consequence can be the reinforcement of existing patriarchal controls, wherein the families will become more restrictive in the name of protecting men or preserving family honour.
One more structural issue which must be pointed out here is the claim by the accused Siya and Chetan that they found it easier to kill Ketan than to accept the social isolation and embarrassment which they will have to face if they come out clean about their relationship. The accused allegedly told the police that she did not want to marry Ketan and thought that if he was killed, it would buy her and Chetan some time,, before they could think of marriage.
This cannot be considered an excuse for the crime, but it does highlight the role of strict caste hierarchies, family pressure and restrictions on marital choice in shaping personal choices. Additionally, women continue to bear disproportionate burden of familial control over their decisions. This is evident in crimes of honour killings, inter caste marriage violence and societal resistance to marriage that defy family expectations.
Violence cannot be understood through a narrow viewpoint because it is often shaped by complex interaction of patriarchy, caste, family control, economic dependence, and individual criminality.
If every tragedy becomes another opportunity to prove one gender superior or more oppressed than the other, we will continue debating endlessly while ignoring the conditions that allow violence to flourish. To attain justice, we must resist the impulse to reduce every crime to a gendered contest and instead ask the harder questions: Why did it happen? How can similar crimes be prevented?
Kanika Bhardwaj is a student at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab. Views are personal.
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