man” of the 1970s”. (Virdi 164) In Insaaf, Bharati (played by Zeenat Aman) is a former Miss India and career model who is raped by the wealthy Ramesh (Raj Babbar). Bharati’s lawyer tells her : “It is very hard to establish rape. That is why so many rapists go unpunished. And whether or not the rapist is punished, one thing is certain, the woman definitely gets a bad name ... You may not know this, but for a woman, a court case involving rape is not very different from rape.” (Virdi 162) The accused’s lawyer uses photographs of her modeling as indicators of her suspect character and has the case thrown out of court. Defeated and depressed, she leaves town. However when Ramesh rapes her sister, Bharati shoots and kills him. When she testifies in the final trial, she however falls into the trap of erasing the abuse of power on the man’s part by comparing raped women to desecrated temples. (Virdi 163) The woman as victim is foregrounded. It is not heartening to read the text of the Lok Sabha debates (forced by the agitating women on the streets) in 1983 concerning amendment of the rape laws. It “suggests a central concern with discourses of shame, stigma, death, and defilement as the defining features of the rape experiences of the victim... One MP stated : “A rape victim is practically given the same status as a prostitute. She bears a stigma in the eyes of the society. She has to hide herself” ... This discourse marks the loss of status of the raped woman by giving her another stigmatised status, that of the prostitute... She has no chastity to guard and hence cannot be gifted in marriage ... Section 228 of the IEA which makes legally relevant the character of the woman was not amended in 1983... [Another MP stated :] “I do not understand why you have gone into detail. The issue of husband wife rape is
1988 : Dimple Kapadia rouses a group of women whose relatives had been raped to castrate the rapists in Zakhmi Aurat. 27 CHAPTER 2 : GRAPPLING WITH GENDER
1988 : A busy year for Dimple Kapadia’s avenging avatar.
1989 : The Censor Board bans Pati Parmeshwar in which the “heroine carries her brutal but sick husband to a prostitute’s house, saying it is her duty to do so” ... “for showing women as servile to men“ ! (Shedde)
28
60