Why do our politicians have such varied opinions on rape? Some put the reason down to the woman’s choice of clothes; others think it’s western influence and pornography that’s leading to a rising incidence of sexual assault; still others blame a culture of permissiveness.

For a crime as dastardly as rape, one would assume there would be unanimity in calling it what it is. But every now and then, someone or the other from the political class comes up with shockingly loose talk about what rape is, how it is defined, who is guilty and who is not, and the many permutations of that question. It would seem our politicians were rapists themselves, or at least PhD candidates in rape studies, to know so much about it.

In the latest instalment of this tomfoolery – for what else can it be given the lax attitudes – Mulayam Singh Yadav has said that it is impossible for men to gangrape. What he meant, ostensibly, was that a woman cannot be raped by more than one man at a time, so when the complainant mentions more than one perpetrator – these were his exact, chilling words—there is some foul play at work.

Yadav’s statement would have incited large-scale shock and disgust in any other country but India, where the litany of social injustices is too long to excite renewed outrage every time our politicos dispense their golden wisdom. This is after all a country where even judges don’t bat an eyelid in asking victims of rape to consider marriage to their perpetrators.

How should one respond? The right thing perhaps is to ignore this as another case of flagrant stupidity. But one weeps at the fact that this latest volley has emerged from the leader of the party than runs Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state and one known for its criminality against women. Some analysis, even if it makes one wince, is therefore in order.

What could Yadav have meant? That a woman who has already been raped cannot give pleasure to a second rapist because her anatomy would not allow it? Or that a woman who has been raped is now owned by her rapist in the time-worn tradition of bharatiya sanskriti, so she ought not to be touched by another man? Those are the only possible explanations from Yadav’s viewpoint– and each of them privileges the act of rape.

This viewpoint does not permit a consideration of the woman’s stance. It refuses to look upon rape as a crime against the woman; rather it reduces it to a question of the man’s pleasure. Why should a second, third or fourth rapist even bother, Yadav seems to suggest. He is completely at ease with its worldview, one that represses women and prevents them from seeking their full personhood. I am certain he thinks nothing of what he has said. After all, isn’t everything in this benighted country, even a crime against the victim, worth consideration only in how it inconveniences the perpetrator?

Second, Yadav’s statement fails to account for a serious social evil. Nirbhaya, Mr Yadav, was gangraped by a bunch of hoodlums on a Delhi bus in December 2013. I hardly think the rapists were worried about their pleasure as they systematically defiled her. The crime against Nirbhaya was not even sexual in origin, I would reckon. It was rather meant to show her her place. How dare a woman roam about the streets of Delhi at night, that too with a guy? No wonder Yadav would agree.

I can almost picture Yadav hosting a slew of rapist types, who beseech him to get their sorry asses out of hot water because “all” they did was rape a girl and, perhaps, even “took care” of the matter. And of course, Yadav would support them. He is after all one of them; if not a rapist, he comes from the same social setup where women are little better than cattle, to be protected if they happen to be bahus and betis; to be used to settle scores otherwise.

How do we protest this depraved mentality? How do we, who live in the so-called new India, where we have woman friends who are as liberated as the men, reconcile the reality of the hinterland? And why just the hinterland? Yadav’s son runs the state from Lucknow, and besides, Yadav is only a symptom. Our political class is steeped in such misogynistic ethos. Here is a man who commands respect across the political spectrum. He chided Congress during the Monsoon session of Parliament for not letting Parliament run and was heralded by the Prime Minister for his stance. Will the Prime Minister now rebuke him for his statement?

Of course not. Political calculations determine the fate of many issues in this country, but it is a travesty that a national leader can get away with such callousness. Meanwhile the women of UP will continue to live in terror of not just possible rapists but of what their leaders might say and do to justify rape should one happen.

What our politicians have opined on rape