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Writer's pictureBasudhara Roy

Rules for a Rape Republic


“Burning of women in India, most vividly of rape victims, is neither unprecedented nor inexplicable, and is an extension of the sociocultural habit of gender invisibilising.”

(Gender invisibility and women-burning; The New Indian Express, 26th January, 2020)



When they come for you

know there is no way out and

that they will stop at nothing short

of digging in you a tunnel to

fathom their own murky darkness.


Don’t scream. The chances are

that to a sadist spine every scream

is wine. Blindfold yourself, open wide,

play dead. Jump up the moment

it’s done. Gather your stuff. Leave.


Cease to think of your body as

copyrighted flesh. Understand it as

ground designed for plunder. Look at it

as a table where questions of caste, class,

language, religion, even education


must be decisively settled through

excavation. It isn’t about desire, clothes,

confidence, recklessness, lack of wisdom

or even about lust for that matter. It’s

simply about habit, their need to assert.


Ignore the intrusion as one ignores

flies. Don’t talk to the papers. Walk,

keep walking towards the sun. Remember

honour doesn’t blossom between thighs; it

cannot be nurtured or plucked overnight.


Breathe deep, thaw. Rejoice there are no

limbs severed; no acid on your face, no

iron thrust anywhere deep. Rejoice you live.

If, however, they’ve already set you on fire,

that part’s going to be a trifle problematic.


The ruins won’t speak, you see. It will be

difficult to conjure from ashes the story of

gags, rips, mauls, thrusts; to discover trails

of blood-semen branded on thighs. On the

brighter side, your clothes will retain dignity


in death. Burnt to cinder, they will be free from

scrutiny of form, length, texture, colour; will spare

your character of assault. Your invasion coffined

in you, you will live forever chaste in memories.

Yet, after every cremation will haunt a disquiet.


- featured in The Kali Project and Witness: The Red River Anthology of Dissent



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