Gazing at the Woman’s Body: Historicising Lust and Lechery in a Patriarchal Society

The interviews of the defence lawyers M.L. Sharma and A.P. Singh in the ‘Nirbhaya’ case in 2015, in the BBC documentary India’s Daughter, exposed a disturbing aspect of the patriarchal social structure which blames women for arousing the ‘lustful’ and ‘lecherous’ male gaze and subsequent reper- cussions. Making highly offensive and misogynistic remarks, lawyer M.L. Sharma claimed: ‘If you will keep sweets on the street then dogs will come and eat them.’ Commenting on women’s attire, he further added, ‘If you are fully covered, nobody will disrespect you or hurt you.’ Moreover, drawing on a misogynistic anecdote of women as flowers and men as thorns, he shamelessly argued, ‘Where is the question of rape? Had she stayed home, this would never have happened and therefore she is responsible for what happened. Why should you put yourself in a situation where you cannot protect yourself? She gave the men an opportunity to misbehave with her.’