The Hindu Business Line : The worst kind of trauma

TWO recent media stories dealt with rape. Not only were they far, far apart in terms of distance — one was from California and the other from a village in Bihar — both the perpetrators and the victims in the two cases were at opposite ends of the social ladder.

The first case pertained to Andrew Luster, the grandson of Max Factor and heir to the multi-million-dollar cosmetic giant's fortune. The 39-year old millionaire from Los Angeles has been under investigation by the California police for two years, facing as many as 87 charges relating to date-rape.

He hit the headlines on January 8 because he jumped bail — of $1 million — and disappeared. He had been under house arrest for some time, with the bail conditions allowing him to go out only for the stipulated weekly meeting with his attorney. But last weekend he failed to appear before his probation officer.

Luster was charged with raping several unconscious women who had been doped with the date-rape drug, GHB, often used to spike the drinks of unsuspecting women.

It is difficult to understand why the heir to a multi-million-dollar fortune should have resorted to using the deadly GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate), which has become one of the hottest recreational drugs in the US and is freely used in nightclubs and high-profile parties.

An unapproved drug that cannot be legally marketed in the US, GHB, according to the Net, has an intoxicating effect that makes it the date-rape drug of choice. One health site describes it thus: "It's a `chill' drug that massively depresses the central nervous system and sedates the body. Instead of attaining euphoria, people who consume GHB may end up comatose in an emergency room.

Experts say that an overdose with GHB can occur quickly, particularly when mixed with other tranquilisers such as alcohol. The drug may cause the user to stop breathing, or cause vomiting, dizziness, tremors and seizures. Many deaths have been linked to GHB consumption."

Since this is a banned drug, most of the GHB circulating in the US is made by amateur chemists. So one can never be sure of the concentration of the various chemicals used in its manufacture.

A BBC story reported that Luster was arrested after a date of his went to the police two years ago, alleging he had spiked her drink with GHB. Detectives raiding his beach house found 17 videotapes of the millionaire having sex with apparently unconscious women, many of whom are yet to be identified.

They were "reportedly investigating whether he could have been part of an international ring of playboy millionaires, said to be known as the `Bachelors', who trade films of date rape attacks over the Internet. Several years ago, a British woman claimed she had fallen victim to such a gang, telling police she had been raped in a London hotel after GHB was slipped into her drink," said the report. Of course, Luster denied the charge, claiming that the women on the tape were engaging in consensual sex. A New York Times report said that the police were originally alerted about his activities when, two years ago, a student from a local college reported that she had been raped at his house. "In a search of his home, detectives found the explicit video of the three women, ages 16 to 21. The women have testified that they were unaware they were being taped."

From millionaire playboys of the West to Gopalpur, Bihar,is a long distance, but the crime is the same. In this village, rape was once again used as a power statement by the upper caste Hindus against the Dalits.

Quoting Masane Ram, a villager from Gopalpur, an NDTV report said that a group of upper-caste men raped six tribal women in front of several villagers last week. "I saw them, but they pointed a pistol at me. I shouted `who are you'. And then they fired shots, entered a house and raped the women inside."

Most of the men in the village work as migrant labourers in other States and their wives live alone, vulnerable to all kinds of violence. But this is the first time they have been raped. The women were too terrified even to go to the police but some of the younger villagers, naturally incensed at the horrendous crime, filed a police complaint.

The report does not carry details of what scores these men were settling but, as in most rape cases, it was undoubtedly a statement of superiority and power — power of the upper castes over Dalits, and of men over women.

In India, with rape being associated so closely with the loss-of-izzat syndrome, with the victims invariably denounced and shunned more than the rapists, rape often becomes a means to settle family, land, agricultural and other disputes between men!

A comparison of the two cases cited above shows that the lower you go in the social hierarchy, the less the need for an excuse, however terrible it might be, like doping a woman's drink in order to rape her. If you are an upper-caste or upper-class male, you can just walk into a village and "teach" its lower-caste populace a lesson by gang-raping its women.

In the recent communal carnage in Gujarat, the gang-rape of several women, before they were cut into pieces or burnt alive, had to do not with their caste but their religion. But the ultimate message was the same: An expression of power and to teach the opponents a lesson. No less horrendous is it for a man to take a woman out for an evening, dope her drink and have sex after she is unconscious. Is it not akin to raping a corpse? Obviously, the men don't seem to think so. Last January, USA Today did an investigative report on whether the women themselves consent to partake of GHB, also known in the US as `G' or `Easy Lay'.

In an interview to the newspaper, Dr Alan Leshner, a former executive director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in Bethesda, reminded the reporter that quite a number of those who take this drug end up in a comatose condition. "Something that puts you into a coma is not something most people voluntarily take. Normal people don't say: `I'm looking forward to my next coma'."

Quoting statistics from the American Drug Enforcement Agency, the report said that 73 people in the country had died from taking GHB since 1995. Between 1994 and 1998, there were 27 deaths related to the drug called Ecstasy; obviously named after the ecstatic condition in which it puts its users.

(Response can be send to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)

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