Talking about Stalking

Recently, I've met a lot of fairly highly educated men in India who are worried by the inclusion of stalking and voyeurism as offences in the "anti-rape" amendments. While these individuals might have no intention of harassing or assaulting a woman, they are wary of seemingly harmless sounding words, that might be used to describe most of the activity on facebook, being now used to describe a crime.

They are also terrified of how this kind of inclusion would lead to widespread misuse by women, and they expect that women would start walking into courts and claiming that they were "stalked" or "seen" just for the thrill of winning a case.

This is what the law states -

Voyeurism
Any man who watches, or captures the image of a woman engaging in a private act in circumstances where she would usually have the expectation of not being observed either by the perpetrator or by any other person at the behest of the perpetrator or disseminates such image.

Stalking 
Any man who -

• follows a woman and contacts, or attempts to contact such woman to foster personal interaction repeatedly despite a clear indication of disinterest by such woman; or
• monitors the use by a woman of the internet, email or any other form of electronic communication 

commits the offence of stalking.

Its not considered stalking if the man proves -

(i) it was pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime and the man accused of stalking had been entrusted with the responsibility of prevention and detection of crime by the State; or

(ii) it was pursued under any law or to comply with any condition or requirement imposed by any person under any law; or

(iii) in the particular circumstances such conduct was reasonable and justified

While we may not be able to use peeking into girls' bathrooms or tailing women till they are creep-ed out enough to decide that we love them; which is a massive cultural shift, as pointed out by some members of the Lok Sabha; our general, healthy, two-sided, voluntary interactions with women are not threatened by law. 

Foreign.

He stumbled in the dark, his hands reaching out for something to hold on to. It was stuffy to the extent that he found himself suffocating; his lungs working on overdrive to gather whatever air blew his way. 

There was no familiar sound of insects, no rustling of leaves, no engines running in the distance. There was no light, not even a mirage. 

He circled as he moved forward, his eyes thirsty to see. It was the same all around him, completely dark. He'd expected his eyes to get used to the dark and start identifying things around him, but they still saw only black. 

He was trapped in a sea of darkness, a dead sea of darkness. He blinked, he pinched his arm, he shook his head to come out of this puzzling dream. But it wasn't a dream, as un-real as it may seem to him, it was his reality, and that of many before him. 

But he didn't know that. He just knew that he was, at this moment in his ordinary life, stuck in an extraordinary situation, and that he had no idea what to do.