By Ila Ananya

You must remember the time when Jitender Chhatar, a Haryana Khap leader blamed the high incidence of rape on…chowmein. “To my understanding, consumption of fast food contributes to such incidents (rape). Chowmein leads to hormonal imbalance evoking an urge to indulge in such act,” Chhatar had said.

This time, the Minister for Public Works G Sudhakaran in Kerala has another explanation. You know, one that he thinks makes complete and perfect sense. We haven’t heard this one before.

This time, Sudhakaran reportedly announced while inaugurating an office building in Alappuzha, that the number of rape cases would come down if women were not “obsessed” with their mobile phones, and if more men were to engage in farming.

Don’t know what the connection is? Arre yaar, as Sudhakaran explained, since men who work as farmers are so busy all the time, they don’t have the time to rape women, na? Also he had “found” that women who use mobile phones are less aware of their surroundings so they were more likely to get raped. His solution, apart from increasing the number of men who work as farmers and women who don’t use mobile phones? People should practice “self-control.” Wah, wah.

We are just wondering where this spectacular understanding of rape is coming from. Because after all, rape is about things like time, and inanimate objects like mobile phones, no? We are used to hearing ridiculous statements about how the clothes a woman is wearing (and how often they visit temples, according to BJP leader Babulal Gaur, who has also said that it’s “sometimes right and sometimes wrong”) affects rape. Nevermind that these are just versions of the “boys will be boys” justification that Mulayam Singh Yadav gave.

We’re not sure why Sudhakaran (or any of these other men) felt the need to talk about rape when he was inaugurating a building.