Amidst This Ill Humour, Who Will Take a Toll on Crimes Committed Against Women?

When the tragic murder of Raja Raghuvanshi in Meghalaya broke into the news cycle — allegedly orchestrated by his own wife during their honeymoon — the internet wasted no time turning horror into humour. Memes flooded timelines with hashtags like #TrustNoWoman, #ModernWife, and punchlines that painted women as calculated, cold, and dangerous. Social media, in its usual performative glee, erupted not with grief or reflection, but with cheap laughs and viral slander.

It’s not the first time. And it won’t be the last. it is redundant to say that no one will be unwilling to see an individual involved in grievous crimes is punished. But amid this ill humour, a critical question stands unattended — who will take a toll on the crimes committed against women?

The Rise of Dark Humour, the Fall of Empathy

Meme culture today has become the internet’s fastest emotional reflex. In the name of wit and satire, society turns real-life tragedy into shareable content. It’s how many people process grief, fear, and discomfort. But when these memes spiral into generalized misogyny — warning men against marriage, love, or trusting women — they stop being just jokes. They become weapons of bias. In cases where a woman is the alleged perpetrator, the public spectacle intensifies. There’s curiosity, obsession, and often glee in witnessing a deviation from the expected narrative of the “woman as victim.” It becomes meme-worthy because it's rare, unexpected, and — sadly — entertaining. Yet, flip the story — when the woman is the victim — the silence is deafening.

The Real Numbers: An Epidemic Ignored

In 2022 alone, 445,256 cases of crimes against women were registered in India — a 4% rise from the previous year. That’s over 51 FIRs filed every hour, and yet only a fraction make it to the national conversation.

Let the numbers sink in:

• 31.4% of these cases were of cruelty by husbands or in-laws

• 19.2% involved kidnapping and abduction

• 18.7% were assaults intended to outrage modesty

• 7.1% were reported rapes, totaling 31,982 cases in a single year

Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan topped the list in reported cases. Delhi, the capital, held the unfortunate lead in crime rate — 144.4 crimes per 100,000 women.

Selective Outrage: A Gendered Virus

This discrepancy in attention isn’t just coincidental — it’s systematic.Crimes by women, especially in personal relationships, trigger mass outrage because they challenge entrenched gender expectations. But crimes against women? They're often considered ordinary, routine — woven into the fabric of our collective apathy. We meme about a murderous wife but barely whisper about:

• The 19-year-old burned for dowry in Bhopal

• The acid attack survivor in Lucknow who still hasn’t received compensation

• The rape victim in a Tier-3 town whose case was dismissed due to “lack of evidence”

If a man dies at the hands of a woman, it becomes a moment of national mockery. But when a woman dies at the hands of patriarchy — it becomes just another number in a dusty report.

Is Meme Culture Justified?

Dark humour, by itself, isn’t evil. It's been a way for people to process trauma, especially in societies that suppress emotional discourse. But the problem arises when the humour distorts the truth, It generalizes one case into a collective attack on a gender and It replaces accountability with amusement; And most dangerously, when it becomes louder than the suffering of thousands of voiceless women.

But why does this happen? Part of the answer lies in how digital media works. Social platforms reward what's shareable — not what's just. Crimes by women become clickable content because they defy expectations. They “shock” us. Meanwhile, crimes against women — often more brutal, more frequent, and more systemic — don’t trend unless they involve extreme brutality or a celebrity. In a media economy driven by clicks, attention isn't earned by need — but by novelty.

What Do We Do With This?

This article isn’t a call to censor humour — but to question its direction. It’s a reminder that while we remember the exception, we continue to ignore the epidemic. So, the next time a case like this goes viral, ask:

• Would I still find it funny if genders were reversed?

• Am I laughing at injustice or dodging its discomfort?

• Why do we remember the killer wife but forget the girl raped on a bus?

Justice Beyond Virality

In India, conviction rates for sexual crimes still hover between 27–30%. Survivors fight for years — not just in courtrooms, but in their homes, streets, and social circles — for credibility, for peace, for a life. But the outrage? That usually dies in 72 hours — replaced by a new scandal, a new meme, a new woman to blame.

If your feminism or humanity is shaken only when a woman becomes a killer, but not when she's killed, burned, raped, or discarded — you are not outraged. You are entertained. And for every meme made out of a rare crime by a woman, there are thousands of women whose blood doesn’t even make it past a headline.