Slowly, but certainly, December 16 is coming back to haunt us. Yet another rape in the national capital — of a five-year-old this time — that has enraged the nation with its brutality, and yet another open season for politicians to open their mouth and eject inanities.

Madhya Pradesh Congress general secretary Satyadev Katare is the latest entrant in the big league. Addressing a public gathering in Bhind on Tuesday, the good neta said, “Jab tak koi mahila tedhi nazar se hasegi nahi tab tak koi aadmi usse chhedega nahi.” Roughly translated: Unless a woman looks at a man suggestively, she won’t be harassed.

The quotable quote sounds ‘better’ — cheesier — in Hindi, though. You can almost visualise Ranjeet or Shakti Kapoor, the permanent baddies in most Bollywood films of the 1970s and ’80s (in fact, well up to the ’90s), saying “oi, time for action”, checking his libido quotient, and walking, nay running, toward a woman with a “tedhi nazar” while unbuckling their belts. You can also visualise the good Mr Katare shake his head, in shock of course, and say, afterward, “Tedhi nazar wali, tera mooh kaala”.

But why digress? Katare’s thesis made us hit the web and cull out some of the gems mouthed by our dear netas in the aftermath of the December 16 gangrape. Over to the top-10 observations on women and womanhood, crime and criminals, demeanours and misdemeanours, in no preferential order:

Mohan Bhagwat, RSS chief, expounding the raison d’être of sex crimes: “Crimes against women happening in urban India are shameful. It is a dangerous trend. But such crimes won't happen in Bharat or the rural areas of the country… Where 'Bharat' becomes 'India' with the influence of western culture, this type of incidents happen. The actual Indian values and culture should be established at every stratum of society where women are treated as 'mother'.”

Holy mother! That’s the inanest of ‘theory’ on rape to be propounded in a long, long time to come.

Om Parkash Chautala, INLD leader and former Haryana CM, racking his brains on how to address the problem: "We should learn from the past... especially in the Mughal era (when) people used to marry their girls to save them from Mughal atrocities. A similar situation is arising in the state (at present). I think that's the reason khap has taken such a decision and I support it."

Tau-ism (noun): A Chautala philosophy based on brainwaves from Mars, meant for Venus and intervened in Earth.

Banwari Lal Singhal, BJP MLA from Alwar, Rajasthan, too has a theory on how to put a full stop on rape: "Girls either walk to school or wait for school buses at various points in Alwar. That is when they face lewd comments from mischievous elements… It should be prohibited keeping in view the rise of social crimes against women. Schools should have pant-shirts or salwar suits as uniforms for girl students.”
 
…And duct tape for the likes of Singhal.

Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal CM, while linking rape to an increase in population: “You say rape incidents are on the rise. But the population is also swelling. Is the population in the state the same as it was during the tenure of (the state's second chief minister) BC Roy?... There are more cars now. Shopping malls are increasing. Young boys and girls are becoming more modern…”

Eh? Well, never mind.

Kailash Vijayvargiya, Madhya Pradesh industries minister, explaining traffic(king) rules: “Laxman rekha har vyakti ki khinchi gayee hai. Uss rekha ko koi bhi paar karega to Ravan samney baitha hai, woh Sita haran kar le jayega (everyone must stay within the Lakshman rekha. Ravan abducts anyone who crosses the line, just as he kidnapped Sita)."

Released on a screen near you: Aaj ka Rama-yama.

Dharambir Goyat, Haryana Congress spokesperson, explaining his seminal model on biology of criminology: “I don’t feel any hesitation in saying that 90 percent girls want to have sex intentionally but they don’t know that they would be gangraped further, as they find some lusty and pervasive people in the way ahead.”

Theory of inevitability: massive duds cause a distortion in space-time, which is dismissed as hilarity.

Rajpal Saini, BSP MLA from Morna in Muzaffarnagar, explaining the way call-drop way to putting a full stop on crimes against women: “There is no need to give phones to women and children. It distracts them and is useless. Why do women need phones? My mother, wife and sister never had mobile phones. They survived without one”.

Hello hello, dim dim: To make sense of this nonsense, your call is in queue

Abhijit Mukherjee, Lok Sabha MP from Jangipur in West Bengal, looking at the beauty behind the ‘duty’ of protests: “These pretty women, dented and painted, who come for protests are not students. I have seen them speak on television...usually women of this age are not students.”

Dented and painted by everyone and their sister, starting with his own, Mukherjee later “withdrew” the comment.

Botsa Satyanarayana, Andhra Pradesh Congress committee president, while explaining why the late 23-year-old paramedic was raped in New Delhi on December 16, 2012: “Just because India got freedom at midnight, is it necessary for women to move on the streets at midnight? She should have assessed the situation before getting into the bus.

Postscript: India is yet to get freedom from verbal garbage.