Published/ publié in Res Militaris (resmilitaris.net), vol.12, n°2, Summer-Autumn 2022 Rape As a Tool of Suppression & Radha as The Representative of The Suppressed: Sujata Parashar’s the Temple Bar Women By Jove Jerina S Ph.D. scholar, Division of English School of Social Sciences and Languages Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai-600127, India jerinajove@gmail.com Dr G.K. Chithra Associate Professor, Division of English School of Social Sciences and Languages Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai-600127, India chithra.gandhapodi@vit.ac.in Abstract Women are perceived to be fragile and submissive, often remaining powerless both in real and virtual worlds. “Rape” remains an (ill)effective tool that is often been used to remind women of their fragility and their place in the society. The post effect of rape not just stops with physical injuries but also causes certain psychological effects such as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, Schizophrenia, inferiority complex and etc. The paper aims to throw light on how rape is handled and sustained as a tool by those handful of corrupted perpetrators to suppress women. It also tries to prove how the assault suppresses a woman physically and emotionally with reference to the novel The Temple Bar Woman by Sujata Parashar. The androcentric notion of treating women powerless and silencing their voices through rape is mostly less debated. The paper tries to highlight the unnoticed tool of suppression, which is used to put woman in her place and also calls out to our society, to support her which is the need of the hour. Keywords: Suppression, rape, women, men, powerlessness, tool Introduction Women in India, have been suppressed for centuries that continues even today. Especially now a days, crimes against women have increased immensely. There are various forms in which women are suppressed, such as in the name of education, class, gender, etc. All the forms of suppression start with the patriarchal mindset; irrespective of their gender, it can be found in both men and women. To imagine a situation, where a superpatriot, works under a female boss and finds it highly uncomfortable and irritating to work under a woman. He finds her, highly undefeatable in the workplace. The high degree of his male chauvinistic behaviour results in a situation where he wants to find an unfair reason to put her in shame. One such unfair reason he finds to defeat her is rape. It is not true that only strangers rape women, whereas close relatives and family friends of the victims too commit this heinous crime. For instance, a man from Bhopal, raped and killed his daughter in the name of honour killing. He raped his daughter, strangled her to death and buried her five-month-old baby alive beside her, just for marrying a man from a caste that he thinks, is lower. In this context, rape has been used as a weapon to show the caste dominance by a man. To achieve a lot more like this, rape is the unfair reason used by male chauvinists