As we wish Happy Independence Day this year, are we really happy!
I am afraid I am not. Rather I join the anger of the doctors protesting on streets across the nation for what happened to the young lady doctor at RG Kar Government hospital in Kolkata on the night of August 9. Another horrific crime on the Indian canvas.
Amidst all the celebrations of August 15, something down inside makes me shudder. If democracy gives us the right to the freedom of action, thought, belief and practice its high time our fears within be measured as a yardstick of a successful democracy. Are we really free of fear this Independence Day! I was clearly not happy this Independence Day.
Haven’t we made this freedom so gender centric! Is freedom only for men!
All the progress and development and the lofty plans of making India a developed country by 2047 seems hollow if we cannot protect our daughters, our women, half the population, from the perverted mindset and actions of few of the other half. The same night as the horrendous rape murder of a Kolkata doctor was unfolding, were 2 other equally dastardly rapes and murders were being played out in Bihar and Uttarakhand. God knows how many more too were….. It goes on endlessly.
Every time a Nirbhaya happens we protest, make a new code of conduct, another rule is revisited, a lot of hue and cry and then we move on. Law and order remains the same, the pathetic mindset without awe of consequences, and another pulpit to announce a scheme aka ‘beti bacchao, beti padao’, and denounce the unholy with words of ‘maine peeda vyakt karna chahta hoon’. The underlying fact of a diseased society, a misogynistic mindset, a patronizing political system and compromised Forces can never give hope to the victims of crimes unthought of. Our women politicians, the so called law makers, do not utter a word when another woman is violated.
The argument that the problem is a universal one is an easy way of getting past it rather casually. Even though handful, there are countries where crime against women are negligible. When our so called leaders, the law makers, the privileged class spend loads of tax payers money to make foreign sojourns on the pretext of learning the good practices to return to implement them home, isn’t this problem a problem that needs addressing, learnt.
How numb have we (humanity) become to the physical abuse of women. All the talks of devi worship, respecting women etc etc seem farcical.
Today women are dominating all fields, professional as well as domestic. They are scientists, doctors, engineers, civil servants, diplomats, sportspersons, bankers, entrepreneurs, artists, even soldiers and astronauts, as equally they are homemakers, caregivers, mothers, sisters, daughters and daughter in laws. No role is less lofty than the other and many of them multitasking both. Yet their stature, their efforts, their labor is much less respected than what the other half does.
Pathetically, women are used as rewards of war crimes. Rape and sexual violence are accepted as a norm in war times. One can read hundreds of accounts when Israeli’s and Palestinians women in custody have been raped and sexually violated by the other. Similarly in other war zones. How does one justify this brutality. Human Rights organisations have shelves and shelves of documented proofs that talk of abysmal torture of women in every society, continent and country.
Can anything justify why Nirbhaya’s or a Abhaya (Kolkata rape murder victim) perpetrator not be hanged to death at the first instance! Why a Hathras girl be cremated with such tearing hurry! Why Kathua case not receive quick justice! Why a Sandeshkhali or a Manipur be simmering in political ambers. So many more cases, only to get stuck and jammed in the swamp of police investigations and Judiciary. If Sanjay Roy, the rapist and killer of the young doctor and the gang comes with a political backing they’ll be another set of criminals roaming the streets freely like any Brij Bhushan Singh or an Asaram or a Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh of Dera Saccha Sauda.
High time things that can prevent such gruesome crimes against women on this earth be brainstormed and implemented. The existence of such law and order and justice system that promises instant justice in the form of equally harsh punishment that lingers in the memory of the perpetrator which makes others shudder at the very thought, is incumbent. ‘This earth’ I say as divine intervention only used to be during Mahabharat’s time when Krishna came to the rescue of Draupadi while her cheerharan was taking place. Second, women will have to take up their protection themselves as the system fails them. They need to be trained in self defence, can be martial arts, can be pepper sprays, even use of some arms.
I shudder to imagine walking the streets alone after sunset, I feel nervous when my daughter tells me she will work late hours in office, I am petrified when my sister has a late night flight. Where is a safe world I aspire to live in…..
