The unfortunate victim of this incident has been christened
with such names as Amanat, Damini, Nirbhaya and so on. All over India, people
are mourning the death of “India’s daughter”. People are lighting candles on
the streets. Grief has spread to all corners of the country. This is what I don’t
understand. Whilst I do not condone the actions of the six accused in any way
whatsoever, I believe that India as a nation is blessed with a serious problem –
a problem that links directly to its middle class, its spine.
Quote (section taken from Times Of India’s website)
Honour Nirbhaya by making this pledge
- We will personally treat all women at home and
elsewhere with respect and demand the same from others
- We will not practice discrimination against women at
home and in the workplace and will fight it wherever we see it
- We will intervene in whatever way we can when we see
a woman being harassed whether verbally or by deeds. In all such cases, we will
insist on FIRs being lodged and acted upon
- We will not vote for politicians who treat women with
disrespect
There’s a fundamental problem with the mindset here. I do
not intend to dwell on the rather optimistic pledge outlined above. Instead I
would like to take this opportunity to quote a simple statistic. In Delhi this
year, there were 635 rape cases. And one conviction. One. ONE. More than zero,
less than two. If we didn’t waste all our damned money on buying candles for
one victim and organising mass protests demanding that Manmohan Singh find a new job then maybe we’d be able to think of the other 634. I mean no
disrespect to her memory but it certainly looks like India doesn’t care about
the memories of all those that suffer in silence.
This brings us on to what aggravates me so much. Why does a
girl have to be raped, beaten, thrown off a bus and unsuccessfully hospitalised
for two weeks in order to raise awareness about an issue that has plagued India
since god knows when? What can be more hypocritical than that? Do we wait until
a family member suffers pancreatic cancer before demanding access to healthcare?
As a cricket mad nation, do we ever pass up the most miniscule of opportunities
to dig into the team and its players? No. And no. Then why we wait so long to
finally react to this is beyond me.
Speaking of reacting brings me on to the next big problem.
How we react. It is unfortunate that blinded by rage over recent events, the
public is basically picking up every statement made by figures of authority and
twisting them into anti-feminist, anti-change statements. Obviously in some
cases this hasn’t actually been necessary – cue Botsa Satyanarayana’s “That
particular woman (the Delhi rape victim) should have applied her mind before
boarding the private bus. Anyway, it was a small incident” statement. However,
twisting Manmohan Singh’s “theek hai” (it’s ok) remark to a cameraman into an
anti-feminist statement is nothing short of pathetic. It just highlights the
dismal urge everyone seems to have to find a scapegoat.
Like Lassie before me, I’m not trying to play down the
issue. I also think that change will come eventually. All I believe is that
reacting and retaliating like hooligans makes us as human as those six men.
- Chap
