A National Shame for a National Capital

The gang-rape of a 23-year old girl student by four persons in a moving bus in our national capital last week is an unimaginable horror and should arouse a sense of shame in everyone of us. The heinous act of violence has evoked public outrage and without mincing words, let me tell you it deserves a punishment of the highest order. The girl, reportedly battling for her life, has displayed remarkable courage through her ordeal and let's fervently hope she gets all the strength to come out of it alive and well. But even then the battle is just half won.

This case has not been the first such incident. There have been countless other instances of rapes, molestation and sexual assaults, including minor girls as young as four years, across several other states in the nation. After a wave of rape cases were recently reported in the state of Haryana, the Khap panchayats suggested the abolishment of marriageable age limits to avoid rapes. This is the statement from Sube Singh, a Khap representative: "Boys and girls should be married by the time they turn 16 year old, so that they do not stray... this will decrease the incidents of rape." And here's another one, "As soon as the children attain puberty, it is natural for them to have sexual desires but when these are not fulfilled, they stray... so there should not be any minimum age limit for marriage."

Wow! These people should be conferred the Nobel prize for making such deductions! Instead of putting together a proactive approach to curb rapes, this ridiculous and bizarre suggestion is what they come up with. And it's just not Haryana; all the metropolitan cities are closely trailing behind Delhi in the number of sexual crimes against women. It's an irony that these cities, supposedly the beacon of civilization, are so regressive when to comes to such unpardonable acts of violence.

Every similar case in the past has been met with initial condemnation only to soon fade into oblivion and get buried under the weight of recurring sex crimes. Thanks to continuous breaking news coverage by news channels, these shameful incidents are given undue spotlight for their greed (read TRP's) and are forgotten once they get hold of a new breaking news to cover. Such is the role of media! May be this gruesome incident in Delhi just became the tipping point and too unpalatable to digest, for such has been the brutality that has been meted out to the victim and her male friend, who was also stripped and beaten with iron rods and then thrown out of the moving bus along with the girl almost an hour later.

While the public outpouring of grief is understandable, what irks me extremely is the complete nonchalance from the side of government in dealing with cases of crimes against women. Its silent stance notwithstanding, what grieves me further is the fact that a victim's courage counts for zilch in our present society. Even if one dares approach the police, chances of getting justice are grim and (s)he will have to put up with the apathy of the officers. Moreover, it's indeed a matter of ignominy that India, which has been known for its morals since time immemorial, can no longer be considered abiding by the same aphorisms and values that were imparted to our ancestors. Sadly this is the price one pays for blindly aping the western culture in all our walks of life.

Our male-dominated society should leave out their sexist ideas and should start learning to respect women as their equals. Unfortunately we are living in an age where -
  • Men accused of rape have been elected as members to the Parliament and state assemblies.
  • Movies and TV soaps lionize acts of harassment, abuse and eve-teasing as acts of heroism (or villainy, whichever way you put it) and feature scantily-clad top actresses gyrating to seductive and titillating item numbers.
Certainly women deserve more respect than that.

Thus it's not only the laws that need to toughened to deliver swift justice, but also we, as public, need a change of mindset against women. The politicians, whom we elect to power, should work towards the amelioration and betterment of the society and the police, be its faithful caretaker. This will be the battle's true victory.

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