Land for no women?
December 16, 2013, one year to the hideous gang rape of Delhi, has anything changed this one year?
Rapes have been the highest in 2013 when compared to the last 13 years. Rape cases doubled, molestation rose six times since December 16, 2012 (source: Times of India). The cry for harsh punishment and introduction of new laws seems to be just noise and few voices dying a slow death.
Delhi is often titled as rape capital of India, and when another rape is reported in any other city, say Mumbai the capital shift its base. Who are we kidding; No city, town or village has a culture of rape; it seems to be the problem with the entire nation, the only rape capital which I know of is our mind. No women in any country are safe as long as this male chauvinistic attitude runs rampant.
A disturbing incident took place today while my wife and I were walking towards our car on a busy street near Wilson garden, a man on a bike coming from the opposite direction rode towards her and almost rammed his vehicle intentionally, passing filthy comments and looking at her in an inappropriate manner. It all happened so quickly that all we could do is yell back with abusive words and he just laughed and rode away. I felt so miserable and helpless; I can imagine how my wife felt. An incident such as eve teasing can leave us both so speechless, it gives me chills to even think about the mental trauma and plight of the victims who go through much more.
I don‘t intent to play a blame game justifying the current plague. But there is no denying we didn‘t reach this junction overnight, many factors have played a major role such as society, culture, gender discrimination and even Bollywood which has such vast appeal. On one side women are hailed as goddess and on the other hand they are killed even before their birth. Society has always played double standards with women. Rich or poor the common cry is for a boy, someone who will continue the family name, girl child is treated as a liability. Instead of celebrating them and empowering them, they are discriminated time and again. How can women even think of walking shoulder to shoulder when such second hand treatment is so common? All thanks to the above most Indian men are so sexist; they treat women as objects of sex, child bearers and house keepers.
Bollywood had glorified rape in the 1980‘s and even in the 1990‘s. I vividly remember how the villain would take great pride in tearing up the cloths of the heroine or hero‘s sister and even mother‘s weren‘t spared. Bollywood seems to be on an all-time low, showing them as mere objects for sex.
Have we turned off our humanity, don‘t we have a conscious. Haven‘t we learnt the difference between right and wrong in our homes and schools? It looks like we have two different nations within fighting against each other, the ultra-modern and the uber-conservative fighting for control.
Can we possibly think of a quick fix to this problem? Unless we change our mindsets things will still remain the same. I have always believed there is an animal inside all of us; we either tame that animal or unleash it within, it‘s a choice we make - We need a self-introspection of how we see our opposite gender. Don‘t give women special status, give them the respect they deserve.