The headline shocked you, didn’t it? But is it going to change the condition of women in our country? Yesterday, on January 1, the first day of 2017, a group of women was molested in MG Road, Bangalore. But it did not stir our souls like it did in 2012. It did not make us register violence like it did back then. Is it true that only after a girl was tossed out naked on the road with her genitals out that we were jolted awake? Also, let’s realise it as soon as we can that if a woman is not safe in a metropolitan city amid 15,000 cops, something is definitely wrong with the threshold of our society.
The rape of a paramedic in Delhi on 16th December 2 years back created a surging outrage and compelled us to come out in the street to say: ‘enough is enough.’ However though the outrage resulted in many amendments in the law, the basic question still remains unanswered.
Why did it take an act so violent to shake our conscience and register violence? Why does gang-rape become a bigger crime than mere rape? Why the rapes of lower caste and Dalit women or those in north-eastern states or Jammu & Kashmir did not prick our conscience? Will the primetime debates on these topics and will the activists and will the politicians giving nonsensical statements help? And the most important of all, will just changing the law help in eradicating rape from our society?
Let’s face the truth: rape is rampant in our society. It is embedded in our culture by the crude thinking of holding a woman responsible for a crime against her. We judge women through the prism of her dressing, her behaviour, her character, her economical background, her caste and her way of living.
Rape is the most under-rated crime in India but beneath this fact is a whole universe of truth that always remains unacknowledged. What’s worse is that we are slowly getting accustomed to it. Be it the case of JW Marriott molestation case in Mumbai 8 years back or the case of a 20-year-old Smitha who survived the heinous crime twice in one night, the rape cases during the festive season doesn’t seem to be ending so soon.
What’s more disturbing is that we are still the same lot who will go back home, sit in front of television and blame the girls for partying out late night. We are the same lot who, while criticising such incidents, will put a time limit on our daughters and sisters rather than asking our sons to respect them. If this is not hypocrisy, if this is not promoting the rape culture, then what is?
Though it is still a long way to go before we actually eradicate rape from our society, it is very important to develop a sense of respect in our kids towards the opposite sex irrespective of their caste or community, as a beginning measure. And then only will a girl be able to live safely in a neighbourhood and travel and party and go out whenever she wants to. Fearlessly.
