I actually thought of writing another new story or attempt a poem but I guess the recent news I read in the newspaper made me think otherwise. I believe this should be read not because you like to read but because you’re human.
‘ Woman Employee Gang-Raped in Hospital’
‘On UP’s eerie ‘rape road’, no traffic, no soul in sight’
‘Neighbor held for Rape, Murder of 16-Year-Old’
‘Teen Allegedly Raped, Strangled and Burnt by Men Who Stalked Her’
‘Close To Police Post, Woman, Daughter Gang-Raped For 3 Hours’
‘Gang rape videos on sale in Indian state’
Its so simple. One only needs to go online and search for ‘Rape in India’ to get results which would take days, even months to read. That is the condition of our beloved country and its citizens.
Another content read;
‘India is the place where sexual assault is rapidly increasing. Rape in India is one of India’s most common crimes against women. According to the National Crime Records Bureau 24,923 rape cases were reported across India in 2012, but experts agree that the number of unreported cases of sexual assault brings the total much higher. Out of these, 24,470 were committed by parents/family, relatives, neighbors and other known persons implying that, men known to the victim committed 98 per cent of reported rapes. The latest estimates suggest that a new case of rape is reported every 22 minutes in India.’
This got me wondering. Where are we headed?
We have been misguided right since our birth. Often we’ve heard the words spoken with pride ‘India is rich in its culture and its heritage. India has a huge diverse population who are living in harmony with each other’.
And no, sending a probe to Mars or developing a new vaccine is not even close to justifying it. Lets first save humanity at the grass root level before walking off towards something like that.
Does that sound like harmony to you?
I tell you today.
India is not a great country. India was a great country. India is not a safe haven. India was a safe haven. Plagued by casteism, rapes, honor killing, religious riots and corruption, we don’t deserve to be called great.
We keep living in the past. We keep living in the shadows of what we were once. We don’t have ISIS but we have something worse, faceless, nameless citizens who are doing literally the same. Only, we treat them as a common criminal rather than the terrorists that they are.
And yes, rape is terrorism, Rape Terrorism.
And the worst part is, the government is neither ready to face this nor ready to accept the situation we are in.
It all starts with the society. And society includes the film industry, the ad industry and the minds of the people.
Actor Siddharth in a tweet a few days ago mentioned that the film industry glorified the idea of stalking. Stalkers are shown as heros and the price is the girl. The girl becomes the trophy and the guy is a sweating athlete trying to grasp it.
What happens if he abandons this so called ‘fairplay’ in his pursuit? He’ll resort to torture, blackmail, rape, acid attack and subsequent murder of his ‘prize’.
Objectification is how it starts. Women are portrayed as objects of pleasure or pride. What do you do with an object you own? When you’re happy, you play with it. When you’re angry, you break it. And then?
That’s it. Its all done. And we go after the next object. Of course, we’re all greedy.
We talk about women empowerment and the success stories of strong women but we refuse to accept the fact that the reason most women are not strong and are not successful is because of the society and some men who dominate it.
Everybody would want to run after success but not at the cost of their own lives.
To empower women, first we need to get them out of their comfort zone so that they would be inspired to go after their dreams. But how would even they want to get out of their comfort zone if the outside world happens to be a war zone?
What should we do?
We should go medieval on them.
The juvenile age should be brought down to 14 years. Why?
‘3 Year Old Allegedly Sexually Abused’
When a three year old girl can be raped, a 14 year old can be punished. Because, that is the usual age when the desire towards pornography increases. Until the age of 14, a boy sees a girl as a girl. After that particular phase, she is viewed as an object of desire. This slowly gives rise to stalkers, perverts, sexual predators and before you know it, he goes off rapes a girl and comes back. And when he realizes that nobody can do anything, he simply would want to do more.
Won’t you, when you find out a crime is not exactly a crime?
The so called boy’s school and girl’s school should be abolished. There should only be co-eds. Because when a boy grows up with absolutely no interaction with the opposite gender, he stops seeing a girl as a girl. She is seen as a ‘maal’. That’s how eve-teasing starts. And it goes to stalking and before you know it, he comes back home a criminal.
The mindset of the society is a major factor in this. It is very normal for any boy to have sexual thoughts. They are suppressed, oppressed to the point where he realizes that having thoughts about sex is a crime. But what can he do? It is a burning desire and a crime and he fulfills it through the only way possible, rape.
The society needs to open up. We are not anymore, the traditional society where the girl touches the feet of her husband every odd day. We are a society where a girl goes on a solo trip around the world. We need to open up to the fact that sex is just a desire, much like the desire for love or money and it needs to be fulfilled. The way I see it, there are two options, either the society accepts the truth and after a few awkward years, we become normal and no one gets to suffer. Or, we do it the hard way and everyone gets to suffer and we get to learn from very bad and very sour experiences.
Of course this does not guarantee anything. This may help bring down the number in the future though.
Then what else is needed here?
The government. Laws should be strict. We are living in an age where people are clever enough to find their way through the loopholes in any law, find a way around any law or worst, find a way to pay off law. We should come up with strict laws and deal with criminals with iron hands. Fear is useful in a way. Fear scares off the cowards. A fear of not possible but inescapable death would do wonders. And no, it is not cold blooded murder, its for one’s self protection.
Who’s self protection? Every single woman out there.
Imagine, every 22 minutes a girl is getting raped. How long will it be before it gets to you or someone you know? What can you do if it ever happens?
Sober up. Stand up. Fight back.
‘The moment we stop fighting for each other, that’s the moment we lose our humanity’
-Unknown.
P.S I’m not talking out of the thin air here. I do have proof for every single news about rape that I have cited there.