Some questions of a common man !!

  

16 December 2012, a normal day for a normal person, for most of us, but not for very few. 

It was 17 December 2012, when I came to know about the Delhi rape case, I was agitated, when I read and followed various news channel, I came to know about the incident. I was disgusted by this heinous act of cruelty and inhumanity. At night I wondered, in which direction are we headed in the name of development and prosperity. When the victim died, I deeply mourned, although she was complete stranger to me. She wasn't my relative, friend or acquaintance, but I mourned her tragic death. I felt bad, even when people discussed about her death explaining the incident at every public corner, at tea stalls, at restaurants. It was the inhuman behaviour that churned me upside down. I decided to follow the media coverages, the articles, the YouTube videos, etc, to determine the truth behind the incident. I saw people raging, marching on roads, girls going violent, etc.. People continued to march on streets, protesting against this incident. Girls, women, men, altogether came down to fight against this evil of the society.

 But the question splintering in my mind was, although we boast about development, technology, liberalism, freedom, etc., yet we were here at the road side raping a young girl and killing her to death. The act convict did, raised question on every boy and man walking down the street and terrified every single girl.  

16th December, has became a day of women's security debate. We talk, we write, but next day we are all busy with our daily routines and jobs.

Finally the convicts got arrested, charged. Delhi police boasted about catching those people in record time and charging them, as if trying to cover their faces. Several people came into light, gave statements. Politicians as always expressed their grief, media all filled with same news, different stories and debates. The court case started and finally the 4 people got their punishment and a juvenile was handled as per juvenile law.

 Personally I wanted to see the convicts punished in the most cruel way. Sometimes at the end of day, I used to think, there is a common saying 'tit for tat', then apply on them too, they raped and killed a girl, do the same to them also, rape them and at the end kill them, maybe then they will know what they did.

But I was relieved to some extent when I heard the verdict of punishment of the accused people. I heard the defence lawyer's statements.

But I kept on thinking, what was the reason? Why it happened? Who's responsible?

Then this BBC documentary came up. Convicted spoke, lawyers spoke, her parents spoke, I listened. I saw how calm he was and how bluntly he justified himself. He blamed the girls for that and tried to justified his crime(which included a rape and a murder). His words were altogether his lawyer's words.

Defence Lawyers again spoke in some newspaper and a tv show, I listened. Suddenly I realised, the reason is us. We claim to have become modern, but the part of us lying back, with orthodox beliefs and thinking is still sticking. Convicted was speaking in the documentary and I was thinking, what kind of mindset this person has, is this the face of that chunk of youngsters among who we roam on the streets, we share buses and daily transport. Lawyers were speaking and i was thinking that these are the people whom we trust to take care of law and order, to provide us justice. Mr. Sharma spoke few words in the documentary but those were enough to state his mindset. Later he spoke in a YouTube video, where he came up with his 'revolutionary' thoughts and mindset and tried to impose it on every girl in the country. But I still have questions.

And I want to ask those questions to Mr. Sharma, assuming him to an intelligent person, and all other people with same mindset. 

1. The culture they talk about, the ancient Indian culture. As they truly say, little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Do people really know about our ancient Indian culture? Our ancient indian culture was one of the most advanced civilization not only in the terms of sciences but also in traditions, which with the course of time, became so rigid and society-based. Earlier we used to have Swamvars, where the girl used to choose his husband on the basis of his abilities, where guys used to compete among themselves as it is in nature where male needs to compete with other males to prove itself worthy for mating. In our ancient times, girls and women are occasionally worshipped as goddesses. Let me also inform you Mr. Sharma that as per our Hindu religious teachings, every girl other than wife/partner, should be considered as a sister or mother. From your stupid talks, anyone can make out how much you know about our culture. Please refer some good books to enhance your knowledge.  

2. Is it really girl's fault? As everybody pointed out that it was girl's fault, was it really her fault? Is the fault of the victim? 

Girls roaming late at night, going to disc and pubs, as per these people are all faulty and invites the rapists to rape them, which a girl should enjoy and not resist, otherwise she will get murdered !

Is it a norm or a law or a taboo?? 

Mr. Sharma, your marvellous analogy between a girl and piece of bread kept outside made me wonder how people consider females as assets. I don't feel disgusted for you and your friends, I feel pity and sympathy, how small your brain is and how much limited you can think. Women for people in our society is just an asset to show off or to have an entertainment. 

Your rapists dogs as Mr. Sharma you quoted when putting the analogy, will surely take the piece of bread if kept outside, but I guess you forgot one thing, we are dealing with humans, not dogs. Humans are intelligent social beings, not dogs. For a moment even if I consider your friends as dogs, even the cruellest animal kill only when it is hungry or in danger and do not rape the females and kill it. Switch your television channel to Nat Geo or discovery, in case you don't know. Animals mate, produce their off springs, but they mostly kill either when they are hungry or feel danger. So I guess your friends who are surely not humans, are also below the category of animals.

From here, one more point I want to raise. If you only considered them as dogs, then why they require human rights? why juvenile law? and as per biological study, they are not amongst the animals, so they don't require animal rights too.  

Don't blame me, I am just joining dots from the facts and your words.

"girl is a responsibility of the men around him", these are the words. True, but are you really talking about responsibility and love which gives freedom and doesn't require a human being to keep in social bondages.

Then Sati-pratha, as per you, must be justified for sure. A girl or women must be burned with his husband's dead body, as there will be no-one to protect her and she will be an open piece of bread. 

3. Should we blame Bollywood for this? I couldn't stop laughing when I hear people say that. You go out with your family and enjoy the item songs in the movies, talks about movie stars, but always ready to blame them. Your friends, Mr. Sharma, are among those people who enjoy those 'vulgar' movies(as you said) sitting in the front row and get seduced by the bare legs or the short clothes of the movie stars. And if I blame Bollywood with you for all this, then what about internet? It's all open. You can downloads loads of porn from there for free of cost. So should be ban, Bollywood and internet and every such thing?

I am not going to stretch it further. This much was enough to understand the mindset of people in our society. Our society is now divided into chunks, a chunk of people who are educated and think logically, have jobs and business to keep themselves busy, another chunk of people who are non-educated, fantasize about things and just want power to have their wishes fulfilled, another chunk of people who are literate but still entangled in the orthodox beliefs.

Britain in 19th century was somewhere like this only. Girls and women were meant to remain at home, wearing paining corsets and were meant to behave like "Lady with etiquettes" while men were free to go out. But after that revolution came which led to women liberation. Same happened in US. 

I guess that's what we need in India too. A women revolution, not for girls, but to change the mentality of the society and to discard the rotten beliefs which society has imposed on the females. 

Our society is a best example of hypocrisy not democracy. Girls are kept in homes and advised to remain in homes, and later in their youth, get married to a guy found by their parents(ritual is performed as a business deal, girl is educated, good looking so groom should have a high salary, well educated ! ). Isn't it the way we treat any asset? we keep our furniture inside, polish it and then we sell it. 

But on the other hand, boys are allowed to explore the world, and roam about fulfilling their desires. Why can't girls? That's our society. Where every blame is put on girls, and boys goes free. Yes, this is our society. No matter how much development we see, how much advance we become, what advanced gadgets we use, we are still in this pond of rotten beliefs and social rules. As they say, "Social rules", but as the name refers, it is made by society and depends on the kind of society we live in. So there is a dire need to change this society, the mindset of the people stuck, then only the social rules can be changed, then only the proper freedom can be provided. 

But will it stop rapes? No it won't. Because of our such an effective law and order !! 

Order maintained by police and law maintained by people like Mr. Sharma.   

This incident had its deep impact on the mind of most of us. The belief in humanity was shaken. The heinous act of the convicts somewhere induced a fear in every girl's heart and it will take a long long time to recover from it. 

Scenario today is, even if a girl wants a help, she won't ask a stranger boy, no matter he is decent and genuinely wants to help. If my friend goes out, I remain worried till she reaches her home safely. Night times is like a nightmare to normal people, specially girls, always a fear of getting raped. We don't trust strangers, we don't trust our neighbours, we don't trust taxi drivers, we don't trust someone who is helping us. Then whom do we trust ?

Why can't people understand a very simple thing that If a girl wear a short dress, it's not to seduce, it's for her own comfort. I still have lots of questions, which remained unanswered, and I am still searching for it. But today I just want to confess that I am not proud of this country any more. I believed that we can change, we can become better, but my belief broke. We are going back, we are falling.