By M L Satyan
Coimbatore, Aug 14, 2024: This year India is celebrating its 78th Independence Day on August 15, marking 77 years since the first anniversary of independence.
As usual, hoisting of the national flag, colourful decorations, illuminations, fire crackers, cultural events, and tea parties take place. Most of the programs on the Independence Day have become really “meaningless rituals”. The right question that we need to raise is: Do all citizens in India really enjoy true freedom? The realistic answer is NO.
When the national flag is raised, let us visualize blood dropping from the flag – meaning that Mother India is really bleeding. Why? Today a vast majority of the Indian population is enduring enormous amount of suffering due to corrupt politicians, corporates and unjust socio-economic-political and religious structures. Human rights are violated, democracy has become a sheer mockery and the Indian Constitution is under threat.
Asha Devi, mother of the 2012 Delhi gang-rape victim, said, “Such brutal incidents of rape have become an everyday affair in India, but the elected representatives do not want to discuss it. News channels will show these things for the next two days and politicians will give some token comments.”
She questioned, “What after that? Are these incidents going to stop? Has punishment for such crimes been made stricter? No. How long will women in India fight for their own safety?” Asha Devi’s questions, even after 12 years, have not found answers. The gang-rape and brutal murder of a post graduate trainee doctor in RG Kar Medical College Hospital, Kolkata on August 9 has indeed become a reminder of the Nirbhaya case of 2012 in Delhi.
Today no place seems to be safe for women. Shockingly, there have been incidents of rape that have occurred in a family/home environment involving a father, brother or relative. Girl children are worried about their safety within their own homes. Home-maker women are worried about their safety when they are at home.
Likewise, working women are worried about their safety at their workplaces. Girl students studying on schools/colleges/universities are worried about their safety within their campus. The resident girl children of Child Care Homes are worried about their safety within their places of residence.
Female patients, nurses and doctors are worried about their safety within a hospital. Women travellers are worried about their safety in a travel environment. Women devotees are worried about their safety in an ashram environment. Women religious are worried about their safety within their own convents/congregations. Why? Because rape occurs anywhere and everywhere. Any woman can become the victim. Every place, including Sacro-sanctum of a worship centre, has become unsafe for women.
The list of culprits includes father, brother, uncle, relative, friend, office colleague, teacher, classmate, priest, swami/guru, auto driver, school bus driver, government official, politician and even police. Hence, today every woman is forced to look at a man with suspicion. Are young girls and women in India safe? Not really. “Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao” has become a forgotten and a meaningless slogan today.
Day-in and day-out, women of all ages (6-month baby to 60-year-old) are being targeted by sexually-perverted men. What is wrong with our society?
Certain major loopholes need to be pointed out here:
• Wife-beating – Male children get message that there is nothing wrong in wife-beating incidents.
• Disintegrated/Broken families – Children are deprived of parental love and guidance.
• Lack of Sex Education – It paves way for boys and girls to have unhealthy relationship with each other.
• Patriarchal system – Male-dominated culture, rules, laws and systems crush the voices of women.
• Caste system – The upper caste communities continue to harass the low caste communities. The easy preys are low caste women.
• Porn Culture – Many young boys and men get addicted to it since porn materials are easily available. They look for someone to experiment.
• Social Media – Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, WhatsApp etc. have become tools to prey for vulnerable victims like women.
• Police – Often police personnel is found to be ineffective when it comes to rape incidents. Sadly, the victims are harassed by police to a great extent.
• Judiciary – Law often fails to punish the culprits. Undue delay has become normal. Delayed justice is denied justice is the bitter reality.
• Law-makers – They are insensitive to the burning issue like rape and atrocities on women. Amid nationwide outrage over crimes against women in December 2019, a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government had said, “Not even Lord Ram can assure complete security to women”.
Last year, the country witnessed Vinesh Phogat and her colleagues leading public protests against what she and other athletes said was sexual abuse and harassment by the former president of India’s wrestling federation. She entered the wrestling games as a celebrated figure, having overcome knee and elbow injuries and qualified in a lower weight class than her natural weight to reach her third Olympics.
In a surprising development, Vinesh was disqualified from the Paris Olympics for not meeting the weight requirement for her 50 kg gold medal match. Reports indicate that Vinesh was 100 grams over the allowed weight limit, leading to her disqualification. Who was behind her disqualification remains a mystery.
Gender discrimination is a menace which is deeply-rooted in our society. Even though the Constitution of India protects and provides equal rights to men and women and provides equal measures to enhance the position of women in society, yet there are many women who are not able to enjoy the rights which are pledged to them.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO), nearly 30 percent of all women who have ever lived in a relationship have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner which further resulted in violence from family.
On the one side, we take pride in comparing the nation to a mother and say “Bharat Mata Ki Jai.” But on the other side, the vulnerable women live in fear throughout their life. This is the irony in our country. The safety and security of every woman in India lies with the responsible parents, family members, citizens, teachers, religious leaders, politicians and police.
Seeing Mother India bleeding, all responsible citizens must take a resolution to ensure the safety and security of every woman in this country. Mathru Devo Bhava! (Honor Mother as God).
A few suggestions:
• If our rage is dependent on who is raped, the circumstances of the rape, the extent of injuries, which political party is in power, then we are a part of the problem.
• Eve-teasing needs to be rephrased as `street sexual harassment’.
• It is the job of workplaces to provide their employees with a safe working environment. If a woman is attacked or raped within these premises, then the blame and criminal culpability must lie squarely with employers.
• Standard Operating Procedures, for example Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) in keeping with the provisions of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 must be in place and prominently displayed at institutions/workplaces.
• In many educational institutions and workplaces, ICC is either non-existent or only on paper. During an interview on ABP Ananda news channel on 16th August one nurse revealed that ICC is non-existent in R.G. Kar Hospital! So how will issues of sexual harassment be addressed & redressed at the hospital?
• Gender sensitisation of police, lawyers, public prosecutors and judges must be an ongoing process. We need to see more women hired at every level, from prosecutor to judge. However, in many instances, women have been seen to be lacking in empathy to women’s issues also, as the R.G. Kar incident shows.
• Much more is needed than “good touch/bad touch”. Textbooks must be examined and gender stereotypes e.g. “women should cook/do household chores” or “women are weak” or “women submit yourselves to your husbands” (Bible) must be removed outright.
• In an increasingly polarized world based on religion, caste, creed and colour, whether one likes it or not, knowledge of self-defence for girls/women is the need of the hour. Repeatedly governments, whether federal or central, have failed to protect our girls/women.
• Police should use robotics/Artificial Intelligence to identify and neutralize mob violence. This will eliminate inaction/indecision of the police force as was seen in R.G. Kar vandalism on 14th August late night and observed both by the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court of India.
What about punishment for the rapist along lines that cud help deter wouldbe rapists?? Like say, CASTRATION??
Namita Bhandare wrote in the Hindustan Times of 18th August:
Rape culture, is “a social environment that allows sexual violence to be normalised and justified, fuelled by persistent gender inequalities and attitudes,” defines UN Women. The problem is not an isolated incident but a structural one – of rape culture. Nothing will change unless we stamp it out.
The problem is that we look at cases of rape as single, disparate instances when in fact they are part of a far wider problem of violence against women and girls, says Amrita Dasgupta, where one in three women worldwide are subjected to violence and most women don’t even report it. Stereotypes of masculinity continue to play out on film, in ads, on social media. “Boys are not born violent but there is a socialisation process that allows boys and men to behave in a certain way,” she says. Amrita Dasgupta of Swayam, a feminist organisation has 29 years of experience in dealing with gender inequality and violence against women and girls.
By now we know, or ought to, that age, economic status, geography, caste, occupation, skin colour and sexual orientation of the victim is irrelevant. Babies get raped and so do grannies (72-year-old nun rape in March 2015 in Jesus & Mary Convent, Ranaghat, West Bengal). Women in bikinis get raped and so do those in burqas. It does not help to ask what she was wearing or why she was out so late.
Why are victims paying such a high price for justice? When the accused offender is a VIP with political connections, whether it’s Kuldeep Singh Senger or a Chinmayananda, a Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh or Ram Rahim, witnesses will turn hostile, their family members will lose jobs or even their lives, victims will be attacked and set ablaze while on their way to provide testimony. Despite the odds, even when they are convicted, parole and furlough is generously made available, making a mockery of tough sentences. Ram Rahim is out on his eighth furlough in three years. There are no calls for strikes or protests over this.
The criminal justice system is failing even child victims, says Audrey D’Mello, programme director, Majlis. For instance, she says, in child sexual assault, police file FIRs with alacrity if there is penetrative assault, but in cases of touching or harassment, less than 5% cases are filed.
Violence against women is committed by a man because somewhere, he’s learned that society accepts violence. In states like Telangana, 83.8% of women interviewed by the National Family Health Survey-5 said domestic violence is justified under certain circumstances—a poorly cooked meal or speaking rudely to in-laws, for instance. Very surprisingly, women (mothers or sisters-in-law and other relatives) encourage the atrocities on their own womenfolk.
In the current case of 9th August rape-and-murder of a young doctor at her workplace R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital Kolkata, Mamata Banerjee is demanding, bizarrely, for the culprit(s) in this case to be hanged to death. She has perhaps forgotten dismissing the 2012 Park Street rape as a “fabricated,” “doctored” and “minor.” She even transferred the highly efficient lady police officer Damayanti Sen who was in-charge of the rape enquiry. Very shockingly, it’s a case of a woman in power letting down two women – first the victim and then the lady police officer who cracked the crime.
Note:
Damayanti Sen, a 1996 batch IPS officer from West Bengal, was the senior police officer in charge of the 2012 Park Street gang rape case in Kolkata. She became well-known for defying the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, who had called the case “fabricated” and tried to stop the investigation. Sen continued with the investigation and identified five accused, three of whom were arrested. The accused were convicted in 2015 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. However, Sen was removed from the Kolkata Police within two months of defying the Chief Minister and has since been posted in less significant positions.
Hiii
“Bharat Mata Ki Jai”
It was truly emotional, thank you M L Satyan.
I hope this will create a great impact for the reader’s