A few days after the International Women's day and we are in the headlines again for all the wrong reasons. A young mother of a three year old boy fell prey to pervert patriarchy. She was working in a pub and dared to travel on the Gurgaon streets after 8 pm. It gets dark in the dingy by-lanes and the authorities sleep by then negligent of their duties towards the citizens, for the taxes we pay them is freely minted green gold doled by women like us who toil in sweat and blood to pay them. So no one could guarantee her protection, her basic right to live as a human and not be raped. And then since she worked in a pub, her privilege to walk on the streets in fearlessness was amended and she was branded a slut for no one tried to understand the circumstances that led her to taking up such a job.
Even before they could assess the gravity of the matter questions like these became mandatory.
The time.! (When Mr. P C Meena made the irresponsible statement urging women to stay indoors after 8 pm , did he actually forget that rapes happen even in broad day light, for instance the rape of the Maulana Azad Medical college student), the area you were in (For in many places in Delhi NCR, the police wallow in laxity making them unsafe, free money in the form of challans and bribes feeds their wantoness) and yes of course, we we women would continue to pay the taxes without doubtful questions and that would feed their monthly salary so do they need to do their duty.? they do not know, the clothing ( if you are not wearing a saree or salwar kameez, they believe you deserve to be raped and you can go one step ahead and wear a burqa for extra protection) , may I ask why aren't women in the western countries wearing beach wear not raped as gloriously as women in India. A question to ponder on.!
Where you worked is the next question for when Jessica Lall was murdered at point blank range, her profession was the first thing everyone wanted to put the easy blame on. Everything else didn't matter, as you know.! For working as a bartender in a party made her fit for rape as theseparasitically polluted men think, Her phone records are probed next to find if she had a man in her life and if the onus could be easily put on him and they could easily wash their hands off thecase and then the limelight turns to her lifestyle and questions like "Was she drunk?", "Was she with friends?", "Did she smoke?", "Was she married?" etc. etc become imperative.
And where does the culprit go, he gets lost in the picture.? For no one wanted to know what made his crooked Y chromosome commit the heinous act.? Or was he brought up in such a way that he was told to treat women as commodities, as puppets and pawns slaved to sexual satisfaction. Do questions like these ever become important when a woman has lost her entirety to an act of evil eroticism.? No they don't, for no one is interested to accept the fact that a man can ever go wrong. Even if he goes onto raping a woman. Or maybe they cannot go about blaming a man for the turn of events.! Men are always right while women are always wrong. We are taught to believe that one golden rule of patriarchy. Isn't gender sensitization importantatleast in this century.? For else do we qualify to call ourselves "liberated"?
After every rape in the city, I see the same vicious cycle of events being repeated. With no one really taking the responsibility of the mishap and in all excellence celebrating the circus of another woman's modesty being outraged.
The need of the hour is to stand up to stay vigilant for yourself and your friends and perhaps if this doesn't sound crazy, staging a day of protest against the second class behavior we women are being meted to. We all did have all the time and resources in the universe to support Annaji and his campaign. Then why this tolerant display of weakness for our own basic rights.? Why can't all the women of the city and the country call it a day off and come out on the streets.? We need to be heard, isn't it or are we still going to thank our stars for not being raped and will continue to believe in a misfitting fact that we would never be raped.
On second thoughts, I was wondering when a man will get raped what would these authorities ask him.? Would the questions still remain the same or would the woman culprit (without an inch of doubt and blame game on the victim) be jailed for the atrocity.? Only time will tell.!
