By Adnan Bhat:
I have been living in New Delhi, the national capital of India for more than a year now. Truth to tell, I had full knowledge before setting foot here, about the soaring crimes rates of the city. Over the years Delhi, has become famous or should I say infamous, to put it more correctly, for violence against women. I still remember how a few years ago, when my sister arrived in Delhi, to study, my family always had a dismayed look on their faces every time; they switched on the television, watching news reports filled with such incidents. Hurriedly, they would take out the phones to find if their daughter was secure.
Violence towards women is not only restricted to Delhi. The epidemic is spread throughout the country, rising every year and becoming more brazen in nature. Just pick up any newspaper, and be surprised if you don’t see news about rape or molestation of women coming in from some or the other part of the country. It has become a routine that we all have come to live with, ignominiously.
While working in a newspaper a year ago, gathering news for next day’s edition. I noticed a very disturbing piece of news coming in on newswire. A ten year old girl had been raped. I immediately put it up on the first page, knowing it was not of any help to her but that was least I could to at the time. Later that day, I was summoned by the editor, questioning my news sense. He asked me to justify my decision to do so. I had no answer to give but he understood. Explaining to me how our society has become immune to such news, he told me to put it up on third or fourth page of the newspaper.
However, the recent incident, shameful and poignant; of a women yet again violated in the Capital seems to have awakened the collective conscience of the hypocritical society that we live in. This time an innocent was gang raped in a bus, moving through the streets of this paralyzed society, callous and busy in shenanigans, scared of their own shadow. The outrage over the rape of the 23-year-old para-medical, confined to heated discussion on television, protests on the streets, putting up facebook statuses and online debates, in all honesty seems fagged and mundane exercise, repetitive and futile.
The pour out of sympathy, will be of little use to the victim, who has been scarred for life, if she manages to survive. The trauma of this horrific incident is going to haunt her for the rest of the live. An act of rape is not only a bodily transgression; it kills the soul of the victim, leaving them dented in their hearts and minds
Calls for death sentence for rapist, their public hanging or castration won’t make this epidemic go away. All these demands are directed towards punishing the guilty, not tackling the problem before hand. This problem is much broader in context than just law and order issue. We don’t need any more laws, those in place need to be implemented. The Government can’t be held responsible for everything. Police can’t be everywhere all the time. We need to act, and act now.
The perpetrators of this heinous crime might just be a handful of fiend men, who seem to have no respect towards the opposite sex. Mentally sick beings, who deserve not to be called humans at all. But what about the rest of us? Why is that we only seem to come to our senses after such incidents?