By Akhil Kumar:
At a time when our traditional decadent culture is speaking from a thousand mouths, we need to treat the abscesses lest more pus should ooze out reeking of deep seated patriarchy. Yes, the reference is to the ‘honourable’ Asaram Bapu’s allegation that “Only 5-6 people are not the culprits. The victim daughter is as guilty as her rapists… She should have called the culprits brothers and begged before them to stop… This could have saved her dignity and life. Can one hand clap? I don’t think so”. Besides abusing the sanctity of the relationship of a brother and sister by suggesting that she should have addressed the rapists as her brother; he has also unknowingly appealed to the nation to hammer the final nail in the coffin of the school of thought of these God men (read con men) and celebrities/politicians who, in the guise of representing the masses, have laughed right in our faces.
At a time when women are asserting their rights after innumerable years of suppression and oppression, their patriarchal fiefdom is threatened resulting in the manifestation of their true character through such condemnable hate speeches. Every other day, we see another politician jumping on the bandwagon setting new lows for the limits of misogyny. There seems to be a peculiar competition to outdo their counterparts.
We need to defeat such politics of hate by openly and blatantly criticizing such mockery of gender sensitization as they stand for the most outrageous and humiliating regressive values in our society. We should not let these nincompoops overshadow our struggle for gender justice and the spirit of resistance the girl led us to, by letting them get away with derogatory remarks about women and the victim in particular.
Let us all stand in solidarity with the women who are fighting for equal rights as the liberation of our society is inherently bound to theirs. Our society will not be free until every single woman is.
Let us all join in their slogan “For half the earth and half the sky, we shall fight, we shall win!”