By Upasana Sharma:
Dear Politicians, God men and all those who have taken it upon themselves to enlighten us,
I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude towards you for enlightening us women as to why when we do certain things; we call upon ourselves the inevitable circumstance of getting raped. Had you not stepped upon the mantle to highlight what we dented and painted women do, we would have stayed in the darkness of ignorance and continued to get raped and hoped for justice only stemming out of the wrong belief that the rapist is the criminal and not us.
Your efforts at highlighting our “mistakes” and “invitation for rape” are surely noteworthy. It’s only because of you that we have realised that staying out of the house late at night, having a male companion who is not a brother or husband, wearing skirts and other provocative clothing, not going home straight away from school or college, listening to western music, having a mobile phone, staying in India and not Bharat mean an invitation that reads “I have crossed the Lakshman Rekha, be a Raavan and rape me!”
Your benevolence doesn’t stop there. After giving the invitation and having called it upon us, there are means of stopping it, which if we don’t apply, are to be blamed completely. We can tell the rapist that we consider him as a brother and he shouldn’t be doing this to his sister. If that genius of an idea doesn’t stop him, we can hope for divine intervention by taking God’s name. That will mostly scare him away, because his conscience will stop him. And, God forbid, all fails, we should just surrender so that at the least we don’t lose our body organs, parts and life, the cost of which being our dignity but since we have already asked for it, we don’t have any, do we?
With such kinds of guidelines provided to us by such altruistic and intelligent people, it’s a shame that women still end up getting raped. Sir, it’s time to apologise for the actions of the women who interact with men and make it an open market with open options, Who dare to step out of their houses without chaperones, who try to live life assuming that living in free India or Bharat means having the same rights as their male counterparts and worst of all, an apology for the actions of the victim who tries to protect herself when attacked instead of just surrendering to save her life.
I take this opportunity to thank you for making it clear that, it’s in vain to hope for a country wherein we women will ever be truly safe. That human rights, freedom and equality are just concepts to be studied in school. And if they exist, they don’t for women. That appealing and hoping for a change in laws and mechanism is pointless, as the chosen leaders like you, will be busy justifying the rape.
Lastly, thank you for making it clear that nothing will ever change as the change makers are like you.
Regards,
Someone who didn’t know she was asking for it.