By Shreya Sarin:

It has once again been proven, that in India, a girl is neither safe inside the womb nor outside. On one hand, there is female feoticide and on the other, the ferocious rapes. If this is the situation in the so called modern Indian cities, one wonders how nefarious it must be in the small towns.

It was only 4 months ago, that an innocent girl was picked up on the streets of Munirka and brutally raped by 6 men, one of them a juvenile, on a moving bus. Her companion was beaten up and left to die alongside her and as it happens in India, instead of helping, people started taking videos. Finally when the police vans arrived, arguing about jurisdiction seemed far more important than providing aid to those unfortunate people.

The braveheart, as the media called her, did not recover and passed away but before she left us, she united the whole nation. Every girl and every woman felt for her and she was the spark for what should have been a full fledged fire. Protests raged in every part of the country and candle light marches took place. While she was battling for her life in a mediocre government hospital, various religious “babas” of our country enlightened us with their views on the subject.

This one exceptionally brilliant soul known to all of us as Asram babu said that it was no one’s fault but the girls own for she didn’t beg for her dignity. After having the nerve to even suggest this, this pathetic man went on to recommend that had the girl called those beasts her brother or chanted the “gaitri mantar”, she might have saved herself from the disastrous events which followed.

All in all, it was concluded that though those brutes were at fault, they had been tempted and had the girl have any “character”, she might have saved herself from this unspeakable fate. This is the real, modern India, and this is as contemporary as its ever going to get in this country. In this male-oriented society, whatever a girl does is proved wrong. If she is eve-teased, its her fault for wearing provocative clothes, if she is raped without mercy, she should have begged the rapists and given them the title of her brother, if she is molested or sexually harassed, then yet again its her fault for “acting adventurous and stepping out late in the night.”

It is often said that no one or nothing is perfect and rather than concentrating on the flaws, we should try and focus our energies on the positives. That however, is a big challenge in this country’s case as finding positives to focus our energy on can prove to be quite a task. Blindly saying “I am proud to be an Indian” wont help anyone, especially not victims of those sexually deprived animals. People need to start questioning the fact that what has this country really done to make you proud, except of course, outrageously making excuses for all the wrongs happening.

I am just a 14 year old girl from Gurgaon , I am constantly told that I should not forget what this country has done for me . But the truth is that I am fortunate enough to be born in a financially stable family, had I been born in one of the countless slums seen in every corner of India, I doubt how much this country would have done for me.