In India, a rape occurs at least every 20 minutes, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau. Bribery and corruption continue to pose a significant challenge in India. The 2012 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions and Bribe Payers Indices rank India 94 (out of 176) and 19 (out of 28), respectively, indicating the severity of the issue.
For someone who engages regularly with questions of religion, caste and gender, the utter helplessness of witnessing the rapid degeneration of a nation built on the principles of democracy, equality and secularism is reflected in uncannily terrifying ways in my discussions with my friends from other countries. What am I supposed to tell them when they ask me about why a group of men raped a minor girl in Chennai? Why was Akhlaq killed for keeping meat in his refrigerator? Why was Junaid killed for sporting a beard? To be honest I have not found answers to these questions yet.
We expect the younger generation to be more courageous, more liberal and more open-minded but the ground reality can be seen very easily in the comment section on the page of any political party. The language they use, the way they express themselves and the way they become violent with anybody who disagrees with them even in the slightest of matters. For example on the issue of “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. I have seen very aggressive responses from my friends and neighbours to those who do not chant this slogan and I don’t know why.
But what gives me sleepless nights is the fact that there are little to no good people to tackle these kinds of situations. The fact that the rape of a girl is content to search online and masturbate to for many boys. The fact that corruption is just another news in the corner of the newspaper. The fact that people just don’t care about kidnapping, murder, rape or any kind of crime. Are we waiting for the evil to knock on our door? Will then only we get up from this hangover?
The media plays a huge role in any democratic government and there are many media houses that are doing the best they can but unfortunately most of the news channels in our country care about money more than ethics and their duty towards their audience. They have been successful in manipulating people to watch their channels which shows animated movies and propaganda news more than the actual events. And here again, only we are to blame. We just don’t care what is on our plate! Either we don’t appreciate the democracy which we have inherited from our forefathers without doing anything to achieve it or we are in an illusion that this is just a phase and nothing will happen to our democracy. I believe that both are correct. We don’t know what democracy is and how to keep it intact. If we knew, then we would have not tolerated any attempt to violate it.
We as the educated and young generation of this country need to understand that sooner or later we will be a victim of this situation that is prevailing in this country and is growing at a rapid pace. We need to stop this insensitivity towards these issues and need to do something before it’s too late.