“Kalyug (age of downfall) abhi aya nahi hai, yeh to kalyug ki shuruwat hai” (This is not kalyug, this is just the beginning of kalyug), said my grandmother one night when we were discussing the society. And the very next day, I came across the news of a 3-year-old who had been kidnapped, gang-raped and beheaded, three words that shattered me. According to the society, whenever there is an incident of rape, it is the girl who is to blame, either it’s her clothes, or she might have hinted something with her gestures. But can we blame a 3-year-old? It doesn’t matter, though, does it? Because it’s always a girl’s fault, whether she is 15 or 35, or three.
It has been so many years since the Nirbhaya rape case, new laws have come into play, but the situation continues to be the same. We, as a society, express our rage when something happens, but the public memory is short, and after a few days, we go back to our normal lives, forgetting about everything, including justice. Then there’s yet another heinous incident, followed by the same outrage, and the final chapter: the forgetting. If this is not a vicious cycle, I don’t know what is!
What about the likes of Nirbhaya, Khatua or Unnao victims? We are heading towards an extreme form of ‘kalyug’ it seems. Women are not safe in their homes; they are not safe from their loved and most trusted ones. They will not be safe unless our male counterparts change their minds and see women as human beings and not as mere objects to fulfill their lust!
If this is not ‘kalyug’, where even a 3-year-old is unsafe, then I don’t know what we have in store for us when it truly arrives.