After so much hard work, Zargar’s lawyer got the chance to meet her, barely for 10 minutes.
Safoora Zargar is a Jamia student and a protester against the government for the CAA (for which she was arrested). After the news of her pregnancy, she is now being trolled on social media. That one narrative has changed the perspective of the entire country. A girl whose case was discussed for her protest is now being discussed or trolled for her motherhood. There are memes floating around continuously judging her.
Her case is taken not by our honourable judicial system for the cause she was arrested for but she is being tried over social media for her personal choices. As we know, our constitution guarantees us the right to life, liberty and equality (the basic rights amongst the fundamental rights). Most importantly, these include freedom of choice for even a piece of cloth, right of choice for a life partner and even, a right to choose a sex partner. So according to our law of the land, we are free to make our choices.
Knowing all this, why is her pregnancy an issue? Is it not a natural process? Or, is it that we don’t think that she can take a conscious call or rational decision for a partner? Then why at the time when she needs judicial help, we are tangentially questioning her pregnancy, allegedly “out of wedlock”?
Now all this raises some questions like why all are these questions even being discussed at all? Why, with changing time, are the words of the society not changing? Why are we not talking about the issue at hand for which she has been arrested?
So the first question which crosses my mind is why are we not looking at her health condition when she is suffering from hygiene issue and some other disease? Why is no one bothered about it? She is not even getting a chance to meet her family and husband.
Some time back, the Supreme Court passed the privacy judgement telling explicitly that the right to privacy is our fundamental right. And what we are doing is discussing someone’s most personal information publicly. Even if that child was out of wedlock, then also it is her personal choice, and we are not authorised to ask her questions. It is her personal decision. Raising moral questions on the basis of her choice is wrong, and not our right.
We should realise that morals depict society and not vice versa. Morals keep changing as time moves on. Therefore society should be an all-time changing phenomenon. We can’t change society just by making law and writing it in a law book. Change does not happen anywhere else but inside us, and then it is reflected outside.
Zargar’s story tells that we have laws written in our law books, but somewhere, we are still not able to absorb their essence, or on a case-by-case basis, we want to raise an inane question.
Our law book states that we are independent and free. Accordingly, we celebrate our Independence Day every year. Maybe some of us also do revise the line said by Gandhiji that India will actually be independent when each and every citizen of the country is independent.
The trolls commented about Safoora that “Mohatarma ne hamari azaadi ka galat fayda uthaya.” This statement tells us how far we are from the independence that Gandhiji asked us to achieve. How can somebody be independent when a certain group is authorised to question the independence of someone’s choice. For the law, all the citizens of India, irrespective of gender or class are equal and enjoy equal rights. Then how can one citizen give independence to others?
What kind of independence is this where girls are given a filtered, bridled life? They are not supposed to be intelligent enough to choose their partner. Even if a girl is a president of a country or a scientist or an architect, then also we say she is intelligent but question her personal choice. This is where our mindset stands.
Safoora Zargar is an adult—adult enough to get into a relationship. She has freedom from the law. Then how come a certain group of people can carry out her character assassination?
She is not the only one or the first one with whom this has happened. Whenever someone questions the authority, they are suppressed like this. Sometimes for power, sometimes for money. Sometimes for votes, and sometimes for a seat. The interesting part is how social media is being used, and this is highlighting the kind of influence social media is playing in our lives today.
Keeping all this in mind, we should not forget that she is a person who is asking some important questions from the government, using the right that everybody in this country has. So now it is the time when we should rationally look at her story and listen to what she is putting in front of us.
Do we want to discuss the questions raised by Safoora Zargar or discuss the manner of her pregnancy?
The answer to the above question will reflect the type of society, citizenry, we have become.