India raped

On the threshold of 2013, a nation in its 66th year of existence as an independent state, India has to surely hang its head in shame in the pantheon of civilised democracies.

The expected happened. Precisely why she was moved to Singapore. You wanted to shift the focus of an uprising within the country and smoke it out. Objective achieved. Give yourself a pat on the back, clever politicians of India. The criminals in this entirely sad but telling tale are not the rapists, but the people who have allowed it to happen. A nation with a constitution but no will to question it, a country with a vast police force and extensive laws but without the will or courage to enforce the rule of it. We elect governments, we represent the country, we the individual citizens represent our culture. Therefore, we cannot blame just the government and the police alone. We are equally responsible for the decadence in our attitudes. 

I do not want Nirbhaya to rest in peace. I want her to haunt every single man who considers women as implements of sex and free labour. 

Believe me, Nirbhaya's death, and not the several multi-crore scams of the past few years, defines our country. Defines it in such a way that we cannot go out and cry to the outside world that we are Indians. A nation steeped in such chauvinism and misogynist depredation that the first family' son labels, with no compunction (see his response to Arnab's badgering - on YouTube), women protesters as 'dented and painted'. And, the top gun of the ruling party was mired in a gang rape case. The list of politicians charge sheeted with rape is endless. Several regional politicians advise women not to wear 'non-Indian' clothes and avoid going out 'unaccompanied' at night. Women going to 'clubs' are immoral, but men doing the same are just letting their hair down, no harm done.

All of which reflect this simple fact - this 'culturally rich' country systematically engenders male chauvinism. Fuelled by idiots of both sexes. In fact, the females of this society are as much, if not more, to blame as the vile males for this cultural deprivation - exemplified by domestic abuse of women by their mothers-in-law, for failing to bring enough dowry, for not slaving enough at the coal face, for not bringing up the children right, for dressing up, for wearing make-up, for chatting with male neighbours, for going to the movies, for having fun, for just living. 

We are a nation of hypocrites. The men want other women to be promiscuous, but want their girlfriends and wives to be faithful. They want their sisters to have arranged marriages, but want to marry the ones they love. The husbands want to be like bachelors after marriage / children - they need stress relief in the form of alcohol and gambling, but the wives have to toil taking care of family / children and this misogynist chauvinist of a husband as well. The men will wear kumkum on their forehead and pray to several female gods - Lakshmi, Saraswathi, Durga et al but will loot, rape and cheat with no fear; in fact, several, fuelled by the 'powers' vested to them by such gods, do worse. The list of hypocritical views of men in this country is endless. Worse, this is systematised. Just like caste and religion, it is congenitally transmitted. Until this, the root cause, changes, women will not be looked upon as human beings born equal in every way to men.

Shoba De in her recent piece in ToI said it well (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/politically-incorrect/entry/girls-don-t-run-scared-anymore). For women living in any modern democracy it should not be a question of restrictions and living defensively, but about the ability to move about just like any male in the society. It is a constitutional right. The onus of an individual's safety is not upon us but the guarantors of the constitution - our elected lot. When they rape, loot, scam and abuse power with no impunity, then we are not a nation at all. India has already proved itself to be a failed state - we, the citizens, are too apathetic to have noticed this. Such is the misery of daily life for the aam admi. 

Rape, in its original definition meant - to seize, take or carry off by force. And later, the connotations of violent plunder and abuse have come to the fore. In this latter sense, rape can also be used to denote the systematic abuse of an object or person. Thus, whenever we abuse a person - child labour, slave labour, forced sex on any human being - we are effectively 'raping'. Hence, any change to the status quo must start from within us as individuals. We need to change our attitudes, as individulas. 

On a mundane level though, the immediate need of the hour is for the government to act swiftly to demonstrate that it means business. Eradicating corruption, enforcing the rule of law, vigilance against all forms of male fide intent, protecting citizens just like it protects the netas would be a start. When even a simple Lok Pal Bill cannot be passed in parliament, can we expect any of this from the elected lot of this country?

India, when you have been raped irreparably by our politicians repeatedly, how are we going to defend the rapes of its citizens. Is there any hope? I know not. Rise, India. Before it is too late. Before anarchy pervades.