Are Women Safe in India?

I don’t think so. In fact, there is nothing to think about it. It’s the simple plain truth that all of us, as Indians seem to have accepted (how shameful!). No wonder, some Ram Sena goes wandering to a city pub in Mangalore and has the audacity to beat-up girls. What a heinous thing to do in a democratic (really?) country.

But who is responsible for this? - Those bigoted Sena guys or the government there, or the people (political parties) who support them, or we, the people of India. I think a collective mixture of all. The 40 hooligans from Ram Sena (what a sham have they made of God’s name!) would not have the audacity to go ahead with this kind of an act if they did not have any political support. To add to it, the police refused to register a FIR or make a diary entry of the incident. It was because of the refusal of state police of Karnataka that some news channels were not able to showcase this incident on television on the very day it took place. Even till yesterday, the police, only after constant nagging from the news channels, had arrested 17 goons? Which means that the other 23 are at large.

I heard eminent female politicians speak on television yesterday about how heinous the crime was and how inefficient the state government was. What those ladies forgot was that it was their government that was not able to keep under-arrest a single person for more than a week when two women were molested near Marine Drive in Mumbai on New Year’s Eve of 2008. The molesters were from another Sena very popular in Maharashtra. Could those ladies please explain what was lacking in their government? What was holding back the police in their governed state to take action against this shameless, atrocious, abominable group of anti-social elements?

This incident really makes me worry and feel ashamed for the people who do not know how to respect women, who might as well be related to me in some way or the other. I feel ashamed to be a part of this society, which on one hand puts up pretence of worshiping Goddesses and on the other does not know how to respect women. I feel ashamed of not being able to do anything for the women who have suffered great traumas like this incident or in the form of rape, kidnap, molestation and many such dreadful crimes. I feel ashamed of my country’s government and judicial system that cannot bring the culprits to the books and give them apt punishment.

But what makes me worry is are we really heading towards growth? Are we really progressing? Are we really heading to be a superpower? May be we are. But at the same time, as people we are becoming worse. We are becoming intolerant (especially, the MEN). We are forgetting our values, our culture, which has deep regard for women, which holds a woman as ‘Janani,’ the Birth Giver. How can these men forget that it’s a woman who has given birth to him, who has brought him up? I wonder how the womenfolk of that household live with such a monster of a person.

I really want these men to be punished. They should be humiliated and punished publicly (just the way they treated the girls in that pub). How about those same girls (and of course their friends, families and supporters) beating up these guys with shoes in public? How about stripping them off of all their clothes (don’t worry, we are not as shameless as they were) and making them march on their kneels on roads in a steaming hot summer afternoon. I don’t think even this would be enough. They should be punished in way that no one dares to misbehave with a woman ever again, let alone molest or rape them. I hope every Indian female agrees with me.