ASSAULT ON HUMNITY –A NATION OUTRAGED

Bikash Choudhury

The incident at Munirka, New Delhi on a Sunday evening was just not a case of outraging the modesty of a young woman of 23 yrs; but, it was an incident that transcendence humanity as the sexual abuse and subsequent violence to the person of an innocent woman was in a scale bordering barbarism. She is now fighting for her life or lives in an ICU of Safadarjang Hospital. Who was actually responsible for her tragic fate? Not the Police, not the celebrated Journalists & Anchors of News Channels, not the Leaders (UPA Chairperson, Leader of Opposition in the Lower House or the Speaker of Lower House who are very powerful women in their own right) and, also not the Judiciary; but, ‘we the people of India’. Because, this was not an isolated incident that caught the attention of this Nation; statistics out of statistics say, a tell tale story about the gross neglect and lax security in our country about the safety of women on the streets. However, we as a Nation never react to such catastrophic decadence in the values of our society. And, therefore women remain vulnerable and the numbers of incidents pile up while perpetrators of such crimes go Scot free emboldening, the further resolve to commit such crime again and again and apart from encouraging others of similar inclination to try their luck of identical pleasure at the cost of a woman’s life and her dignity. 

                              The sad fate of women today is not the question of Policing alone; it involves our rotting judicial system, the ‘Chaltahe attitude’ and a complex societal factor which needs correction to prevent and control atrocities against women. The commodity-fiction of woman’s body in the prevalent society is one of the principal reason for growing atrocities against women in one hand and in the other, the hypocrisy around sex and sexuality and growing inequality in income in urban areas and higher exposures of lower strata of society and the consequent demonstration effect is putting the lives of women into harms way as never before. First of all, women need to be given pride of place at home, at work place and on the streets by capping the girl child feticide which does not emanate on the street and largely not handled or perpetrated by men. And, further all media must now stop portraying woman as sex object while the physical demand for sex is common to both the sexes. And, we need to deal with the hypocrisy around sex and sexuality by allowing, respecting and encouraging the interaction between both the sexes in a societal set up in each strata and even across the strata of our current society to actually prevent a growing disconnect and ever growing numbers and some times, abuse of humanity with a body of woman which already ashamed the civility of a Nation which takes pride in its spirituality.

                But, initially we need to have institutional arrangements to control any further violation of woman’s body. The law enforcing agencies know the best though due to various factors they don’t follow their conscience in the interest of their personal comfort and the safety of their family against administrative and at times political prosecution. Therefore, we need to increase the share of women in the police force to 30-40% of total strength, set up all women’s police force, court, hospital and other service providers needed to preserve the dignity of unfortunate woman and her family while offering proximate security and justice in a time frame. This is not at all a big deal; but, neither our Govt. and nor the principal opposition gives much importance to such issues though the shading of crocodiles tears in front T.V camera done with dexterity to buy into vote banks while forgetting to take the issue to its logical conclusion, the very next moment. Will this happen once again with another Delhi girl? That would largely depend upon how long our media/public memory remains centered on the topic? And, how long young girls in the college/university campus continue to forgive the assailant and the incident? However, in my opinion women should take up the issue on them and arm themselves with Martial arts and non-lethal weapons to tranquilize their tormentors on the streets as and when such an occasion arise. I strongly believe ‘women’ have the power to look after their safety themselves on their own. 

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