WHAT HAS GONE WRONG WITH INDIAN MEN UNDER THE BELT?

BIKASH CHOUDHURY



Belief, Faith and Relationship have all gone for a toss at the altar
of ‘desire’? Asharam Bapu was arrested recently in a midnight swoop
from his Indore Asram allegedly for his ‘sexual misdemeanor’ with a
minor girl of his own ashram school and parents of the victim were his
devotees. This was perhaps not only a case of breach of trust
compounded with sexual assault of perverse kind; with respect to the
huge age difference between the accused and the victim. There were
other cases of similar kind from other parts of the country; wherein,
a 4 year old victim sexually assaulted by  two policemen and in
another case a grown up girl exploited by her father and brother for 9
years. Apart from these incidents, there are scores of such cases
being reported on a daily basis in the news papers with hapless women
on the streets, on public transport, and inside the four walls of
homes and offices. Apparently, no place remain safe and even, there
are chances of almost every man turning an offender against fare sex.
What has actually gone wrong? What has changed so abruptly? That man
no longer seeks privacy to establish physical contact with their
respective partners; which, even animals prefer.

It is now not the case of law alone; though, ineffective laws, poor
enforcement and shoddy policing could be one of the principal reasons
for ever growing incidents of violation of women’s body and mind. But,
there must be other reasons too, to explain the quantum and quantity
of such incidents in recent times.

What immediately comes to a naked eye is the ‘overtly sexual content’
freely available across the media platforms on 24x7 basis and
accessible without any bias to age or class. This could be fuelling
desire and reason for spurt of violence against women. Secondly, with
growing awareness, economic in-equality and social deprivation may be
responsible in part for the behavior of boys living on streets and in
the slums as they tend to revolt against the system and prevailing
situation of their lives by displaying their ‘sense of power’  with
assault on women who are much higher in their social standard. Spoilt
rich kids also do the same for experimentation as shown in the movie
“Damini”. Therefore, solution for such a complex problem can’t be just
a better law, its enforcement or policing; but, a long and tortuous
path of ‘Social Engineering’ of a right kind.