Symptoms or the Disease

Symptoms or the Disease

Ram Singh, one of the five main accused in the infamous Delhi Gang Rape case committed suicide as reported in the electronic media today. While many of us would have felt a sort of satisfaction at this gory end of such a heartless individual, there are many who would feel, he actually deserved to be hanged and he should not have succeeded in his attempt. Knowing our judicial system there would be a few who may feel, he may have even finally avoided the noose, so good that we have got rid of such a monster. The issue has again brought to fore, the “bak bak” brigades on the idiot box, who would wax eloquent on the issue and go on and on with all the rehearsed dramatics to go with it. They all miss the core issue though, treating the symptom rather than the disease itself. Have fool proof laws, scrupulously implement them, police reforms, awareness campaigns like “Dilli meri hai” and so on, yes all these are measures which will help but will our mindset change. That is the core issue, the objectification of women in every walk of life is what needs to be addressed.

The mindset of most common Indians suffers from the same medieval beliefs where women were subjugated and dominated. Even today we have not evolved from that stage, women empowerment is only being paid lip service. While middle class India is justifiably horrified at such unfortunate incidents, merely being horrified will not help. We each one of us must introspect, look within, how do we treat the women in our own sphere. Merely decking them up with jewellery or permitting (mind you it is permission!) them to dress up in a trendy fashion is not being liberated.

Remember these crimes are committed everywhere in the world, even in the so called first world countries, where women enjoy a much better status than here in India.

So how do we clean the stables, is the moot question. The answer lies in the right education and value system. Please recall the movie “Damini”, the 90s movie where the whole family of the accused was trying to save him, even at the cost of declaring their daughter-in-law insane. Her husband also permitted himself to be coerced into being a party to their evil design. More recently, “No one killed Jessica” also followed the same pattern. It is not fiction, these stem from our very strong family values, good thing otherwise, but in these circumstances, it is the major weakness. “My family right or wrong” is the age old dictum we swear by. Bitti Mohanty case where the ex DGP Odisha himself has been accused of helping his son jump parole and live under a false identity. The lawmakers and the bigwigs are not affected, most of them enjoy Z class security or have their own bodyguards. So we will continue to feel remorse when we hear of such cases, hoping and praying that our family members do not end up as victims.

Treat the disease, we must inculcate the right value system in our children. But how do we spread this awareness in those households where they are still convinced that women are actually second class citizens and need to be kept under the thumb. This has to be a revolution not the bra burning women’s lib variety but home grown with spiritual and moral education through schools colleges, NGOs, electronic and print media all have to play a stellar role to eradicate this monstrosity from our lives.