Lalit Sethi
Crimes of molestation on a large scale are clearly a violation of women’s human rights. This is not just a question of gender level equality. With children, boys and girls included, women make up more than half of India’s 1.3 billion people and in 2017 their population after the 2011 should have risen to 990 million.
New Year eve or spring or other festive occasions are times of fun, but is it so for many girls, young women or those not so young? Are they allowed by society to go out alone even if their families have no problem with it? Don’t young people, especially girls, have the freedom of movement in a democracy?
Are they inviting trouble, especially in the cities and metropolises, even in well-lit streets and bylanes, and facing sudden molestation? The most horrifying case has been reported from Bangaluru just a few days ago. An unruly mob is reported to have groped several women in the busy M.G.Road and in the deserted lane off the 5th Main Road in Kammanhalli two men assaulted a woman outside her home.
Delhi reports the maximum number of rape cases in a year, with the average ranging from four to six such crimes every day. The National Capital Region encompassing Gurgaon and Noida, Ghaziabad and some other places are far from safe and have had several cases of rape reported.
In 2012, the Gurgaon administration ordered businesses not to ask women to work beyond 8 p.m. to ensure their safety.
Nor are Mumbai and Kolkatta, traditionally considered safe for women at any hour of the day or night are no longer too secure for girls and women. Even foreign tourists have not escaped undesired attention. The crimes of molestation of women appear to be on the increase and a number of tourists from the west have reported to the police about their plight and their complaints have been investigated and the culprits have been apprehended.
The National Council of Women and similar councils in the States have been invoking laws of the land to protect desperate women who have been raped by drunken vagabonds. Reports suggest that hundreds of such incidents occur in town and country every day, several of them go unreported to the police, though quite a number of them result in the arrest of alleged rapists. Solid evidence against them and prosecution takes a lot of time. Conviction of the accused is a tardy process.
But the problem cannot be written off. The experiences of women, going out to work till late hours or elsewhere have been terrible. They have even been murdered by ruthless rogues, who are obsessed with their wanton desire; they stop at nothing to break the law. Yet the long hand of law reaches some of them and books the predators and gets them the punishment they deserve.
Yet, often, politicians and Ministers try to dismiss rapes as small incidents and crimes, much to the chagrin of the affected families seeking justice. Issues come up in legislatures and Parliament and promises are made by rulers of the day that the criminals will be tracked down and not spared.
Shobha De, the celebrated writer, speaks her mind in a piece published in the Sunday Times, “Netas, the more you mock women, the more they will mobile themselves” and adds: “The time is over for men like Abu Azmi (an MLA who ridiculed women in half dresses and lectures women about their attire).
“The more you threaten and bully, the more you trivialize and mock, the more women will mobilize and hit back. Just look at your pathetic selves in a mirror before telling us how to dress, eat, drink, talk and behave. Get this, our feelings are fiercely our own. “The year 2017 is going to be different. Women will push, shove, shout and fight and win…Just watch”.
The midnight of December 31 in Bangalore rape and murder in a city lane has been an eye-opener. Four of the six suspects have been caught and the police hope to nab the remaining fugitives.
Women’s self-help groups have been organized all over the country. Girls and women have been training in schools, colleges and work places to defend themselves. They have been learning martial arts like karate. They carry sprays in their bags to immobilize attackers and are known to have succeeded in pushing and pinning them down.
Going together in groups they have even taken mischief makers to a police station and booked them for action. There are now police stations with women constables and officers to take care of girls in distress. For too long, Indian women have been accused of yielding to western influences. The self-appointed moralists do not blink an eye when they indulge in merry-making and celebration of their birthdays with lewd music and dances. The classic case is that of Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has an annual extravaganza at his village of Saifai in U.P. at great expense. Yet when women are molested, he has had the audacity to wish it away by saying: “Boys will be boys”. A young film maker born in Bengal, Qaushiq Mukherjee, writes in Outlook magazine: “The war between genders has never been fiercer. I am elated when girls celebrate their freedom and horrified when that exuberance exposes them to repercussions”.
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