Violence against women and children
Shiban Khaibri
A teen aged girl is roughed and pulled up by hair, dragged and stripped on a busy road in Guwahati. While she was pleading desperately for help, none came to her rescue. The silence of the onlookers could be taken as implied consent or approval of the violence which is all the more deplorable. A local journalist Mukul Kalita who happened to pass by, stopped the rogues from stooping further low and rescued the victim with the help of the police.
This incident came to light after an amateur video of the incident was uploaded on You Tube. The video shows an unruly mob of 20 beating the girl before stripping her. The group of these 20 scoundrels molested and stripped the teenage girl after she came out with her friends from the restaurant cum bar on the busy G. S. Road on 9th instant. Although she struggled to free her self from her tormentors and cried for help, no one initially came forward to extend help to her. To add insult to the injury, the Assam Police Chief, Jayant Narayan Chowhdry is reported to have passed a remark in reaction to the indignation of the people on the police reaching the incident at least half an hour late, that ” Police is not like an ATM to be available all the time.” Police Chief having unintentionally made the incident look light, has incurred the displeasure of even the Union Home Minister who “condemned” it. It again goes to the credit of the media which highlighted this incident resulting in a massive outrage from the people across the country triggering massive reaction and the Chief Minister Tarun Gagoi expressed deep regret over it and promised to create a government task force to probe cases of violence and crime against women across the state. Though some arrests have been made, it is to be seen how the culprits throwing to wind all the norms of civility and Indian traditions, are punished after facing trial in a fast track court. This disgraceful incident came on the heels of a teen aged girl “punished” to drink her own urine in West Bengal for the “fault” of having made her mattress wet during her sleep. In Ranchi, a teen aged girl was punished for the same “crime” of wetting her bed during her sleep. Her thumb was crushed with a stone and her hands and back branded with hot iron rod. Is civilization on the brink of failing because we in India pathetically watch women and children not treated fairly? Female feticides cases have not shown any decline and unreported cases are too many to be ignored and the culprits need to be booked under the crime of committing murder as recommended recently by the Maharashtra government. The Delhi NCR region has earned the nickname of rape capital of India. Disturbing trend in the type of such crimes can be gauged from the fact that there has been an increase of 29.7% in the reported cases of child rapes in 2011 as compared to the previous year. It is feared that the curve of such crimes could be higher in 2012 unless some crash remedial steps were taken. Abduction of children is on the rise. In Delhi alone, it is reported that on an average 14 children are reported “missing” every day. Crime against children was highest in Delhi, nearly 26%. Then there is one most common form of violence against the women – that of battering. Wife battering is the commonest form of violence against the women in India and that the educated class is immune from this type of violence, is only a false notion. People with such a mind set are omnipresent and omniscient in the society. Then again the children who witness violence between their parents are sufferers in many forms. Their brains and personalities suffer from perceptible deficits and such victims suffer from under performance and behavioral abnormalities. Women who are physically, emotionally or sexually battered frequently may lose their self confidence and sense of respect. Assaults and acts of violence against women leave them in most of the cases with post traumatic stress disorders.
The question of utmost sensitivity and importance is as to why women and children are made primary victims of violence? Should not the mind set, found in many, if not in too many, fought to change that men have more muscles than women? Should not the diabolic and perverted thinking be contemptuously abhorred that a woman is by fiat unequal, inferior and subordinate to man? Why should some Khap panchayat in Bhagpat, UP ; prescribe living codes for women as to in which age they should remain indoors and not visit markets and move with their heads fully covered , not use cell phones and not go in for love marriages.? Is it not a mediaeval and obscurantist diktat going against the democratic freedom and liberty of women and who is any body to interfere with the personal maters of free adults who could legally take all decisions including that of marriage? Killing own daughters and sons for the elusive honour is nothing but a heinous crime and should be legally dealt with firmly. Why did the young Chief Minister of UP remain silent and avoid direct questions from the press persons as to his decision about taking on those who issued such diktats in a free democratic set up of our country ? His lieutenant Aazam Khan too followed the same path as the C.M. which is unacceptable.
Should the fact that Sunita Williams , a woman creating sorts of history in space adventures and remaining in the space for more than 195 days, not demonstrate that women were not only equal to but could surpass men with their feats and performances in every sphere? Sexual assault , emotional abuse, domestic violence, stalking, trafficking and harassment at work places against women, now seem to have become ingrained in the social set up at an alarming rate in our country whereas the highest and the most ancient Indian scriptures describe man and woman as Aatma clothed in physical body. The highest level of Indian thinking has been that the differences between individuals exist only at physical level while there were no spiritual differences between man and woman. Woman as Shakti , the feminine principle of energy worth worshipping, has been the hall mark of our spiritual traditions. Rigved says,” The home has verily its foundation in the wife.” Swami Vivekanand has aptly summarized the ancient Indian view about the equality and parity between man and woman and importance of woman by saying that “the husband and the wife are the two wings of a bird.”
The fact is that parents in most of the cases, due to various reasons, do not impart traditional values and principles in their children commonly called as “sanskars” , the deficit of which make them behave with others especially women, in a detestable way . The education imparted, lays little stress on morality and ethical values. Many youth take to the path of promiscuity influenced by the mind set seeing a woman only as an object of desire. Legal, academic and spiritual debates need to be conducted to educate and influence people, the youth of our society in particular. Those forces or elements need to be contained which promote indirectly lewdness, obscenity, violence, drugs, alcoholism and sex by violence as often shown on the silver screen, TV Channels etc; and any argument that curbs or censorship were repugnant to art and creativity were motivated. MPs can inspire the nation by speaking in one voice against violence against women and children as we, the voters, give our politicians their jobs, pensions, power and all comforts in their lives. They must reciprocate so that we work for an India without violence against women.
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