Past few weeks have seen a protest in India never seen before. The trigger was a brutal gang rape of a 23 year old medical student by 6 men in Delhi, the national capital. It was not the first gang rape that had happened but the sheer callousness of the men involved and the brutality that they inflicted on the woman and her male friend shocked the senses of most Indians. The woman has since died but I hope this is the catalyst that we have been looking for to change the world where woman is still a second class citizen.
I firmly believe that legislations and law alone cannot change this. It will be abused by some similar to the way the dowry law is being abused while there are woman still dying for dowry. Why should we expect the government to police something that we do in our own backyards? The girl child is still not welcome in our society.
Coming from a very progressive and modern family, I still remember questioning my grandmother why only my father and brother could do certain rituals or Pooja at Diwali or other festivals. My grandmother is a strong woman and after raising 4 kids all on her own, realised that my questions were genuine. So things changed in our household but this is how much it is ingrained in the society where woman have to be part of the ritual but only to complete a man.
I did not win when I got married where by holding a single thread and playing a tug of war, my “ownership” was passed on from my father to my husband. I was given in “daan” and my parents should heave a sigh of relief as that is what they came in this world for or else they would have rot in hell.
Till, we as individuals, do not make a change in our own backyards, rapes will continue to happen, both the physical one that this girl endured but also the mental ones that so many indian girls endure every day. Let us not forget that Eve teasing, groping and molestation is also a form of harassment. The day the woman of the country start raising their sons to respect a woman and treat them no different to their daughters, is the day we will see a change and then the legislations and laws would help. Remember the Michael Jackson song “man in the mirror”? We have to make a change to ourselves to change the society. We have a hope today…..let us keep the momentum and not let the poor girls life go in waste.