I haven’t written for a long time. Part of the reason is
that the political circus around us keeps recreating itself, till it reaches
the point where it all merges with reality and everyday life- and then you have
nothing that surprises you. Yet as I sat in front of the television, watching
the scenes unfold in front of me at Rasina Hill, some very disturbing questions
surfaced – questions to which a lot of people like me don’t possibly have an
answer yet the seething anger looks for answer.
Why did it take the brutal rape of a lady for our collective
conscience to awake? Were the same people – me included, not quietly looking
the other way, every day in Delhi and other parts of the country. Why the
government in Delhi never bothered to do anything to stop this menace – rape isn’t
something new to the national capital – 661 odd cases have been reported till
date this year alone and god knows how many would have gone unreported – was
the government waiting for a lucky number to act? How could the ACP pass of
this incident as a stray incident? How could the government use such brute
force against people who were protesting – the common man and woman who wanted
to say enough is enough – we will not allow this to go on. This has to stop.
The lady who wants to be able to go out without having to think twice. But that’s not all. What about the fact that
no leader – either from the Government or the opposition had the steel to come
out and tell the common people that what happened was wrong and they would do
the best possible to address the shortcomings in the judicial system to fight
the menace called rape/sexual assault/molestation. The prime minister comes out
with an address to the nation – a well written one, am assuming someone would
burnt the midnight oil to write the same . He says he feels the anger as he is
a father of daughters as well – well if he did, then he wouldn’t have to read
out from a script – this wasn’t a diplomatic issue- it was a straight forward
issue to which I wish our prime minister or anyone from the political class
would have the guts to cut across the party lines and say it was wrong- say
that we have collectively failed but lets do all we can to avoid a repeat.
We expect things to change overnight but they won’t. Law can’t
be enacted in a day until and unless it concerns the salary of our ministers – I
will keep that topic for another day. But what can be done is to show sincere
intent to set things right – people would have appreciated that. But no, we had
our Home Minister who wanted to link the protestors to Maoists – whom is he
kidding, or I would like to smoke what he was smoking.
The Delhi Police, under political pressure or otherwise,
seems to be an expert in ensuring mass protests are always handled in the wrong
way. It happened with the Ramdev Baba protest and it happened again. Why the
brute force? Couldn’t you have just formed a perimeter around Rastrapati Bhawan? Why did some section of the police
show intent as if their increments depended on how many innocent people they
could thrash? Why the water cannons? Why the lathi charges? Delhi Police needs
leadership, which unfortunately is missing. And when the leadership is there,
common sense is absent – after all common sense is not a common property. The Police
force needs to be trained to handle sensitive cases like rape, molestation – in
most cases they only further aggravate the mental torture. We must also
remember that a vast portion of the police force at the lower rungs is just
about educated to write their names – and they have a very different mindset –
the mindset carried forward by the khaps of the villages. This need to be
looked into far greater details- and the force has to be made more and more
sensitive. Also women officers must be made mandatory for all stations.
There has been talk of some governments putting CCTV in
public transport etc. Good start. But more than anything we have to be awakened.
We need to protest if we see anything. We need to be extra vigilant when we are
in public domain – stand up for what is not right. I know this is easier said
than done, but if each one of us try, there is no reason why we can’t drive
fear into the sick bastards.
That brings me to the politicians – I would have really
wanted to see one mainstream leader – be it Rahul Gandhi, Shashi Tharoor,
Sachin Pilot, Akhilesh Yadav or so called young turk or even not so young turks
raise their hand and say we need to change this. But no one did – the standard
retort was if we did, we would be seen politicizing the episode. Well better do
something than do nothing at all. Couldn’t party lines be breached once and out
politicians stand united? Give us hope that they could work together to
legislate far stronger laws against this heinous crime. I wish media would have
asked those tough questions . But then
paid media has its own politics.The question circle backs to what immediate steps can be
taken? For starters more intensive patrolling can help. Help lines need to be
accessible – last when I read , it was going to take a week for a helpline
number to be active 24x7. Really? How is
that even acceptable?
Last but not least, I wish Delhi wakes up – it’s been in
slumber enough. More than any city, Delhi seems to tolerate such rude and crass
behavior towards its womenfolk. I don’t know how to explain it – but Delhi
needs to do better for itself. It has to. So has to Bangalore, Indore, Kolkata
et al. So has to every Ram, Rahim, John on the streets. So that Keenan and Rueben
still would look at all this and say their sacrifice was worth it. Maybe the
solution to solving this isn’t so glamorous – it possibly needs a bit of courage from each one of us. The tougher laws
etc would all help, but somewhere we need to be more involved, aware.
Another challenge with protests that don’t have leaders is
that they seldom reach the end they were meant to. But if we remain focused, pressurize
our elected representatives, I am sure things will change – I am still
hopeful. Anger is great but it needs to
be channelized into something worthwhile – this is what we need to learn.
And I hope our political class relooks at itself – atleast the
young brigade – relook at the example that they are setting. The country needs leaders – passionate people
who are willing to call a spade a spade and not think of electoral votes, party
lines – I wish and hope we have one atleast.
I wish and pray that she(every women who had to face harassment/molestation/rape)
recovers, and gather courage and we help them by standing next to them.
This is to stop – this has to stop.
