Tag: delhi gangrape

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Overdose

Back to cool

Jatin Sharma yearns for a simpler time when our society was seriously cool, in every way that the word implied.

‘Cool’. This word has managed to grab the youth. Everyone wants to be ‘cool’. If someone commits a mistake; he is ‘cool’ about it. If something bad has happened to someone; he has to be ‘cool’ about it.

Premarital sex? It’s ‘cool’ to believe in it.

Live in relationship? It’s ‘cool’ to experiment.

Abuse an elder? ‘Cool’ if it was his fault.

But this ‘coolness’ makes me think. Are we ‘cooler’ than we should be?

Being cool is often described as being modern, something that a rebel does. But it may become problematic if we equate being cool with being desensitised, dead inside.

It is probably a reflection of the times we live in that we are cool with everything – an earthquake that shakes the neighbouring State to its foundations, a person on the street who met with an accident while we watched the car that struck him zoom away, a person who announces on a social media site that he is about to kill himself, a long relationship breaking up; with everything that should normally cause us to be really disturbed, but which doesn’t affect us for more than a minute.

Earlier, the incident of a bomb blast anywhere in the country would shake us up, but now we sit in front of our TV sets with our dinner and watch the visuals of carnage play on loop. We are also ‘cool’ with journalists jeopardising sensitive operations, and we don’t directly protest their actions, choosing instead to make fun of that journalist on social media.

I wonder – has our quest for ‘cool’ killed off every last human emotion in us? Recently, a ‘cool’ person that I know had to say this of the second big Delhi gangrape after Nirbhaya, that has had the country talking about the safety of little girls – “Rapes just keep happening, and the people are now bored. Woh Nirbhaya ke time pe ho gaya, now it’s boring to do that activism again.”

Because of this ‘coolness’, we are a generation without a spine or feeling. All we do is talk a lot about what others should do. Heck, we speak about stopping corruption but it is so ‘cool’ to be able to arrange liquor on a dry day. Even as we become smarter and acquire the latest gadgets the moment they hit the market, our sensitivity to others is dulled by our total indifference and lack of awareness.

I loved the fact that the earlier generation of parents were so ‘uncool’, their children would tremble if they did something wrong and automatically toed the line. But parents nowadays, probably in a futile attempt to reach out to an increasingly remote generation of ‘cool’ kids, are also trying to be cool, even doling out money to their children to buy exam papers.

I miss the time when our society was seriously cool – people stood up against wrongs and told it like it is. Our country had some absolutely cool freedom fighters and revolutionaries who would devote everything for a cause. We have now forgotten that helping others is cool, studying sincerely is cool, getting a job on merit is cool, respecting all elders is cool, and being able to tell the difference between right and wrong, whatever the compulsion, is very cool – everything, in fact, that constitutes humanity.

For now, I’m trying to make my peace with a distorted definition of ‘cool’ – where getting away with a crime is cool, where doing drugs is cool (but getting caught is not), hitting a person because he/she didn’t agree with us is cool, where being a total pig is cool as long as you have a sense of humour about it.

(Picture courtesy xn--80aqafcrtq.cc)

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Enough said

Beyond the high walls

Humra Quraishi wonders what goes on inside our jails, and why cannot believe that some prisoners may want to reform.

Delhi gangrape accused Ram Singh was found dead in Delhi’s Tihar Jail early this week. But his story does not end with his death. Whether Ram Singh was murdered or forced to kill himself is just one of several questions arising from the incident. You could have a hundred television discussions on whether woh maara gaya ya mar gaya, but that’s not the main issue.

His death highlights a larger question, and not just for those confined in this particular jail: are prisoners sexually abused by other inmates and jail staff? Are prisoners silenced to suit those ruling and overruling prime institutions in the country? Are jails reforming the accused or merely killing them slowly? Are undertrials, who form the  bulk of those  imprisoned, subjected to torture?

More importantly, do any of those apolitical watchdog groups hear the shrieks and cries of those languishing in jail?

In this same context, I want to ask why we got so excited by actor-activist Rahul Bose’s comment, that those accused who are remorseful and want to reform should be given a second chance? What was so offensive about this statement? Why do we, while getting really hyper about what somebody says, overlook the fact that we, as a collective lot, are responsible for what’s happening around us?

See, if jails and prisons in our country did actually reform and heal their inmates, then I would hold out some hope for those being confined there. But in the present day, only horror stories emerge of our jails, where hundreds and thousands of people languish as undertrials. I quote a widely-circulated report that highlights these statistics: “In Chhattisgarh, over two thousand Adivasi undertrials are currently in jail. For many, the trial has not been progressing, despite being held for over two years. In Jharkhand, the figure is even larger. Similar situations prevail in Odisha, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh…”

To this, let me add that probably the same, if not graver, conditions prevail in other jails, too, and not just in overcrowded jails. What makes the matter worse is that no news trickles out from behind those high walls. What we hear are stray reports of prisoner violence, and there’s no way of knowing what really happens inside.

In these circumstances, since we are confining prisoners for long spaces of time, why not give them the opportunity to truly reform? I’m sure a lot of them want to make amends and mend their ways. I feel that Rahul Bose’s statement is born of wisdom and compassion, both of which we are increasingly bypassing with other human beings, and especially with criminals.

I would go so far as to suggest that Rahul Bose write a book about his thoughts on the matter. Whatever one may so or feel about him, I have always thought that there was something very honest about him. I’ve met him just once – at a book launch in New  Delhi – but he left an impression. I’d asked him if I could interview him. To that, he’d  quipped, “We actors give interviews only when our films are being released!”

(Picture courtesy timeslive.co.za)

Categories
Soft Coroner

Women’s Day in a man’s world

Prashant Shankarnarayan wonders if Women’s Day is to be celebrated or observed, and either way, seriously, what’s the fuss about?
prashant@themetrognome.in

The situation – An email regarding Women’s Day sent by my office’s HR department.

The observation: Two days ago, I heard a woman in my office shriek in excitement. Then a few more women followed in unison. Our HR team had sent a ‘Women’s day special’ email, mentioning that all the female employees can shop till they drop on Women’s Day and can buy stuff equivalent to their respective net salaries.

Some women reacted as if they had been crowned Miss Universe. The men started complaining even as some of their female colleagues rejoiced; and then there were many like us who knew this just can’t be true. It took a while for them to realise that it was a prank. Few women, who were literally dancing in bliss moments ago, were seething in rage even as the HR head (a woman) tried to explain that it was ‘just a joke’. Well, I feel that’s what Women’s Day has been reduced to – just a joke!

To start with, are we supposed to celebrate Women’s Day or observe it? If we are supposed to celebrate it, then we in India have been celebrating womanhood for thousands of years. So what’s the big fuss about? If it is supposed to be observed as a day where we contemplate and resolve to better the status of women, then why haven’t we succeeded in simply making life better for women despite celebrating womanhood for thousands of years?

Yes, it is easy to say that present-day women have it better than the ones who existed in the past. But is it enough? Is it enough that they go to work and parties? That they can choose their careers and partners? That they can enter traditionally male domains like defense and airlines? That they have access to contraception and can choose the number of children they want to bear? Is that why we earmark a particular day on the calendar as Women’s Day?

Then why is it that even today any random guy can rape an innocent girl without an iota of fear in his heart? Simple, because in the deepest patriarchal recesses of our hearts, many of us still don’t treat them as equals.

How else does one justify the rape of a foreign national at her own home in Bandra by a small-time crook? How could one rape a girl in a moving bus? How does one explain the rape of a woman in India every 20 minutes? And where does a Woman’s Day stand in response to this barbarism?

We are hypocrites. Our age-old adage starts with ‘Mata’, then proceeds to ‘Pita, Guru and Deivam’; incidentally our favourite expletive too starts with ‘madar@#$!’ The same race that has worshipped man and woman as equal in the form of Ardhanarishwara have pushed many a woman in her late husband’s funeral pyre. Many of us ogle shamelessly at other woman but believe in covering up our wife in a burqa or a ghoonghat. The Indian woman is the Goddess who needs to be appeased and at the same time the sacrificial lamb that gets  butchered. Similarly many men pay lip service to Women’s Day only because they know that the remaining 364 days belong to them.

I wait for the day when we won’t need a particular day to celebrate womanhood because that is the true measure of equality. Till then we have nothing to be proud of because it is just a Women’s Day in a Man’s World.

Prashant Shankarnarayan is a mediaperson who is constantly on the lookout for content and auto rickshaws in Mumbai. The Soft Coroner attempts to dissect situations that look innocuous at the surface but reveal uncomfortable complexities after a thorough post mortem.

(Picture courtesy charteredbanker.com)

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Enough said

Help victims, not the accused

Humra Quraishi writes on the malaise of rape and how a lack of policing is helping rapists get away it.

Another gang rape has taken place in New Delhi. No, it’s not really surprising, for eve-teasing is so rampant there that no woman is actually safe on the roads or lanes of this city. After dusk, it’s risky for a woman to commute, unless of course, she is a top politician or a senior civil servant or Somebody Important, in which case she has adequate security as she goes about her daily tasks.

And before I write any further, let me mention that even young men and teenage boys are not safe in Delhi either. With this, another point that cannot be ignored is that people’s faith in cop and the policing system is nil. The average citizen is apprehensive about entering a police station to lodge a complaint, because that one act results in a hundred different offshoots, with him or her facing some unsavoury consequences. There are several horror stories to be told about the city’s lockups, the police thanas, the interrogation and detention centres. The worst crimes take place right there, under the watchful eyes of cops.

In fact, there are no records and statistics to show how many cop-rapists and molesters have been hanged thus far. They get away because of all the possible loopholes in this system.

So where do you and I go for help if we are molested or raped or eve-teased? It sure does require nerves of steel to report these crimes, and that’s why most of these crimes go unreported. Reporting them is, perhaps, the last resort for most people.

I am of the definite view that hanging is not the solution. Are we so short-sighted to think that hanging a couple of men will solve all crises, be it related to terrorism or rape? Death isn’t a remedy for such ills. Those off-with-your-head orders were fine when given by rulers of bygone days, because the rule of the law was paramount then. Here, when every fifth or sixth man is trying his level best to grab an opportunity to touch or intrude on a woman’s personal space, how many men can be hanged? We will upset the gender ratio if we hang every eve-teaser and rapist.

Another important point, which most of us ignore, is what we are seeing on the big and small screens today –  obnoxious item numbers, with even more obnoxious lyrics, and our top heroines dance in them without the slightest trace of embarrassment. There are disgusting image portrayals, but there doesn’t seem to be any effort being made to stop this kind of objectification.

Today the situation is so pathetic that we have moved backwards, beyond the medieval ages. If you are planning to move out of your Delhi home after dusk, you to yourself well and try and return before it gets late. Men friends or a male companion cannot be of much help if such a situation happens to you, because rapists attack in groups, and are often deranged with drink that only a policeman can probably stop them.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Picture courtesy ibnlive.com)

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