When the clock struck 12 on the night of 31st December 1999, everyone hailed our entrance into the 21st century as our opening arms to modernism. We as a country saw in it as the time when our time would come and we would be recognized and taken note of. Today we are taken note of; but as the country with a rape capital. When Amanat was raped by a bunch of hooligans in that bus it was not Amanat that was raped alone, it was us as a country being raped. Today we stand stripped and naked in front of the world.
What are we? A country that boisterously claims of culture deep in its roots and a history that was host to the greatest rulers the world has ever seen? A country that has been progenitor of the greatest intellectual minds the world has seen? A country that is the biggest democracy in the world? Or let me make it simple: A country that is incapable of giving its girls/ women a basic sense of security. A country where I don't know if the auto ride i take will make me reach my home or find me mutilated in the end. A country where if the man i respectfully call uncle will choose to one day try to soil me. A country where I trust no man beyond my father/brother/husband. And even there there are spaces where I run the risk of being abused and beaten.
We have chosen leaders who have attributed this increased spate of violent and shameful incidents against women to factors as western culture of clothing, dance, food and mobile phones. And of course there are the ones who would always question the way we dress and the way we interact with men. I am wondering if the way we breathe is "socially acceptable" or not. Being the greatly spiritual country, so we have the so-called spiritualists telling us that as a woman Amanat should have pleaded mercy and made one of the rapists his brother. That would have solved the problem for her. Wow! Am wondering how happier we would have been had his mother had the sensibility to tie his father a rakhi. Why should I plead? Only because I have breasts and you have balls( that are incidentally peanut sized ).
How do we even feign to call ourselves modern? We are far far away from it. We need to respect our women. We need to awaken as a nation and take note of the situation. I am not sure how I can or we can bring this change but we need to start to make an attempt in the least. We need to move and snatch our rights back. We need to awaken our brothers and lovers alike. We need to change our system to give the offenders stricter punishment. Someone has rightly said that unless one fears the outcome of one's actions one does it without fear or shame. We need to place moral and legal sanctions as a society to set a precedent for the rapists.
We owe it to no one else but to ourselves. We need to give our daughters the basic right they are born with; the right to a free, uninhibited life in this country. What use is our intellectualism as a nation if I cannot give my daughter a safe home, a safe neighborhood, a safe city, a safe country, a safe society?
