Cloud9

Women Under Attack Or Just Women Under Attack? December 30, 2012

Finally by the time you read this, the Nirbhaya (a symbolic name given to the girl gang raped in a bus, Delhi) has been cremated secretively. All the protests and anger can be seen on roads and felt in the air. In harsh winter of Delhi the rage, to condemn and seek logical closure on the matter pertaining to violent crime that took a life of an innocent girl, is enough to galvanize the national capital out of it’s insensitive and hypocritical approach towards the issue.

We see protests everywhere and Mumbai too, have had its fare share of them. Everyone talks about the deep rooted gender stereotypes in grained in our social consciousness and how that process starts from very basic building bloc of soceity, home. Maybe the all pervasive and deep rooted misogynistic attitude imbibed in male minds might be one of the reasons of incessant violent crimes against women in India and around the world.

But I wonder if this attack is just on women or it is a convenient offshoot of a sinister malice that spawns such gruesome incidents and more events that affect our lives as citizens of India. When we look at the incident in isolation, it is much easier to point out the failure of law enforcement agencies to discharge their duty of upholding the sense of security among people concerned. But when we see these cases happening all around us with alarmingly high frequency, the blame doesn’t just stop at law enforcement agencies but it goes deeper and higher in deeply entrenched bureaucracy, judicial system and the Government.

And when we take stock of situation in it’s totality, we can sense the real issue. Taking a closer look carefully would reveal the fact that violent incidents against women are not just concerned to women themselves, but the same violent acts are being perpetrated against majority of people in society, but only in different forms. Be it rape, murder of elder citizens, exploitation of weaker section of society, molestation of children, scams ranging from irrigation to big frauds involving national resources and the list goes on. It is a systemic violent attack on the societal infrastructure and well being, which we as a nation and as an individual fail to recognize its full potential to blow up the fundamental right to right full dignified living in a nation.

It is sheer governmental reluctance of handing out an efficient governance to it’s people due to short sighted and self centered political theatrics . And this is the common thread that binds all the social ills together, no matter how different and unconnected they might seem superficially. Instead of taking political mileage in any issue that catches fancy of nation, our elected members should see to it that strong measures are drawn and being implemented. And this rectification of the issue can be a great tool for gaining political advantage in today’s society which wants to see Government taking solid measures to make nation a better place to live.

Time has come for the system to address it’s governance issues and cast strongly relevant stringent laws to make society feel safe in itself and thrive peacefully.