This
rape has suddenly shaken the whole country from its slumber and we are up in
arms against the powers that be. But lets face it - if our society is in
disarray and if we are facing such heinous crimes, are we not responsible for
it? Where was this outcry when the first rape case came up? Where was this
angst when the desensitized police force in many parts of the country stood up
and said that the women who are raped, deserved it? Where was this angst when
the woman Chief Minister of a state and we well know whom I am referring to
here, said that it’s the kind of clothes that women wear that encourage men to
rape them?
We
have brought this upon us. This angst, this humiliation, this feeling of being
impotent - we deserve this.
I
remember the lines from Kahlil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’ where someone asks him
that what should we do with someone who commits a sin? The Prophet replies that
on the path of life, any act of disharmony is like a stone or a pit that one
stumbles upon or falls into. That is a clear reminder to all those who have
passed that way that they have failed to remove that roadblock and someone has
fallen again into it. And it is a reminder to all those coming from behind him
to watch for the pitfall and remove that stone so that no one else does fall
again.
Let
us use this opportunity to tackle this menace at every level. Let this fire not
die or go waste. The strategy, of the powers that be, is going to be to make
people wait. For wait makes people get tired and weary and they return to their
normal struggle of daily life. Let this be a revolution. The one that does not
only have the fire for justice and burns with passion but also the one that
will prepare us for a long task ahead of us.
Rape
is all about power. It’s all about humiliating the other soul. It’s all about
breaking that person from within and crushing the very fibre of their being for
lust and for the need for demonstrating cheap superiority. We need to tackle it
at that level too. And we need to sensitize ourselves and lives connected to us
about these issues. Let us educate ourselves and deal with any form of
discrimination on the basis of caste, color, sex or creed. There is a need to
look within. There is a need to be vigilant for we turned a blind eye to so
many of such cases that we have reached this state.
Peace
is not earned in a fight or a battle. Peace is a laborious task of years of
work. Battles are easy but the tasks to maintain the peace or the values that
made us fight them are far greater and require years of work and perseverance.
Let
us teach our sons to be more sensitive and respectful towards women. Let us
raise our kids with a sense of equality and without ever making a distinction
between the sexes. This is always the first step. Let us bred in them the
respect for life in every form.
We
belong to a culture, which is at least 5000 years old. Let us try to return to
our values by reinterpreting them to the need of the times by keeping their
basic fiber, the same.
We
have a long way ahead of us. Let this just not be about this educated doctor
only. Let us channelize this anger and let it expand to every case of violence
or molestation against any women that we know. Let this revolution spread to
every town and let men deprived of values and real manhood know that they have
to change and learn better ways. Let this spread to every household and to
every bedroom and let us stand up even for marital rape. Let this also be about
the adivasi women raped and paraded naked every other day in many parts of our
country. Let this be about rich or high class and high caste men who feel women
from lower strata are their property and means to either satisfy their desires or
the means to control their men. Let this be against honor killings too.
All
these issues are interrelated. Nothing is separate. Let us be totally
intolerant of any act of molestation or violence against any woman and let us
bring our own to justice first. And, a True Revolution needs to spread to every
level. It is all encompassing. It is all pervading. It has to root out evil
from every level. It has to impact us at the very basic level of our thinking
and being. That I when we would have caused a real change.