IT IS TIME !!!!

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.