64th Republic Day Of India-2013!

The Republic of India has completed 63 glorious years today. The 64^th Republic Day has been celebrated across the country with the main spectacular parade function in the national Capital of India, New Delhi. Honorable President of India, Pranab Mukherjee took the customary 21-gun salute and ceremonially unfurled the national tricolor for the first time after being elected into the top post. The chief guest of the function was the King of Bhutan. The great martyrs of the Indian struggle for independence were remembered with the Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh paying homage to unknown heroes. All of the three wings of the Indian Defense forces showcased their strength and the most advanced and latest technological equipments and capabilities. Beautiful tableaux from 19 states of India had been presented highlighting the unity amidst diversity. Huge crowds braved the winter chill and filled in this historical treat of a magnificent display of India’s rich cultural heritage and military might.

On this day of January 26 in 1950 the Constitution of India came into force and made the largest democracy of the world into a vibrant Republic of the Indian States. 

We wish all of you a very meaningful and happy Republic Day. We hope India would be rid of all evils like terror, corruption, crimes against women and factionalism in the coming months. Peace, harmony and safety must adorn the great country as the most essential ornaments. Let the colors of the Republic Day be the true colors of India cutting across the myriad ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic varieties.

Crimes Against Women: Absurd Reactions And Ridiculous Laws! Part-II

The nationwide awareness and repulsion about the crimes against women and the media plus government initiated campaigns notwithstanding there has been hardly a let up in more heinous crimes. The horrifying question that looms large before us is “Do these in fact inspire male India to learn more about how to commit crimes against women rather than preventing them from such acts?” The ineffective and ridiculous rape laws in the country are also contributing for such an ominously emerging scenario.

Few days back another heinous gangrape of a 29 year old woman happened in a moving public bus in Punjab. Contrary to the ‘Bharat’ theory it was a line bus that normally plies in rural routes and there was question of the lady dressing improperly. Still, the bus driver and the conductor overshot her destination village and took the bus to a distant location where five more fiends joined for the crime. In another shocking case a serial rapist was caught and sentenced to death by a Maharashtra court, but a few years later the high court acquitted him due to lack of ‘evidence’. Within months of his release the sick criminal raped and murdered another nine year old girl in the holy town of Shirdi in Maharashtra. Reports of minors being kidnapped, raped and murdered keep coming in with ominous regularity over the past days from across the country.

The syndrome of ‘evidence’ is one more vexing issue with the ‘evidence’ often accentuating the trauma of the victims rather the criminals. If a rapist is found to be under influence of alcohol when he committed the crime ‘evidence’ against him gets altered to the effect that at the time of the act he was not in his senses and therefore he was not responsible for the crime. This most ridiculous interpretation seems to suggest that one can get drunk and commit all sorts of crimes and still not be accountable. Similarly, the most brutal fiend of the Delhi gangrape case has been tried in juvenile court since he fell short by six months from the juvenile age limit of 18.

The fast court in Delhi started hearing the gangrape case from last Monday, the 21^st of January 2013, and all proceedings have been carried out in camera. Absurd situations still came up with some lawyers coming up to defend the fiends and one fiend appealing to Supreme Court that the charged situation in the national capital could jeopardize ‘justice’ being given to him. The Supreme Court had to agree hearing this plea because the fiend was still a citizen of India with ‘rights’. The Human Rights Activists worsen the atmosphere of hypocrisy and gender bias further. They keep silent when atrocities are committed on women as if they have no rights, but become vociferous when the so-called ‘rights’ of the criminals seem to get violated.

Some progress has still been made since the 16^th December of 2012. Various initiatives have been going on around the country demanding stricter rape laws, change in juvenile justice system and end of the gender bias and discrimination. The three-member Justice JS Verma Committee that was appointed on December 23 2012 submitted its report on 23rd January to the Home Ministry suggesting sweeping changes, but falling short of supporting death penalty or chemical castration for the rapists or demanding changes in the juvenile laws. In fact, a public petition for prosecuting the juvenile criminal along with the  adult accused if the Delhi gangrape case got rejected by Juvenile Justice Board yesterday. Here again, the ‘rights’ of the criminals get the first priority rather than that of the victims whose rights get violated, robbed, exterminated, brutalized…again…again…and again. 

More positively, a group of alert people prevented another heinous gangrape from happening in the city of Aurangabad, Maharashtra. Four fiends on bikes stalked and attacked a girl waiting for her brother in the street late at night. The group not only saved the girl but also captured one of the four fiends. The captured rapist was a murderer arrested once and then let loose due to lack of 'evidence'. 

The Young India Movement for Change must not let up and must continue in all its might till crimes against women cease for good. The spontaneous protests must pour back and continue to throng the streets till ‘male’volent India change for better…and permanently.

Crimes Against Women: Absurd Reactions And Ridiculous Laws! Part-I

In the aftermath of the horrific Delhi Gangrape Young India decided to come out in the streets to build a movement for change. As the movement became stronger and spread across the country various changes in fact took place from banning of tinted glass vehicles to setting up of fast track courts. But the typically chauvinistic males of the patriarchal India hardly changed. On the contrary absurd reactions kept coming in casting aspersions on the victims rather than on the perpetrating fiends. And, ridiculously ineffective and archaic rape laws have been making the proceedings repulsive.

The commonest ‘advisory’ has been on the ‘clothing’ factor—what the victims wore and what the prospective victims should not wear. Surprisingly this huge group most often included ladies too—maybe due to the everlasting impressions imbibed from a patriarchal setting.  They say that girls or women tend to wear dresses that expose and naturally catch male attentions and provoke them into acts they would not have perpetrated otherwise. They remain as garrulous as ever even after you silence them with the following: 

• If the fiends are attracted by exposure, are they immune to what the clothing hides?
• Infants to grandmothers—none are spared. So what sort of ‘clothing’ exercise would they recommend for these victims?
• If it is a personal matter for males to decide what to eat and what to wear, it must apply for the females too. Discretion and modesty as advised are applicable for both of them. If a male as per his habits finds a female offensively attired that does not give him the license to advise or control or molest or rape the ‘offender’.

In a reaction very similar to this kind of chauvinistic thoughts one right-wing fundamentalist leader opined that rapes happen only in ‘India’ and not in ‘Bharat’. By this weird classification he meant that urban culture of India invites atrocities against women while the quiet (covered?) ways of rural ‘Bharat’ vouch for less or no crimes. Well, the ancient traditions of ‘Bharat’ tell us volumes about how the emperors or kings picked and chose women to fill their harems, how the powerful officers or landlords did the same and how the males of rural India still do it. Since my childhood days I have been hearing the ‘wise’ saying “If you want a good life, control your women and keep them in absolute submission”. Rural India or Bharat does not need rapes to be committed in the open, because here everything gets done within the fours walls or under ‘cover’.

One spiritual leader said that the would-be victims should pray chanting hymns and call the would-be perpetrators as ‘brothers’ appealing to them to desist from their heinous act. He also reportedly suggested that the 23 year old girl in the Delhi Gangrape might not have tried used this option leading to her brutalization and eventual death. Well, the magnanimous leader too did not focus on the preventive aspects of the fiendish acts, but instead put the onus on the victims as has been the usual trend of male India.

Because of such colossal unwillingness of male India to come to terms with the basic problem more heinous crimes against women are still taking place despite the Young India Movement for Change and despite the nationwide awareness. (to be continued…)