“Stop this barbarism” – 4 June 2014
As if all the goons in Uttar Pradesh have decided to spoil every other woman in the State and, for whatever we know, countless goons across the country have made similar devilish resolves. If the rapes in Uttar Pradesh are coming to fore, then countless other rapes across the country are still under wraps, unknown to the police or the public. The impression is that the country is dominated by goons who have made women their primary targets!
This is, therefore, time for every woman to burst out in sheer anger. For, when a society suffers from such an immoral outbreak, then it time for women to take charge, Narendra Modi or no Narendra Modi.
Of course, this is not a political appeal. And this is also not an appeal to women only; this is an appeal to the whole society. And more specially, this is an appeal for the rulers that be. ‘Women’ is only a symbolism, and the purpose is to ask the rulers to take charge of the situation on women’s behalf. And the caution is: If you don’t take charge now, then you will not even realise that you have missed the bus permanently. You may continue to rule, but you may never rule the people’s hearts. For, when the women of the society are unhappy, and scared all the time, then no rulers can expect to rule the people’s hearts.
Now comes the part of appeal to my sisters: Come on, rise, and tell your men – husbands, sons, brothers – to rise, not in revolt but in assertion to the rulers that women represent the most critical emotional core of the civilised human community, and their honour is the most important point of collective cultured existence, and therefore the rulers are duty-bound to take steps that will ensure an end of the barbarism that we are witnessing in the country.
Of course, those who have political motives and agendas will decry such a statement that appears omnibus, in the sense it appears to allege that every women is unsafe in India.
This is where we, as a society, must understand the philosophy and spirituality of civilisation.
The question, friends, is not about whether every woman is being attacked; the question is the likely ripple-effect of what is happening.
Let us look at the likely larger scenario.
Some women fall prey to the barbaric lust of some sick men in incidents sprinkled across the country. Only in some of those many cases, some semblance of justice is created. Or, an Akhilesh Yadav is made to sacrifice his throne, obviously a political victim of his own inaction or inefficiency as a ruler. Yet, the larger society knows very well that only a handful of rapists have been punished, and the rest are at large still.
What message does this pass?
Simple: One can get away with rape.
Is this the message the rulers would want to prevail in the society?
Obviously not! Yet, the message has become such an integral, indelible part of our collective consciousness.
That’s where the problem lies.
And that’s where comes in the need for the women to exert pressure on their men to exert pressure on the rulers to take charge and weed out such a barbarism and such a lawlessness from our society.
We have been given to understand that Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi has a great sense of responsibility towards women. He has made this clear in his speeches during the poll campaign and afterwards. So, the women have a great hope that in his regime, he will not just do the lip-service to the cause, but close his lips tight and act in all resoluteness at his command to ensure that women’s honour is restored to its full glory.
And the easiest way to start achieving that lofty goal is to start ensuring that women of the society are physically safe and assured that the whole earth belongs to them to stand upon and the whole sky also belongs to them to grow to gull glow and glory.
This is the simplest wish every human individual has, and women, too, are humans.
