By Akhil Bansal : A 23 year old girl was raped in Delhi in a moving bus some days back and she was discovered lying on the roadside, humiliated physically and mentally. The entire nation is now shocked and outraged at this barbarity. After thousands of reported rapes, it seems this is the first time Indian society cried for justice so loud finally.
People are demanding atleast capital punishment and anything else that can be meted out to those accused of this crime.This ‘special’ rape case caught public attention, so much so that even Parliament has opened its eyes to this reality, which is otherwise plagued with pandemoniums and disruptions everytime.Justice now seems atleast plausible in this case and that too maybe in a record time! But looking at this upheaval following this incident, I wonder whether this was the tipping point of a frustrated society or just another cry by the public which will again go unnoticed in the long run and things will be the same again.
Although, I don’t want the things to be same again and nobody else does, but sometimes I feel its the same ‘Indian movie’ that runs everytime, that is suffer, shout, short-term measures. There is not much I think which is hitting at the basics. When such an incident is reported first page on newspapers and highlighted on TV 24/7, we feel outraged, but why don’t we care about girls and woman in our daily lives, when they are teased by somebody, when they are blamed , both inside the home and outside for no fault of theirs, why only now we have given birth to humanity inside us?? It feels to me like we are a victim of ‘mob psyche’, therefore when we know that the mob is with us, we proceed and when we know that it isn’t, then we ignore the acts of ‘others on others’. Ofcourse this is a symptom of law and order failure and lack of public trust in government institutions, but more than that its a sign of a weak mindset which needs social support and acceptance, even for something which is outrightly righteous, socialised as we are in such a way that individual power is subdued mentally by group feeling of religion, caste, region and don’t know what else. In girls’ case, even these social institutions fail to protect them with along with a failed law and order administration in this regard, connived as they all are in the maintenance and furtherance of patriarchy. So, who and how will he/she amend the religious codes, the caste customs and the skewed societal norms along with just the law! Further, the so called Western cultural onslaught and the introduction of capitalist mindset in India has created a peculiar situation, therefore one where the traditional social structure ,in which woman was a ‘commodity’ for her father, brother and husband is now enmeshed in capitalist norms, especially in urban areas, hence the cliche ‘the commodification of women’. So, who will check this disturbed psyche where women are dealt with like commodities. And most importantly, there is the problem of ‘shifting blame’. Everytime an incident happen, we have a tendency to blame the perpetrators of crime, ofcourse, they need to be, then the government, yeah , it too desrves alot, but one thing eludes us most of the times and that is to blame ourselves. Everyone influences the society and the society influences everyone. So, when, for example, a well educated and independent girl in India is ‘forced’ by her parents to marry according to them, why doesn’t she question it, simply because its not a norm to question your parents on this, but yes, through this, they have demonstrated their willingness to surrender to the underlying paradigm of ‘bounded psyche’, even more bounded for girls.This is just one incident of thousands which happen everyday in our society, it seems unrelated, but look closely and you will find how ‘societal consciousness’ maintains and sustains itself. And this consciousness needs to be changed and the lead should be taken by women only as I don’t find any ‘incentive’ in this for the patriarchs who want a disorganised and suppressed feminity. But who will confront the social norms, at least educated and independent girls can press ahead and show the way to others too. So, rather than to discuss a girls’ skirt size, the time she is out, her character and everything else which has no connection to this issue, we need to confront the real issues,the issue of the weakness in criminal justice system, the apathy of state and even deeper, the basics of patriarchy, capitalism and inequality and the social consciousness which beget the issue of crime against women in the first place ,even try to sustain it and produce such ‘forcefully distroted psyches’ of both the perpetrators and the outraged ones. That is why we can ignore these paradigms for superficial issues at our own peril.