Is India a rapist nation?

In last week, I woke up to read two stories, a minor raped in Delhi and an elderly woman raped and killed in Goa. The reports were very depressing and disturbed me deeply.

 

Yet again, the capital of India was put to shame by the rapist. There seems to be no end to this and news of this sort is featuring regularly in the papers. Have we been immune to such incidents now?

 

Neither social gatherings and protests nor candle light vigil nor national angers nor laws nor bills nor panel discussions nor social media awareness nor education nor preaching nor religion nor our cultural values…Nothing really seems to make a difference when it comes to rape! We have become unstoppable!

Tourists, students, kids, rich, poor, celebrities, educated, starved, orphans and even daughters – none are spared from this evil act.

 

I don’t know what will put an end to this or for that matter, will it ever end?

 

Almost since the time I learnt reading, I have been reading local newspapers in my childhood and rarely read about such incidents. And whenever I happened to read about them, it was always a case that involved a non-Goan. The times have changed so much that the news has become a regular feature and we also find so many of our local perverts involved in them.

 

Is this the nation, we say, Ram belonged to and in what we believe we take pride in building a temple of?

 

What causes a Rape?

Nobody has been ever able to gauge what exactly causes a rape? We have seen people blaming multiple factors that could constitute reasons, why it takes place. However, there are always incidents which contradicts these reasoning. There is no one theory, why a rape takes place and precisely because of this, there is no one solution to this pain.

 

Provocative Dressing?

‘Bharat v/s India’ theory believed rape happens due to provocative dressing. How do we justify this, when a school kid got raped in school at Vasco-Goa? How provocative could have the elderly fisher woman from Canacona-Goa be dressed, when she got raped and killed?

 

Sexual Starvation?

Are Indian men sexually starved? But, wait, haven’t we had cases of rapes by married men? By people who were happily married and having children?

 

Modern lifestyle/Internet?

We cannot stop these revolutions as it brings in a lot of positive advancements and which are required for the global progress. We should learn to ignore the dark parts of it and just take what is required. Again, what connection does Internet have with incidents of rapes with poor Dalit women in rural India?

 

Illiteracy/poverty?

Can improper education, literacy or poverty cause it? May be yes, but why do we have so many lawyers, politicians, businessmen, industrialists, celebrity artists, teachers who have been named in rape cases. What about, a remote village panchayat in India decides that the girl must be gang raped as a punishment for having a love affair with an outside community boy?

 

Rape in the pre-text of marriage?

This is something, I feel, one can certainly avoid. What we need here is some education and probably being little smart with some common sense to add.

Fearlessness about Law?

May be yes, I feel this majorly contributes to the reasoning.

 

Our judiciary system is so sluggish and full of loop-holes that probably the criminals feel they could easily get away with such heinous act or get very lenient penalty. Either our laws are not fully exercised or when they are exerted, the extreme delay in executing the punishment is what fails to imprint its effect onto people. The legal course of action in such matter should be quick and such that it embosses in everyone’s mind an affright of the term – Rape!

 

Probably, only the culprits caught in such incidents can tell us, their motive behind such crimes. They should also be psychological interrogated.

 

Role of Police:

We blame them for everything!

Everyone points fingers at them, even politicians, when it comes to saving their own skin. How many matters we expect them to handle at a time? They are required to be looking after our politicians, taking care of our venues for festivals/sports, looking after traffic arrangements for wedding event of a public figure, taking care of accidents, building collapses, mining scams, dakoities, rapes, murders, quarrels, disputes and so on.

 

Unfortunately, they also have to look into their internal inquiry matters, where their colleagues themselves are involved in cases related to sexual misconduct.

 

Role of Media:

I always believed media played an important role in creating and spreading necessary social awareness on topics like rape. But what a shame – we find a top honcho of media industry accused in such cases?

 

What can we do?

Change our attitude towards women? Reform judiciary system and have quicker trials? Educate people, students and youngsters? Introduce sex education?

 

The least our women can do is proactively follow few measure of safety. Be aware of who are our friends, colleagues, neighbors, classmates, followers, stalkers. Use freedom, keeping in mind the essentials elements of safety. Avoid secluded places or be with someone whom you trust or where a help is a phone call away.

 

On a parting note:

This brings me to a question, rarely debated here – should prostitution be legalized in India? Will this curb the rapes? I don’t know. It’s a very sensitive topic, when it comes to our values, culture, tradition and our Indian-ness!

image credit: http://www.sxc.hu/

Glam, fame, wealth and an untimely mysterious death!

Until she married Union Minister, Shashi Tharoor and shot to fame, to be then seen prominently in the social circuits, people barely knew Sunanda Pushkar. However even before she could be well registered in people’s mind, she left for a heavenly abode.

 

This is not an account of who she was or what controversies followed her. This is about how the life had been rude to her and many such people in one form or the other, without, sometimes, any of their faults.

If one has to peep into their life in yesteryears, most of them, like all others, toiled in the beginning of their careers. A few succeeded and climbed up the success ladder, some even stayed in the spotlight while few strayed, however all of them left the journey abruptly.

 

They were all successful, wealthy, earned fame and fortune, they carved a niche for themselves, had a fan-following, people loved them, they touched thousands and sometimes millions of hearts, yet many of them were lonely, unhappy, discontented…life offered the best to them in terms of materialistic happiness and been harsh to them, to take their lives away at a young age!

There could be manifold reasons associated with such deaths: work pressure, depression – unable to cope up with lifestyle, illness, failed marriages, soiled relationships, infidelity, over-doses of certain habits, accidents, financial downtime…. Some of these well-known figures, fell prey to severe illnesses while some deaths, even today, remain a puzzle!

 

Whatever happened internally in their lives within the family, loved ones, remains a private subject however when it leads to an extreme step of killing oneself is something always shocking and hard to accept!

Why I call many of such demises, mysterious is because many of these cases had a controversy attached with them, just before they chose an extreme step to end their lives.

 

The tinsel town has witnessed some really shocking incidents of celebrities dying a mysterious death. To remember a few: (I have listed only a few here, whatever I could recollect)

 

Divya Bharti: suspicious death of famous Bollywood starlet remained a mystery ever. She rose within a short period, however had a short-lived career and life. It was one of the most shocking deaths the industry witnessed.

Smita Patil: I am sure none of us have forgotten her. Starlet of Indian Parallel cinema expired at a young age of 31 at the peak of her career.

Viveka Babaji:  A promising supermodel committed suicide just at an age of 27!

Gulshan Kumar: 'Cassette King', the founder of the T-Series music was killed.

Nafisa Joseph: Again a young model and MTV Jockey, she hanged herself at a young age.

Silk Smitha: South Indian siren, she was called. No one really knows, officially, the reason behind her death.

Parveen Babi: One of the most glamorous starlets of her time died a rather sad death. The once upon a time, talk of the town, had been living a lonely life in Mumbai!

Jiah khan: The most recent suicide by her shook the entire film industry. The reason could have been fallout in relationship however which again was not publicly known.

Anuradha Bali: Not many of us might know her as she did not belong to Bollywood however she too died under tragic circumstances, after having gone through a short-lived stint with one of the ministers.

If one looks at the sequence of events in her life, the life seemed to have stopped so abruptly for her! Fiza, as she called herself after she got converted to Muslim, hit the news headlines as she eloped and married a minister in Haryana government. She was deserted in time less than what it took the relation to take off.

Starting the love story with eloping in 2008 and ending it with her mysterious death and 2012! All seemed to have been over in the blink of an eye.

There are several other prominent celebrities who passed away quiet early in life, leaving the world shaken up.

The most shocking ones were the crocodile hunter Steve Irwin, charming Princess Diana, the pop icon Michael Jackson and few others like singer Amy Winehouse, Anna Nicole Smith, Jim Morrison, and Big Brother fame Jade Goody (who had a controversy with Bollywood star Shilpa shetty).

 

In the Indian history too some death mysteries have remained unresolved: Sanjay Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Subhash Chandra Bose.

The mystery surrounding their death continues to haunt their relatives, fans and all of us, even today.

 

On a parting note, while the reasons associated with such deaths could be any, however it has brought sorrow to all of us and such incidents have always perturbed and stirred the human race!

Building collapse tragedy at Canacona, Goa – have we learnt a lesson, yet?

The tragic incident at Canacona Goa, in which 17 innocent lives were lost and an equal or more number are still feared to be trapped – is one of the worst calamities Goa has witnessed in recent years.

Post-mortem of this event will have fingers pointed at one another, blame games played – truth may or may not surface, actions may or may not be taken. However, the incident has multiple questions posed for the administration and the government.

One amongst the top questions to be asked: Is the state well equipped with Disaster management?

Are our officials well trained to handle such circumstances? Does the state government have enough machinery or capacity to organize for a helping hand from specialists in quick time?

It was the Chief Minister’s presence that could supervise the situation on the day this event occurred. However, we cannot expect his presence and instructions in all such cases. The associated departments and their officials should have been prepared to handle any such incidents.

From various newspaper reports it can easily be inferred that neither the Disaster Management Authorities nor our medical facilities were prepared to tackle such situations. Hence, Indian Army and the National Disaster Management Response Force from Pune were pressed to join in the rescue.

The way state administration has handled the rescue operations, only testifies their ill-preparedness in handling disasters of this magnitude. Time was of essence here and we lost most of it!

The next worry that follows: Do we have the best and easy-to-reach medical care and facilities?

This tragic incident has clearly opened up the limitations of state government in terms of medical aid. Inadequate number of ambulances and attendants, lack of medical staff and basic facilities at primary health centers and so on. The injured had to depend for aid to arrive from Hospicio in Margao and take help of private vehicles to be hospitalized. We cannot have Goa Medical College as our last resort, especially when the tragedy strikes at a distant place like Canacona. Cannot we have our primary health centers upgraded to cater to medical aid even of the people in its locality?

The only silver lining was the efforts of doctors who were learnt to have continued working post their regular shift hours keeping in mind the magnitude of the situation.

Another question that is revolving around my mind: Is the government having any control over the rampant construction that is happening around?

I am not sure on any checks and inspections that our state officials are taking up to ensure safety of our buildings. What about the land conversion, other legalities and permissions? Is any state authority aware of the quality of material that is being used for such constructions? Are we toying with innocent lives for some monetary gains?

Is there also any formal examination done of the old structures in the state? What about many of those dilapidated buildings in various towns of Goa? What about our school buildings, hospitals and government quarters/offices?

We should learn our lessons from these tragedies and put in place appropriate measures. If not, such disasters are always waiting to happen!