Alas! We have lost our heart – not to love; but to misogyny, bigotry, and every other form of degraded thinking that an abjectly insecure patriarchal system drills into us day in day out. It is, after all, this very societal conditioning that has slowly and surreptitiously taught us to ascribe the “woman” the status of the “other” sex. It goes without saying that this thin line between “sex” and “gender” is constantly subject to being blurred – redefined – tailor-made to suit a man’s [read: still the defining agent of societal organisation’s] own selfish purpose. It seems that a call for the permanent revolution of the mind is the need of the hour! What is wrong with us – men and women alike? If some men are strutting around shifting the onus of their heinous acts on women, women in turn, are paying lip-service to this masochistic tyranny, thereby helping the perpetuation of a system turned rancid.
Yet women are not alone in falling prey to such inhuman manoeuvres. Young boys and girls are no exception to the rule either. Unfortunately enough, it appears that sexual violence has become the “rule” rather than the aberration of our times. From tendering justifications for assaults against women by drawing attention to how “provocatively” a certain girl has dressed, to pointing out her indiscretionary emulation of the “Western culture”, to audaciously stepping outside one’s demarcated threshold at odd hours unchaperoned by the men-folk, we men have said it all – and cried it hoarse.
If a man condemns this “rape culture” he is dismissed as “just another gay” while women professing the same have the brunt of a “slut” to bear. What’s with this fetish for compartmentalising sexuality? How and when does this irresistible drive for callous generalisation of people, their habits, their beliefs, their sexualities, their identities, see sense? Why and how is it difficult to be gender-sensitive? We had long heard of the dictum – “equality for equals”. Yet nowhere else more than in our rotten democracy have we come to live under the materialisation of the saying.
If the government were a democratic arrangement, the police would be its most disappointing institution. Unabashedly undemocratic in its approach to a group of citizens peacefully protesting against the recent flurry of bestiality in every part of the country, while being well within their constitutional rights, the police deployed a force of five hundred to “take care of “ a handful hundred by means of lathi-charging, pelting tear gas and water-canoning. This is without mentioning its pro-active role in working as the state’s emissary in trying to hush things up by paying “compensation” to the victim’s family. One must take special heed of the vestiges of an outdated colonial law which continues to plague the act of delivering justice in our country. Moreover, justice delayed becomes justice denied more often in the course of history than we would wish to concede.
We must condemn violence in all its forms and variegated manifestations because violence cannot be alleviated with violence but with compassion and love. Our first impulse of anger in rape cases is always directed at the perpetrator. However, the death penalty is not the solution to a societal malaise like rape. Of course, the perpetrators are culpable, but the death penalty kills the mortal being alone; the humanitarian and ethical issue looming large are left unaddressed. Such a barbaric punitive measure defies both the principles of our constitution and international human rights law. Besides, solely legal responses would not suffice. The most effective approach would consist of challenging people’s thoughts to redress socio-economic inequalities, cultural mores and the malice of easy impunity built into our system.
Hence, it is against such a brow-beaten culture of subordination that we must raise our voices together! Let a collective conscience lead us all to a common destination, irrespective of individual differences – as we rightfully demand an overhaul of the legal system through devising stricter laws, to be effected with integrity in an efficient system, while working towards educating ourselves in the doctrine of not gender-difference but gender equality. At the end of the day, it is only a matter of whether we treat our fellow human beings as human beings. Therefore, invoking Eve Ensler’s “Man Prayer”, I say:
“May I be a man.
Who creates space rather than dominates it.
Who seeks kindness over control. Who refuses the slap, the gun, the choke, the insult, the punch.
May I cherish, respect and love my mother.
May the resonance of that love translate into loving all women and living things.”
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