A collective disgrace

The horrors of the Guwahati molestation incident just don’t cease to surface. The way the narrative of this grotesque tale unfolded has left us all shaken and outraged. A quick look at the disturbingly vivid video clip dismantles all our notions about belonging to a hallowed land of saints and spiritualists. If the growth of a civilization is really gauged by the way it treats its women, then India is surely sliding deeper into the nadirs of ignominy with every passing day. The outrage and shame doesn’t belong to the city of Guwahati alone. It’s a collective disgrace that goes on to show how miserably we, as a society, have failed. Are we, like always, going to rant against whoever is in sight for a few weeks and, then, try to forget that it happened? Can’t we admit that the the very root of the problem lies in the recesses of our collective psyche? Can’t we, for once, pledge to rectify it?

A fashionably dressed teenage girl visits a pub and ends up getting assaulted by a group of as many as twenty men. This isn’t happening in some obscure and dimly lit corner of the pub but out on one of the city’s busiest roads! The perpetrators, mostly in their twenties, do not belong to Guwahati’s underbelly. They’re a bunch of supposedly well-educated youngsters who are expected to be the leading light of any generation. The Facebook profile of one of the men who was identified tells us that he works as a constitutional rights activist. It makes for an amusing joke indeed, save for the fact that the joke is on us!

Somebody showed the resourcefulness to shoot the pathetic incident in its entirety and, then, it entered the domain of electronic and social media, setting them abuzz. But fresh evidences suggest that the man who shot the video was friends with the offenders. Thus, what was being celebrated as the Good Samaritan’s technology-induced bravado transformed into a shocking testimony of a diseased and voyeuristic mind, adding to the bewilderment of an entire nation.

The most wounding aspect of this episode has been the outrageous suggestion by a few that the girl had called the adversity upon herself by being present at a place ‘not meant for her’, sporting an ‘indecent’ attire. Some showed a numbing alacrity to label her as a ‘slut’, hinting at her easy virtue. Does it imply that a girl has the right to seek protection from a sexual assault only if she lives as an epitome of chastity all her life? Does a so-called slut not have the right to say ‘no’? What makes us take pride in a school of thought that celebrates a philandering man as sexually endowed but keeps the worst kind of contempt reserved for women who choose to assert their individuality?

We can’t write this off as a random occurrence in one of the country’s forgotten corners. The story of the Guwahati teenager is little different from that of the hapless girls who were beaten black and blue at a Mangalore pub by our self-appointed moral custodians a couple of years back, of the girl who was molested in a similar fashion at Mumbai’s Gateway of India a few years back or the young women from the northeast living in Delhi who are slightingly referred to as ‘Chinkis’, considered loose and easy and, thus, taken liberties with. The Guwahati case has only showed us that it looks much uglier than how it sounds.

The media, the administration and the NCW have all gone on to expose the moral rot that ensnares us. The victim’s identity was thoughtlessly revealed on national television and the culprits would have escaped unscathed had it not been for the hue and cry made by various sections of the media. The incidence has forced us to question if India is really progressing towards a sparkling future.

We may demand the administration to be more vigilant and stringent as a kneejerk reaction. The pubs may install CCTV cameras and appoint more bouncers, and the Police vans may start patrolling the roads more frequently. But that’s not quite the point! The number of cases of crimes against women being reported is spiraling with every passing year. Whether that has to do with a hyperactive media industry is debatable but what we should acknowledge is that the problem isn’t constrained to the domain of law and order. It has to do with the kind of society that we have come to be.

The problem lies within, with our attitudes, our perceptions and that’s what needs to change! A telling quote that has been making the rounds on Facebook says, “Don’t ask your daughters to avoid getting raped but teach your sons not to rape!” We need to accept that a girl who goes to a pub in the night, dressed in a western outfit is doing it because she has every right to have a good time the way she wants! It’ll be completely juvenile to attribute her getting molested to her attire. As many women will agree, stepping out of your homes conservatively dressed doesn’t necessarily shield you from a sexual assault; your being a woman is enough!

Our job doesn’t end with expressing concerns over the issue. We must facilitate change and it should initiate at our homes, our families, our centers of education and our communities. We must teach a growing child that the two genders are equal; that one wasn’t created to subjugate the other! Ask boys to respect the freedom of a girl to assert herself. Ask girls to not be silent. Empower them to confront; support them if they choose to fight back. We need to invest the right values in a growing generation. Only then can we expect them to form a sane, sensitive and sensible society.