BENGALURU’S NIGHT OF SHAME

I recall just two weeks back I wrote about groping and gender inequality. Never knew that another incident shall provoke me to write for the same. None the less, today I shall not criticize because eventually, the hooligans might not be reading WordPress.
As Indians, I really don’t know why it takes cases like nirbhaya or Bengaluru molestation to show how flimsy our security forces are, especially when it comes to an issue like “women security”. The reports, regarding all of this happening in the presence of a substantial number of cops added insult to injury.
This shows the respect for law and authority by our fellow citizens and above all the respect for a woman’s modesty and security. The problem lies in ‘ignorance’.
Even as women and citizens, we tend to ignore small things until something big happens. We try to ignore men passing lewd comments, groping, eve teasing and such petty things eventually provoke something big, and then the issue finally comes into the limelight when something big happens. The problem here lies in lack of proof, because mostly if someone is molesting, we eventually cannot proof the fact. Here at the venue there were more than 25 CCTV cameras installed and hundreds of witnesses. Till yet I don’t see any substantial action from the security personals. Are they also waiting for something as big as the “nirbhaya case” to happen, so that they can catch the criminals and our governments can again become the empathetic leaders, announcing aids to the victim’s family and perhaps providing the best of medical facilities.

I don’t know how true or false are the reports regarding the number of women molested and what was happening. But even if one woman was molested that too in the presence of so much crowd and security, nothing can be more shameful than this.

According to the december 2015 reports by the Indian express, an average of 6 rapes, 15 molestations occur each day. These are perhaps the cases which are reported, I don’t know what figure it might have reached if all 100% cases are reported.

let us analyze one by one what are the reasons that compel women to not report cases. One of them being, that if a thing happens time and again, we accept it as a part of life. Just like that, eve teasing and molestation on streets have become so common that for many the best action is to ignore. Even if these cases are reported, the action taken are too feeble to make an impact.
Moreover, in many backward and patriarchal families, it is still a taboo to be a victim of such crimes. Most of the time voices are suppressed because people don’t acknowledge the fact that this is a very serious violation of basic human rights and needs to be checked. To curb this especially in India, I would suggest all schools and colleges to include compulsory sex education. Till today, many of us shy away from openly discussing such topics and this is the manifestation of the mindset which has been trained to hush voices. Parents shy away from discussing any such topics with their children. It is very important to know that any type of abuse is a crime and needs to be reported.
The truth is that change is not sudden and easy. We have a long way to go, to remove such crimes. But what I believe is that we as citizens lack unity. Solely because we have an attitude “other’s problem is not my problem”, but we forgot that some day we might be others to someone. If at the bengaluru case, every person in the gathering, which was huge enough to handle goons, would have shown some serious empathy and unity, then this might have been an epitome of how aware citizens of a metro city fight against any atrocities. I hope some day we all raise our voices together when we see any girl standing helplessly or rather running away. The biggest power lies in unity and together 132.6 million i=Indians can definitely surmount any difficulties.