Author: Atulya Subhash
Apologies in advance for the forthcoming rant. Apologies in advance that you have to put yourself through this for the millionth time. Apologies for reminding you of disturbing events that most of us are collectively trying so hard to forget about.
But I’m not going to apologise for the rage I feel inside every waking second. I’m not going to apologise for wanting to be safe. Not going to apologise for wanting justice.
The Hathras tragedy had left the nation appalled.
This is not the first time such a gruesome act has come to light, and what’s sadder is that it may not be the last time too.
However, what’s more disturbing than the crime itself, is how people politicised the incident. It seems to me that a lot of people are more concerned about the image of a state and a political party being tarnished, than the incident itself.
Everyone is free to have their own political views and support any political party they wish to. However, blatantly refusing to see some of the limitations in our leaders, be it any party, is a lapse on our moral responsibility as a citizen of this country.
Something we all should acknowledge is that some states of India have always been the flagbearers of atrocities against women. It is not a political issue. It is about no government in the political history of India, being able to tackle this issue, or may I say, not being bothered enough to bring about any changes, as long as they are in the good books of their vote banks.
This incident also brought to light, how deeply engraved casteism is, in our country. We could blame every political party, every state but that’s not the point. The onus to bring about any change is on us and the first step to do that, is accepting that we as a country are backward in many ways.
We should accept that patriarchy and other social evils like casteism run deep in our culture, no matter how liberal we look on the outside. We have all come across sexist comments in our own family, from distant relatives or from our neighbours. We tend to ignore it, because that’s what most of us have been taught to do. For the longest time I thought to myself, as long as it does not affect me or my freedom directly, why should I take the pains of correcting someone older to me. But I am ashamed of it more than ever now.
The next time you hear someone telling a girl to ‘not invite danger upon herself by being herself’/’to look prettier by the standards of society’/’to stop going out’ etc; the next time you hear someone telling a guy ‘not to behave like a girl’/’not to cry’/’to man up and be physically stronger’ etc. please do the world a favour and try your best to educate them.
We cannot change the world in a day but if we try and do our part, we can slowly but surely make the world a better place.
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