"While Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of U.P., is striving to usher in Ram Rajya, the opposition will go to any length to demoralise him and frustrate his plans", claim the supporters of the head priest-turned-politician, a celibate like his idol PM Modi. "Diverting the media attention from all the progressive steps being taken in his state, to the rape cases, is how low the opposition parties have fallen," they harp, aggressive in their defence of the guy, whose debasing opinion of women is expressed in the following quote, "women are like energy. If they are not controlled, they can be destructive and worthless".
The Hathras rape case of the 19-year-old Dalit-woman Manisha, by four upper caste men, has once again brought into glaring limelight the deep-rooted and pernicious side of our culture.
What is heart-wrenching is the detached, callous attitude of the news channels where even the dead, mutilated victim is being presented as a pawn in the filthy game of political chess. For example, one leading national daily, while referring to the Congress leaders' visit to the victim's family, says, "The visit seems to have immediate as well as long term political goals. From projecting the Congress as a serious player in U.P., ahead of the 2022 Assembly polls to portraying the ruling BJP as anti-Dalit just before the Bihar election, the party seems to have a clear strategy."
For our honorable leaders, no matter which party they belong to, the strategy remains predictable: instead of eradicating the social evils, to get maximum mileage out of them. Unfortunately, even the media is content to turn their time-bound political objectives into its prime focus, thus letting the real issues wriggle out of the national consciousness.
And so, against the highly complex cultural and social fabric of the nation, the common person is coerced to live in fear, suffering the repercussions of the pervert savageness of a sexually oppressed society, caste system, and the lowly status of women. India and its Hindu population may pride itself in regarding all women as goddesses, but one look around is enough to underscore the hypocrisy of such a belief. For it is a well-known fact, reiterated again and again in several travel guides, that hardly any girl/woman here is spared from men's lecherous stares, leering, and inappropriate touching in crowded places...
Does it come as a surprise then, that while India is proud to flaunt its supreme status in terms of having the tallest statue, the longest highway tunnel, the most expensive wedding, it also tops the list in the number of rape cases reported per annum? With an average of 87 rape cases recorded on daily basis, India is determined to live up to its name as the rape capital of the world.
What I ask myself is who was Manisha, besides being a young Dalit woman? What did she like? As a little girl that she once was, did she harbour big dreams? Would she have liked to attend a college, had her parents, their financial situation, and the upper caste people of her village allowed? Who was Manisha? Can someone tell me?
The ruling party, bent upon proving that the whole episode is being inflated by the media and the opposition parties, Manisha becomes an unnecessary encumbrance in India's trailblazing journey to superpowerhood.
No comments:
Post a Comment