I am India’s Daughter

Lately, I have begun to question my relationship with my country; shouldn’t my country be worthy of my sense of pride in, and patriotism for, Her? As the media was screaming hoarse on the issue of Ms. Udwin’s documentary, some supporting and some judging it as ‘voyeurism’, I realised I had not known the young lady, on whose dreadful rape and murder the documentary is based, was called Jyoti Singh. I knew her as ‘Nirbhaya’ – the fearless one, who brought a whole Nation together – awakening the law-makers from their slumber and hitting hard at the conscience of every Indian.  Like every other Indian (barring the few who neither have sense nor know ‘pride’), I, too, am ashamed that we have not been able to create a country safe enough for a lady to move around freely and fearlessly. The recent comments by a not-so-honourable Member of Parliament stand testimony to the way a fraction of our society views the Woman.

A lot of analysis has gone into the entire mechanism of how, when and where Ms. Udwin obtained her permissions to make the documentary. And in its haste to react, the government, on its part, acted like the proverbial ostrich, by banning the documentary from being aired. I wish, instead, that it had acted with as much haste in ensuring speedy justice for ladies who are victims of misogynist attitudes. But did the ban violate the freedom of speech and expression expected of a democracy? It most certainly did.

As my gentlemen friends cringed in disgust and spoke out, in shame, against the attitudes of men who ‘featured’ in the documentary, the women were angered by the extent of gruesome thoughts that ‘socio-psycho-paths’ expressed so blatantly. The documentary provided a platform to these men who were already upheld as guilty of crime, by a lower court, to rationalise their crime. The only ‘platform’ that they should have is the court of law – we still are a democracy, with a vibrant judicial system, that entitles every person suspected of a crime to a fair trial. Was it right for the documentary to be made on a matter still sub-judice? It certainly wasn’t.

I am sure that many women, like I, would have borne the brunt of the behaviour displayed by misogynist men who carried disgusting minds in their heads – being whistled at, teased, groped inappropriately and worse, sexually assaulted. While the documentary showed men who harboured criminal and barbaric views, it did not speak of even a single man who stood by a lady, protecting her, fighting for her and, in some cases, losing his life in ensuring the dignity of the woman. My India has many, many, many men like that. Should they have not been hailed in the documentary? They most certainly should have.

The whole world went berserk analysing our society, criticising our thinking and projecting India as a country grossly unsafe for women – ‘the rape capital of the World’.  Quoting from an article from More, “….India only ranks third for the number of rapes reported each year. What country ranks first?  The United States. In India, a country of over 1.2 billion people, 24,206 rapes were reported in 2011.  The same year in the United States, a nation of 300 million, 83,425 rapes were reported. In the United States, every 6.2 minutes a woman is raped.” Ofcourse, not all cases of sexual assault are reported in India. So, the statistics may be far more alarming.  The documentary surely hit us where it hurts the hardest; celebrities from across the globe endorsed it. Ms. Udwin had claimed that the documentary was intended as a study: did even a single academician endorse it as a great piece of work on studying the psychology of a (sexual) criminal? None that I came across.

Even as I write this, the most recent incident of the dastardly gang rape of a 72 year old nun occupies the discussion space. More discussions, more candle light demonstrations and more inconclusive debating in the parliament; and, then, we all fall silent. There now seems to be a pattern to our reaction as a society. While in school, I had studied about the brave women of our country – women who strode alongside men, sometimes even leading them – Razia  Sultan, Kittur Rani Channamma, Jhansi ki Rani to name just a few. I don’t know of any other country that could claim the contribution of so many brave women protagonists who scripted the history of the country.

Sadly, as we script a new history, women no longer enjoy that role. And like 600 million others, I am India’s daughter.