Will the Real Men Stand Up, Please?

The last few months have brought to focus a few social aspects that India could well do without - the Gharwapsi, the Dadri lynching, the lack of tolerance towards dissent, public discourses on the country’s pluralism being threatened and the continuing gang-rapes of women, children and babies. And when the conversations among friends have even the slightest overtones of being communal, it is a strong signal that we need a course correction, pronto. 

As India celebrates Navratri, a festival spanning nine nights in honour of Goddess Durga, it comes as an irony that the news-headlines speak of the rapes of a two year old baby, a five year old girl and the gang-rape of a woman. One need not even have to take a closer look to see the plight of the feminine gender of the human species in India - female foeticide and infanticide as a result of the (mis)placed desire for the male child, a skewed sex ratio, child marriages, higher drop-out of girls from schools, social discrimination…The list seems almost endless!

If a man thinks that his strength lies in his brute force against a women, he must be made to wonder at the strength a woman displays in enduring the pain of childbirth; if a man sees the love and affection of a woman as her vulnerability and tries to take advantage of it, he must be made to realise that it is that aspect of a woman that is the peace-factor in a society; if a man believes that he is all important to the species, he must be made aware that he exists because of the (much)more important woman; and if a man believes that he can do away with the woman entirely, he must be educated on the necessity of the woman to perpetuate his kind. (Interestingly, it isn’t the same the other way round!)

When I wrote the post I am India’s Daughter, I spoke of the many good men who far out-number the ones who malign their kind. I still stand by that. It is because of these very men, that the woman still sees a light at the end of the tunnel, a hope that her rights and dignity as a human being will be upheld, respected and protected. 

Every man who seeks the blessings of the Goddess in this period of festivity must take a pledge to create a safer space in society for her kind on Earth. For, these are not just women’s issues; they are, infact, more about the men.