India needs a pink revolution to help its women

Whatever may be the verdict on the Delhi gang-rape case, India needs an all out war  to end the social malaises that subjugates and oppresses its women.

Death penalty is justified

By any definition, the brutal manner in which the victim of 16 Delhi gang- rape was tortured and killed by the rapists is a rarest of rare crime. Whatever the court decides on the quantum of punishment either death penalty- which most people demand and is likely- or life imprisonment, it will send a strong signal in the society.

Let’s give the credit where it's due: the trail was carried out quite swiftly, laws have been amended to widen the definition of rape and there is growing public awareness and consensus that violence against women should be dealt with toughness and without mercy. This itself will act as deterrence to some extent.     

The huge outburst of protests following the Delhi rape was lead largely by India’s young and the middle class. The anger of this empowered section matters in India because of their growing influence and role in the society. It’s precisely because of the anger of the civic society, the activism of NGOS and the role of media that the government buckled, and this case was expeditiously carried out without any delay- dallying tactics.

So it's not a question of whether death penalty is going to serve as a deterrence. It is the continuous vigilance of the empowered that will matter. The death penalty is justified in a society like India, which is still evolving and is at crossroads. India cannot overnight arrive at the same notions of justice that developed world practices. India rarely sends people to gallows.  Violence against women is a deeply rooted social malaise that has gone out of control; so to deal with this, draconian measures are the need of time.     

India needs a pink revolution

The verdict in the Delhi gang- rape will be historical, if in the long term, it is seen as the moment that heralded the process to improve the lives of majority of Indian women after centuries of subjugation and oppression, and this is where the real battle lies.

Jason Burke in The Guardian quotes veteran journalist M. J Akbar. He says : “It is a few weeks of outrage against hundreds of years of tradition."

In a vast part of India, women are disadvantaged at birth.  The dowry concerns make them a liability for their parents and women are treated as commodities. This is  a reality that plays into a man’s psyche. Dowry is one of the root causes for much of the evils surrounding a woman’s position in the society.  Since woman is a commodity that is “bought”, it gives a license to a sex starved man to do what he wants to do with her.

 Despite anti-dowry laws, the greed for dowry is so huge even amongst the  ‘modern’,  ‘educated’ boys and their parents that the practice remains rampant.

India needs an all out war against this social malaise that has over the years encouraged child infanticide and feticides to an alarmingly levels in some northern Indian states.

If the government is serious and there are holistic polices aimed at empowering women, the evils of dowry can be eliminated in a generation.  It will require a strong leadership and huge social movement to ensure that every single girl is given education so that they can be financially independent and socially liberated. This will allow them to challenge the notions of patriarchy and male chauvinism in their societies. It is not going to be easy but if every family refuses to give out dowry, things will change.

 Sexuality and the new media

We spoke to school students in an upmarket locality to find out if they are given sex education at school. All of them said ‘no’, and said their the teachers and parents don’t think that it is an appropriate subject to be discussed. Everyone said they rely on the internet to find answers to matters related to sexuality and relationship.

 In India, modernity clashes with traditional values in an environment that is at best hypocritical.  India cinema and media is general is ultra-modern. Glorification of sex in songs and movies are normal, but society refuses to discuss sexuality openly.  

In rural India, the consumption of content that promotes debauchery and glorifies a woman as an object of sex is particularly high. India has what is called ‘B’ grade movies, where sex and extreme violence dominates the content. This plays into men fantasy in a culture where even courting a girl is considered a sin.  The internet and the mobile phones have made it easier to consume such content in privacy.

With lack of even basic education, heavy consumption of such content coupled with alcohol and drugs at the backdrop of strict social barriers, poverty and even abuse can have fallouts. The manner in which the Delhi gang rape victim was raped, mauled and then destroyed speaks volumes about their animalistic tendencies, which could have been influenced by a combination of above-mentioned factors.

Rape and violence against women happens across all sections of society and all over the world. But if girls are raped every twenty minutes, trafficked and sold for marriages and prostitution, killed at birth, exploited, burnt to death for not brining dowry, there is a serious problem in our society that requires immediate attention.

At the very basic level, there is one more thing that government needs to set right. It is to get the basic transport infrastructure and facilities in place. Creating a world -class transport system with trained staff can greatly reduce many sexual crimes in urban areas.