10/08/2024
This page is my happy space…However, I do not feel happy today as the news about a young female doctor being sexually assaulted and murdered in Kolkatta medical college circulates. This news has shook me so much. To me this news is not only about crime against a woman doctor, it is against humanity. It is not a woman who’s dignity has been violated, it is the society itself who has been ripped open and exposed violently and inhumanly.
There are so many more examples in just last two weeks that could be added to the list that exposes how corroded and vulgar a section of our society is, especially, when it feels it is protected by the anonymity of the social media.
A martyr’s wife is talked about in vulgar and degraded manner, a female athlete, an olympic champion who brought laurels to the country and won 2 bronze medals is being commented about how she looks and talks rather than what she has achieved is yet another example of objectifying women.
From a female influencer being whistled at, and eve teased by a bunch of teenagers somewhere in Bihar, to mob harrasement of a woman pillion with her husband in Lucknow, to a early morning woman walker being groped from back whilst she waited in the morning light in Bangalore, to a priest and accomplice ra**ng a women who was looking for some respite from domestic violence in Maharashtra, to a girl being drugged and sexually assaulted by her long time friend and accomplice in Hyderabad, to a young doctor who had a life ahead of her being brutally inhumanly assaulted and murdered in a state run medical college in Kolkatta. The news of these incidents have not stopped pouring in last 2 weeks!
And, shamefully, these are not few incidences here and there. I am not incorrect if I say that every 1 out of 2 women/ girl in our country is misbehaved/eve teased/ groped.
Our heart is bleeding. I do not feel safe, I do not see my daughters safe. This in the land where a woman is prayed as a goddess and Shakti.
And, the most disturbing part is how in society many would respond. It would be advocating tying women down, advocating chaperone for them, blaming them for being not alert enough, or being out at night, or not allowing them to move out and about. Or how some would turn this into an anti nationalist write up, or pounce on some propaganda or other.
When what we really need is to not laugh off even the minor of crimes and very strict rapid action, security for women. To not blame woman ,not dehumanize her, not villianise her, not invalidate or sabotage her.
And, really, the women we are talking about here or have been victims in the past or now are mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, friends, colleagues.
Let me be bold enough to request each one of you including male and female to
just ask one random female within your family or friend group - how many times they have faced harassment of some form or other BECAUSE she is a woman/ girl. (and the question is not if they have faced) but how many times they have faced.
And, you see the truth as it is.
I have no words. I feel deeply hurt as so many of us here and across the country, as a doctor, as a woman, as a citizen of this country, as a human.
I do not wish to be ashamed of being an Indian. But, right now, that’s exactly how I feel. I feel ashamed, and hurt, and deeply saddened. And, angry. So very angry.
May justice be served soon.
🙏
