Stricter laws and fast-track courts are need to ensure that every woman gets justice and does not live in fear.
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I was in middle school when the bone-chilling Delhi rape and murder happened. I have a vivid memory of looking at the TV screen, having no clue what the news was about. But the younger me could still understand that something terrible had happened to a girl, in the national capital. News channels called her “India’s daughter” and named her “Nirbhaya”, meaning fearless. I remember asking my parents what it all meant and sensing an air of fear and anxiety in my home, as they tried to explain it to me. Looking back, I now know where that fear was stemming from.
Even a decade later, nothing has changed for the women of this country. The fear, the anxiety, the stress, and the need to be conscious at all times, have only increased manifold over the years. The recent Kolkata rape case has, once again, brought the nation together, for yet another of “India’s daughters”. This is not the first case in a long time. In fact, this is one among the 3.5 rape cases that must have been registered in our country in the hour she was raped and killed. According to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau in 2022, 90 cases of rape are reported every day in India. How many go unreported, one wonders.
An on-duty doctor from Kolkata, a three-year-old girl from Mumbai, a young woman returning home in Bangalore, a nurse on duty in Rudrapur, and a four-year-old Dalit girl from Muzaffarpur, what connects them all? It is nothing but the fact that they are some of the many women who became “India’s daughters” in the past few days. Every once in a while, one such incident shakes the nation’s conscience. An uproar follows. The public will post, protest, express outrage, and even name and number the victims as #Nirbhaya 2, 3, 4 and so on. The cycle continues.
On that wretched night in 2012, I am certain that the victim was not fearless. She was not Nirbhaya. She must have been frightened to her core. Her mind would have been frozen because of fear. But she was indeed a fighter, one who gave us the hope that something would change for the women of this country. We failed her but. And we failed every woman who thought the 2012 crime would be the last of it. As a woman, I am not Nirbhaya. I am scared when I go out, even if it is not dark yet. I shrink to the corner when a stranger enters the lift. I become conscious every time the autorickshaw or cab driver adjusts the rear-view mirror. I pretend to be on call when I see someone walk behind me. I panic when my friends are not back at the hostel in time or I do not get a text that they had reached their destination safely. Most women are likewise scared. Women have learnt the hard way that they are not safe anywhere — their workplace, school, market, public transport, footpath or even within their homes.
Over the past few weeks, every night, I am grateful that I and every woman I know is safe and has not been yet declared another of “India’s daughters”. But even in that brief moment, I know that some of them might have been ogled at, touched inappropriately or verbally harassed. Even after 76 years of Independence, women are bound in shackles and still strive for a world “Where the mind is without fear and head is held high”.
It is time we as a society took responsibility for not just drilling safety measures and appropriate behaviour into girls’ minds, but teach boys to behave as humans. Sex education, discussions around consent and boundaries, and education about good and bad touch should begin from a very young age. We, as a nation, need stricter laws and fast-track courts to ensure that every woman gets justice and does not live in fear. The onus of the crimes against women should not lie on the victim but on the perpetrators. We need to step up and create a safe society. The change needs to begin with educating men so that we do not have another woman numbered as #Nirbhaya.
angel_sharons@outlook.com
Published – September 22, 2024 01:15 am IST
