An Open Letter to All

Dear all,

I am indeed very glad to witness your protests for rape cases , your speeches , debates and discussions on women empowerment and your promises to safeguard women in the country . I am grateful to you but I would have never preferred you to take the pain of coming to the streets and protesting or  holding large scale campaigns . Why not start by fixing up your own funny little grey cells !!

If you think rape , molestation and sexual harassment are the only problems that women face then I would like to turn your attention to many other  things that make us feel suffocated and doomed wherever we go .

Since my childhood I have always been told by you to learn household work along with my studies while my brother never bothered to see if anything else existed apart from his school , friends and cricket . When you are nurtured  a sense of patriarchy in him since childhood how did you expect him to respect his wife later in his life . He would do anything he liked and  you would ask me to behave like a “girl” .

” Don’t play with boys don’t hang out with your male friends , don’t speak in loud voice , don’t answer back !! ”

Why ?  Why shouldn’t I speak ?

Are you afraid that I will eventually blurt out all those stupid things I m subjected to  ?

Why do I have to prove myself when I want to pursue a course of my choice when my brother is provided with all the facilities he never asked for ?

Why do you limit your daughter to all those “girly” things when she wants to go out into the world and live freely?

When it comes to marriage why am I asked  “Arey , aapki shaadi nhi Hui ab tak ” whereas he is asked ” Aapne shaadi nhi Kari ab tak ” .

Why does marriage become a compulsion for me and a choice for him ?  Why is it always the boy has the right to reject the girl whereas a girl doing so would be considered inappropriate ? I don’t even understand that why does a thing like “character” or the much hyped “charitra” exists for a girl but not for boys . A boy with many girls will be a Casanova but the girl doing so is considered a slut .

At my workplace also why am the target of all your lewd jokes ? I have to bear your awful gaze and stupid comments every time . Getting a promotion would also put my so called “character” into question .

I m expected to be a good employee and an excellent housewife as well . I am alone supposed to be looking after everything in house in spite of being as fatigued as my spouse . But no …..you think it is only the men who have office issues whereas doing household work is my duty . Why don’t you see that you are also provided with the same number of pair of limbs as me ? Why can’t you work ?

Worst of all , it is considered decent to bear all the repression inflicted on me and I m expected to be mute to all the nonsense happening around me .

Do you even realise how suffocating it is ?

Sometimes I feel like fleeing but I know that wherever I go I will eventually fall into the clutches of this monster of patriarchy .

Why am I so disillusioned ?

Ladies please don’t think you are on the side of the angels here . Don’t forget you are one’s teaching your daughter to be “decent” and letting your sons do whatever they like . Laughing off their mistakes whereas punishing your daughters for the same . You are first one’s to question a woman’s character . You bear all the torture your husband inflicts on you and expect other women to do the same . You let patriarchy thrive and that’s why it comes to haunt you everywhere .

Protests, debates and discussions are not what is important . I want to see the practical implications of all that you speak of . A change in the government or some law is not what is important . Make a change in your perspective. Be the change yourself . If that happens these mass protests and campaigns won’t even be required and it then that a woman in our country will be respected in true sense .

Yours ,
A woman

Politics at its pristine best!

Never had we ever in our lives heard of ministers working day and night in this 2.4-7 degree winter season, that too, for the betterment of the masses .A “politician”, the word which had become malign due to the actions of our previous holders of this name, now seems to have regained its lost ground, the pristineness with which it was brought up in its young days, just to infuse this sense of philanthropic cum socialist behavior with which AAP looks at it and approaches it. Overtly speaking, visiting night shelters of Delhi at 10.30 pm and visiting all of those in areas like Mongolpuri, ChandniChowk, Rajouri Garden, etc till 4am was never a politician’s cup of tea but Manish Sisodiya and Rakhi Birla made it a living dream for the entire public to be proud of their choice to have selected such “Politicians”, the Sewaks in the true spirit.

Their persistent effort is also visible from the appointment of 200 volunteers who would assess different schools on the basis of parameters like teacher per student
ratio,absenteeism,infrastructure,class size,etc. ,the report of which shall be submitted 2 weeks from now.Even, the Jal Board has started regulations on tanker services of water supplied to all the localities in the city and they have been given authorized to take legal action against those found guilty or not conducting their jobs properly or misbehaving with the Aam Aadmi.

My view to this entire changing scenario is that “Aam Aadmi sota hua sher hai.kabhi uski naak mein ungli mat karna.kyunki jab who jagta hai ,toh woh bade badon ki chhuti kar deta hai”.(The common man of this country is a sleeping lion.don’t try to pour your finger into his nose.you are bound to suffer!).Rest is up to you to decide: are you the sleeping beauty of this generation or the woken up thunderous storm of the cause?

IPC 377

Section 377 of Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes sexual intercourse in Indian made a buzz again. This section was declared unconstitutional and decriminalized sex between consenting lesbians and gays by Delhi High Court on 24th July 2009. That judgement was overruled by the Supreme Court of India. And it advocated that the amendment of constitution is a matter of parliament and not of Judiciary.  Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man or women or animal shall be sue under law with life imprisonment or for a term of ten years and also be liable to fine. This verdict has met support of religious leaders but made human right and gay right activists angry.

Religious leaders and people against homo sexuality were unanimously agreed t the verdict of Supreme Court. They asserted that the concept of homo sexuality is against Indian culture, science and nature. And one of them argued that he can cure this tendency with yoga.  People cannot consider themselves to be exclusive of society. They also put forward questions of reproduction and future generation. These same sex couples’ successors will grow up with a skewed vision of life, family and ethics.

The civil liberty unions and gay sex activists made counter arguments also.  To them the verdict is barbaric, medieval and homophobic religious attitude.  When we talk about LGBT issues, we should not confined to the sexual matters, but we  have to keep an open eye  on larger implications of basic, civil, political and socio-economic rights. By this verdict the constitution itself brands its citizen as criminals. This may cause a social exclusion of LGBT
community from mainstream. These people are not demanding for anything additional to the rights that the rests are enjoying.

Though there is notions about health and HIV and consider it as a conflict between the cosmos of material success and that of values, we cannot simply deny the fact that the gays and lesbians exist around us and no legislation would be able to change their sexual orientation weather it is inborn trait or matter of choice.

The Anniversary

December 16, 2012
Does this date reminds you of something? I’m sure it does. There’s not a single soul in this country who can afford to forget that brutal and fateful night. It was this very date, a year before when a young girl was mauled by six beasts and was left to die on the streets of Delhi.
This incident shook the whole nation deeply. The outburst of the citizens was sudden and huge and triggered something totally unprecedented. Thousands of people came out on the streets to protest, which went on for days and paralysed the capital. All this jolted the judicial system and forced a rethink. And the fact that things have changed a lot in the last year cannot be denied. The law has been amended to change the definition of rape and the provision for punishment has been made extremely stringent. A tough new law now holds the cops directly accountable, with refusal to lodge a case inviting a two-year jail sentence. This in turn has led to the reporting and registration of more and more cases. All these are very welcome steps but I ask is that all? Is that all we need to do to ensure the safety of women in the largest democracy of the world?

I don’t think so. Making a law in itself is not enough; it is its implementation that matters. The rape cases have seen a jump of 125% and Molestation cases are up by 417%. Now tell me, has anything changed? There’s still a lot that needs to be done. Women are still being ogled at, they are still seen as objects in this male dominated society, they are still being raped and still being molested. More fast-track courts are needed to deal swiftly with sex crimes; the police force needs to become more vigilant and empathetic towards complaints from women victims. A lot needs to be done for the care and rehabilitation of rape victims to help them combat the social stigma that they have to face in most of the cases. The trauma of a rape victim doesn’t end with the crime, they need counselling to move on in life. These are some of the steps which still need to be put into force to ensure a positive change. And most of all it is the predominant patriarchal mindset of the society that needs to be changed.
On this first anniversary of the heinous crime that took place that December night, let us all pledge to do our bit to bring about a change, a revolution and ensure that no other Nirbhaya or Damini will have to go through something like this, ever again.

Modus Operandi

A verdict of Ahmedabad court and a statement by BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi followed by it made a buzz in recent political scenario. Mr. Modi published a blog post invites vocal uproars. It was after 11 years became vocal prior to the victims. These eleven years in sot a short time, and 2002 massacre is not dissolved into history. for the last eleven years it was alive and it got new dimensions when BJP announced Modi as their Prime Ministerial Candidate for 2014 elections. Recently Mr Modi has been acquitted by Ahmedabad court from the charges of a massacre held in Gujarat during 2002.

Prima facie Modi was suspected in this case. But the investigating agencies were ‘failed’ to produce evidences against him in court. It might be legally correct. But there is a larger implication of Social correctness. Many former bureaucrats and high level official who worked under Modi like Sanjiv Bhatt and Sharma are still vocal bout Modi’s involvement in the riot. According to Sanjiv Bhatt, ‘the SIT has done as much harm to this country’s ethos as those lying politicians and those blood-thirsty mobs which ran riot in those dark days. What misfortune that we had to expect anything half-way good to emerge out of their investigations. It’s a grave, dastardly fraud perpetuated upon us by the same inhuman system that failed to deliver justice during the ’84 riots, the 92-93 riots and the terrible Bhopal Gas tragedy!’

A mere confession like statement is not at all a closure to the issue until the justice delivered. Though I am not a linguistic, the tongue that Modi used in his statement is not appropriate for a confession which suppose to address the survivors and nation. Literately the statement did not serve anything to justice. But it reflects an eye towards Delhi. By this strategy BJP can pull a minority in Muslim community into chaos and can make them not to vote against him. But it will not happen in a larger level.

There can be no closure to 2002 without Justice and Reparation; and there can be no Justice and Reparation without Truth and Genuine Remorse.

Rise and fall

As a society it is important to revisit the tragic events of history so that we are able to see things in the present times with objectivity and not let history repeat itself

History tells us that the subjective perceptions of large groups of humans have been massively exploited by political opportunists. By the time the truth emerges, it already becomes a dark chapter in the history of mankind. Winston Churchill rightly said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

As a society it is important to revisit the tragic events of history so that we are able to see things in the present times with objectivity and not let history repeat itself.

Adolf Hitler was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. He founded Nazism and started World War II and the Holocaust. Hitler joined the German Workers’ Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of NSDAP in 1921. Hitler was responsible for the death of an estimated 21 million civilians and prisoners of war. In addition, 29 million soldiers were killed in the European theatre by systematically putting fear in the minds of the majority population against the Jews. His brand of German nationalism saw unprecedented support.

Hitler’s foreign and domestic policies had the goal of seizing living space for the Germanic people. He motivated invasion of Poland in September 1939, resulting in the outbreak of World War II. Under Hitler’s rule, in 1941 German forces and their European allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa. In 1945 the Allied armies invaded Germany. Hitler’s supremacist and racially motivated policies resulted in the systematic murder of 11 million people of his own country, including an estimated six million Jews.

In the final days of the war, 0n April 30, 1945, Hitler committed suicide to avoid capture by the Red Army. Hitler’s oratory earned him DAP’s membership in September 1920. DAP soon became NSDAP. By 1921, Hitler gained notoriety for his effective speaking ability to large audiences. He gave rowdy, polemic speeches. Historians have noted the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences. Kessel writes, “Germans speak with mystification of Hitler’s hypnotic appeal. Hitler is said to have mesmerised the nation, captured them in a trance from which they could not break loose.”

Alfons Heck, a former member of Hitler Youth, described: “We erupted into a frenzy of nationalistic pride that bordered on hysteria. For minutes on end, we shouted at the top of our lungs, with tears streaming down our faces: Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil! From that moment on, I belonged to Adolf Hitler body and soul.”

The effect of great depression of 1929 in Germany was catastrophic. Hitler exploited this by targeting his political messages specifically at people who had been affected by its effect, such as farmers, war veterans, and the middle class.

On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. He blamed the communist. At Hitler’s urging, Hindenburg suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial. Activities of the German Communist Party were suppressed, and some 4,000 communist party members were arrested. Historians found that the Hitler’s party itself was responsible for starting the fire.

In 1934, Hitler became Germany’s head of state with the title ‘leader and chancellor of the Reich’. Within months, the other parties were disbanded. A number of Hitler’s political enemies, even from his own party were executed. While the international community and some Germans were shocked by the murders, many in Germany saw Hitler as restoring order.

Hitler oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement campaigns in German history, leading to the construction of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works. He sponsored architecture on an immense scale. In 1936 Hitler opened the summer Olympic games in Berlin. Hitler was Time magazine’s Man of the Year for 1938. It may be significant to state here that Hitler was on the cover of Time for as many as seven times: in 1931, 1933, 1936, 1938, 1941 and 1945. The May 7, 1945 issue came out after the discovery of Hitler’s body on May 2 with the iconic cross on his face. A war memorial at Hitler’s birth place there is a stone with inscription: “For peace, freedom and democracy, never again fascism, millions of dead remind us.”

It is fascinating to know Hitler’s personal choices. Hitler wore designer clothes. He loved to be filmed and photographed. Hitler followed a vegetarian diet. He despised alcohol and was a non-smoker. He promoted aggressive anti-tobacco campaigns throughout Germany. To the public, Hitler promoted his own image as that of a celibate man without a domestic life, dedicated entirely to his political mission and the nation through documentaries.

Unknown Dalits

Karukkakkuruchi, a small village near to Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu is now known for a news of commiseration that made in this New Year night. A group of Dalit villagers were brutally beaten up by the so called ‘upper class’ men at the very chilled night of New Year. These dalits were warned not to conduct new year celebrations. Men with arms were attacked them allegedly the dalits violated their ‘warning’.

It not novel that Dalits are considering as second citizens in India, the largest democratic country in the world. It is literarily pathetic that they are facing apartheid in these days while we are celebrating Madiba. In December 2012, European Union has passed a resolution to arrest  casteism, asserted that it is diablotic the status of dalits in India.  They exemplified some incidents such as a consecutive dalit rapes in Hariyana and firing of dalit habitats in Tamilnadu etc. Former chief Justice of India Altamas Kabeer has opinioned that the media and civil society is cruelly indifferent to the atrocities against dalit groups. They are very vocal against rapes and murder of upper class people but used to keep mum towards issues concerning Dalit community. Channels and News rooms alloted more time and space for ‘Nirbhaya’, they skillfully ignored the story of  a ten year old Dalit girl, who has been brutally gang raped and burned to death in the very same day the Nirbhaya episode taken place. We have no answer for an Australian journalist, who asked why there is no dalits in decision making positions of any media house. There was no editorial remembering Dr. Ambedkar in his birth Anniversaries.  Government of India routinely did its duty by publishing ad in  memory of him in newspapers. All else was nothing. It is high to press an unlike button to the anti-dalit pro brahmanical attitude of institutions despite of private or public.

Once Dalits were victims of feudal Zamindari system, now they are that of feudocracy, extreme upper class hinduism and state terrorism. Dalits were inhumanly more treated by extreme hindu groups, that their ideology itself inculcate the notions of ‘chathurvarnya’. An incident happened in Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu, which caused alienation of 2000 dalits was a perfect example for this. During this incident the thugs were intentionally destroyed legal documents such as educational certificates, ration cards, possession documents even laptops etc, that will eventually alienate dalits from social arena. It is something socially incorrect that the government machineries also affected by Bharahmanical  notions. Government, especially its executive machineries wickedly coined a term as ‘Dalit terrorism’ and brought all collective uprisings of the community under the shadow of something disastrous. There is no special court for any Dalit issues. What draws a recent verdict by Patna court that acquitted 23 upper class men who brutally butchered 21 dalits?

Dalits are inevitable vote bank for each mainstream political movements and their attitude towards the community was like a patron to look after. They themselves made a political movement under Kanshiram as Bahujan Samajwadi Party, which politically recognised and accented to thrown. But they were remained as socially alienated. Though this conditions  remain still unchanged, dalits themselves assert that “do not try to be our fathers”. In this juncture we can hope there will be a ‘democratic’ India that treats equally its citizens. But still many ideals remains as utopia.