I don’t know her. But she could easily be my sister, mother, aunt, daughter or niece. She could even be one of my dearest female friends – those soul sisters who uplift my spirit every time I feel low – or she could simply be a stranger on the street, one I unknowingly brush against when I go about shopping or traveling.
Most of all, SHE could be ME because she’s a WOMAN and today I applaud her for doing what she did – for severing the genitals of a man who was not really a MAN. In fact, he was a very sorry excuse for a man so the loss of his ‘manhood’ evokes no sympathy in me.
I reserve all my sympathy for HER.
As I read in the news about this 23-year-old girl’s brave act and watched that monster on TV lying on a hospital bed, I cannot begin to imagine the agony she must have gone through suffering at the hands of this caricature of a human being – one who so successfully hid under the guise of a saint.
Rapists like these, know they are safer than their victims. The law enforcers have ‘more pressing problems’ to attend to and they have failed miserably over the years to punish these culprits, making the perpetrators more and more emboldened. According to the National Crime Records Bureau in India, rapes have gone up ten-fold in the last forty years. The punishment sadly does not fit the crime and the fast track courts are a joke as the numbers keep rising day by day.
Two horrific rapes have been in the news just last week. One, that of a 23-year-old girl who was gang-raped in Rohtak by four men, one of whom was known to her. Her mother had earlier alerted authorities about one of the accused but no action was taken. The girl’s skull was brutally crushed when she threatened to complain about the rape.
This was followed by the rape of a 22-year-old girl from Sikkim who was raped in a moving car in Haryana and thrown out of the vehicle when the rapists were done with her.
Can you imagine the fear that assails the women on the street today? The helplessness and the lack of confidence in a judicial system that continues to fail them?
It does not take rocket science to figure out, that the ‘brave act’ of this girl must have actually been an act of desperation – one that was based on the sure knowledge that she could not depend on anyone to help her – not her parents, not her friends and certainly not the government.
Yes, how could she depend on a justice system that took almost five years to uphold the death penalty for Nirbhaya’s rapists? If Jyoti Singh had not succumbed to her injuries – changing the trial to one of murder – would the rapists not have gone free after a few years in jail? Like so many before them? Remember Aruna Shanbaug who lived in a vegetative state and finally died after being sexually abused by Sohan Lal who walked free after only 7 years in prison? Or Bilkis Bano who had to be satisfied with life imprisonment for her rapists after 15 long years of court conflict?
How could this girl bank on a judicial system that allowed one of Nirbhaya’s rapists to be tried in a Juvenile Court because he was not ‘old enough’ to be punished, even though he was old enough to brutally rape her? And who is even now roaming free, his eyes perhaps stalking out a new victim?
She was absolutely right to NOT expect hope from a system that has let thousands of Nirbhaya’s down. I can picture a whole sisterhood of victims cheering for her, including all those nameless women whose voices have been muffled by a society that heaps undeserved shame on their heads – for sexual abuses committed by seemingly human monsters, in streets, homes and even corporate corridors.
Opposing an anti-rape law that called for the death penalty, Indian politician Mulayam Singh Yadav once said on National TV – “Boys will be boys. Will you hang them for rape?” and “Men make mistakes. Should you hang them?”
I suppose Mr. Yadav should have no objection to the punishment meted out by this girl to her rapist now. After all, he was not hanged.
While I mentally pin that badge of courage on this brave girl, I pin one of hope on myself and I know countless women in India will do the same.
Today, the swami’s genitals have been severed by one woman, but the message has gone out collectively from all women – and it has struck the perpetrator where it hurts the most.
So be it.
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