It’s been two weeks since the trauma began. Two weeks since
6 ravenous beasts succeeded in traumatizing an innocent victim, and the entire
nation, with a shocking act of rape and murder. The Delhi gang-rape incident
was like a hot iron poker stirring up the embers of our slumbering conscience.
While psychological experts work towards pinning down why this specific
incident has caused repercussions of this scale, the rest of us are either out
on the streets with cardboard placards or sitting at home venting on the
keyboard. The anger that’s been brewing ever since that fateful night on
December the 16th, has been bellowing for blood. Seething with rage
at the events unfolding in the capital, hordes of protesters shake down the
Parliament with their demands for the Death Penalty, Castration and all other
forms of torture that can satiate the blood lust evoked by the crime. People
want justice, and though they are justified in their sentiments, there’s more
to the solution than just the death of the criminals.
After two weeks of watching a protest building momentum,
like an inferno garnering more and more tinder, the nation seems to be
approaching a consensus on WHERE the haunting issue takes root – in the filthy
dregs of the human mind. For no matter how many policemen we dispatch into the
night, how many women we arm with pepper-spray and tasers, no matter how many
guilty necks hang, if we cannot uproot this weed from within our minds, the
toll of human rights violation in our country will simply grow. Yes, Human
Rights. Not just women’s rights or men’s rights, but Human Rights. This is an
opportunity for us as a nation to take these issues off of the backburner and
address them alongside that of the safety of women in India.
As a result of this awareness, a growing number of people
are seeking answers on how to cure this malignancy within us. Everybody’s saying
“The society must reform! We must change our mindsets!” Anybody care to explain
how? Christopher Nolan’s Inception seems like a surreal idea, but let’s face it
– no extraordinarily simple methods are showing up anytime soon. We have to
affect Thought, affect how people think, how they perceive those around them.
This sort of a social renovation has to be implemented at different facets of
our existence – at home, at work, and at school.
Being a student, I’ve been storming my brain, trying to
figure out what I can do to make a dent on this ballooning wart of Injustice.
Discussions were being held hither and thither, opinions hurtled back and
forth, and a line of thought emerged – why isn’t the Educational Department of
our government being held at sword-point and questioned on how it’s going to
tackle the implementation of this Change. Education has been heralded as the
light that can overcome even the murkiest darkness, so why can’t we employ that
here? School is where we develop a social identity – it’s where we learn
People, learn how to deal with People. Sure we get the basics from home, but
school is where we employ them first. It then becomes the responsibility of the
Ministry of Education to include Human Rights, Gender Sensitivity in the
curriculum.
Mutual respect and equality are cornerstones that have to be
set in each young mind to ensure that the change we want seen in society,
actually happens. The whole nation’s in an outcry against women being
objectified and being sexually targeted. I’m asking the government to employ
new standards in education that remove the tag of taboo from many sensitive
issues and help the students address them in order to understand them. Whilst
the educational institutions of our country are busy manufacturing intelligent,
work-crazy professionals, the humane thread seems to be chopped out of their
DNA. The prime responsibility of the Ministry of Education ought to be to
ensure that these people come out as good human beings more than anything else.
Students must not just be equipped with the specific skills and knowledge to
earn lots of dough, live splendid lives but also be provided with the knowledge
to be sensitive, value-based, moral, and humane.
A mandatory programme should be implemented in all schools,
both private and government-run, that focuses on the rights of Women and
Children, and gender sensitivity. It shouldn’t be one of those sessions where
the boys are sent out to play, and the girls sit in on a “special session”
where they’re lectured on how NOT to be raped. It’s not the women who rape,
it’s the men that commit this heinous act. This programme should be aimed at
both boys and girls, freeing the female mind of the fear that stifles her
voice, and awakening the male mind to its responsibility towards protecting the
more vulnerable sex. Young boys grow up with the belief that women are objects
to be tampered with, sources of entertainment, a grade of people below Men. This deep-rooted bug has to be exterminated.
Encourage the girls to be more outspoken, teach the boys to be gentlemanly. The
school must succeed in helping the students evolve a sense of comraderie
amongst them that rises from a mutual understanding and respect for one
another. To create such a programme, the Ministry ought to consult specialists
– psychologists, sociologists and the likes – people who can give clear
guidelines on how to go about this job.
The youth are a volatile group and to mould them, to ensure
that they hop on the right track, teachers and parents must play a vital role.
At home, preferential treatment of a boy sets the tone for male dominance and
female suppression in his mind. Treat all children equally, and make them aware
that they are equal. A brother raised to look out for his sisters, cousins and
mother will go on to do the same towards all women in his life. Teachers,
instead of raising eyebrows and pointing accusatory fingers, should understand
the troubled young minds and set out to help them figure themselves out. .
Dictating them to maintain one-arm distance and no verbal interaction is paving
the way for them to look at each other as alien sects. It is the teachers’s
responsibility to create an atmosphere where boys and girls can be comfortable
in each other’s presence; where they can befriend each other and learn not to
take advantage of the trust they place in each other. This isn’t the case all
across the nation. The Ministry of Education has to set out on an arduous task
of breaking the current mindset and introducing a new one in its stead.
It’s not an easy job; no one said it would be. But it has to
be done, for only then can we claim to be on the path to development. Only then
can women venture out on their own and claim their place in the world.
Introducing more stringent laws and enforcing more policing are measures that
can cure the symptoms of the plague that has infected the Indian mind. I’m
asking the Government, the Ministry of Education, to prescribe an antibiotic.
In its absence, faith in the democratic government of India will crumble and we
will witness a nation-wide agitation. I endear the politicians and law-makers
to take fast, steady steps to affirm the position of women as safe, respected
individuals in the society. To curb the inflammation that we witness today, we
must take the antibiotic.
I am a girl, and I dare to believe that we can change. I
dare to believe that one day, I can walk down the lanes knowing I won’t be
pounced upon – not just because the streets will be well-lit, and uniformed men
are holding night-long vigils, but because I will know that as a girl, I am
respected and understood.
