A Country Full Of Funny People

The Desensitization Of A Nation.

There are many kinds of people in this forlorn world of ours, the first and the foremost being men and women. While that may seem as a very loose classification, it manages to serve the purpose. We come across strangers every day and yet none of us cares enough to give them a second glance. And why should we? Why should we care who we walk by, or who we bump into in a busy street? Our lives revolve around our work, our home, our family. We don’t have time to pause and greet everybody who comes by. What difference do they make in our lives? What difference does it make if a girl is molested in an open street? How does it affect us? It doesn’t stop us from sleeping. It doesn’t stop us from eating. It does nothing except for occupying a small portion of the National daily. Sure we go “tch- tch” and then shake our head a bit in shame, but sooner or later we all go back to our materialistic lives. How else are we supposed to survive?

This dearly beloved nation of ours has sunk into levels of degradation unheard of earlier. Men and women preach “equality among the sexes” and “magnified ideals of liberalism” but fall short in reality. Of course, this piece may not even prick that inflated sense of realism we have managed to boost over the years. How can one article affect centuries of reinforcement? It would be foolish even to assume that.

All this may seem a little presumptuous coming from a seventeen year old. But seventeen’s only so far from seventy. Forgive my poor trysts with humour; I only aim to please, which in my opinion would not be so difficult if my readers, if any, were not so highly opinionated. You see the problem is that the, dare I say, “senior citizens” of our country are either plagued with dementia or involved in national politics, which leaves people like me to deal with “trivial” matters such as the G.S. road molestation case.

One, of course, might argue that appropriate action has been taken against the accused. However, you see the problem stems from a much deeper cause: the generous infusion of hypocrisy in Indian traditions. To throw some light on this “outrageous” statement, let’s, for instance, bear under scrutiny the statement of Madhya Pradesh Industries Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya: “Women should dress in such a way that they invoke respect in others. However, unfortunately women are dressing provocatively, which is leading to deviation in society.” This came days after Mamata Sharma, Chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW), drew heavy criticism for her remarks on “appropriate dress code for women”. It seems I was under the illusion that the dark ages were over. Gender discrimination, in my opinion, has always been India’s distinctive trait and anyone who says otherwise are deluded individuals. Where else do we get to witness such a stark contrast between theory and practice?

We, the liberated individuals of a sovereign nation, shout out slogans for the emancipation of women, establish committees which work towards the development of women in rural areas and yet here we are reeling in the shock of another crime committed towards another woman. I have read articles in the national daily by common citizens who write in condolence to the July 9 victim and there is only one question which plagues my mind: How much longer till another such crime is committed?

We need to usher in a new era which involves this country’s citizens being educated to achieve a global outlook and not be limited to a regional approach, where men accord the respect due to women, where the youth takes an active interest in the political affairs of the country and strive for political education to spread not only among the elite, social or otherwise, but also the depressed strata of society. Only then can we hope to achieve any semblance of a truly sovereign, democratic country. As one rightly puts it: “Dignity lies in rising up from the ashes and not lying stagnant in the muddled state we are in at the present moment.”