1. The prime accused in the brutal Delhi gang rape gets only
a three* year sentence in a juvenile home. Sure the law states that as the
toughest punishment for a minor, but is our law so rigid that it cannot see
right from wrong? How can a person violate another someone so brutally and yet
get away with it without having serious reverberating repercussions? Do people
actually believe that he did not know what he was doing? Did he not hear the
girls plea to stop or had he knocked her out cold? Was he still a child when he
did all that?
I hope our country can wake up to these answers some day.
Until then, I pray that some form of justice take form. If not at a legal
level, then perhaps at the level which humans can’t comprehend the cosmos.
*Might I add, it’s
actually 3 years less 8 months he has already spent in custody during the
inquiry. Really, are there any more loopholes we can find?
2. When a major politician asked the men of the country to
own up today, and declared that they must ensure safety of women in the country
– instead of being lauded, a prominent media channel, declared him as
“patriarchal”. How very unfortunate.
When the country is full of politicians asking women to stay at
home at night, and not wearing “provocative” clothes, or doing pretty much
anything that can be deemed suggestive by men (exist even?), when someone comes
along chastising the wrongdoer, that should be appreciated, not called
patriarchal.
Shame on us.
3. Today when the rupee has slid to apocalyptic lows against
the dollar/euro and as inflation on all counts bites all around, the public
morale is down. This economic downturn, when the rest of the world picks up
pace post recession, interspersed with repeated social disgrace – a prominent
man of God sexually assaulting a teenager (allegedly), rapes in Mumbai and
Noida, has left the nation down on
its knees. It is now we need a leader who can bring our diverse interests
together, and channel this anger and frustration for the better. Motivate,
Inspire, lead. Alas, we are yet to see a charisma. The void on this front,
makes the unity of our nation, our resolve, shake with trepidation every time a
crisis comes to fray.
4. This last one I add just because it’s a reason to mourn
everyday and not just today.
How many times have you seen a fellow Indian while traveling
outside the country and skirted your eyes away? How many times has that been
done to you?
What about fairness creams? Indians are so hung up on being
“white” that they forget what they were intended to look like? Could this be
termed as a colonial hangover? Maybe. Could this be a symptom of an inferiority
complex? Certainly.
I am not sure I can say that many of us are proud to be
Indians. How could we be? If brain drain was a signal, we like to flee at the
earliest opportunity. College if we are lucky or if we work hard enough - on a
project to America! And woe is upon him, he who considers returning to the land
mired in bureaucracy, social politics and strife.
For a country so rich in diversity – from food to languages,
music and dance to topography, religions to rituals, don’t we have enough to be
proud of? Yet, we of the castes, and states, and religions and political
affiliations, we shun the “other” in lieu of the one who “belongs”. Examples
through time resonate well with this theme – the divide between the cultures of
North and South India, you’d think that they were two disparate nations being
something I have experienced personally. Caste segregation also adds to this
potpourri of nonsense, but you all know what I am talking about. Look no
further than the classified pages of the matrimonial section so neatly divided
by castes/religion. Yes, we let all of this flourish, us the educated, IIT
schooled, IIM-ed, MNC working, Five-star dining, air conditioned living, smart
phone wielding, alcohol consuming, western ethos embracing individuals.
When do we grow up and learn, that we need to be proud of
our country? Not the pride that spills into arrogance. But the pride that comes
from bridging the crippling divides between the rich and the not, the Brahmins
and the Shudras, the Punjabis and the Tamils, the Hindus and the Muslims. Until
we do. We must mourn. For we let down our heritage every day.
@mudra_m
