Dwindling Freedom !

It has been 72 years since independence and India is the largest democracy in the world. But yet, our country has been ranked the most dangerous country for women. Every 15 minutes, a daughter, a sister, a mother becomes a victim of the unfortunate event of Rape, sexual assault or any form of abuse.

Where does this all start? Is it when a girl is asked to look ‘appropriate’ in front of other men or is it when a girl is asked to sit at home and do all the household chores while her brother has fun outside with his friends. When, why and how do we, as women, give men the right and consent to dominate, rape and or even look at us in a wrong way and exploit us.

The Nirbhaya Rape case, which happened in Delhi in 2012, shook the whole nation when a girl travelling at night was raped and murdered in a bus. One more fact about this case was that the girl was not wearing any ‘inappropriate’ clothes or giving signs to the four men that she is willing to get sexually abused. In the Kathua Rape case of 2018, the 8-year-old victim’s only fault was that she was born into the community of bakerwals. Let’s go back a little in time when a young girl named Mathura, an adivasi of the underrepresented community was raped by two policemen in the police station. Popularly known as the Mathura Rape Case, 1972, this case was seen as turning point in women rights movement in India, as it led to just greater awareness of women’s legal rights issue, oppression, and patriarchal mindsets. But did it change anything at all? That remains a question here.

When the body of a 19-year-old Dalit woman who was gang-raped on 14 September 2020 and forcibly cremated by the police without the consent of her family, it really made me question if we were truly independent and free at all. Women have been suppressed for years by being their rights taken away in some way or the other. But over the years, another community of people who are really looked down upon is the Dalits and the Tribal communities. Their rights and opinions have often not been taken into account and hence, they tend to lead a life being oppressed by other communities. In this case too, the same happened. The police denied claims of rape and in turn humiliated the family. A complaint was finally registered on 20 September 2020, 6 days after the girl was raped. The girl fought for her life but died on 29 September 2020. The victim’s body was cremated on the night at about 2:00 am of 29 September 2020 by Uttar Pradesh Police, without the consent or knowledge of the victim’s family and the family was locked up in the house during the cremation.

In a country where, in every other house, female deities such as Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati are worshipped, women out there are getting raped every day. A death penalty or 7 years jail isn’t going to change what is happening around us. What needs to change though is the people’s mindset about women. We need to stop looking at them as mere housemaids who are supposed to look after the house or some reproduction machine that produces babies. Sexual objectification and misogynistic patriarchy needs to stop and we as women have work together in this, to bring in the change in how people view women. People need to realize that no woman can be judged by the piece of clothes she wears or how she moves around freely with her guy friends. It is not an invitation for men when a woman wears short clothes or parties in public. NO, we did not ask for it nor should we be blamed for it.

By Maithreyi S