A first year student at the School of Medical Education, Kottayam was ragged which led to gang rape, by the third year students of the same institution. She was asked to do frog jumping as part of the ragging and taken into a lab and raped. After the satiation, she was so tired that the rapists had to dress her.
Ours is a society that talks about empowering women and equality of rights, of emancipating the mentally and emotionally drained section, of providing opportunities and of course, it is always ‘Bharat Ma’.
Encroachment
Forget the empowerment and emancipation. We all draw a subconscious circle around us, inside which we do not allow the physical presence of less intimate persons. Encroaching the boundary without our permission is a crime. In a rape, this right is breached in the most inhuman and brutal way possible. The sanctity of our body is tarnished. The basic right of an individual is violated without any justification.
Returning back to the issue at hand, the foremost point to be noted is that the rape happened within the college, which is quite ironically considered the safest sanctuary next to home, during college hours. The sad fact that it was a gang rape adds more to the trauma. This goes even deeper when the Principal, the revered guardian of the students tries to hush up the business. Her rapists packed off the girl, who was staying at the hostel, immediately after the rape. The poor thing fainted in class few days later when her seniors asked the entire class to come to their class for ragging. The anguish grows cavernous when the Principal takes initiative to lock her up in the Psychiatry ward of a hospital. The desperate pressures of the father on the management for action went unheard. Probably due to the fact that he did not have enough money or power to shower.
It goes without saying that I am shell shocked by this tragedy. As a student, I worry that for girls education is becoming an expensive affair, with all the ragging, harassment, rapes and suicides. And very few are blessed with colleges at their doorsteps. In our patriarchal society, girls need all the opportunities they can get, if possible, to be handed over to them.
A dilemma
I have a sister who is ready to go anywhere to learn. I cannot tell her that she cannot jump at the opportunities presented to her, because the world out there is harsh and cruel (at least) to the ‘XY’s. But, I cannot let her go into the murky world, where the big bad wolf lurks in the shadows, and get her back, all battered and torn from her heart to her womb. That is what happens to the carriers. We all get mauled, somewhere.
Women make up half of the nation’s population. Today’s girls are tomorrow’s women. Concealed in them are the Bedis, Roys, Gandhis, Mirzas and many more. If the society, by such villainous acts, creates a minefield under their feet, we are not any different from the people who make their women undergo days of labourpain, bursting their bladders in the process and whom we term as ‘disgustingly inhuman’.
Girls as they grow in our society, find their liberties taken away. Of movement, expression, intellect and sometimes the ultimate honor-the pride of being a woman. The incident is only one of many. Children (girls are children, she was just a child) who are silenced, parents who keep silence for the sake of their children and the ones who silence them. It is a vicious cycle. There is nowhere in this world, a girl, is safe. From the moment of her birth, she is hunted and haunted. Haunted by the horrifying knowledge that she is a female. And when she falls to the ground, struck by the arrows of lust, the hunters pluck out her womb, roast it over the fire of her heart and devour it into the endless precipice of despair. And the carcass left for the vultures on the barren land of social justice.
Ours is a society that talks about empowering women and equality of rights, of emancipating the mentally and emotionally drained section, of providing opportunities and of course, it is always ‘Bharat Ma’.
Encroachment
Forget the empowerment and emancipation. We all draw a subconscious circle around us, inside which we do not allow the physical presence of less intimate persons. Encroaching the boundary without our permission is a crime. In a rape, this right is breached in the most inhuman and brutal way possible. The sanctity of our body is tarnished. The basic right of an individual is violated without any justification.
Returning back to the issue at hand, the foremost point to be noted is that the rape happened within the college, which is quite ironically considered the safest sanctuary next to home, during college hours. The sad fact that it was a gang rape adds more to the trauma. This goes even deeper when the Principal, the revered guardian of the students tries to hush up the business. Her rapists packed off the girl, who was staying at the hostel, immediately after the rape. The poor thing fainted in class few days later when her seniors asked the entire class to come to their class for ragging. The anguish grows cavernous when the Principal takes initiative to lock her up in the Psychiatry ward of a hospital. The desperate pressures of the father on the management for action went unheard. Probably due to the fact that he did not have enough money or power to shower.
It goes without saying that I am shell shocked by this tragedy. As a student, I worry that for girls education is becoming an expensive affair, with all the ragging, harassment, rapes and suicides. And very few are blessed with colleges at their doorsteps. In our patriarchal society, girls need all the opportunities they can get, if possible, to be handed over to them.
A dilemma
I have a sister who is ready to go anywhere to learn. I cannot tell her that she cannot jump at the opportunities presented to her, because the world out there is harsh and cruel (at least) to the ‘XY’s. But, I cannot let her go into the murky world, where the big bad wolf lurks in the shadows, and get her back, all battered and torn from her heart to her womb. That is what happens to the carriers. We all get mauled, somewhere.
Women make up half of the nation’s population. Today’s girls are tomorrow’s women. Concealed in them are the Bedis, Roys, Gandhis, Mirzas and many more. If the society, by such villainous acts, creates a minefield under their feet, we are not any different from the people who make their women undergo days of labourpain, bursting their bladders in the process and whom we term as ‘disgustingly inhuman’.
Girls as they grow in our society, find their liberties taken away. Of movement, expression, intellect and sometimes the ultimate honor-the pride of being a woman. The incident is only one of many. Children (girls are children, she was just a child) who are silenced, parents who keep silence for the sake of their children and the ones who silence them. It is a vicious cycle. There is nowhere in this world, a girl, is safe. From the moment of her birth, she is hunted and haunted. Haunted by the horrifying knowledge that she is a female. And when she falls to the ground, struck by the arrows of lust, the hunters pluck out her womb, roast it over the fire of her heart and devour it into the endless precipice of despair. And the carcass left for the vultures on the barren land of social justice.
2 comments:
What happened to the rapists at SME, Kottayyam?
Ah.. We todays woman have to change world for tomorrow.You cannot and should not stop your sister from spreading her wings..
When a bird learns flying it falls
many a times!
We will have to too.. but we will rise liek pheonix.. :)
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