27/04/2018

 

Please Stop the Heinous Act

 


M Shamsur Rabb Khan

 




Jub nanhe nanhe talwon ko aag se guzarna ho
Samjho kuch ghalat hai
Jub kilkariyan sahem jayein
Jub totli boliyan khamosh ho jayein
Samjho kuch ghalat hai
Khuch nahin bahut kuch ghalat hai Kyonki zor se barish honi chahiye thi
Poori duniya mein
Har jagah tapakne chahiye the aansoo
Rona chaiye tha upar wale ko Aasman se 
Phoot phoot kar
Sharm se jhukni chaiye thein insaani sabhyata ki gardanein
Shok nahin soch ka waqt hai Matam nahin sawalon ka waqt hai Agar iske baad bhi sar utha kar khada ho sakta hai insaan Toh samjho kuch ghalat hai.
when little legs have to pass through blazing fire
we must believe something is wrong
when playful squeals get terrified
when lallation is smothered
we must believe something is wrong
something? no, many things are wrong
because there must be heavy rain
of tears all over the world
tears must have fallen every corner of the globe
God should have been weeping from the sky
it's no time to grieve but to think
the human civilization must hang its head in shame
it's no time to weep but to introspect
if the man can stand with his head held high after such gruesome crimes
we must believe something is wrong

In this powerful poem, Parsoon Joshi, the famous lyricist and screenwriter, has laid bare a reality of what is happening to our girls, our women and our kids. In our school days, I tell you, we were told countless times that education is going to solve all the sundry problems India has been facing since it is illiteracy, the darkness of human mind, which is the biggest impediment in the way of development or enlightenment. Is it so? I suspect. Which means modern education failed to make a man an enlightened man who can make difference between legal and illegal or right and wrong and most importantly forsake his satanic self. From young rapist of 12 to old man of 73, India faces the worst time in moral degradation.   

Look, the most dreaded crimes are being committed by tech-savvy criminals, most bank scams are executed by highly educated men who siphoned of huge public money, and most political upheavals are caused by men in white dresses. And those who butchered the little girls Kathua in the most barbarous manner are educated people. How can, in a society like ours, we think of torturing a little girl for days after sedating her in the most inhuman manner?    

Are we worse than Ravana? Whatever I know of Ravana, the demon king of Sri Lanka who kidnapped Sita, or Duryodhana of Mahabharta who dared to misbehave with Drupadi, I can tell you with absolute authority that those who unleashed inhuman savagery upon Nirbhaya were worse than Ravana, and those who powered devilish barbarity upon Asifa were worse than Duryodhana. We need to recreate another Ravana or Duryodhana as symbol of villainy.

We hear of 69-year old Valery Makarenkov, Russian pervert who was convicted of 31 violent sex a birthday sex maniac" and the "cycling rapist" who "treated himself to women on his birthday" and snared victims while riding his Soviet-era Salut bicycle. He has confessed to raping 90 women and underage girls.

The sudden spurt of rape cases in India, especially the demonic sexual assaults of little girls whether in Kathua or Surat and women in Unnao or Muzaffarnagar are clear sign of our degrading human values and civilization downfall. The rape of 8-year old little girl, like that of Nirbhaya, of Kathua district in Jammu and Kashmir has triggered nationwide protests. How can someone do whatever happened to the 8-year old little girl? How can a father and a son satiate their lust with an unconscious little girl? 

In 2015, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there were 34,615 cases of rape reported in India which was 24,923 in 2012. In 2015, Madhya Pradesh with 4,391 cases, Maharashtra with 4,144, Rajasthan with 3,644, Uttar Pradesh with 3,025, Odisha with 2,251 and Delhi with 2,199 recorded the highest number of  reported rape cases in India. Human Rights Watch projects more than 7,200 minors are raped each year in India. Minor girls are trafficked into prostitution in India, thus rape of minors conflates into a lifetime of suffering. As per Delhi Police data, the number of rapes reported each year in Delhi has more than tripled over the last five years, registering an increase of 277% from 572 in 2011 to 2,155 in 2016.

In 2016, out of the total 64,138 child rape cases that came up before the courts under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, ony1,869 cases which is less than 3% ended in convictions. With such dismal rate of punishment, rape is bound to escalate as we have witnessed in recent times.    

Madhumita Pandey, 22 year old researcher of the criminology department of Anglia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom interviewed 100 rapists in Tihar jail in 2013 for her doctoral thesis. She comes up with startling observations. She says: There were only three or four who said we are repenting. Others had found a way to put their actions into some justification, neutralize, or blame action onto the victim".

This is, she says, just because “Men are learning to have false ideas about masculinity, and women are also learning to be submissive". One respondent expressed remorse for raping a 5-year-old girl. “He said ‘yes I feel bad, I ruined her life'. Animal savagery is at its height when a man unlashes all his powers into a little girl of 5. 

If normal people get hyper enough to destroy a budding little  life, modern god men have hogged the limelight. Gangeshananda Theerthapada, a spiritual healer of Kerala, sexually exalted a girl to Baba Ram Rahim who enjoyed sexual pleasure with many young girls in his heavenly abode or Babu Asaram who is in jail now on rape charge or Swami Premanand, a self-styled god man who established in Tiruchy, amassed huge money and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1997. 

A 23-year-old law student in Kerala chopped off the genitals of a self-proclaimed holy man who tried to rape her. The nation must salute to such girls who dared to take up the gauntlet and made sure there was no other way to escape her tormentor.  

Finally, the government wakes up with an ordinance to hand over death penalty to the rapists of below age 12 and the President has approved it. This is a welcome move. But more than that, please protect your girls from the known relatives since the out of the total 64,138 child rape cases in 2016, 94% culprits were known to the girls.   

 

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

comments powered by Disqus








traffic analytics