Gang rape death

The question for us, as for India, is how to make our cities and indeed our villages and towns safe for women.


Editorial December 29, 2012
A demonstrator holds a torn poster during a protest in New Delhi December 29, 2012. PHOTO: REUTERS

The story of the Indian paramedical student, brutally gang-raped by six men, after she climbed aboard a bus in New Delhi with a male friend, met a fateful end. The horrendous incident, which triggered violent protests in the Indian capital, had shaken many, demonstrating how unsafe women remained in ‘liberated’ India. But the fact that the young woman died at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore, to where she had been airlifted as her condition worsened, adds further to the tragedy. The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, will never fulfil her potential. Her death, owing to the multiple organ injuries she suffered, serves as a reminder of just what kind of bestiality exists. What happened to her will make every woman feel less secure.

The question of how the case is to be handled raises more issues. Anticipating further protests, the police have been deployed across New Delhi. There is also talk from members of government about making the names of the convicted rapists and sex offenders public, in the hope that they will be denied employment and socially ostracised. Indian rights activists, meanwhile, point out that more often it is the victims who suffer stigma rather than the perpetrators — with this factor leading to a situation where many rapes are never reported at all.

This, unfortunately, is a situation familiar to us in Pakistan as well. Gang rape is a crime we know much about. The question for us, as for India, is how to make our cities and indeed our villages and towns safe for women. The answers lie in inevitably punishing those behind such crimes. However, this does not happen often enough. The answer also lies in empowering women, raising their status and creating more public disapproval for such atrocities. The street clashes and protests in Delhi depict anger but they are still restricted to far too small a group. In India, and everywhere else, the protests need to be bigger, wider and sustained through peaceful means so that longer-term change can finally be achieved before other women fall victim to similar horrors. This must not be permitted.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30th, 2012. 

COMMENTS (8)

MyHeartScreams | 11 years ago | Reply

@Cynical

Spot on. But it might take hundreds of years for any change in this misogynistic behaviour in much of the under developed world.

Cynical | 11 years ago | Reply These civil societies and assorted NGOs protesting on the street, bashing politicians, police, court, films, adverts and whatever is not going to change anything. Those who participate in these gatherings know that as well. But they are also under a compulsion to tell, more to them than to the world at large, that they are not a part of the problem, but if anything, a victim of the same. That’s self serving at the best and delusional at the worst. The problem is with us, and within us. Just to give an idea of how deep it runs into the sub-continental male psyche, it is worth mentioning that quite a few female protesters were groped by some male participants in the crowd. The change has to begin at home. That’s where it comes from. A good starting point would be, if parents, specially mothers and grandmothers should stop pampering the male child since birth. Stop all sorts of subtle and obvious favouritism towards them at the expense of their female siblings. It will be of great help if children can be kept away from regressive and downright sexist text found in the scriptures of many a religion. But that would be asking for too much from most people in sub-continent. All of these instill among the male Childs, a false sense of superiority and empowerment, over the members of supposedly weaker sex and by extension over their body. He will carry this mindset throughout his life. If and when he feels an urge to do it and thinks that he can get away with it, he will overpower a woman physically or mentally each and every time. Of course there will be exceptions, but as the saying goes, ‘Exception proves the rule.’
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