“Monday Musings: How Far We’ve Come…”

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By Amitabh Srivastava, Copy Edited By TIO Bureau, The India Observer, TIO:  Exactly 12 years ago from today, the brutal gang rape of a 23 year old Nirbhaya in a DTC bus on a chilly winter night in the capital Delhi had brought the usually indifferent youths of Delhi on the streets to demand punishment for the criminals.

In a scene reminiscent of the ‘Arab Spring’ thousands of people across the country joined the candle marches, dharnas and unusual forms of protests without political patronage.

Delhi, of course, led the movement since the girl and her male companion had boarded a private bus run by the DTC near Munirka after returning from a movie at 9 pm.

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The sheer daring and monstrosity of the six ‘men’ technically five men and a ‘child’ (that is what a minor is technically till he turns an adult) who took turns to brutalized her body to show that they were real MARD or macho men who would not take No for an answer.

The driver Ram Singh later committed suicide bit by guilt pangs or by beatings from other inmates of the Tihar Jail while four others were hanged after a seven year trial in ‘fast track’ courts while the minor was released after remaining in a ‘boys remand home’ as per the Juvenile Justice Act.

I remember I had told my Editor in Sahara Time Mayank Misra where I was working that I felt as guilty of being a Delhite that day as I had felt when the 1984 riots had taken place in Delhi.

No this can’t happen in Delhi.

So infectious was the ‘Josh’ of the school and college students gathered at Boat Club who were deflating tyres of the buses meant to take them to jail braving tear gas and water canons that even the Chief Justice of India admitted that if he had a teenage child he would have asked him or her to join the protests demanding strict laws including death for the brutes.

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The plus side was that Nirbhaya became a beacon of light and hope in those dark hours. Her sacrifice brought about drastic changes in laws about sexual assaults and the entire definition of rape was modernised in keeping with the rest of the world.

All these changes were incorporated through the Criminal Law Amendment Act 2013 after wife consultations in which Prayas JAC Society was also a major participant.

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And, for the first time in India the government led by Manmohan Singh brought about a fund for victims of sexual assaults in the name of a girl to be known as Nirbhaya Fund.

But why is it that today 12 years later Mrs. Sharmishtha Mukherjee, daughter of former President Pranab Mukherjee in her recent visit to Prayas Head Office at Tughlakabad in a private conversation had to express her deep concern that despite all the strict laws and punishments the cases of assaults against women were not coming down but actually gone up since 2012,

Her view was that laws were there on statute books but neither the law enforcing agencies nor the common public was aware of these new laws and there was a need to spread awareness.

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And now suddenly a new development involving the suicide of the Bangalore techie Atul Subhash, allegedly due to harassment by his wife and her family seems to have turned the whole narrative on gender bias upside down.

His long note implicating his wife and her family plus allegations of extortion against the Judge who demanded 5 lakhs to settle the case of Dowry and domestic violence, seems to have started a movement in the media and social media against section 498A that is considered too strict and one sided against the husband and his family.

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This case is no less than a Pandoras Box and several educated and literate social workers I know have starts confessing that they are no longer ‘feminists’.

One of them confided in a note of extreme candour that men should be more Macho and all talk of men women being equal is ‘bullshit.’

Curated and Compiled by Humra Kidwai

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