I
am a peace-loving soul. I know about my identity and values. But I know I do
need to get outraged.
And
why shouldn’t I? Being not so would be inhuman, utterly ghastly.
A
girl fighting for her life who wishes to live more, was raped, beaten brutally,
and left to die, slaps us in the face, for we, the cowards, we, the products of
this sterile society, fail to act again and again on the call.
Like
you and me and everyone (as the Constitution of this country envisions), she,
too, has the fundamental right to live with dignity. And this right is being
denied by some perverts debased by false ego, male chauvinism and unrestrained
run of libido. And the society, this whole system is to share the blame with
these bastards for it has failed to act on the call, time and again.
The
horror has been revisited many times. Everyday we hear cases of rape and
gangrape. Every such case is a call to act swiftly. But every such call is
ignored comfortably. Every year, there are some brutally horrible cases in some
big cities getting the media attention and the subsequent public glare. Every
day, there are rape-cases, severely heinous, in almost every part of the
small-town and rural India.
But they go unreported.
We,
as a society, as media and advocacy advocates, as local, regional and national
governing machinery, don’t do the follow-ups and we, so, don’t learn the
lessons. Whenever such a heinous criminal activity is committed, we see the
clamour growing for legalizing death sentence for the rapists or plugging the
loopholes in the existing legal provisions and their implementation, only to
subside a few days later. It has been a raging debate for years, but we are yet
to see any concrete action.
Patience
should have run-out much earlier. We, as a society, are in vital danger of
being a dead lot. And the time is running out. The retribution has to be swift and unprecedented.
A
heinous crime it was, and it needs equally ‘heinous’ punishment. Exemplary in
magnitude! It has to be executed now.
We
need to get rid of the unhealthy tradition of the ‘debating and debating but
doing nothing’. Be it the death sentence, physical or chemical castration, or
beheading in full public view as Saudi Arabia does with a rapist as per the
Sharia law, it has to be done fast.
That
is the only way to ensure peace and harmony in the system because we all need
this society. We inhabit it. It inhabits us.
Doctors
say they are moved by the fighting spirit of this young girl and most of us
have cried, had tears in our eyes, for the pain she is suffering, for the
torture she was inflicted with. That must not go waste.
The
blood needs to boil for the justice to prevail. I need my peace but not at the
cost of being an imbecile because if we do not act now, we are nothing but the mentally
handicapped criminals promoting such perverts.