A PANORAMIC VIEW ON WOMEN'S SAFETY

 Argus-eyed women tracing their speedy steps back home while the world rests in the arms of Morpheus is not a novel site to this country. The regular columns of newspapers replete with heinous crimes and brutal assaults committed to such women have become the new normal the country wakes up to every day.

From the Nirbhaya case in Delhi, the brutal murder of Soumya in Kerala and the Disha rape case in Hyderabad, cases of rape, assault, and murder of women in India are manifold. What seemed like sporadic events half a century ago are occurring like an avalanche in recrudescence since the past decade or so.

The weeks that would follow such events are usually public talks and articles by intellectual minds pontificating about the issue and political parties indulging in the normal blame game. We seldom seem to look beyond these and fathom the reasons for such intolerable crimes recording an upsurge in our country. We often hear people say that changes need to start from the ground; women have to be educated on their rights, freedom, and strength. But how far is this happening?

 I will not be wrong in saying that out of the vast multitude of injustices unleashed against women on a daily basis including but not limited to slut-shaming, body shaming, and assault, only a quarter of them find place in the media and are thereby subjected to public scrutiny. More than fifty percent of them go unnoticed if not unaddressed. 

True that such events inspire abhorrence in public minds, but the quintessential part is how people in different strata of society think about such issues. And, the unfortunate part is that certain sections of the population even if it amounts to a meager few cast aspersions on the victim and the aggrieved family. From making facetious remarks on the piece of clothing she wears and questioning her upbringing and her audacity to be out late at night the kinds of hate unleashed against the victim knows no bounds.

Families rather than educating the youth to respect their sexual counterparts fill the young mind of women with fear of men and the dark. What has to be in fact a talk of reassurance and a source of strength to women takes a digressive turn that eventually keeps them away from growing and evolving as individuals and exploring the world with as much vigour and enthusiasm as their male counterparts.

Boys instead of being taught to treat women with dignity are conveniently kept out of every conversation dealing with women and women-centric issues as if that was and never will be a forte they will ever have to deal with. Classes of menstrual awareness and hygiene, sexual awareness, and contraception are still not actively discussed by the school milieu, and ensuring inclusivity of both genders is a far-sighted dream. This is only the overture to an array of women-centric issues that we as a society have to deal with.

While the ramifications of such crimes are thoroughly etched by our judicial system, one would not be oblivious of the time it takes for the administration of justice. What we need therefore is a society with a robust ideological echo chamber, strongly tied to its culture of preserving the dignity of every human being