Today I'm so frustrated and angry that I've resorted to a blog post. I think this the first time in my life of 3 decades that I've experienced such frustration, anger and rage inside me. Never happened before. I'm so angry right now that I'm posting to an almost dead blog after almost 3 years. Writing as soon as I got up from bed. That's how bad it is!
And the reason being - last Sunday, December 16th's rape on a young 23 year old girl in Delhi. Rapes happen all across India all the times. Most of them go unnoticed. Everybody talks about it for a few days and life goes on. That includes me and millions like me as well. But the rape of the girl, now called 'Amanat' (not real name) has become a special case because of the brutality of it.
A wintry December Delhi evening. A girl and her male friend after watching a movie, waiting at a bus stop at night (around 9.30 pm), a bus with tinted windows arrives with 6, mostly in their 20s, lukkhas in it, all drunk and determined to do something bad. The unsuspecting couple board the bus not knowing what will happen to their lives after this ride. The lukkhas start taunting the couple for riding 'so late at night' alone. Male friend gets outraged, tries to defend and things take turn for the worse. Boy is hit with iron rod, faints and defends in vain. Meanwhile, the bastards rape the girl on a moving bus one after another. The bus is plying the roads of Delhi and nobody outside has any idea what's happening inside it. Both the victims are injured badly, assaulted and thrown off the moving bus in behoshi ki halat. Fortunately, a passerby sees the couple lying unconscious on a roadside. Calls the police and the police takes them to Hospital. Now, that was not a rape scene from a 1980's Hindi movie. Even though it looks like one, this is real.
The girl has been struggling for her life at Safdargunj Hospital for a week now. The doctors have performed I don't know how many surgeries on her in a week. But she has shown unbelievable resilience, a will to live, a desire to bring the culprits to justice and a fighting spirit. She wants to live! The doctors say they've never seen a case like this in their 30 year long careers - both physical injuries and traumatic as well. If it were someone else, they would have succumbed to the injuries by now. But the girl survives, and hopefully she will be able to walk soon. The male friend is also out of danger and safe.
Meanwhile, all the 6 culprits have been caught in a week's time. I think all of them have self-confessed their crime and they have realized they've done something really really bad and are shamed. But that doesn't matter. They've successfully ruined 2 young lives and scarred them for life.The rape has outraged India, with media playing a decisive part. Politicians making statements and all the usual rhetoric. Shut the Delhi bars at 1 am, shut down metro stations etc. People (yours truly included) blaming the system, system blaming the people and so on. Calls have been made for death penalty for rapists. Rightly so I guess! But I would rather have them suffer for life, imprison for life and remind them everyday why they are in jail. Once again young college students, professionals and people from all the strata of society have filled the capital with protests and demanding quick justice. Fast track courts have been set, both the victims have made their statements and can't wait to see the perpetrators brought to justice.
And now to the reason for my sudden anger today after a week. There is a reason. Today as I woke up, as usual was reading the news, and read that now the protestors, who just want a plain justice and stop rapes, were assaulted with water canons, laathi-charge, and tear gas shells at
India Gate. Seriously, that's the best the UPA/Congress govt could do? Instead of listening to the voices of thousands of people, they too are assaulted. It's a real shame. In another political stunt, a high ranking official (Minister of State for Home R P N Singh) of UPA govt took
a bus ride today to 'assess the security' in Delhi. And to his surprise, he found Dilli unsafe during that 40 minute ride - no police anywhere, no security, no nothing. Moreover, he was greeted by a few roadside drunkards when he got off the bus. Now you believe that Delhi is unsafe? You didn't believe in all those hundreds of rape happening in Delhi every year? You didn't believe in the thousands of people protesting? Meanwhile, Sheila Dixit has acknowledged that Delhi is indeed the rape capital. But blames that the state police is not under her control and reports to union home ministry and most of the police force is used to protect the ever so important VIPs.
I just don't have words to describe the shamelessness of the govt. For me it's much more than just the rape case. There is so much pent up anger. Numerous times the govt has failed - be it 2G scam, Jan Lokpal, Commonweath games and so on. MAUN Mohan Singh is the most spineless leader mankind has ever seen. I just wonder does he ever watch/read what happens in India?
You must be thinking, what's the point of writing all this here? And that's true, there is no point. All of us talk, write, discuss a lot whenever anything rare happens in India - be it political, social, terrorist attack etc. We all talk about it, facebook posts, tweets for days or even weeks and people forget and move on. All that's left is for the victims to suffer and countless trips to courts, police stations, hospitals, govt. offices and so on.
But then you would rightly wonder, what can we do? Hum log kya kar shakte hein?
Hopefully, decades from now I'll revisit this blog, and wonder India aisa tha?
================
P.S.: The case in media (notice how many rape stories are there):
1) http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/delhi-gang-rape-case-what-happened-that-night-308689
2) http://ibnlive.in.com/news/delhi-gangrape-victim-has-given-a-very-bold-statement-police
/311823-3-244.html
3) http://ibnlive.in.com/news/delhi-gangrape-protesters-brave-water-cannons-teargas-police-lathicharge-to-demand-justice/311831-3-244.html
4) https://twitter.com/search?q=%23delhigangrape&src=hash
