A country where women are revered, a country where Mahabharata happened because a woman was humiliated in a court, a country where people keep fast and worship girls during Navratri, a country where women are considered Goddess Laxmi. But what happens when the same women are humiliated and become victims of violence, it doesn’t just stop there; they are even molested and raped.
One recent incident happened when a nurse was allegedly gang-raped by four persons, including a minor, at a health center in the newly formed Manendragarh-Chirmini-Bharatpur district of Chhattisgarh on October 21.
The men allegedly threatened to kill the victim, gagged and bound the victim and recorded the abuse.
The woman was in the medical facility when the alleged event occurred. The health center was completely isolated due to the closure of a local school nearby.
Three accused were arrested while one of them is still at large.
Other female healthcare professionals at the clinic are now concerned for their safety as a result of the incident, and they have refused to come back to work until appropriate security measures have been put in place.
"We require protection. We don't know what is on a patient's mind when he enters. We are unable to exclude them. We will not report on duty until all those accused are punished severely, said Pratima Singh, a fellow nurse who works as a community health officer.
The incident has sparked vehement responses from the BJP, the State's main opposition party under Congress.
Former minister Bhaiya Lal Rajwade demanded the resignation of the local Congress MLA Vinay Jaiswal and the whole State Cabinet, claiming that nothing could be more disgraceful than a female health worker not feeling safe in a medical facility.
Again everything becomes political in this case. Instead of punishing the accused, and making strict laws, what the opposition party demands are the resignation of the local MLA.
The same thing happened in Ankita’s murder case also where the BJP expelled the leader and his son from the party but what happened after that remains unclear.
Even in Hathras's murder case the family becomes imprisoned in their own home while the trial is still on.
Many similar cases are pending in court. It takes years to get justice. And as there are no strict laws the offenders are not even afraid to commit such heinous crimes.
According to the latest government report on crimes in India 31,677 cases of rape were reported in 2021, an average of 86 cases per day, while nearly 49 cases of crime against women were reported every hour.
This is just the official data. Many times the cases are not even reported because of the shame and embarrassment the victim's family feels and even when the victim is poor, they get suppressed by political parties due to their hidden agenda or many a time get exploited by such political parties. And in between everything no one thinks about the victim.
The irony is that instead of punishing the accused for whatever wrong has happened to the victim, she is blamed. Many times the victim chose not to raise her voice to save the so-called false reputation of her family since she knows she will be held responsible for whatever happened to her. The accused person has this sick mentality that nothing wrong can happen to them due to the flexible laws, regardless of how loud the victim raises her voice. They are neither afraid of the law nor do they feel guilty either. Afterward, people do candle marches, protests, and posts on social media, scrolling through the stories and thinking that their responsibility ended with this. But it doesn't stop anything. You will still find such disturbing news one day or another.
Instead of working together and punishing the offender what political parties do is play a blame game and exploit the victim in every possible way. Another case, another article, another news, another candle march, and then forget everything.
There need to be strict laws and actions against such cases in India so that criminals will be scared of committing such heinous crimes. Only then such incidents can be stopped from happening.
Along with making strict laws one thing which always arises is from where did this rape culture begin? Because we can’t blame every male for the heinous acts of others, that's an individual trait. The people committing such heinous crimes have a sick mentality.
So, how did they develop such a trait? Is it just a one-day thing or did it gradually develop over years?
And the sad part is even minors are also involved in such cases nowadays.
It all begins at home.
You are watching the news on your TV. Suddenly, some disturbing news arises and you listen to someone from your family commenting “the girl should not have gone outside at night.’ There is a 10-year-old boy in the family also sitting together listening this. What do you think he will learn? Somewhere you are feeding him this thought. He is not at the age to distinguish between right and wrong. His brain is developing, it will be molded with these thoughts.
You are going to market with your son and you saw a girl wearing a short dress. And then you commented on how shameless she is. And all such incidents happen to them because they wear short dresses. Again a new thought feeds into their mind. Early exposure to violent content in early life is also one of the major reasons for such happenings.
It’s very important to feed a kid’s mind with good thoughts. Because one aspect we can definitely work on is developing a good mindset and mentality.
But molestation still happens no matter what the age and how the dress is, whether it’s day or night, inside the workplace or outside. And it will happen till strict laws are made. It is very important to develop fear in their minds. So, they will think 100 times before committing such heinous crimes.