Safety and independence of women in India has always been in question. With an increase in the number of rape cases, it has become one of the most talked about issues in our country. Every now and then female instead of male is regarded as the reason for rape. Her clothes, her way of talking, going out at night, living alone are debated again and again. But it is the mind set of the society and especially men, and not she who is responsible for crime against women in India. Our society needs to change and cover a long way to make this world a better place for her.
Being a female I know what it feels when you are alone at night while coming back from office. But dreams have no boundaries and all of us dream of having a safe world around us. This has been beautifully depicted in a short story directed by Vikas Bahl starring Alia Bhatt titled ‘Going Home’. In this short film Bahl created a world which is completely safe for woman even when she is alone at night. The video shows Alia Bhatt coming back home in a car at night. Suddenly her car broke down in the middle of a secluded road. Five unknown men in another car saw her and approached her. They gave very weird expressions, but instead of molesting her they dropped her back home safely and this was the turning point of the movie. It is probably unreal in the real world.
At the end the film also acknowledges that such a scenario is not possible in the real world and asks whether we can give her the safe world.
Patriarchal system
Though females are competing with male in every field but still our society is male dominating. Even at family level we have the patriarchal family system headed by male. He is the one who takes all the important decisions of the family. In most of the families females play dual role – going out for work and working at home but never a dominating role of heading the family under normal circumstances.
Not only rape but women are subjected to various other crimes like abduction, selling, thrashing, domestic violence etc. Girls are abducted from smaller cities and then sold in metropolitan cities. They are forced to join prostitution or put into bonded labor. It is difficult to feel the atrocities these women go through every day. Figures say that on an average 92 women are raped everyday in India.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics clearly shows a rise in crime against women in India. Dowry deaths, rape, molestation and rapes have increased by 35.2% (33,707) in 2013 as compared to the previous year in the country. In Delhi 1,441 rape cases were reported in 2013. With this Delhi became the city with the highest number of rape cases in India whereas 391 rape cases were reported in Mumbai and 80 in Bangalore. But Bangalore is recently showing a worse scenario where small school going girls are being raped by their teachers.
Life imprisonment
Law has to be stricter to create a fear. Recently an Indian judge sentenced five men to life imprisonment for gang-raping a 30-year-old northeastern woman in a moving vehicle in Delhi’s south in 2010. Judge Virender Bhatt at a court in southwest Delhi found them guilty of rape and kidnapping and fined of Rs 50,000 each. The woman was picked up at gunpoint at about 1 a.m. on Nov. 24, 2010 while coming back home from office in Gurgaon. After rape she was thrown out from the vehicle in an industrial area in Delhi’s east. Such judgments are crucial in improving the safety of women in India.
Earlier it was life imprisonment but now it is death penalty that is the maximum penalty for extreme cases of sexual violence. The law has been amended after an outcry at the brutal gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi in 2012.
India needs a huge transformation. The mindset of every individual must change, even of woman towards another woman. Woman is a human being, not a commodity to enjoy. Everyone must take the responsibility of creating a world free from violence against women.
Read More:
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