Although arising my voice feels like a crime but I couldn’t this time. With the ongoing protest about the brutal rape and murder of a PG Doctor Trainee, the people all over India has been shaken to the core. We live in the country which has been long freed from the shackles of the Britishers but are we really free? Are we really free of the mentality that still holds us down?
Let me brief through the incident of what took place with the victim. On 9th August 2024, after doing her duty for 36-hours straight, the doctor decided to take some rest in the seminar hall of R.G.Kar Medical College and Hospital. In the morning, her body was found lying on the floor half-naked with marks of injuries and blood from most parts of the body. As per the post-mortem report, there are signs of bleeding from her mouth, ring finger with broken pelvic girdle and injury in her vagina. Her body contained around 150 grams of body semen when a normal male body ejaculates only 15 grams of semen. Imagine the pain and horror of the doctor before she breathes her last.
As horrifying as it sounds, there were rallies and protests all over the city with thousands of people fighting for brutal punishment of the culprits not only from Kolkata but from other parts of India and foreign countries as well. There have been public attempts to tamper the evidences. Some of them include, starting the renovation work of the hospital in the middle of the night to publicly attacking the hospital along with overturning of the police car. No safety and assurance remained in the walls of the hospital where I worked as a student of Critical Care Technology. The question lies in the fact that how such a corruption can take place so openly. Are we, as a society failed or the powerful people are free to do anything they want for the sake of their own will?
In one word, the society, as a whole; has failed.
Amidst all the ongoing violence and protest march, we as individual failed. The saddest part is the very root which has not been nourished properly. Since childhood, all girls are taught that there will be a time when the people you love, be it your close relatives or your known acquaintance, a person of opposite sex may touch you inappropriately without your consent. This takes place with every girl, everywhere. It has been imbibed in our brains since the beginning that girls are not safe anywhere, be it their homes or any part of the world. But are we as mother, aunts, or any other powerful influential female in our society, can taught our men to treat a woman right and to never touch her without her consent?
Many girls can empathize with the following content in this ongoing blog.
When a girl is molested, she must have come across reactions like why didn’t you kick his main point? (You know what I mean by now). Why didn’t you keep a peppermint spray to yourself? The girl with a frozen reaction is unable to reply to all this questions as she is indirectly blamed for the problems and unconsciously take the blame for the incident when it wasn’t her fault.
Many of you have opened out about the abuse. Many of you have blamed yourself for so many years and tolerated so many things for the sake that it was your fault when it wasn’t. Many of you have been inappropriately touched at bus stops or other crowded places. Many of you shared these incidents at times when it no longer mattered to you anymore, but many of you have also been a part of the most inhumane justice, the very first blow a girl receives, that is to stay silent to preserve her dignity and her self-respect. To preserve the reputation of her family. To preserve the bonds of the family or the close friends. The reaction is common everywhere don’t tell anyone. You are going to suffer with no good husband on the way or a husband who is going to taunt you for the rest of your life.
This is how we prepare the essential ingredients for the society to allow the horrific incidents of rape and sexual abuse to continue. Be it a small 3-year-old girl, be it a teenager with eyes full of dreams, be it a college student with big goals, a tired working professional, be it a marriage woman, a mother, a nun, an old lady spending quality time with her grandchildren. No one is safe.
No one ever will be, until and unless we take the courage to fight every incident of molestation of our lives. Instead of silently waiting for the uncomfortable situations to pass off, we raise our voice against every little injustice so that we do not have to witness such horrific murders and open tampering of evidences to take place.
It doesn’t matter where we are or what we do. It doesn’t matter whether your ongoing protests or marches bear fruit or not. No law or no criminal justice or capital punishment can stop such hideous crimes until we as a society take an initiative to change ourselves.
No such things will stop until a small pebble of consciousness fall on the surface of water to create small waves which results in several huge waves of change to take place that is the safety and security of the girls irrespective of what she wears, whom she spends her time with or what she chooses to do.
A “NO” is a “NO” at the end of the day.
It is a choice too.
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