Friday, July 13, 2012

Guwahati's shame: 50 men seen molesting girl


I am deeply disturbed with the Guwahati Mob incident :(

A class XIth girl is publicly molested by every man that was surrounding her.

Not one single man helped her.

I just don’t have the capability to understand why no one helped her? Its beyond reason to me. Speaking for myself I know I would have done something, I can’t be sure what I may have done, but I certainly wouldn’t have walked away. Maybe if the goons were too scary, I would have stopped my car in the middle of the road & blocked traffic, if that would have seemed the best thing to gather others to help this girl out. Done something! I would have!!

Somewhere in the hearts and minds most people try to come up with reasoning of why those men did what they did. Many of them even come up with this conclusion that it’s the provocative dressing or the manner in which the woman conducted herself lead to those men behaving that way. They couldn’t be more off. What’s it about a schoolgirl sometimes even under 10-years of age to be teased, pawed, molested, catcalled, winked, butt-pinched. I say this for this has happened to me in schools buses in the safe environment of an Army cantonment. I shudder to even think what would a young girl, a teenager or a grown woman undergo in public transport on a daily basis in all our cities and towns.

But what troubles me most is that when I ask people around us in our social circles about their stand in situations like this, I get varied answers, from call the police to walk away, none have said come hell or high water they would have helped the girl out, may be just 1 or 2, but I can safely say the majority’s stand is not to jump in and help. May be most people live by principle: ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’.

Some of us tend to rationalize things. Just about everything from the time we wake up to the time the lights are turned off on the day. Looking around I have noticed that it’s mostly the males of our species who fall in this category. They will look at everything concerning a woman and come up with a hypothesis in the blink of an eye; women have it easy at work for all they need to be is pleasing; why do women need a special compartment in the Metro when there are more men; how come traffic cops seldom challan a lady driver even if she is in the wrong and such. But when it comes things that really matter no one, not a single man has a stand, a strong voice or even a moment’s thought to do what is right.

I don’t know, why they just don’t get up and help. What are they so scared of? Being beaten? Be killed? And if Men can’t help a hapless girls then men shouldn’t be the keepers of our society, especially the male chauvinist ones, “Karta of the Hindu Undivided Family’.

When as a woman, I can at least imagine helping her, why can’t men!

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