Bruised & Battered!

Jul 13
NabanitaDhar

Of all things upon earth that bleed and grow,
A herb most bruised is woman.- EURIPIDES



Here we go again; another girl’s modesty outraged by a group of Neanderthals. A minor girl, only of standard 11 was molested in full public view in the streets of Guwahati. Nobody tried to protect her or save her. Here I was of the opinion that the north-eastern part of India was atleast way better than the rest as we actually respect women. But I was clearly wrong; the rot that we see all around India has not even spared the part of the country where we actually have matriarchal societies.


There is a video doing rounds on the social media that pin points each and every molester and also the people of Guwahati city have put up huge hoardings all around with the photographs of those guilty. So perhaps all of these lowly animals will be apprehended but what next? Will they actually be brought to book? Will they be punished appropriately by law? Or will they too escape like thousands of others?


It pains me to see such incidents occurring over and over again and our society behaving like handicaps instead of facing the problem head on! Can you imagine what the girl must be going through? She is just in the 11th standard. She has an entire life ahead of her; a life she has to lead with the memories if this horrific incident! As I watch the video with contempt; I see the monsters engaging in the horrific act with devilish grins! Why has our country come to this? Why can’t we do as simple a thing as respect a woman?

India is a land of narcissists; sadists and among the most racists in the world. Yes I am an Indian and with great pain I accept this. We boast of our traditions and culture and every other day commit acts that deserve nothing short of the gallows or castration. We are pathetic with hardly any empathy and human values. I am ashamed to even think of all the things that happen all around us; the pain we subject our women to. Why look at something as big as what happened on the streets of Guwahati or a rape that happens in some car in Gurgaon? Look at your own households; your wife or sister or mother works the whole day to make sure you have a comfortable stay at home. What do you do? If she is a working woman she comes back home, tired as much as you are, but enters directly into the kitchen to cook you the sumptuous dinner while you browse through channels on your television sets. Yes, no matter how liberated you term your woman to be she essentially still is a slave trying to make sure of your comfortable existence.  Yes this is our double faced society and I am not at all proud to be part of it.

Not only that; it is our own women folk who leave no stone unturned to screw the lives of fellow women. Look at the way daughter-in-laws are treated all over the country? I am sure there will be a few exceptions; but apart from them taunts and torture in every form rule the roost in every household for the girls who enter an entirely new household after marriage. What is worse is if she even makes an attempt to move out of it with her husband trying to atleast maintain a civilised relationship with all from a distance she is branded as nothing short of a witch.

So yes our society is anti-women and being a woman myself, I am deeply hurt when I contemplate the situation in so called modern India. What happened in Guwahati is just one of a million such incidents that happen all over our nation and we do absolutely nothing about it. Shame on us!

A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view. – HENRIK IBSEN


47 thoughts on “Bruised & Battered!”

  1. horrific …makes you feel so unsafe and vulnerable. I just pray to god that the girl gets enough strength to come out of this ghastly incident and lead a normal life . and true ..not only opp sex many a times women have to fight a battle with their own sex as well. Really shame on us !

  2. This is very distressing.. We North-Easterns took pride in calling our place safe. It happened on the busiest road in probably the whole of North east. Shameful that no one had the balls to lend a helping hand. Shame on us as humans.

  4. Absolutely appalling. To think that these animals believe they have the right to do something like this. The notion of "Indian culture" has been badly abused by most Indians.

  5. People will protest for couple of days and thn nothing would happen.. Its the pattern that we follow in India.. We take proud in being one of the fastest growing economies in the world but what has happened to our values?

    We are an independent country for over 60 years but still we divide ourselves by caste, religion and region!!..

  6. It truly is a sad state of affairs. There was a case years ago in the west which we study in psych class called the kitty genevese case wherein a girl was molested and killed while she screamed and asked for help but no one came to help her when it happened In a crowded area. So besides the people actually guilty are the ones not doing anything to help also get part of the blame? Still the so called "gunda raj" continues in India which is a shame,

  13. Very well said Nabanita-as far as i am concerned words fail me when i think of such incidents.Those demons-perhaps they don't have sisters in their homes but surely a mother gave birth to them-how can they thus destroy the modesty of one of her gender ?

  16. The blog definitely was a good read. Its a shame that society feels its their (im)moral right to tell girls what to wear, where to go, whom to be with. As much as I am appalled on the going-ons of the last week: khap panchayat diktat and this molestation in guwahati, i strongly feel that it is high time that even the police are held accountable for the girl's agony. I would want to ask the police if they would have still come late to the place if it was their own sister or daughter that was being molested. Several questions that need to be asked and several others that we do not have an answer to…

  17. Its really shocking!!!! I was in Guwahati the day the incident took place..we were proud that at least our place was so called safe for girls but the callousness of my fellow Guwahatians shattered the belief of all..how can man be so inhuman???

  18. I agree to you… this is really shocking as we all women start feeling unsafe.

    Many questions, many thoughts but no answers. Very well written

    Congratulations!!

  19. Nothing surprising as this seems to be the latest trend —outraging a girls modesty in public—we have seen so many examples in the recent past
    this seems to be the easiest way to show your manliness

  20. no doubt it's a shame , that too in a country which have a woman president and a virtual woman prime minister.Rape, molestation and other acts of violence against women find special coverage in our daily newspaper, tv news show , but sadly they have done no good to the predicaments of the female world.We (men) must change , our attitude must change ,our conduct must change, den only all this will change.
    One more thing the very state of Assam have lost about crores worth of property , lakhs of houses and sadly around 200 lives (human).The sad fact is that not many news papers or tv shows or youtube videos thing this natural calamity merits a mention even, bcoz we are too busy portraying how women can be treated in this land with a slice of spice and slosh and mock .Sad but this attitude of the media ppl too must change

  21. Incidents like these are coming forward with increasing frequency. Yet is seems to me that India is only stoically enduring, not acting out. How can we end this, me wonders.

  26. I know Ranita… strange the city I call home, the part of India where I grew up is spiraling on the path of decline!

  31. What's more disappointing is matters such as these have only become a topic of discussion in AC rooms. The govt's got no balls take action because most of these culprits are lads of some MPs or MLAs. Great post nevertheless

  32. We as individuals may be good. We as collective are poor and decadent. Otherwise who would dare commit such crimes – in public or in private?

    I read about Eskimo tribes: There is no punishment even for crime like theft; they simply boycott the culprit – none would even mention the person, which goes without declaration even. How hard it must be to survive in that region?

  34. Interesting… wonder if we as Indians can come up with something on the same lines for our betterment!

  35. A saddening incident. You're right. Hypocrisy reigns supreme in our land. Although we call India our 'motherland', many mothers or many women are mentally, physically and emotionally molested in front of us… And we effectively play the role of a bystander. 🙁

  39. Thank You! I guess we Kashmiris share similar sentiments about our beloved country and its apathies! 🙂

  40. A lot of public frenzy have rocked the Nation since the incident but still I doubt if the perpetrators will be properly punished. When the trial begins it will be another nightmarish ordeal for the victim and the accused will be scot free due to insufficient evidence

  42. Hi, being a female, I am very upset and angry over the whole incident. I don't know what is wrong with people, I mean she is just a kid, I just hope she can get over it. Also I really hope something happens, either people change or the system changes although I don't have much hope as everytime something like this happens, its in news and soon all is forgotten till the next incident 🙁

  44. its too late to comment upon the incident though i must tell that u have a strong expressive power.
    very well written..

    anu

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