‘This is not my India’

Every time a policeman asks me ‘What are you doing out at this time?’, all I hear is ‘These roads don’t belong to you.” And yet, I’m expected to feel proud of the fact that I belong to this nation? 

I am a tax-paying citizen who is being denied agency to walk in her country beyond an arbitrary curfew. And you expect me to sing paeans in its tribute? How can I create art about the culture of this land, if you refuse to let me witness it? These rules are as ridiculous as telling me I cannot walk in the gardens of my own house at night. Oh wait, that has happened to me too! 

I have travelled alone, both within India and abroad and along my travels, I have never completely let my guard down. To say that crimes against women don’t occur outside India would be a naive and biased statement to make. But, over here, the state machinery — the police, the lawyers, the government and the very agencies meant to protect, support and deliver justice to the victims; are skewed against us. 

How can I celebrate the diversity of this nation if your sense of secularity entails beating my own principles down? 

What is the point of celebrating a Republic Day when the constitution I’m supposed to honour is ignored to give precedence to somebody’s sense of personal morality? Many a time, we have seen law enforcement officials act as moral police rather than upholders of justice. Time and again we hear ministers in power make derogatory and sexist statements, promoting a culture of victim blaming and shirking responsibility under the convenient shadows of ‘not-my-culture not-my-fault’. How can we expect the public to be any wiser? How can I feel safe in the embrace of such a mortherland which threatens to grope and molest me, if I don’t adhere to somebody’s ideals? 

How can you expect me to take a national pledge when my brothers think that the way to protect women is to teach them a lesson by molesting them? If you are not from this country, that statement will make absolutely no sense. The scary thing is, this paradox is our reality. 

No. I do not seek westernisation. I seek freedom, evolution, security, respect, dignity and accountability. It just so happens that a few civilizations in the west and a couple of them in the east believe in those ideals too. If our own leaders upheld these values, we would gladly ape the east. 

But, wait. Not all Indians are this way right? I’m glad you reminded me. I feel much better already. 

Malaika Arora (excerpts from her Instagram post)

So, I went out with my girlfriends to party on the crowded streets of a Metropolitan city, they came out in large numbers and molested us...... But my safety is my responsibility so... The next time I went to a discotheque, it was enclosed and had bouncers, they came into the place and beat us up and ripped our clothes off.......But my safety is my responsibility so…I decided to stay at home in the comfort of my own house, they broke down the door, tied me up and videotaped the things they made me do with them.......But my safety is my responsibility, so...... These days I sit in the bathroom, locked tight, not coming out at all. They stand on the terrace opposite to it peeking in through the bathroom window, but I don’t take a bath.......because my safety is my responsibility....... Now, they have me exactly where they have always wanted me, my spirit broken, my ability to fight back gone, my will to do something destroyed.....at their mercy…

A society which can’t respect its women has no right to call itself a human society. A more shameful thing is that some people have the audacity to justify a girl’s molestation. Why did the girl wear short clothes? Why did the girl step out late night? I want to tell them that the girls’ clothes are not short but your mind is….. Girls are not weaker than men. You are capable of protecting yourself. There are small techniques in martial arts to handle men. Nobody has the power to touch you without your consent. You don’t have to be scared, but just have to stay alert. Learn self-defence and if someone tries to give you some advice on your clothes, please tell them to mind their own business.

Guys, what happened in Bengaluru is really disturbing. To see something like that happen to those girls and for people to watch it and not do anything about it, I think it is a cowardly act. Those people have no right to call themselves men. I have only one question. If something like that happened, god forbid, to someone in your family, would you stand and watch or would you help? That’s my only question.

Women get molested in a crowd. Bystanders watch, no one steps up to help. Senseless people comment on women’s clothes and say that the cause is late nights. These ‘known’ senseless people are asked to comment in the first place (why?) making absolutely no positive differences to the situation. Even then their comments are rendered relevant because they hold positions of power in the society. In all of this I wonder — why did the bystanders do nothing? Whoever stood and watched, is as much at fault as the perpetrators. Because the collective conscience of the people present could’ve stopped this from happening. So it’s not just those men but also us, as a society, that failed on the night. Because today we live in an environment where a huge crowd thinks it’s okay to just stand and watch.