There are helpless victims, with parents too fragile or weak to protect their children from the mafia. Needless to say, in this dismal scenario, politicians are too busy distracting the masses with provocative tactics by Humra Quraishi
Rapes and sexual assaults are continuing… one after another. In the last one fortnight, news reports of rape and sexual assault cases have come in from Uttarakhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Mind you, these are the reported cases. What about the hundreds of rape and sexual assault cases which go unreported!
There’s perversion and utter anarchy! Today, no woman or child or teenager feels safe and secure. There’s fear in every sense of the term. Let’s not overlook a connected fact: hundreds and thousands of women and girls go missing in the country. A total of 10,61,648 women went missing from 2019 to 2021 across the country. Simultaneously, 2,51,430 girls disappeared during the same period.
Last summer, 26 July, 2023, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Ajay Kumar Mishra told the Rajya Sabha: 10,61,648 women above 18 years and 2,51,430 girls below 18 years went missing between 2019 and 2021 across the country. “In 2019, the number of girls and women who went missing was 82,084 and 3,42,168 respectively, while in 2020, 79, 233 girls and 3,44,422 women went missing.”
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB): 82,619 girls went missing in 2019 and 49,436 were recovered. In the same year, 3,29,504 women went missing, and 1,68,793 were recovered. In 2020, 79,233 girls and 3,44,422 women went missing. Of these, 2,24,043 women were recovered while the number of girls recovered in 2019 was not given. “In 2021, 90,113 girls went missing and 58,980 were recovered. 3,75,058 women went missing and 2,02,298 were recovered.”
Safety and survival of a woman or even of a child is tough …tougher it gets. Let’s not forget the Kuki women raped and murdered in Manipur and also the Hindutva campaigns in favour of the rapists and murderers of the Kathua-based 8-year-old Asifa Bano, and also the cover-ups to the Hathras rape victim who was cremated in the dead of the night by the State machinery!
Helpless victims, with parents just too fragile or too weak to protect their offspring from the mafia. Needless to add that in this dismal scenario, the politicians are just too busy distracting the masses, with provocative tactics along the Hindu-Muslim strain!
Even if arrests are made of killers-murderers-rapists, don’t overlook the fact that today, even convicted rapists are given paroles…out on furloughs. All those Who’s Who rapists can be out for long or short breaks. Just to mention a couple of names – Asaram Bapu is out of jail and is on a seven-day parole. Dera Sacha Sauda’s Gurmeet Ram Rahim has been granted twenty-one day furlough… Not to overlook the fact that last year, those eleven men, convicted in the rape of Bilkis Bano, were prematurely freed, till of course, on Supreme Court’s order they were re-imprisoned.
And if one were to question along the strain that why this acceleration in crimes against women, it’s best to quote Brinda Karat from her latest book– Hindutva and violence against Women (Speaking Tiger Books) – “In India, we have, through the experience of our own history and through the freedom struggle, understood women’s status, including the multiple forms and methods of violence against women, within the context of the political, socio-economic, cultural realities, including the caste system. Looking at the issue of violence against women in this broader framework shows us the changing dimensions of violence against women in India today. By change, I don’t necessarily mean something ‘new’ – the intensification of existing, negative and sometimes toxic trends, which due to a host of factors become the dominant trend, also adds up to change. These changes are occurring as a result of the dominance gained by the right-wing communal and sectarian forces in India’s political and social life…”
Today, we can’t dare call ourselves developed, when just last week those disturbing shots stood out, of a man in Rajasthan tying his wife to his bike and dragging her all around, in full public glare. Why? Just because she dared to insist on visiting her sister’s home! This is the level of barbaric brutality we have reached!
Have we bothered to ponder on the dismal aspect that if this level of abuse and assaults are taking place in the public domain, then what must be happening in the so-called ‘heavily guarded places’ where inmates survive within those guarded gates and high walls all around. What could be taking place there!
Not to overlook the blatant violence unleashed on women and children during rioting and pogroms and forced shifts-cum-displacements. Easy targets, they are forced to keep shut about any of the sexual assaults. Otherwise, the political goons coupled with the mafia could tear them to pieces. Several victims of sexual violence during rioting had told me they had no choice but to keep quiet for the sake of their survival and that of their families and clans.
Today, safety and security of women seems to be at the very lowest rung, with the political mafia calling the shots. Not really surprising; with all round degeneration, the vulnerable are not just targeted but ruined for times to come. Look how helpless were the likes of national and international level champs – Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat and several others. Their careers ruined, because the tainted men had to be protected under the various political guises!
And with the latest trend of bulldozing homes, women and their entire families are forced to sit or squat or stand outside their demolished dwellings. One is provoked to question: where are all those who harp on the safety of girls and women? Don’t they realize that with homes and abodes demolished, entire families are forced to survive without a roof over their heads. Vulnerable they are! Yes, their vulnerability at the peak, when they are forced to sit by the road side.
And just where are the day and night shelters where the human forms can survive? Absolutely hitting the dismal situation for those whose homes are bulldozed or where bulldozers are parked right in front of their lanes and by-lanes.
Homeless-jobless-penniless, is perhaps the worst combination to survival in these harsh times but thousands are facing exactly this reality. Compounded by the fact that the all too powerful land and the political mafia keeps an eye on them. As though the hawks are just waiting to pounce on the property of any of the hapless vulnerable!
In this atmosphere of political pollution, havoc continues. Instead of addressing the core issue with all its dimensions, politics takes over. It’s getting nauseating to see the perverse levels we have reached, where even rapists could get some level of advantage, get along with the political slants. The stark case was that of the three rapist men accused of raping a student of IIT Varanasi. They were formally arrested only after 60 days! Why the delay when their whereabouts were well splashed? The accused men were said to be close to the top brass! Ample photographic evidence of this has emerged, where they are seen posing with the rulers of the day! Mind you, this isn’t or wasn’t one of those rare cases.
And in the midst of these barbaric onslaughts we are told we are going ahead …progressing …Where to! Only towards disasters hitting the fragile human being, being fed on the stale diet of communal hatred and friction and frenzied onslaughts!
Where’s our collective outcry! Where are we heading in this atmosphere where the rulers of the day are playing games, whilst our bodies and souls are ruptured … hundreds of our fellow citizens assaulted and ruined and deadened!
Let’s get over and done with the hollow speeches rendered by the political lot on Women’s Day and on Human Rights Day! Hollow assurances mean nothing when ground realities continue worsening by the day.
