Over the last 1 year, we have
seen a lot of concern in the country over security of our women. Cases of
atrocities against women coming to light almost every day and getting extensive
media coverage. We have seen candle marches and demonstrations of solidarity
with women of our country. All this in a country which made sati a norm, is a
refreshing sign, a sign of changing times. But on 16th December, all
Hindi news channels had shows asking if Delhi has changed and is more secure
than a year before. Surprisingly, all of them concluded that not much has
changed in Delhi. Then what is it that has actually changed?
When I went for a concert a week
back, I stood in line for 2 hours to make sure I get to stand right in front in
the audience. And I achieved that too. Half an hour into the concert, a girl
approached me from behind and said “Excuse me, I can’t see a thing please move
aside”. A gentle request in a jam packed place. I politely responded saying
“There is hardly any place for me to move ma’am”. Then came her sharp reply
“Dude I can’t see, MOVE!” This time, it was an order. And all I could do was
just push back and allow her to go ahead. Then, her friend. And another friend.
And in no time, I moved from 2nd row to about 8th. So
much for all the effort in getting in line 2 hours in advance, braving the heat
and moving in early!
In another incident, a friend of
mine stood in a queue for an hour to get in to a talk by a Bollywood superstar.
The queue happened to extend to hundreds of meters with over a thousand people
in it. To his surprise, after an hour, the organizers asked the girls to move
out and make another queue and that queue was allowed entry much earlier than
the male queue. Girls who came into the queue an hour after my poor friend got
in before him. On inquiring, he was told that one of the girls complained about
a lot of “pushing” going on in the queue which made them feel uncomfortable. My
friend later swore to me that there was absolutely nothing of that sort going
on! But nothing would make the organizers agree to that fact!
THAT is what has changed in the
past year! There is fear today amongst guys like me in confronting a girl no
matter how right we are or how wrong the girl is. We fear because it may just
lead to the next big controversy about women exploitation and no self
respecting man wants to be seen as male chauvinist. This leads to an undue
advantage to girls, “some” of whom exploit it to their benefit.
Our laws are getting stricter in
favour of women which is a good thing as long as they do not put innocent men
at a disadvantage. I do not know if the recent changes in our laws have put men
at a disadvantage but it certainly has created a sense of fear in men. Fear in
men wanting to do wrong to a woman is what we should attempt to create but fear
in all men? We recently heard Mr. Farooq Abdullah saying that he fears keeping a
female secretary. Unfortunately that is what we have managed to achieve!
Look at it this way. If a girl
accuses you of exploitation of a physical nature, what defense do you have to
prove your innocence? Before you can even try and prove yourself not guilty in
the court of law, the society and the media would have already branded you
guilty and barred you from all social interaction. How would you face your
friends and relatives and neighbors? The media today tends to blow up every
little case of women exploitation on just a complaint of the “victim” with
little care for the court’s verdict. Once accused, you are assumed to be guilty
without any doubt! And by the time you do manage to prove your innocence in
court (if at all the law has provisions which may help you), thanks to our
legal structure half your life is already over!
At this point I would like to
clarify that I do not justify or support any atrocities against women and am
totally against all men who indulge in women harassment of any nature. I am
also in favor of strict action against such men and better laws which help
protect our women. My concern here is the nature of the change that our society
is going through. We are slowly moving towards a more conservative and a closed
social structure rather than a structure where men and women are at par,
interact freely and without fear of any nature on either side. In a society
where we talk of gender equality, is this change a good one? And whom should we
blame for this state today? In fact can I call it a “state” at all? May be not
because it is just a small section of men who would feel this way today and the
larger section of society sadly, is still oppressive towards women. But if this
does become the norm in the future, would we have succeeded in our motive of
building a society which is not biased towards any gender?
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