DJ Varnika Kundu shook the top political brass of Haryana for being allegedly chased, stalked and harassed by Haryana BJP state chief Subhash Barala’s son Vikas Barala, while she was returning home at night.
By her own admission, just because she is an IAS officer’s daughter, her case was heard. Otherwise an ordinary girl’s trauma and repeated pleas always fall on deaf ears.
The ladies in blue for a change had forced the entire nation to bleed the colour for their sake and fans, critics and commentators alike cheered for them at the recently held Women’sCricket World Cup.
In an ad commercial, former India skipper and the current CAB President Sourav Ganguly acknowledges a homemaker’s role as nothing less of a captain’s in a household squad. Also, sportspersons Sakshi Malik, PV Sindhu, Dipa Karmakar and Deepa Malik will continue to win laurels and add more glory to the nation after last year’s Rio Olympics/Paralympic Games’ feat.
But do all these positives counter the debate on women’s pathetic security state and unequal status? Not really, we presume. Another Devipaksha is round the corner. Public memory may jog back to a day before the last Mahalaya.
For the absconding main accused in the fiveyear old Park Street (Kolkata) rape case (Kader Khan along with his accomplice Ali) was nabbed hours before the traditional Hindu lunar calendar entered Devipaksha, a phase to invoke the Mother Goddess Durga upon this earth from her heavenly abode, Kailasha.
The 10-arm deity descends on this day to destroy evil and reinstate common good and peace. She blesses us all and is worshipped with great pomp, grandeur and a festive fervour, transcending beyond the divisive frontiers of geography, community, faith, caste, creed, colour, etc.
All feminist voices had welcomed this big breakthrough, recollecting how the victim in question (Suzette Jordan) became a survivor.
At the same time, they regretted the police delay in arresting the real perpetrators which Jordan unfortunately couldn’t live to see. She died in 2015 after succumbing to meningo-encephalitis.
Incidentally, she became a tough crusader from a helpless victim in the process of fighting a lone battle for justice to bring her tormentors to book. She refused to hide her true identity or veil her face and instead, emerged a prominent name as a feisty women’s rights activist and an antirape campaigner. She participated in several protest marches to champion for women’s cause and privileges. On the other hand, teenager Scarlett Keeling’s alleged assailants Samson d’Souza and Placido Carvalho were acquitted by the juvenile court in Goa due to lack of evidence.
They were slapped with the charges of rape and culpable homicide but were not proved guilty and so let off. Keeling was drugged, raped and left unconscious on the beach to breathe her last. In the beginning, her death was projected as a case of accidental drowning.
But her doughty mother Fiona MacKeown suspected a foul play in the whole incident and pursued the case singlehandedly. Justice delayed is certainly justice denied but where justice is not meted out in the first place, there is no hope. And such cases of negativity inevitably put a country’s judiciary system to question. The two examples show two different sides of the same coin.
One keeps the optimism afloat, while the other sinks it. But the struggle has to continue, right? For there cannot be any excuse to give up. The last Olympic achievers have been the first among equals from India’s point of view, either by winning a medal or by qualifying in the respective sporting category as a woman.
Yes, the daughters of this country (sometimes demonstrators against atrocities inflicted on women uphold placards with satirical slogans like “No Country for Women”) have made all the difference as contenders in a gigantic global competition, despite the curse of an unequal gender-ratio and female foeticide always looming over their fates back home.
When you’re brutally bruised, it is advisable to attack or hit back like an impenetrable façade of defence. Thus being aligned to the inspirational philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi — be the change that you wish to see in the world as there has been a huge movement of women’s liberation and emancipation from subjugation.
Awareness drives like “slutwalks” and “One Billion Rising” gained supremacy across the world as a vehement call to the biggest mass action pledging to end violence against women in the human history.
It is said that behind every man’s success, lies a woman’s hand. Of late, we have witnessed examples on the reverse side in the form of our parents, guides, coaches and mentors.
For instance, the Dronacharya Awardees: Pullela Gopichand and Bisweswar Nandi. And to put matters in perspective, the pervasive fight of women is not against their male counterparts but the regressive, oppressive, patriarchal and chauvinistic mindsets. What are our fathers, brothers, friends, husbands, well-wishers and our families then for?
When certain men caught in a medieval, feudalistic time-warp dare to ask what women do in the street late at night, why do they even work and return home so late or it is okay and normal for men to pursue them unwarrantedly, then it unsettles an evolved, progressive India to mull over the direction in which the nation hurtles!
From subtle celebration of sensuality to commodification of bodies in item numbers, the fairer sex has withstood all. However, when the back is pushed against the wall, one tends to spring into action like a boomerang.
Pink is no longer a girlie colour but a hue representing confidence, courage, protest, strength, humanity, independence and many other such qualitative attributes which empower a woman. The 2016 eponymous Bollywood release was widely appreciated because of this colour-deconstruction that otherwise habitually stereotypes a gender. “The shade-segregation is injected into us since our birth. Blue is for the boys, pink for the girls.
The former should be ambitious enough to play with cars, warriors and planes, whereas the latter can be content with dolls, household accessories and furnishings. She is after all trained to be a housewife and a baby-sitter, euphemistically termed as a homemaker,” grouses a Mumbaibased school-teacher Shivangi Prabhakar.
But the point is, isn’t homemaking a laborious art? Does it not throw enough challenging chores to tackle with? Does it not require a lot of pains to maintain calm, order and stability at home? Why is it considered so demeaning! Just because, it lacks the status of a salariedjob and neither yields pension nor provident fund nor gratuity.
Building properties is prestigious but converting the same into a “home sweet home” is not. If a man wishes to be like his mom instead of chasing his dad’s footprints, he is invariably mocked and be thought of as a lesser man.
But aren’t women piloting or conceptualising huge projects or making laws and policies? Look around carefully and you’ll find several women as the heads of state or the CEOs of major banks. Who said, women are only supposed to be followers and not leaders? They would take orders but not give out! “The society expects our girls to remain subdued ever since she attains puberty and reaches the adolescence stage.
But then we as guardians and caregivers always forget to teach them important skills and tricks of self-safety and protection while on a deserted road or inside a lonely room,” laments gym-instructor Satya Malik, a father of two young daughters.
However, with the growing consciousness among general people and also keeping pace with the demands of the changing times, many schools and college institutions are introducing karate-boxing classes and adventuresports courses on their campuses such as trekking, mountaineering, paragliding, kayaking, bungee jumping, car racing, etc.
Good news is that Sukanya, the dream endeavour of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, provides self-defence training to a batch of girl students and even sends selected candidates to represent India at the Kick Boxing World Cup tournament.