The recent incident of a mother and teenage daughter being molested in a public bus while travelling in Punjab, India, was another sad reminder that women’s safety is still a neglected issue in a country that has traditionally honoured women in the highest form.
In 2012, the gang rape of a medical student in a moving bus in New Delhi shook the nation. Back then, I presumed the sheer brutality of the case would create a mindset change. But after this week’s case, I am disappointed with how little we’ve changed.
The problem isn’t in just one segment of society, it is a mindset issue across the board. From politicians to tea vendors, from press conferences to dinner conversations, every so often I hear an exasperating argument. There is always someone who inconceivably condones the rapist through a twisted argument or presents the scenario in a way where such an act would make sense. Some would say, ‘She wasn’t dressed decently’ or ‘What do you expect when she is outside her home so late into the night?’. It is an inane version of the ‘boys will be boys’ argument, progressing to ‘girls should know better’.
If we just compare these two incidents, and there have been several others between the two, in 2012 it was a gang rape that occurred in a public bus in Delhi. This week, two individuals were again targeted — a 38-year-old mother and her 13-year-old daughter. But in this case, it wasn’t in an empty bus! Neither was it being driven at night across near-empty roads… It was being driven in broad daylight, with a number of passengers on board. Yet, these women were not protected. I can’t help but ask: Why? How? How could so many people stand idly by when a mother and daughter were molested and then thrown off the bus? At what point does one realise: this is wrong and I should stop it? What is it in us that stops us from recognising these incidents as glaring crimes that should be firmly stopped, criticised at every level and not condoned by inaction? I still can’t find the answers.
— The reader is a resident of Dubai.