The Big Question

Preyesh Dalmia, 3rd year, ECE

 

“You can’t go to the party, beta. It won’t be safe to return at that time of the night.”

“But Ma, we have planned for this party for weeks! All my friends are going to be there!”

“No, you can’t go,” her mother replied, unperturbed by her pleas. With a final look of resentment, she angrily stormed back to her room. Her parents, saddened by the disappointment on her face, tried to cheer her up but to no avail. Sound similar? This is the story of most households in Delhi. Yes, our much defamed national capital. Lauded by many as the most advanced city in India and yet, the most unsafe. It has been just a while since the atrocious, brutal gang rape of a medical student in Delhi rocked the nation’s conscience and triggered heightened discussions over the security of women in the country and the capital in particular. These issues continually bring us to this question: Is locking up our daughters the answer to stopping rape? Denying them the most basic and fundamental right – the right to live freely, as they want to. Is it right for the society to instill fear in them? To tell them if they go out at night in their city of residence that they may not come return home safely? Have we been reduced to a society of hypocrites who cried out with much gusto after the Nirbhaya incident for the protection of women and then after a fortnight were back to schooling them on what they can wear? Tell me, in such a scenario, where are our country’s daughters to go?

For sure, the society struggles with a polarizing issue; a powerful force stands in the way of any fundamental change: a police force that is incompetent, corrupt, easily affected by political interference,  male dominated and woefully understaffed. Simply put, they cannot guarantee a woman’s safety when she steps outside her home. But is that the real problem? Or is it the callous attitude of our citiznes and the shame associated with a woman who has been raped deterring her from coming forward and reporting the torment she has been subjected to?

Circumstances have forced women to accept Delhi as it is, even though they have to battle for survival here every day. Society claims to have grown with leaps and bounds in terms of acceptance and a global lifestyle, but this is only superficial. We cry about how barbaric and inhuman an act female foeticide is but no one raises their voice against a girl being unfairly denied the opportunity to take her career forward – an opportunity her husband or brother are practically served on a platter; how, even in the upper middle class, it is considered a woman’s job to bury her ambitions and replace them with the “greater good” for the family; or how parents prefer to have their daughters work in their home towns when there are much better opportunities available outside. We have had and continue to have wide-staged protests demanding equality for women but how can there ever be equality unless the consciousness of every stratum of society accepts it?

Quoting Alex Paul:

“I never doubted that equal rights were the right direction. Most reforms, most problems, are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality. “