The power of a vote

The power of a ‘vote’

India is a democracy, and this is something which has been mentioned, written and spoken about a bit too often in textbooks, articles, journals, speeches and blogs. But, what is it about democracy which differentiates it from any other form of government, for me, it’s the distinction between discretion and obligation. With the next set of elections on its way and politicians and leaders gearing themselves up to win the confidence of the public, and making fancy promises of living upto their expectations, it becomes imperative for us, ‘the aam-aadmi’ to make the right choices and voice our opinion. In order to do so, the educated janta ought to exercise their right, the same right which very often people take for granted at the cost of their time, money and many other such excuses, this right is called the ‘right to vote’.

 The need of the hour is to wake up and smell the coffee, react to what’s happening in our surroundings and not succumb and become privy to it. We as Indian’s share a history of being very tolerant beings, today this common perception is slowly and gradually being shattered. Finally, the leaders are bending down and realizing that force and pressure is not something that’s going to work in today’s times. Merely giving emotional speeches is not going to win the audience who is more aware, conscious and skeptical of everything, one needs enough credentials to back them up. The Janta today is no longer adjusting towards short term gains like TV sets, laptops  for a family or any other materialistic gains, what will a TV set serve when the family does’nt have basic amenities like food, clothing, shelter, electricity for their basic survival. 

Gone are the days of bogus promises and lethargy, the political discourse is transforming and waking up from the age old themes of social justice, reservation, secularism to social and infrastructure development, job creation and prosperity. The concerns of modern India are predominantly economic and transforming India into a poverty free country. In order to achieve these, we need a leader who is not only sensitive to the needs of the masses, but should feel like he’s one of them, he ought to be proactive in his decisions and also its implementation, forward driven, puts the country and its people before self and not just somebody who merely enjoys the fruits of holding an office. But before we can think of all this, let’s get back to the basics..how exactly is all of this possible? Who is going to make this dream of a corrupt free nation happen? The answer is something we all know, but we don’t want to exercise it, The answer is in the power of that one vote, which has made regimes and empires fall in the past, the answer is in the power of the masses, who at the end of the day are the decision makers. The answer is that ‘one vote’.

The questions unanswered

So what’s with the growing trend of self-styled godmen spouting homilies on ‘right behaviour’ and conduct that needs to be followed by women? It is another matter that their ‘divine’ expostulations defy logic and sensitivity and expose the gender-insensitive mindset of a raving chauvinist. This is the very parochial mindset that women across this country, rural or urban, suffer and battle with every day of their existence.

The recent comment by Bapu Asaram about the Delhi gang rape victim is not just completely shocking, but leaves one stupefied by the very logic it propounds -- the hapless 23-year-old gang rape victim could have saved herself from the trauma and certain horrific death by begging her tormentors for mercy. Excuse me? Would chanting the ‘Saraswati mantra’ and calling the perpetrators ‘bhaiya’have softened the blow of their brutality or their depravity? Would falling at the feet of a bunch of drunken crooks, whose senses had already been deadened by alcohol, and beg for mercy, have spared her the tragic fate they had in store for her? A bizarre bit of advice by Asaram Bapu to say the least and it has justifiably attracted a lot of flak. And once again this unsolicited bit of advice, one among many by leaders of all political hues, including one by no less a person than the President’s son, which has brought the focus back on the gender-insensitive environment we live in. Ironically, as it turns out it is the woman who is responsible for the ills that befall her!

So, what exactly is it that has triggered a surge in incidents of rape around the country? Is it the Government’s apathetic attitude towards the safety of women? Is it a lack of stringent laws and harsh punishments to curb such deviant behaviour? Or is it as one ‘wise’ politician in all his supreme wisdom said---the “stars are bad” for the womankind!

Me thinks the problem is in the mentality, the thinking of the Indian men who have been programmed to think of themselves as supreme beings, with women having only a secondary role in the male-dominated scheme of things. The problem is with the way a woman has been portrayed for centuries as being the weaker sex.

The problem is also in a man’s need to control and show his strength and powerto those who are physically weaker than them. In our society, once the wife leaves her maternal home after marriage, she becomes the ‘property’ of her husband and must by submit herself totally to her husband. The problem therefore, is in our value system. Most of the times, young men grow up seeing their father beating and harassing his wife, mother and daughters doing the household chores, a daughter having to sacrifice something for her brother etc which leads them to believe that women are supposed to sacrifice themselves at every step and point in life.

A woman in a skirt is as vulnerable as a woman in a salwar kurta. And what about two and three-year-olds being brutally raped, maimed and killed? Could these tiny tots have also titillated the raging hormones of deviants with their “skimpy clothes” and “dented and painted” looks?

The problem is that the law makers and upholders of the law have a very stereotyped and narrow minded thinking towards rape. It is as it turns out the single most heinous crime in this country where the ‘victim’ stands ‘accused’, shunned  and ostracized by society, denied a right to live in dignity and get justice.  She suffers all ignominy to extract justice from an insensitive system and many a time that justice is really hard to come by.

I believe that a woman has every right to dress in whichever way she wants, and that is not an open invitation for sexual activity. If a woman drinks or smokes, she’s considered to be a woman of suspect morals. Well, bringing in the history factor, I’d like to draw attention to the fact that in ancient and medieval India right  from the rani’s to the daasi’s, there are numerous instances of women smoking the pot and hooka.

 In a country like ours, which is said to be the largest democracy in the world, the power lies in the hands of the masses, finally after a long time people have been shaken from their reverie, this is not the first time that a homicidal rape has happened, the reason why I’m not using the word ‘brutal’ is because rape as an act of violence in itself is a brutal crime. By raping a woman, the man is insulting the womb from which he himself was born. Such cases have been happening over a period of time, in each and every part of the country, it’s just that people have now arisen. This case like many others in the past would have also become a file lying in some dusty corner of the record room, but the fear of the masses has speeded up the process of justice.

It is heartening to see that many men, young and old equally participated in the protests in Delhi and elsewhere. It signifies that a change is on its way. Somebody has rightly said: Rape is the monstrous face of domestic injustices. Blaming each other and the government is not the solution, one needs to look deep within and introspect. The answer and solution both lie there.