Following the brutal gang rape of a 23 year paramedical student in Delhi on 16th December and the subsequent death of that brave comrade of ours after a gritty fight with death for 13 days, the sensitive and justice seeking youth, women and citizens of the country are still on streets. But the representatives of conservativism, narrow mindedness, superstition, religious fundamentalism and dogmatism have started to put their disgusting thoughts before the world in a totally bare and unscrupulous manner, and in their retrogressive millenarian chorus they are joined by people ranging from leaders-ministers of various political parties to bureaucrats and police officers.
Mohan Bhagwat, who is the supreme of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the flag-bearer of “cultural nationalism” and religious fanaticism in our country, has declared that the reason of increasing incidents of rape is that the Indian tradition where women should only be housewives is not being followed! According to him, only the males should have the responsibility (read freedom) of getting out of the home and earning. He has also proclaimed that the anti-women crimes happen due to the influence of western values and hence these crimes are happening not in ‘Bharat’ but only in‘India’! All this is factually incorrect and is an example of the cheap retrogressive anti women mentality. But this line of thinking of Mohan Bhagwat’s does not surprise us. What else can be expected from those who believe in the ideology of Hitler and Mussolini? Their fascist thought also considered women to be instruments for managing the household and giving birth to children. Evidently, one can not expect any other outlook towards women from these illegitimate Indian progenies of German and Italian fascism. It could also be asked why all the women leaders of BJP, which considers RSS to be its guiding organisation, do not resign and sit at homes? Sushma Swaraj, Meenakshi Lekhi, Nirmala Sitaraman, Uma Bharti, Smriti Irani and likes should be the first to sit in their homes and start serving their respective husbands and become housewives! Why are they working outside the household? It is clear that RSS wants the courageous and gritty women from the masses to sit at homes, and not the women who are serving the ruling classes!
Now that the Hindu communal fascists had already started to vomit their age old, rotten and nauseating thoughts, why would the Islamic fundamentalist Mullahs lag behind?Thus, the dogmatists of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind propounded that boys and girls should have separate educational institutions from childhood, meaning co-education should be abolished! This kind of Talibanist thought would also drag India to 18th century. As a matter of fact, the segregation and alienation created amongst the boys and the girls from childhood which causes them to become alien and mystical to each other, is also one of the reasons behind various anti-women values, customs and psyche. Hereinafter, this very complex results in anti-women crimes in many cases. However, the mullahs of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind are hell bent on pushing the world to the dark ages and are putting their best efforts to beat their Hindu fundamentalist rivals in this prospect!
Religious guru Asaram Bapu forced even these shameless and disgustful reactionaries to feel ashamed. He said that the girl who was the victim of the gang-rape was herself to be blamed for it; because she chose to fight and protest these brutal criminals instead of pleading for mercy on her knees with folded hands.There are no words to condemn such abominable views! However, we are not surprised too! It is these same religious gurus and contractors in the business of religion who are accused of rapes, murder, sexual assault on their female devotees and running brothels in their ‘ashrams’! Can we expect them to respect a brave, dignified and strong image of a woman?
When the entire country was seething on roads in protest of the rape and murder of a daughter of its own, what were the so called representatives of people sitting in parliament and assemblies doing at that time? Mamata Banerjee said that if freedom meant people roaming about hand in hand at midnight then such incidents were bound to happen; yet another leader of the Trinamool Congress declared that whenever women cross boundaries, they will be raped; a BJPleader from Madhya Pradesh suggested that the women should not cross the ‘Laxman Rekha’; a Congress leader from Rajasthan said that skirts should be banned; a BSP leader demanded ban on use of mobile phones by girls and their wearing jeans! So, after the barbaric crimes and sexual assaults on women happening daily on the streets of this country, the women themselves are being held responsible for them and thereby it is being conspired to put all kind of bans and curtailments on their rights! The mentality of the political leaders of the country is no different from that of religious fundamentalists and conservatives. And these are the same very people who are accused of making porn films, rapes, burning women to death for dowry, molestation, and sexual assaults! There are 286 MPs in the parliament facing trial for anti-women crimes! And these criminals and rapists are preaching to the hard working and dignified women of the country on how they should lead their lives!
The police is no different. What can one expect in a country where a girl trying to lodge an FIR of rape is again gang raped by the police? Where the government venerates the policeman involved in sexually torturing arrested women political activists with gallantry award, what else can one expect? In a sting operation conducted by a magazine, the top police officers of the national capital Delhi area have told that the anti-women crimes occur because women have made sex into a business; because women provoke men; because girls befriend boys; etc. This itself is indicative of the view of women in the eyes of the police of the country.
It is evident that we can not hope that these anti-women, conservative, reactionary, dictatorial and barbaric powers will respect the women’s rights, will grant women the right to equality, will ensure their security or will consider them equal to men in the society! These very same forces are responsible for the slavery imposed on women, these same people are responsible for the anti women crimes and frequently commit these themselves, these are the very same people who consider women to be slaves to men and wish to continue to treat them as doormats! What can be expected of them? Nothing at all! There is only one thing we can do: all the revolutionary, sensitive and just young men and women, working masses and common middle class citizens should uproot, destroy and annihilate the clenches of these criminal contractors of the centuries old dead traditions, narrow mindedness, hypocrisies, humbugs and deceits! These people are not nationalists or patriots but the reactionaries trying to push the country backwards! If even now we give any heed to any discourse of these religious fundamentalists, babas, gurus and die-hard anti women, then there will be no difference between us and flocks of sheep! If we do not stand up against these forces of darkness then we will have to ask ourselves whether we are still alive or not!
Long Live Revolution! Long Live struggle!
Down with Patriarchy! Down with Capitalism! Down with conservatism!
Pakshdhar Vichar Manch
Prashant: 9619039793,