Don't let her down.

Is there one among us who does not know the story of Nirbhaya? Is there one among us who can refuse to be touched by it? Is there one among us who believes that justice will be served? The answer to all of those questions is a resounding ‘No’ that echoes across the vast emptiness of hollow promises that is the legacy of our democracy. We cannot wrap our minds across the horror that was the gang rape of a 23 year-old by six monsters for they could not possibly be human after what they did to that girl. Inserting rusty rods into her and pulling out her intestines. Throwing her out of a moving bus. Attempting to then run her over. An apathetic police with its tardy arrival. Indifferent bystanders who refused to help the dying girl. How can there be anything but zero-tolerance for such bestial cruelty? No one should have to go through what she did and yet no one can truly believe that this is the last such case we will ever come to know of.

Rapes in Delhi are common. I am told there is one every 18 hours. Does that mean that it is acceptable like snarly traffic or pollution or corruption? If it isn’t accepted and even condoned, then how is it that such acts continue to happen with increasing frequency? The government certainly shows no great interest in making an effort to stop any of this. Fast track courts, hotlines and a more women-friendly police force is not enough by any means to stop such continuing acts of brutality against women. But it may be a start.

The far bigger problem lies in the way women see other women who are victims of rape. Many men think women ask for it by dressing provocatively, being out at nightclubs till the wee hours or indulging in alcohol. Many men also think that women are lesser beings so it doesn’t really matter how they are used sexually or otherwise. But the far more painful fact is that many women think that only loose women are raped. They believe that it is the woman’s fault. They consider her to have brought dishonour to the family for now which man from a good family would touch her with a ten-foot pole? They actually think that marrying a rape victim off to her rapist is the best solution to ‘save face’.

Any rape victim who survives faces ostracism – she is damaged goods – something that no purification rite can redeem. Of all the enemies women have to fight against in society today from discrimination to downright abuse, the lack of solidarity and understanding from other women is the worst. If all women in this country were united against the atrocities perpetrated on the girl child and on women in general, a Nirbhaya would never have been created. If women raised their sons to respect other women, they would not then grow up to think that the softer sex was created for their service alone. If women stood by other persecuted women in their time of need, a force of unstoppable strength would be created.

Instead what always happens in India continues to happen even now – the authorities wash their hands off the tainted mess, every excuse is made, no one accepts responsibility, all the powers-that-be then wait for our famous collective amnesia to set in. Everyone knows its a matter of time before the population forgets. We are so inured to acts of cruelty that almost anything can be forgotten given time. This time however the rape case brought out something in everyone around us – the feeling of frustration that we could do nothing for that young life, the abiding anger that we live in a country that allows such a thing to happen to our womenfolk and disgust at our very passivity – we want to fight now for the girl who tried so very hard to live despite what can only be described as horrendous injuries. She was broken over and over again but she resisted, she scratched, she bit and even in the hospital she declared her desire to live to fight another day. 

Nirbhaya’s spirit shamed us all into raising our voices for the first time. I fervently hope that the voice grows even stronger and drowns out every whiny excuse, every failure to act, every plea for mercy against the perpetrators. She may have died horribly and in pain but if we let this happen again, her death would also be completely pointless. Let not her death be in vain. I do not want to live in fear and more importantly I do not want my daughter to live in fear. To think that a country that worships goddesses can close its eyes to the myriad ways in which its daughters are made to suffer is heartbreaking. For once, let some good come out of an unspeakable tragedy – let us fight so that every woman in this country is truly free.