New Year thoughts
When I start the diary of a New Year I will be scratching my head for some
useful topic -- often in the first few days into the New Year.
Usually, the focus will be on resolutions and non-resolutions.
This year though, there is some serious thinking. Where India
is heading for?
Ushering in the New Year has been gala time over the years.
I distinctly remember my childhood years when, during the cold nights of Dec. 31, all our
neighbours in the multi-storied building gather and amid enjoyable
banter write HAPPY NEW YEAR followed by the year in
colourful chalks on the quiet road and distribute sweets
as cheers echo at the stroke of 12 midnight. No new clothes were bought.
But it was the spirit that counted.
Now, things are quite different, especially in big cities. The revelry has turned into devilry as
one newspaper analyst put it. People have more money to spend and they celebrate the New Year as a festival like Deepavali. Dresses are bought, in fact, party wears. Drinking parties
are arranged and the mood swings from cheerfulness to romance and behaviour changes
from hip-hop dancing to downright indulgence in baser elements.
2008 broke with horrible happenings for the country: the molestation, by a lewd crowd of more than 50 vultures, of two NRI women in Mumbai and the gang-rape of a minor girl by four youth in Latur district of Maharashtra.
What has provoked public indignation is the casual attitude of the police and its defence of the accused as well as the crime. To say that the molestation of two women
by a big crowd is something normal and happens everywhere
in the country is the meanest of statements made by police. This will only encourage
more such crimes. What puzzles one is the presence of police
near the hotel and their apathetic attitude when
told about the incident.
It did come as a shock -- the equally callous attitude of
the judiciary in giving bail to them on flimsy grounds.
The incident portends bad times for the social life
of the people and dangers to women even in crowded
places.
To defend the women saying it is their right to go to
the beach at 1.45 a.m. and that too drunk is not
good either. They must realise that we are not living
in Vedic times. To provoke the already drunk men
and that too on a day when they are seized by mean behaviour
is just to invite trouble.
Women also ought to think where modernity is
taking them to? What is appropriate behavioiur
and the circumstances of their social
situations? Whether they are safe and protected?
Irrespective of who the perpetrators are the police must take severe action and
save the dignity of women all over the country.
