The Delhi Bar Council must act

Really glad that the Delhi Bar Council is taking a serious view of the utterances by defence lawyer A P Singh on the 23-year-old victim in the December 16 gangrape case in which she lost her life. The lawyer for two of the convicts is reported to have said, "...if my daughter was having premarital sex and moving around at night with her boyfriend, I would have burnt her alive. I would not have let this situation happen. All parents should adopt such an attitude."
A few questions for him - 1. Is there anything called 'adulthood' in his lexicon? The woman was an adult, free to choose who she wanted to be with, go out with.
2.Does the fact that a woman is out at night with or without a man, give the right to men who come across her to rape her?
3. Why hasn't he made such statements about the men who raped? Were they habitual rapists? Did they indulge in pre and post marital sex? Why is this not being talked about?
4. He would have burnt his daughter alive, he says. What would he do if his son indulged in premarital sex? Boast that he had arrived? Is finally a man?
5. As a lawyer he is extolling parents to kill their daughters. What is wrong with this man?
6. Is he actually advocating that girls be locked up, not allowed to go out so that such situations do not happen? As a lawyer, instead of advocating basic human rights, he is actually preaching that theto freedom of movement, the right to decide who to be with etc etc are curtailed!

I am waiting to see how the Delhi Bar Council will act.

To see the growing frustration of women with the judicial and police systems, watch this video, where a woman hits out at her molester. 

When marriage for a girl is more important than education

A news item in the Times of India:

Father kills daughter for refusing to marry

Some portions from the news item -

KANPUR: A man allegedly killed his 15-year-old girl for refusing to marry a boy of his choice at Virma in Uttar Pradesh's KanpurDehat on Tuesday evening. 

Police said the girl had apparently turned down the proposal saying she was young and wanted to study.

The girl was an intermediate student and had been staying with her maternal uncle in Gudha village to complete her studies. She had returned home for summer vacations.

A police officer said ever since she had returned home, Shukla had been pestering her to accept the marriage proposal.

So what does this say about the society -

• You should not have an opinion of your own girl. You dare not go against parental wishes. Father knows best. 
• He can even kill you for opposing him. 
• Marriage is more important than education.
• What use is education? Your role in society is to cook, look after your husband and his family,  and bear children.

This is the mindset that has to change. Until then....

We can't see women do what they want

The Indian society has an issue. It cannot see women enjoy themselves. So used are they to images of long suffering women who sacrifice their happiness in the interest of their families, that when they see women out for an evening, wearing clothes they want, enjoying a drink, they are unable to come to terms with it. Be it the Mufti (religious leader) in Kashmir or the media in Andhra. Be it the north or the south of India, the mindset is the same. Could vary in degrees!

I was very disappointed in the media which did a story on these bunch of girls coming out of a restaurant in Hyderabad. They were made out to be a bunch of drunk women by the regional media. To me they seem very upset over being filmed without their permission. And why should anyone just take their pictures?

Is there a shortage of stories for the media to cover? Just get out of your comfort zone and see the tragedy all around --farmers killing themselves, women dying in childbirth, children who are out of school, women being tortured for dowries, poverty, ill health , corruption, a whole lot of negative stories. And if you want to be positive, capture our hardworking people using their imagination to survive, honest citizens doing their best to live a dignified life, parents working hard to give their children a decent education, scientists, industrialists, the music, the dance...

Where is the dearth of stories for the media?
At the same time, I am very encouraged that these young women have decided to fight for their right to be, and are demanding compensation from all the channels which strangely cannot find a worthwhile story to do, that  they have to pounce on women out for an evening. 

Delhi gangrape and mindset of the rapists

In continuation of my earlier post...
Another gangrape in Delhi, how will we act?



"...The men on the bus taunted the woman for being out at night with a man".  When he tried to protect her, they attacked him with an iron rod.  The medical student tried to help him, but was beaten and then gang-raped. 

- as reported by NDTV.


These men could not tolerate the mere presence of a woman with a man of her choice. They felt that they should attack her, and the man who was with her. For in the society they come from, women are denied personal freedoms and the freedom to move around. Fathers, brothers, uncles think they have the right to use violence over women to get them to do what they want. Domestic and sexual violence is the norm.

But it is okay for them to drink, to take joy rides in a bus, which was supposed to be off the road at that time, rape and maim. They see nothing wrong with that!

What does this say about the mindset of such men? How do we change it?