There's a battle in the airwaves whether the BBC documentary, India's daughter, should be screened or not. I personally think it's a well made one, with grim but true facts and striking visuals. And, it presents the theme using just words that you and I would hear often. How many times have you heard it being said, "girls are not equal to boys", "girls are like flower who should not be hurt by thorns, afterall, only the flower gets damaged in the process", "girls should do housechores, boys should study", "girls should not go out to the streets on their own".
Violence is in every society and nation. But the strength of a nation is seen in how it responds to the crisis. By that measure, we have just defined ourselves as a reactionary, morally challenged, unjust, spiritually lost country. The worst can be summed up in one statement that her tormenter says - "she deserved it".
What I would like to see coming out from this debate is captured in the following screenshots from the exceptionally made documentary, by a brave British jouralist. Sometimes, it requires an outside voice to shake us to the grim reality of the horrors of an average Indian women's life.
I hope when the voice subsides, we can all agree in the following:
- a girl can do anything
- she has big dreams
- and, she can achieve it
After we agree on these core tenets of women's rights, let's start by teaching our children these values. That's the only way our society can transform to one where even the women can walk with her 'head held high'. As Tagore sings in the oft quoted poem below:
"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."
I do not have words to express my grief, fear and disagreement with the culture portrayed in the documentary. My head hangs so low - being a male from the same country, and unable to do anything to change the inhuman mindset there. The murderers and their lawyers are all so perverted! What if it happened to their mothers, sisters, wives or daughters? I cry so bitterly inside.....
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