The Damini conundrum

The Guwahati molestation, as it will forever be known, led to interesting questions in the media - some old, some new. I personally preferred many of the related blog articles that emerged because of the dripping venom that their words were clearly dipped in, as compared to the politically correct pieces that newspapers offered me. 

No less than the National Commission of Women's representative came forth to suggest that it was the girl's provocative dress that caused this and she shouldn't have been surprised at her fate. It's when you hear such imbecility that you realise it's time for the whole lot of these kind of representatives to shut shop and retire gracelessly away to their farm-houses and a sensible younger generation to take over. 

Anyway, is this something new for us Indians ? Have we not been born and brought up amidst newspaper articles telling us of daily incidents of women of all groups - toddlers and small girls, teenagers, married women, old women, even burn victims in hospitals - getting raped ? If the term 'culture' is based on repeated actions across generations, isn't molesting and forcefully parading women naked as much a part of 'our esteemed Indian culture' as Karva chauth and Ganesha Visarjan ? Because we surely have been watching it happen/reading about it since Independence and we haven't found any magical cure till date.

If there had been no footage, there would have never been this level of outrage. You and I, we both know it. It would register as a sad shake of the head at the sorry plight of a faceless stranger... and then a turn of the page to the sports section. The girl would never have been able to identify 50 assailants who were strangers in the dark to her and thus, they would have gotten away scot-free with someone providing them a false alibi.

And this is where I come to my point. 

I have two hard questions that the media seems to be skirting away from asking.

They may seem a bit harsh, considering you are not the assailant in them. There may not be a right answer. But I would like you to answer the questions honestly. 

1. For more than half an hour, the girl was tortured in a public street a kilometre away from the police station by a mob lusting not so much for the girl as the power they wielded over her. Articles are written on what should have been done/could have been done.  Well, my first question is this - what would you have done if you turned the corner late at night and happened upon this scene ? Born and brought up on the images of Ghayal, Khiladi and Ghajini, would you have rushed into the melee and fought off the crowd and risked getting lynched for a stranger or would you have just stayed back and called for help, knowing fully well that each minute you were watching the destruction of the girl's spirit ? Or do you have another alternative ... what would you have done ?

2. My second question is harder and more personal. It's the Damini question ( if you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about ). 

The main accused evaded arrest across four states before being hauled in. He wasn't Jason Bourne to have such instincts to survive. He was being helped obviously by his family/relatives/close friends. 

My question is this - Take it as a fact that the person who committed the crime is your son/husband. Now what do you do ? Would you stand by righteousness and against the in-laws and go to the police with the information... or would you do everything possible to save your own blood ? Would you thumb through every phone number in that mobile and seek out every political contact to help your family disappear and survive ? 

These two questions worry me. They are questions nobody is asking, perhaps because they fear too what the answer might be. Because there are no right answers here. Either way, the answer raises a disturbing question about ourselves. We all screamed foul and murder at what transpired. But what would we do in their shoes ?

I'll set the ball rolling so that you don't feel bad because you may give 'the wrong answer'.

Remember, I don't want 'a right answer'. I want 'a honest answer'.

In the first instance, I would call in for help to the police. Since this went on for quite awhile, I'm guessing either it was a relatively sparsely inhabited area or everyone there was just part of the wolf-posse. Either way, I don't see myself fighting off a mob. I would like to think I'd scream at them that the police were coming, BUT probably in a tone suggesting I was one of them rather than as the booming voice of a vigilante who had come to defend the girl. 

It isn't about being a coward. It is about reality and knowing I'm not Batman/ the Hulk and I wouldn't survive a minute if even five of them ganged up on me, let alone 50.

In the second instance, I discussed it with some of my friends and funnily, my stand was considered more controversial. But I'll stick with it. 

I would turn my son in. 

My reasoning is this -  Either I have failed in my duties as a dad or somewhere along the way, he has found peers who have convinced him that he can do it because he will get away with it. The deed has been done. I cannot undo it. From this moment on, the family name will be sullied, whether I turn him in or choose to defend him by buying away witnesses and the police. The option of getting him to safety or calling up all the political goons in my and my relatives contact-list does not tempt me for some reason. I am flexible in a lot of matters in real-life, but I don't stand for cheats and people who try wiggling away from a crime they committed using any method possible. 

In the discussions I had, I was actually the only one of this opinion. Many went with the 'Still, he's your family. You will end up doing whatever is required to save him.' A significant point is I can only talk about my son, being a male. For women in a patriarchal system like ours, I know it would be infinitely tougher to make the decision against your own husband/son and stand up against the household, risking being called the one who destroyed the family or even worse, physically harmed. 

I don't envy you your position. 

But I value your opinion. 

I would like to know your answers. The honest answers.      

P.S. Did nobody else see the irony that on the same day this news went viral, our own Sherlyn Chopra was posting pictures online of herself in USA in her birthday suit ?

Not hidden in a darkly silhouetted room, but walking in broad daylight and posing beside the entire Playboy staff she barely knew for probably a week. 

We talk of an India where it is unsafe to walk fully dressed. In her images, she reveals a lot - but she also revealed something else which noone noticed. 

She revealed a freedom that no Indian girl will ever have in India. The freedom to feel safe in your own skin.