Every day we open the newspapers and news channels with fear, the question that rings in our mind are –whose daughter had to suffer the brutality to death? Whose sisters death is the whole nation going to mourn today? Many such questions, with no answer; every girl now fears to step outside the four walls of her house. The rape rate in India is rising alarmingly, and everyone seems helpless.
I recently read a news about a rape report; where the police say that there was no sign of struggle where the body was found.
Putting up a struggle appears to be futile when rape is increasingly used as a means to assert power and threaten the weak in India. In a polarised society, where hatred is used to divide people for vote banks and where the majority believe, in a hierarchical, patriarchal society, this shouldn’t be a surprise.
The imbalance in sex ration- mainly because of the illegal sex-selection abortion; it means a country full of men. The current sex ratio prevailing in our country might not be a blow to all– Sex Ratio of India is 107.48 males per 100 females in 2019, which indicates that India has 930 females per 1000 males. The preference for boys just shows that India has 49,314,062 more males population than females population.
The northern state of Haryana has recorded the highest number of gang rapes in India; it is the state with the lowest sex ratio, i.e., 879 females per 1000 males. Around 584 gang rape had been recorded in the state between January 2019 to March 2019. The crime against women, either sexual assault or harassment, has shot up in the past eight years. Records show that from 720 rape cases registered in the year 2010, it rose to 1,666 in 2018.
Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with outraging the modesty of a woman, rose from 476 in 2010 to 3,029 in 2018 — a six-time rise in the last eight years.
What is more disturbing is that the rising rape rate of children who are being targeted. Within six months, i.e. from January 1, 2019, to June 30, 2019, 24, 212 cases of child abuse have been registered in India. This means 4000 cases in a month, 130 in a day and one in every five minutes. These are just the figures which were produced before the Supreme Court by the High Courts.
It is always noted that politicians usually keep mum towards such savageness. Even PM of our country after a girl of 8-year-old from Kashim had been raped back in 2018 just made a tweet that India’s “daughters will get justice.” However, this just remained in words as nothing much have changed from then till now.
Well if you look at the opposition as well, even they have not done much about this; back in 2014 when three men were convicted for gang rape of a journalist, Mulayam Singh Yadav, leader of the regional Samajwadi Party said: “Boys make mistakes. They should not hang for this. We will change the anti-rape laws.”
Not only politicians and lawmakers have to be blamed the so-called mentality of the society plays a vital role in this. When Dr Priyanka Reddy was raped and murdered, her name ranked top in banned sites. Where rape is okay, reporting the same and fighting for justice is not. The Unnao rape victim on December 5, was set on fire, while she was on her way to attend proceedings. Reports say that 90 per cent of her body is burned and is currently in a critical state. What does this show? Don’t you think that upbringing and mentality plays a crucial role in such sickening behaviour?
