[poll id="2"]
The shameful incident of 40 odd self acclaimed “protectors of Indian culture” attacking girls partying in a club in Mangalore has been drawing severe criticism from all parts of the country and from all intelligent and humane sections of the society.

The incident happened on January 24 2009 when 40 activists of  “Sri Ram Sena” (SRS), a hindu group attacked girls who were just having some quality time with their friends. They were brutally beaten and harrased at the hands of SRS goons. They were slapped,pushed,made to hear derogatory remarks about their conduct. So much hooliganism in the name of religion and culture.

We today claim to be a super power, we talk about giving reservations to women, giving them their rights, but the truth is that from inside we just dont respect our women. We still see (or a large section) them as someone who has to sit at home keeping our houses,feeding our children and bearing our non sense all the time. We treat them not as humans but as animals,or even as objects. These people are talking about culture? How civilised do they think when they lay their hands on a female. Do they think you are “men”? They are cowards. A man will never physically harass a women. I saw the pictures of the assualt and they were extremely terrifying and I could not post them here on my blog post.I find it hard to believe how can someone actually treat women like that.

I was watching the interview of one of the victim on news channel. She said that they were molested,harassed,their skirts were pulled down,were even called prostitutes (WTF!!!) and other derogatory remarks. Another victim described the whole incident as a traumatic expirience.

Which religion/culture teaches us to dis-respect women? Its just in the mentality of Indian men that we cant accept women working shoulder to shoulder with us. We may be in 21st century but our thinking is not in sync with the current times.

This is not just an isolated incident. These hindu groups and so called “keepers of the Indian culture” have been practising these kind of attacks for a long tme now. Couples have been repeatedly targeted,harassed, beaten since years, specially on Valentines Day. You can bet this will happen this time too. I am really sick of these groups;VHP,SRS,Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena etc.

These kind of incidents makes women believe they are not safe among us,that they can not walk freely even in daylight,they are not free to move anywhere they want or do anything they want. I read many news papers and activists have rightly called this “Talibanisation of India“.

Things men should be made very clear are:

1. Who are you to judge moral character/conduct of any girl? The girl herself has all the rights reserved with herself to do anything she wants,wear anything they fancy,go anywhere they want at any time. You can argue that this is what gets them in trouble but actually its the mentality of people which is wrong which creates trouble out of nothing. If the girl is not major, her parents can rightfully advice her about do’s and dont’s and after she is major, she herself can decide what she wants and how she wants. Her parents can advice her but not you god dammit! You would be better of polishing your brain a little. Inida is a democratic country anyway. Everybody has the right to full freedom. You have no authority or say in what she wears,where and what she goes for partying etc.

2. How do you judge character or conduct of a girl? As in what is the criteria for judging a girl/women. India is a great country where even rape victims are frowned upon by the society. People actually say that the girl was raped because she was having a lower moral conduct! The victim is turned into a culprit! Amazing right? It is one of the prime reasons why many rape victims do not report the crime and hence many case go un noticed which further strengthens the will of criminals. What happens after they report the crime, whether culprit does actually gets punished is a different story. People do not understand that a crime like rape has nothing to do with the conduct of the girl. However she is,no one has any right to assualt her sanctity physically or sexually.

I remember when I wrote this post about an year back when 2 women were molested shamelessly by a mob in Mumbai on the new year’s eve. I thought there could be no explanation for such an act but I was suprised and shocked to see comments blaming women themselves for being out at mid night. That was equally shameful.

We need to get out of this sick mentality.

Its was also painful (though not surprising at all) to see news channel wallas making their “story” out of such a sad incident. They were running around to get little extra footage than the other so that they can claim they did a “better” coverage. Could they have done anything more at the scene?

And do we need to say anything about the goverment/politicians? Someone even feel this is just a minor incident being blown out of proportions to gain political mileage. If that was not enough,believe it or not, Bajrang Dal and SRS are actually vying for the crown of the group which commited this great act! [sarcasm] Hats of to all of our leaders. We all love you. [/sarcasm]

Anyway, all the people behind this should be punished under law and law enforcement should be done in a better way. Culprits easily get away by bribing or by help of political connections. I know its a lot easy being said than done.

But most important of all,we need to get rid of our crippled mentality.