We condemn sexual harassment, demand strong law, and look for gory details of the incident on web. We are a country of hypocrites.
What is it with us that make us incorrigible hypocrites?
We show outrage over a sexual harassment case and pat a girl’s back for standing against powerful men who misunderstood her power. But we do it while reading salacious details of the disgusting act. And we do not stop there. We keep checking the internet for new “leaks” which can give us more information about what happened.
For full one week we accused Shoma Choudhury, managing editor of Tehelka, for trying to cover up the sexual harassment case and failing the victim as a woman. And rightly so for her audacity in shielding the accused, in this case editor-in-chief of Tehelka, Tarun J Tejpal. Next we hear protests in front of house. But the publicity hungry act that BJP’s leader Vijay Jolly carried out was a spoiler. How much did he hurt BJP’s image in election bound Delhi is another matter, but it clearly showed that in our overenthusiasm of condemning crime against women, we commit one.
For a month we talked about Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and his aide Amit Shah for “protecting” a woman on “direct request” of her father. Rather than discussing more about the illegal usage of state machinery by the CM and his aide, the Congress party – which has brought the case to light – kept asking about the woman who was allegedly being “protected”.
Even after a written letter by the father of the girl claiming that the woman knew about surveillance being put for her and that he himself had asked CM for the favour, the media and the Congress party called it a “snooping” case. They, in fact, did not stop there and started asking questions about the relationship of CM with the woman.
Today, a media portal called “Gulail” published a photograph of a woman with the Gujarat CM claiming that it was the same woman who was given special protection by the state government. If true, isn’t it the privacy of the woman that is being breached here?
Assam has been seized by the protests over a rape case where the body of the victim was mutilated after rape. Even after the Nirbhaya case, rape did not stop in the national capital let alone the country. A female athlete was sexually harassed in a moving train in Bihar. And when she shouted, cried for help, she was beaten black and blue.
But nothing will happen which will put a strong lid over such incidence.
Let me tell you what will happen. People will read these cases in the morning. The media will circulate all such news with a special interest in Narendra Modi news. And the social media will be flooded with hypothetical (or may be real) stories which will further jeopardise the position of women in this society.
It will not end, because it is what people will read. We are a country of hypocrites.
