Dear Member of Parliament

I had written an open letter to you some time back urging you to take note of the anguish we, women, felt and help enact a law that would recognise us as equals to you, men. I must admit that I had not much hope of anything happening as your past record and those of your peers is to say the least  dismal.  Yet at that time, for the briefest of moments I had seen a glimmer hope. Maybe I was just swayed by the power of those who had taken to the street. It was the flavour of the day/month for each and everyone. 

Slowly the streets quietened as everyone went back to their lives. The flavour of the day changed. That is when you and your compeers began to craft an insidious and cunning game meant to fool us all. It all began with you instituting a Commission that for once gave its Report in record time. It was the seduction part of your sly game. We were charmed as the recommendations sounded like the dream we had longed for. It seemed that we were at the threshold of a new dawn, that perhaps we would finally find our place in the sun. You had us all! We yearned for a new law that would be enacted! How gullible we were! 

Soon you began revealing your cards. First came a hurriedly promulgated ordinance where most of what we were hoping for was simply dropped. But you scored your brownie points as you could trumpet high and loud that you were the saviour of women. Ordinances have a brief life, we all know that. We all wondered why you were in such a hurry when Parliament was just a few days away. 

Then Parliament  happened and the ordinance had to become law or else it would lapse. That is when your game was exposed. The draft Bill was modified to suit the demands of a whole gamut of patriarchal interest. The things we needed most were simply obliterated. 

On the day the Bill was presented to the Lower House, there was a huge political crisis and no one was truly interested in the plight of women. Only 35% of the Members of Parliament were present in the house. May I remind you that women form 50% of your electorate, the very electorate you try to seduce every five years. 

I need to know one thing Mister MP. Were you one of the 65% absentees. Did you, like them, feel that women were not to be taken seriously and did not matter. In a way I would prefer you having been absent as in that case I may still give you the benefit of the doubt, something you never give others though. 

I read with horror, sadness and pain the record of the debate on the anti rape bill. It was nothing short of humiliating. I have questions for you in case you were one of the 100 odd MPs present. Let me remind you that the bill was about giving women their due and ensuring that they be considered not as second class citizens but at par with the other 50% of the population. Everyone seemed to be interested in passing the Bill, in whatever form, before the 22nd. Never mind if it did not meet the expectations of those who elect you. The bill was moved at 2.15 pm and passed at 7.40 pm. We only deserved 5 hours of your time. Should you have spent it discussing the true essence of what we wanted, I guess 5 hours would have been ample, but what happened in those ill fated 5 hours is nothing short of shameful. Women were ‘raped’ in public by the very ones we entrust our destiny to.

All that transpired in those 5 hours was aimed at protecting you and not us. Now tell me where you the one who blamed western culture for rapes, or the one who felt that stalking is kosher as a means of initiating romance. I would like to ask you a question. Would Priyardarshini Mattoo be still alive had stalking been an offence? She was stalked for 2 years before she was brutally murdered. But then she is not your daughter or sister.

Or were you the one who felt that we need cultural cleansing. Or the one who felt that all should remain within the family. Never mind the wive beaters and child abusers.

Or were you the one who felt that it is what we wear that incites rape. Then tell me how a 6 month old, or a 2 year old dresses sexily. Maybe diapers are the new kid on the western fashion block.

Maybe you sympathised with the person who said: We are men after all! This blame the victim drama makes me physically sick.

It was not a debate on morality, Dear Sir, but a discussion that would make your daughters and sisters in our own country! Maybe you guys had forgotten that.

And when a Member seeks life imprisonment for acid attacks, you shoot it down. Just close your eyes and imagine your loved one being attacked with acid. It is not one simple murder. It is condemning a person to live and die everyday. It is like a series of murders. A fit case for an eye for an eye! And often it comes after stalking, a crime you feel will infringe on your romantic pursuits.

It makes me sick and revolted 

What happened that day was that we were once again taught what our station in life was and would remain. 

I will borrow the words of Shobha De who rightly says that we are just vaginas, and vaginas are meant to be violated. To be born with a vagina is provocation enough!

It is time we get used to this. You will do nothing!

It was a game you played, and we fell for it.

A 3 year old was raped in Kerala. She was sleeping on the pavement next to her mother, a homeless rag picker. She was brutalised with a blunt object. When she was found. she had high fever and ants crawling all over her tiny body.  She will take a long time to recover from her physical injuries. I wonder whether she will ever recover from the scars on her tiny soul. Her mother, almost a child herself sits by her bed. I cannot begin to fathom what goes on in her mind. She has another older child and is carrying her third one. She is part of what Harsh Mander callas the invisible poor. Umpteen questions come to mind. What will happen to the little 3 year old? What is the future of the family? Will someone get moved by their plight and help them?

Two days back a class XII student went to meet a friend at a Mall. Is this not what all kids do today! When it was time to go home she took a shared auto rickshaw. The ride turned out to be a nightmare as she was driven around for 2 hours, raped and robbed before being thrown out of the vehicle. Does this not remind you of the one called braveheart who was raped on a December night? The country was on its feet to demand justice, albeit for a limited time. Had our slumbering consciences awoken for a nano moment.

The state went into damage control mode as it often does when faced with an inevitable situation. When water canons and tear gas shells failed, it constituted a committee to suggest amendments to the existing laws. The committee did surprisingly well and gave us a comprehensive report. The government went in knee jerk mode and promulgated an ordinance knowing very well that it was a short term solution as it needed to be ratified by the Parliament. The proposed bill has now been put on the back burner. The reason: nitpicking over small issues like the lowering of age of consent. If you ask my opinion, I would say that lowering the age of consent has nothing to do with rape! I am one of those who believe that marital rape should also be punished. The state is not a guardian of morality though it often steps into that space. First perhaps, our law makers and enforcers should ensure that no child mariage takes place and the law that states that girls cannot be married before 18 should be implemented. One cannot hide behind social mores and tradition and let people brake laws. Mindsets to need to be changed.

Rapes are a crime, a violation of a women’s body irrespective of her age. We are all too well aware of this fact. Turn on the TV, scan the morning paper and you will have your fill of rapes: 8 months old, 3 years old, 12 years old, 50 years old and so on. From January to mid February 181 rape cases have been reported in our city, that is 4 rapes a day! Seems like the perpetrators know that they rape with impunity. And they are right if we are to believe a report aired of CNN IBN this morning where law enforcers are caught on camera stating aberrations like only 1 to 2 % are real rapes rest are consensual; only women in western clothes are raped and so on. Till this CHANGES no ordinance, law or more of the same can make any difference. And the rapists know that.

Today is International Women’s Day. I would suggest you read Shobha De’s article. In our land Vaginas are for violating.

I have just started reading Ash in the Belly by Harsh Mander. A few pages down it is my belly that is knotted and and on fire. The last time this happened to me was when I read Bitter Chocolate, Pinki Virani’s shocking and disquieting account of child sexual abuse in India. The first pages of Mander’s book brought to life the spectre of hunger and malnutrition I have often written about in this blog. How many times  have I not spouted statistics hoping against hope that they would awaken our far too numbed consciences. I speak of you and I who have so often stood with an empty plate in front of a lavish if not gross display of food at upmarket weddings, wondering what to put on our plate? Will it be Italian or Kashmiri? Thai or French? The sight of so much food can even give you visual indigestion and let us not forget that this happens after we have gorged ourselves with snacks and glasses of bubbly! And then, armed with our over laden plates, half of which we will ultimately throw, we have sat at a table with our peers chatting about the Foreign University our child is or will be attending, or the latest outrageously priced bag just come in at a luxury store? I guess many of us would have experienced some shade of the above.

Maybe we think we belong to the slightly more intellectual variety and would be discussing the latest film or best seller. Perhaps the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins which does give a rather believable scenario of what might happen to humanity in times to come.

Today I am going to talk to you about real Hunger Games played by real people who are our brethren. The First Chapter of Ash in the Belly is entitled: Living with Hunger. Women in a small village of Uttar Pradesh talk about their lives and about the lessons they have to teach their children. Unlike us they do not teach alphabets, numbers or colour recognition. The one and only terrifying lesson their children have to learn is: how to sleep hungry! To avoid their children having to sleep hungry they do the unimaginable. Brace yourself before reading what I write now. It is from page 6 of Ash in the Belly: On days where there is no food in the house the whole family sets out to find food. They scour the harvested fields of the landlords with brooms to garner the gleaning of the stray grains of wheat and paddy… they follow field rats to their burrows and are skilled in scrapping out the grains stolen and stored underground by the rodents…after each weekly market ends, they collect in their sari edges, grain  spilled inadvertently by traders or rotting waste vegetable… they even sift through cow dung for undigested grain. (Ash in the Belly page 6). The grain thus collected is cooked with water, salt and turmeric to quell the hunger pangs of their children. And if there is still no food then the little ones are given cannabis or cheap tobacco to soothe them to sleep.

I do not know how you feel after reading these lines, but I felt ashamed and guilt ridden for every grain I would have wasted in the six decades of my life. Go to your rubbish bin now and just look at the all the things that could have allowed children to not sleep hungry. But as Mander says in his book that the poor do not matter anymore. They have disappeared from our lives: from our films, our songs, our poetry, our literature. They have become invisible. They are assassinated everyday because of our indifference.

People are starving across the length and breadth of India. Unlike us who ponder about what kind of food we will eat today, these people’s menu is restricted to ‘delicacies’ that never appear on the lavish and vulgar display we are used to. Have you tasted basi (fermented rice water) laced with leaves gathered from the forest; have you eaten a paste made of young bamboo or kaddi a poisonous wild plant immersed in the river water to get rid of some of the poison and then laced with jaggery to mask its bitterness? And yet this is what millions of people in our country eat to survive.

The book has revealing chapters: living with hunger, hunger amidst plenty, ways of coping. I have not read them yet but know that each will reveal another tragic aspect of a reality we refuse to acknowledge. The data given in the book is frightening: 230 million men, women and children go to sleep hungry every night; 76% of India’s household are calorie deficient; 42% of the world’s underweight children live in India. Need I say more.

The book also gives us a list of schemes launched by the Government to supposedly tackle this problem. I counted 12 with fancy acronyms using a wide range of letters from the alphabet. Each sounds fancy and a panacea to all problems ailing the poor. Some go back to 1975. But nothing has changed. These fancy schemes with huge allocations seem to benefit everyone except the stated beneficiaries. We who have a voice and could ensure that things worked as they should keep mute as always. It is not our kids who have to sleep hungry. At most we grumble because such schemes affect our taxes.

We have time and again heard about the humongous quantities of grain rotting in different parts of the country. Have we ever raised our voices? Why should we? We all suffer from a syndrome called indifference.

Next time you throw or waste food, think of the child who has sleep hungry? Will you?

I for one intend to keep on raising this issue in my writing with the hope that perhaps one person will hear the cries of the invisible millions.

I am now bracing myself to read the next pages.

Of late, I hold my breath each time I go to Greater Kailash 1 M Block Market. Wonder why? Well it is because I shudder to think which shop will have pulled down its shutters and closed and whether it will yet again be replaced by a new jewelery shop. Over the past years we have seen this happen time and again. I have lost count of how many gold and silver shops there are in this market. I would not be surprised if the market score a century in the very near future. Last week I wanted to buy a pair of jeans from the Levis store and to my utter dismay I found the shutter down! I can bet we will have a new gold and diamond store. Once upon a very long time GK M block was your regular market where you found all your needs. We had meat shops, grocery shops, pastry shops, Indian sweet shops, a haberdasher, paint shops, book shops and so on. All of these have disappeared. I was also saddened that my favourite coffe and tea shop is now closed. I have heard we are on the way to getting a Starbucks.

The CEO of our city has always astounded me with her knee jerk solutions to disturbing issues. One can never forget how, in the wake of a young journalist being murdered whilst coming back home from work, she quipped: All by herself till 3 am at night in a city where people believe…you know…you should not be so adventurous. I wonder what she meant? Was it that women should stay indoors after a certain time? Going home from work is in no way adventurous. I remember having to come home post 1.30 am way back in the seventies when I worked at the radio station French services and had a live transmission from till 1am. Cars were provided by the office but sometimes we had to take circuitous routes and as I lived the farthest, I often was alone for the last leg of the journey. The cars were old and often broke down but somehow one was never scared. In the 80s I worked in International Conferences and again such conferences have the uncanny habit of going late into the night and one had to come home alone. It was not a matter of choice and in no way an adventure.

A few days back our esteemed lady came up with another gem. When attacked for the exponential rise in power tariffs, something we are all experiencing, she retorted: If somebody is finding it difficult to pay the bill then he can use a fan instead of a cooler. So if I understand well, whatever our grievance, it is never the State’s fault, it is ours for not making the needed adjustments. If water is too costly have a weekly bath, if food is too expensive eat a meal a day and so on. Strange interpretation of democracy! We elect you presumably to care for our needs, but once you are in power you can do anything.

Coincidentally to this latest chief ministerial blooper, or maybe it is synchronicity, an article appeared in a serious weekly entitled: The take it to easy polity. The article begins with a quote of our PM: Reforms are needed, I have always said that, but economic reforms with a human face will give India’s common man real hope. However 9 years down the road we are all waiting our the basic amenities. What is worse is that we have to pay more for what we do not get! What we are seeing is an insidious plan to hand over public services to private players and the way to do that is simply to mismanage these services and ultimately plead incompetence allowing the private boys to take over. Since electricity has been privatised bills have escalated and many of us in Delhi have received water bills in 5 figures! Even  Project Why which operates from a minuscule building for 8 hours a day receives electricity and water bills in tens of thousands.

I would like to highlight two very different aspects of all that has been said. The first one pertains to the abdication of the state of all its responsibilities. To illustrate this I will share a personal experience. A few years ago I was approached by a senior MCD official and friend. He asked me whether I would be interested in ‘taking over’ the local municipal school. This was the very beginning of the privatisation saga. I was somewhat horrified but wanting to know more I played on. The bottom line was that one would get the school, the kids, the teacher’s et al. Only the teachers – and you could not select them – would be paid by the MCD. All other expenses were yours! Needless to say that being an organisation seeking funds to educate slum children, I could not use pwhy funds to do work of the sate, and hence if the concept was to work the only recourse was to seek fees. Exit all the poor kids! If of course immediately refused the idea. Education as per the Constitution has to be free and equitable! The State must run proper schools. But that is pure chimera. It is not because they cannot – ie Central Schools – but because they want not. The reason: plenty on offer. One maybe because they want to ensure that a large part of society remains illiterate or at best semi literate. Better to manipulate you! Vote bank politics! Soon we may hear something like: if you do not like our schools go to private ones.

The other aspect I wanted to focus on was the ‘wants’of the urban poor. It is easy for our city boss to suggest people use fans instead of coolers but that is not how it works. When people move to the city they do so for a better life. They have needs to fulfil but once these are met come the needs. I will tell you the story of one family whose home I have been going to for over a decade now. When I first met them, they told me that they had come to the city after Mrs Gandhis death having had to leave Punjab. At that time their kids were small and in the little plot of land they managed to ‘purchase’ they built a mud structure with a tin roof. Over the years they managed to educate the children as that was their first priority. When I came into their lives, the mud walls had been replaced by brick ones, the tin roof by a concrete one and they had just purchased a refrigerator. A small black and white TV occupied a place of honour. Today they have 2 colour TVs, coolers, mixers and grinders and a washing machine. The kids go to good public schools and they have new dreams they want to realise. Their wants are not illogical or absurd. They are the culmination of long difficult years. They are willing to pay for public services provided the bills are fair. They have not come all this way to go back to mud walls and tin roofs. They do not want to use a fan now that they have a cooler.

The kind of remarks politicians make shows the complete disconnect between the rules and their people. It is time things changed!

Till date, I have shared the on goings of Project Why based on what I saw, or what my staff shared or what well wishers, supporters and funders wrote in reports, blogs or on social networks. Some how it never cross my mind to get the children to share their thoughts. And yet they are the ones who should have been given that opportunity. So I was delighted when the coordinator of our women centre decided to give pen and paper to students and ask them to write what they felt. All teachers were asked to leave the premise and the security guard and housekeeper where the ones supervising the exercise.

I was given a report and I would like to share with you Project Why through the eyes of those who matter most. The children participating were from class III to IX.

One child thought that Pwhy was great because it has toilets, drinking water and free education. Another one was touched by the fact that the organisation helped her parents when they had lost their jobs and were desperate and also because many volunteers come to the Project and she can talk to them in English and improve her knowledge. A young class V girl likes Project Why because it does not make a difference between boys and girls and she loves the Sunday classes when all kids come together. A little girl likes the Saturday hand washing and  a young boy likes the fact that there are no more than 15 students per class. For some students what makes Pwhy special is the dancing, singing and art activities, for others it is the fact that teachers are patient and do not beat children. Some like the fact that there is a big library with good books and that there are spoken English classes. And many simply felt that pwhy gave them an enabling environment to study in all seasons.

Some kids like the camaraderie that exists in the Project Why and that all children are treated equally, irrespective of their caste or creed. One class IX student candidly admits that when he came to Pwhy he was not good at studies but that now he has improved a lot. A class VII student appreciated the photography workshop and the fact that he and his friends are given cameras to take pictures regularly.

Many students appreciated the fact that they were not chastised for their bad habits. On the contrary teachers took time to understand their problems and help them get over their bad habit. Teachers were more like friends and mentors and went out of their way to help students.

And a class VII student simply said that Project Why is like her family.

To many, all these statements may seem innocuous and commonplace, simple ramblings of students wanting to say the right thing. But it is not so. When I read them I felt overwhelmed and humbled. These seemingly anodyne words actually reveal the reality of children who are not understood and appreciated by the adults in their world, be it their parents or school teachers and for whom pwhy is the support they so need. A place where they are considered as individuals who matter. The words also reveal how things that are taken for granted by the likes of us, are luxury to urban slum kids be it a clean toilet, drinking water or the pleasure of washing one’s hands. The thoughts shared by these children go along way in proving that we have failed as a society in ensuring that all children what is rightfully theirs.

The question I ask myself is: are we doing enough?

Two months ago, India was on its feet expressing its outrage at the barbaric rape and subsequent murder of a young woman in a Delhi bus. We were angry and ashamed and swore to not give up the fight till justice was done. We decided to wear black bands and keep up the fight. The media was replete with stories on women’s safety. Brought to its knees the state constituted a committee meant to look at women related issues and the said committee worked relentlessly to bring about a report many of us were thrilled out. For the first time, issues that are normally brushed under carpets were highlighted. We were all on a high. But then surreptitiously, the dark forces set to work. A hurried ordinance which diluted many of the main issues was promulgated leaving us all perplexed. Why the hurry? In the mean time, the media found greener pastures (the death and beheading of soldiers, the much awaited hanging of a terrorist, the curious case of a Party President, and now blasts in a southern city) and even the tiny news item that informed us of the daily hearings of the case of the accused in the Delhi rape, stopped. Our black bands faded and I wonder how many of us replaced them.

But atrocities against women did not stop. Rapes continued with alacrity and seeming impunity. But we remain silent. The Delhi rape is undoubtedly horrific but what about the recent rape of 3 little sisters in Bhandara. Why have we not felt outraged as we did a few months ago? Is it because these 3 little souls belong to a social background we cannot identify with? Imagine three little girls, between the age of 5 and 11, waking up in the morning as they do each school day, wearing their uniforms, hurriedly gulping a breakfast lovingly prepared by their mother, picking up their bags and setting off for school. Only on that day they never came home. A predator was lurking on the way; he may have enticed them with some treat or the other and then hijacked and destroyed their dreams in a flash. I shudder to imagine what  their last moments on earth were like. The confusion, the bewilderment, the helplessness, the pain and the realisation that it was all over. Their journey from home to school ended in a dark well. Were they still alive when they were pushed in? And imagine the plight of the mother, widowed a few years back and who  now loses her children. No amount of compensation can begin to heal her agony.

What is worse is that the police did nothing for two days. The investigation was shoddy and truly began only after the enraged villagers resorted to violent protest. According to the latest news the Principal of the school they studied in has been suspended for not having reported that the girls were missing. The question that begs to be answered is whether the police would have acted had the principal reported the incident? Sadly this is not the only incident. Rapes have been committed with alacrity and impunity every single day since the terrible Delhi rape. But we seem to have lost our voice yet again.

The Delhi case has resulted in an ordinance that needs to be passed by Parliament but trends indicate that though it seemed that everyone once agreed, it may lapse for want of time! And there is more. It also seems that some of our esteemed politicians have raised some doubts. One of these seems to be that if stalking is included then it could be misused. Others objections have been against voyeurism and even sexual harassment at the work place. All this augurs well for the Government who can then allow the ordinance to lapse. The existing laws will remain and nothing would have changed.

What is frightening is that the ‘doubts’ expressed reek of patriarchy and seem to condone the conspiracy of silence that has prevailed. It seems that the only true ‘crime’ against women that all are willing to address and condemn is rape. But rape is the culmination of a series of albeit smaller crimes that embolden perpetrators. Perpetrators are often misguided youth who begin their descent with crimes like teasing, stalking, groping etc. If these will be smiled upon benignly by a patriarchal society that considers women as second class beings, possessions and objects then women will never get justice. Men will never understand the rage and hurt felt by a woman who is leered at or groped. In every way it is a violation of her being. If crime against women is to be addressed then every from of crime has to come under the ambit of law. By objecting to stalking, voyeurism and any form of harassment, men want to retain the right of indulging in such low games with impunity. Diluting any law is as good as discarding it.

Is there no hope then. One would be tempted to say yes. Since time immemorial women have learnt to live with such aberrations and build defenses. The Delhi rape did shake us out of our immobility and we would have liked to believe that our rage would bring about change. But the enemy is wily and strong. It will require subtle tactics and a long war. Delhi was just the first battle and we still have not won it. The Bhandara culprits roam free. The Suryanelli survivor has still not got justice even after 17 long years. To bring about change we need to raise our voices in each and every case; we need to convey our outrage each time a crime is committed against women and children. We need to refuse to accept aberrations and stop building defenses. But will we? Every day children and are abused within the so called safety of their homes but no one says a word. If the child garners the courage to share her/his hurt with an elder, (s)he is sworn to the code of silence, a code meant to protect the patriarchal equilibrium. A girl his told not to talk about sexual assault she may have incurred because it ‘may ruin her chances on the marriage market’. What is this society where the victim is criminalised and the perpetrator roams free. I am sure than men who may be guilty of stalking or groping asre still good marriage market material.

True men need to be sensitized, but more than them, it is we women who have to be freed from patriarcal mindsets and learn to respect ourselves and other women. When will that day dawn?

They are back! Wonder who? The Worman’s!  They are back their prodigious smiles that never seem to need time off and can lift the worse case of blues; with their bag of tricks (new ones included) and their humongous bubbles that makes the grimmest soul become a child again. They came to us a little over two years ago and disproved once for all the adage that says; rarely is love instant. With Alan and Em you fall in love in the blink of an eye.

When they were here last they taught us, and me personally many lessons, the most important one being to trust human nature implicitly. With them we rediscovered a new vocabulary that we often seem to forget:joy, delight, fun, gaiety, laughter, giggles and so much more. When they enter your lives they bring in sunshine and when they leave they do not take it away. They leave you enough to last till they pop back again to replenish your sagging batteries. So for the past week we have been imbibing the Worman magic, knowing that they will soon leave and that we need to fill up the tanks!

Alan and Em are two big kids who somehow refuse to grow up as they see to know that adulthood brings too many hassles, most of them self created. When they are around we all become kids!

For the past and the next week Alan and Em are thrilling the children with stories spiced with strange gadgets like a remote controlled mouse or a rubber chicken, with magic tricks that leave even adults open-mouthed and with bubbles that are larger than you could ever imagine. The centres where they land are filled with cried of joy and loud laughter. As long as they are there all negativity vanishes.

Em and Alan are also the most generous souls that I have ever met and their brand of generosity is uplifting and humbling.

Knowing them has not only been been an honour and privilege but has in many ways made me a better person. I for one know that my last words to them before they leave will be : When are you coning back?

Sometimes one is asked to provide statistics to show what we are up to. At times it is donors who want to know but most of the times it is some government agency or the other who demands facts and figures. I guess there is comfort in numbers. Anyway we were asked to provide numbers recently and so an exercise of assessing numbers of students, boy/girl ratio, social profile etc was undertaken. We also decided to find out how many students had cleared their XIIth Boards with the help of project why and how many of them had topped their respective schools. Our first batch of class XII was in 2005. Since then 175 students have cleared their Boards and 13 were toppers in their school. One of our students got 99% in maths! Some may say that 175 kids is not great shakes. But to us it is a number to be proud of, more so because many of these kids were not doing great when they came to us and some were even failures. That they could overcome their failings is in itself a huge achievement. Some of our children even got awards for their scholastic performance and that is certainly something to be proud of. According to their teacher, the class of 2013 is set to bring in more laurels.

That was the uplifting part, now let us get to the disturbing one. These days I rarely get the chance of interacting with all the staff. This is because of my decision of slowly withdrawing from the day-to-day running of the project as the mantle has to be passed on, but maybe I should review the decision. Anyway, quite perchance I spent some time with Naresh, our stellar senior secondary teacher, who has  ensured that every child cleared the dreaded Board Examinations . The conversation began with my asking him how things were after the rather radical changes in the education system. I refer to the introduction of the Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation system and the optional class X. What he told me made my blood run cold. Apparently the new system is nothing short of a disaster in Government run schools. Whereas private schools have evolved their own assessment system, the State run schools have simply taken the easy way out. Prior to the introduction if the CCE, it is was difficult for s child to remain in school after class VI, as she/he needed to perform to be eligible for the next class. Now with the new no fail policy and with a little help from the teacher you can go all the way to class X and even get a certificate without much knowledge. Let me elucidate with a couple of examples. R dropped out of school in class VI.  He was a poor student and unable to keep up. Come the CCE, he got readmitted in class IX after four years. The readmission was done after paying the teacher the sum of 10K rupees. As it is the teacher who marks all papers R has and will get ‘good’ marks and even pass his Xth though he can barely read! There is another student like R. His claim to success is that he washes the teacher’s car.

Some Government school kids are bright and would like to opt for the State class X Board Examination  but they are vehemently discouraged by their teachers. I had written a piece on education which talked about the quality of teachers. The new system seems tailor made for them as it requires very little work. Would you believe me if I told you that in a secondary school in the neighborhood, children who make it to class XI are urged to join project why as the teachers admit their incapacity to teach mathematics. The reality is that without tuition no one can make it, and tuition is expensive, project why however is free!

But it does end here. The Government has instituted a cash reward for teachers whose pupils get 90% or more in their XIIth. Many of our kids have done so and the teachers who did nothing have accepted the kudos and the cash reward. In the case of V who had 90% in many subjects the reward story is unbelievable. Teachers came to his home very early in the morning and told him to accompany them to a function held quite far from his home. He barely got time to brush his teeth. The ceremony was held, the rewards pocketed and V was left like to find way home on his own. Thank heavens he had the sagacity of bringing 50 Rs with him!

The new education changes have widened the gap between the rich and the poor. It is nothing less than shameful and should be condemned in the loudest way possible.

Last week the Government promulgated a new Ordinance on sexual assault. This was done in the wake of the recent brutal rape of a young girl and the subsequent report of the Verma Committee. The said Ordinance was passed hurriedly in spite of objections from women’s groups. One wonders why the Government did not wait for the impeding parliament session that could have discussed the recommendations of the report in toto. Some eminent jurists have noted that the expeditious drafting of the said ordinance makes it weak and open to misinterpretation by clever defence lawyers. Many feel that this ordinance has short changed women and blunted the teeth of the Verma Committee recommendations.

However this post is not meant to be an apologia for the report or the ordinance. It is meant to highlight the way laws, ordinances and programmes are implemented in our country. As an eminent jurist recently said on television in a debate on the new ordinance on sexual assault: it is useless to put a better engine on a car with flat tyres. No law, however perfect can be properly implemented unless those who are meant to put it into effect are up to the mark: the police and the judicial system. You can cry out ad infinitum for more fast track courts but unless you have sufficient judges and courtrooms it is all in vain. You can set out the most humane protocol for rape victims at police station, it will never see the light of day unless you are able to change the cops mindsets. We still have law enforcers who refsue to register an FIR in the case of a six month baby who was sexually assaulted, their first reaction being that: the injury to the girl’s private part was caused by a rat bite. And how can you trust a police force that stand mute why a kangaroo court delivers a ludicrous punishment to a sexual assaulter. What happens to the laws.

I am also surprised at the fact that the media which normally at the front of all debates for change are still using the terms ‘eve teasing’ and ‘outrage to modesty’ when these are meant to have been banned by the proposed ordinance!

We have the best Constitution but are our constitutional right truly guaranteed? Not quite as we all know! We have a plethora of laudable and empowering rights for each and every section of society; a profusion of laws which maybe antiquated but still work if properly implemented, an abundance of social programmes that can and should have transformed our society till now. One of the schemes I have oft quoted is the ICDS (Intergrated Child Development Scheme), heralded with great fanfare in 1975. At it worked as envisaged then every Indian under the age of 38, irrespective of her/his caste, creed, economic status etc would have been well nourished, fully immunized and got pre school education. I do not think I need say anything on the issue but simply once again reiterate the shocking fact that one child dies every 3.5 minute of malnutrition.

The exampled are abundant. Let us take the debate of the Juvenile Justice Act of 2000. It has a lot of positive in it as children can be reformed but that necessitates well run reform homed with a humane approach, counsellors, therapists etc. The state of the reform homes in India is shocking to say the least. Even this morning a news item highlighted the plight of a child who was repeatedly sexually assaulted in the very home meant to care for him. I so wish we started finding our voices to counter these atrocities meted to innocent souls. But we remain mute. It is not our child that is silently suffering inside the dark walls of such homes.

Simply google for social welfare schemes in India. You will find a surfeit of schemes for one and all with fancy acronyms. If these worked then everyone from women, to children, to tribals, to the disabled  and so one should be thriving. That is not the case at all.

More laws, or more schemes or more ordinances will change nothing unless mindsets change in those who have the responsibility of implementing them, Nothing will change unless those in charge stop looking at these as ways to line their already heavy pockets.

So whether the new ordinance has teeth or not is secondary. It is time for reforms in the law enforcement agencies. It is time everyone found the conscience it has so conveniently mislaid.

In free India an all girl’s rock band receives a fatwa from the Grand Mufti of Kashmir stating that  music is bad for the society and women must be under a veil at all times. The Mufti  goes on to say that he urges women in the country to wear the veil at all times and states that women performing in public is the reason for increasing number of sexual assaults. So one cleric urges us to make brothers out of potential rapists to save ourselves, and the other goes on step further by urging us to wear a veil at all time. The police on the other hand suggested we go straight home from school, college, work or whatever activity we pursue. Why not just issue a diktat that says that all women from 9 to 90 should just stay at home to and hence solve all sexual assaults once for all. Somehow the fact that we live in a democracy and have rights enshrined and guaranteed by the Constitution seems to be forgotten.

Sadly the bold brave girls of Kashmir have decided to call it quits: they have decided to quit singing and music. My heart goes out to them. Young school girls with a love for music and loads of talent. Something to applaud and be proud of not be crushed by inane and incomprehensible logic. What harm can little girls do. Once again bigots have hijacked all our constitutional rights. I was all choked up whenI heard the little teenagers say on TV that they had disbanded their band because the Grand Mufti had ordained that music was ‘haram’ and against Islam. Like all children they submitted to the adult, as they always do. Is that not that tragedy of children in India. But try to imagine what was going on in their mind. Here were three young girls blessed with talent and a passion for music, who must have worked and practiced so hard to reach the competition they participated in, heard the applause and appreciation and then the thrill of winning. How happy they must have been when they shared their joy with their friends on the social networks. And then imagine their horror when abusive messages started pouring in and then a few days later the dikta of the Grand Mufti. And the crashing of all their dreams and their little voices shut for ever. As one of the girls poignantly said: I will now sing for myself. Children are meant to sing, dance and express themselves in every way possible. They should be heard, applauded and encouraged by one and all. What right does any one have to curb their creativity in the name of religion, creed or whatever else they can come up with. And above all these so called protectors of faith are no one to take away anyone’s constitutional rights. What is shocking is to see the State pander again and again to such people and groups. An Iranian girl’s band performing in Delhi was shocked by the fatwa on the Kashmiri band. Wonder what the Grand Mufti would have to say.

In recent days we have see some disturbing occurrences have taken place across the country. There was of course the ban of Kamal Hasan’s film and the FIR against an eminent sociologist. But that is not all. Recently a young painter was forced to take down some of his paintings from an exhibition because it had ‘offended’ one visitor. What is really disturbing is that the police who normally take forever to register cases, seemed to be on call. Last week in the capital another exhibition became the target of violence. Thankfully the exhibition is still on.

All this is frightening to say the least. Tomorrow someone can walk into a book shop and object to the presence of a book on the shelf and go to the police and object! Where is our freedom of speech. Can we allow it to be hijacked by zealots and so called guardians of morality. We need to raise our voices and counter this dangerous trend.

Life is full of synchronicity. Three totally unrelated events occurred almost simultaneously. Whilst reading Chetan Bhagat’s What Young India Wants  I stumbled upon his take on the 3 traits that are responsible for all that is wrong in our country. Servility that is taught at school, numbness to injustice that comes from our environment and divisiveness that sadly comes from our home. The second event was a news item that flashed on the TV screen. In UP, that was till recently rule by a Dalit woman, children refused to eat their midday meal because it is cooked by a Dalit. And the third unrelated event was a list of the staff of the women centre stating their social profile. I must admit that I had never till date asked for such information as to me it is totally irrelevant, but was recently asked for a project profile that needed to be submitted to the authorities and where we needed to highlight our ‘achievements’. I must say that I was thrilled to see that ALL the staff of the women from top to bottom centre belonged to what goes as Reserved categories (SC, ST, OBC etc).

I must admit that I have always felt uncomfortable with any reservation policy. To me anything that divides society is not only wrong but can only spell disaster. I think recent history has proved that. It is true that affirmative action has been a way to deal with discrimination. India chose this way to ‘help’ its oppressed castes by establishing a system of quotas. This was meant to last a decade post independence, a time by which if all had gone as envisaged everyone would have been on a level playing field. But over six decades down the line this system continues and far from acting as a leveler, has in fact been the most divisive factor. Today, reservationsin some states has gone way above 50%, thereby defeating the very purpose it was created for. Today it has become a political a great political tool. Today the situation is such that a third generation learner having been to the best educational institutions can avail of the quota system while the poor son of a illiterate high caste individual has to compete with the creme de la creme. I remember the argument I once had with the daughter of a senior official who was a Oxford alumni and my class fellow, when she applied for the civil services examination on a quota as her father belonged to a backward community. I personally felt that she had the competence to succeed in an open examination and could not understand why she preferred to be ‘branded’. To me the success of any affirmative action policy should be to ensure that after a given time,      every one should be able to compete equally.

Apologies for this digression. To come back to the 3 events, it is sad, that even after 60+ years of Independence, caste remains such a divisive factor. The children who refused to eat a meal cooked by a Dalit are the product of the divisiveness Chetan Bhagat’s mentions, one that is taught in the homes and as long as this continues, no affirmative action or reservation policy is going to fulfill its purpose. What is needed is to have an inclusive approach based on talent and aptitude. Give people a chance to prove themselves and believe me they will surprise you. Give all the support that is needed at the starting block: schools. Extra classes, extra nutrition, extra everything to ensure that the underprivileged child catches up with her peers and competes on an equal footing. Sadly that is not the case at all.

In the case of the children refusing to eat the food made by a Dalit, the fault lies with the families where one learns about differences, about those who are not good as ‘us’. Children’s minds are impressionable.  I remember once when I was quite young hearing my father tell my mother how Japan (I think it was Japan) had voted against India in some UN meet. Though the conversations was not meant for me, I recorded the fact and stop talking to two of my class mates who were Japanese. I would have carried on, had not things been set right by my mom when at my next birthday, I told her that I was not inviting  Yoko and her sister. She was quite surprised and asked me why. On hearing the reason she laughed and set matters right. It is time we stopped this.

When we decided to set up our women centre, we chose the best person for the job. Quite frankly his cate or creed was of no consequence. I was looking for someone I could trust, someone who was sensitive to the needs of the people we worked with, someone who was hard working and so on. Over the years, from the time we decided to employ staff from within the community, these have been the criteria we look for. Never did it cross our mind to find out social profiles. Today it is with great pride that I look at my incredible team. That they belonged to what is know as reserved categories vindicates my stand. What we need is to provide an even playing field and then sit back and watch. This is the kind of Affirmative Action that is needed to change India.

When 2% of class VII students cannot read capital letters in English you need to get terribly concerned. But does one? Sadly not because that 2% is not our child or the child of somebody we may know. However the writing is on wall. The  ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) for 2012 is out and the results frightening. Class III kids only read class I books, and only 40% of class V students can do a simple division. The findings of the report are scary:  basic reading levels showing decline in many states, arithmetic levels also show a decline across most states. And though school attendance is said to be higher. what is the point of an education that does not teach anything. The report goes on to state that there is an exodus towards private schools continues that shows that shows that all is not well in state run schools.

The findings of this report should shock us as it shows that even after more than 6 decades children of Independent India have not been given the right to equitable education and that is truly a shame but I am sure that many of us did not even read the articles that appeared in the press a few days back, or even if we did, it would not have struck a chord as our children mercifully go to swanky private schools. Yet we need to give this a thought and raise our voices. Education is the only way India can change for the better and quite frankly no education seems better than what a large number of children are getting.

I received an email from a lawyer activist who has been relentlessly advocating for better schools in our capital city. He recently visited a school in outer Delhi and “found that hundreds of girl students sitting in ground and on the school roof in open in bitter cold weather. Those found sitting in the classrooms were taking exams in total dark rooms without even electric connections, I am told by the teachers that nearly 1200 girl students are studying in the morning shift and the equal number of boy students are studying in after noon shift. The school appears to be running in a dangerous building for the last three years.” This is totally unacceptable by all standards. What is the use of a right to education if it is not guaranteed by the State. Why should children be studying in the bitter cold or scorching sun or giving examinations in pitch dark rooms. This school has 2400 children who are been denied their right to equitable education.

But they are not the only ones. Many State run schools in our capital city are in a pitiable condition. The schools pwhy children go to are no better. A few months ago our children were brave enough to highlight this reality in a postcard campaign and face the music thereafter. But in hindsight it was a good move as some things did change for the better. This once again proves that nothing comes easy in our great democracy. Our ‘rulers’ are masters at making laws that sound good on paper but meet many obstacles when implemented. Many of these pertain to education.

Let us begin with the decision of doing away with class X Boards and introducing ‘continuous comprehensive evaluation’ which is supposed to have  inbuilt flexibility for schools to plan their own academic schedules as per specified guidelines. Sounds great does it not? But to enable proper implementation of this scheme you need teachers who are capable of coming up with innovative ways. This may happen in ‘good’ schools but what about Government schools with 100+ children per class and unmotivated and even brutal teachers. For such a scheme to be successful, one should have first created the resources needed. As I said it looks good on paper! Seems that is all the lawmakers want. Never mind what happens on the ground. The same can be said about the ‘no fail policy’ till class VIII. Whereas public schools will ensure that their students meet the required standards in each class, Government schools simply promote their kids from class to class and that is why we have class V or VI or VII kids unable to read or solve a basic arithmetic sum. We have had many suck kids come to pwhy. Mercifully continued support has helped them bridge the gap and perform well. This is heartwarming as well as disheartening as one thinks of the millions of kids who cannot get the support they need and hence may simply drop out and never get the education they aspire for. And even the doing away of the Xth Boards seems to be have been a wrong move as many class XII students feel they would have been better prepared had they sat for the Xth Boards. The changes heralded 3 years ago seem to have somewhat failed. And though a CCE approach seems to help average students, it is a failure in a mark oriented system. Such changes should only be made once all needed resources are in place. The reality is grim: of the 800 000 aspirants who sat for the Central Teachers Eligibility Test in December, only 1% cleared the test! This exam is mandatory for teaching class I to VIII and is taken by those who have cleared their BEd! Alarming to say the least. If you are interested you can view some of the papers here.

Now let us talk about the RTE Act and some of its aberrations. First and foremost free education is only for children between 6 and 14. Why not till the end of of schooling? At 14 a child is somewhere around class VIII. Now with the no fail policy you can imagine what kind of education an underprivileged child will have! But that is not what I consider the weakest point to me. For me, if free and quality education is the right of every child born in India, then it is the Sate’s duty to run enabling quality schools in each and every neighborhood. The 25 % reservation for economically disadvantaged children in ALL private schools is an abdication of the state’s responsibility and an easy way out. Makes one feel that children have the lowest priority in all decisions! The drawbacks of this approach are many. First and foremost we all know that these seats will never go to the true beneficiaries. We all know how easy it is to get all sort of false certificates! I know of financially  sound middle class parents who have availed of this though they could well afford to pay for their children. I am sure that a survey of the social profiles of children admitted under this category would show that it is not the poorest of the poor who are now in swanky schools. The poorest of the p[oor, if in school, are forced to attend crowded state run schools with scant facilities. This whole approach to quality education is wrong. The state has chosen a backdoor option that reeks of reservation. Why should kids be branded! And what about the zillions of children who cannot avail of this facility. Where is their right to quality education? Not to mention the question that beg to be asked: what after the child reaches the age of 14!

That the system is flawed is evident in what is happening today to children seeking Nursery admission. Nobody seems to know what is happening! It is time we all lend our voice to this cause! Will we?

For the past weeks I have been silently watching the ludicrous, absurd, idiotic, inane, nonsensical – and I could use all the synonyms possible – remarks of our politicians, religious leaders, administrators and let us not forget our so called protectors aka policemen on why rapes occur. At first I was I must admit dumbfounded and even revolted, but after a bit one almost got inured at the stupidity and lunacy. Rape is because: wearing skirts, wearing make up, going out, eating chowmein, not calling your rapist brother while being raped, not being married at an early age, drinking vodka, having a divorced mother,  and so on. And wait many ways of protecting one’s self were also proffered: wear an overcoat over your uniform in the tropical heat, stay indoors, go back home after school, accept the social contract called marriage where your role is to cook, do not live in cities as rapes do not happen in rural areas, live in Bharat and not India (wonder how that works)! I hope you see the common denominator that runs like a leit motiv: it is the woman and woman alone who is responsible for her rape. A politician had the audacity to state that 98% of rapes are consensual. I wonder how a two year old consents to rape. Much has been written about these aberrations and so I will not delve on the issue.

What is frightening though is that none of our so called leaders had anything to say about ‘men’ and their role in sexual assault. No one suggested that boys should be taught to respect women. But one should not blame them. In India boys are taught that they are superior, powerful, shielded and always protected – by their mothers, sisters, wives and even leaders as we have just seen. This message is insidiously and surreptitiously repeated over and over again. How can we forget the lofty portrayal of the Indian woman in Mother India! Cinema in the fifties and sixties was replete with images of the ever suffering, ever sacrificing mother and/or wife. I recently came across an article in a weekly entitled: the real woman haters. The brought to light the latest advertisement of a leading milk manufacturer. I would urge you to watch it and ponder over the lessons this one and a half minute ad offers.

It is disturbing that in the second decade of the XXIst century such an ad is made. It may look sweet and touching at first glance but what are the lessons that the little boy is given: daddies yell at mommies and mommies keep quiet; mommies take the blame on sonny’s behalf or in other words lying is good and acceptable; sonnies need to drink milk and grow up to look after mommies etc. The child is not taught to accept his responsibility and take the scolding. The child is not taught to stand up for his mom.    The child is made to believe that it OK that daddies shout at mommies. He is told that there will always be someone to take the rap. True that this ad sadly depicts the reality of many homes, even educated ones. If we want to change mindsets and attitudes and boys to respect women, such ads should be banned. They do more harm then the much maligned item numbers of scantily dressed heroines. It is time we looked at such matters with concern.

When you point one finger, there are three fingers pointing back to you goes the saying. The recent statement made by the brave young man accompanying the one India calls braveheart raises a few disturbing questions that we need to answer honestly if we want to believe that all the protests that happened in the wake of the night of horror that saw a young life and her dreams crushed forever have any meaning.

For the past three weeks or so we have been lighting candles, shouting slogans, ‘braving” water canons, tear gas shells and the colonial ‘lathi (baton). We have been screaming ‘we want justice’, thinking that the gallows will rid us of all that is wrong. We have been clamouring for better laws, death for rapists, more police presence, fast track courts etc. We want everyone to become gender sensitive in the bat of an eyelid: the cops, the men of the street, the politicians and their acolytes. True that we got some of our demands: the court proceedings have begun and some vague decisions taken – police women in thanas, more patrolling etc. Yet while we were yelling and screaming, rapes continued relentlessly: a married woman with children, a eight year old, a seventeen year old. While we were screaming hoarse a man died while protecting a woman just as it had happened one year back in Mumbai. While we were shouting, politicians across the board made degrading comments bet it the ‘dented and painted’ one, or the India and Bharat one, or the skirts one, or the stepping out of line one. Our politicians masters as always remained mute or at best came up with some inane explanation.

Hanging the culprits is not going to be the panacea of all ills. It will of course give a sense of justice to the family of the violated and murdered child and maybe ease our collective conscience. Is that what we want. If yes then rapes and sexual assaults will carry on with impunity. Most of them will be the kind that do not stir our selective conscience.

We need to stop pointing the one finger and look at the three fingers pointing back. The testimony of the young man squarely puts the blame on each and everyone of us. The young man recounts the night of horror and shares some of the events that were not known. What is the most poignant account is by far the apathy of the passers by: auto rickshaws, people in cars and bikes who slowed down but quickly  drove on, the posse of spectators that stood watching the show and not proffering any help: be it a piece of cloth to cover the nudity of the violated woman or reach out and help. Everyone of those bystanders is you or me, and we must hang our heads in shame. Imagine what was going on in the souls of the two young people screaming and begging for help. I shudder when I think of it. The excuse if any is the fear of harassment by the police should we reach out and help anyone. Maybe it is time to ask for a new law that protects the person who helps anyone in need. In some countries like France for instance there is a law that prosecutes anyone who does not help a person in need. Perhaps that is what we should ask for. One more thing though. We need to look at ourselves and assess whether it is only the fear of harassment that keeps us from reaching out or whether it is simply that we do not care. And more than that we should ask ourselves with utmost honesty whether as of this moment we, you and I, will stop and reach out to anyone in distress. If we are not able to answer with a loud YES, then all our candles lights, sloganeering and marches will be meaningless.

The young man also talked about the totally revolting attitude of the police who apparently quibbled and lost precious time trying to decide the jurisdiction under which the case would need to be registered. The police rushed into damage mode giving figures and stats to prove this to be incorrect. But why should the young man lie? And giving the track record of our ‘beloved’ Delhi Police this seems more than plausible. We need to be asking for rigid protocols in all cases, protocols that need to be followed to the T. Protocols that lay out strict procedures that need to be followed in all cases. But alas this may just remain a chimera as just a day or so back, a young woman who sought police help after being aggressed by an auto rickshaw driver faced the same treatment when she called 100.  The voice at the other end gave me another number – 27854799 – and said that the area I was in came under the jurisdiction of the police who would attend to my call. And the much heralded women’s helpline kept ringing. What can one say!  The question will always remain in the minds of the grieving family and in ours too: would she have made it if she had been taken to hospital earlier? We will have to live with this all our lives.

The young man also said that he had to pick the body of his friend himself and put it in the police PCR. First of all why is it that well equipped ambulances manned by paramedics are not the ones that pick wounded people like it is done in every self respecting society. Picking a severely hurt body can be fatal if one does not know how to. This is something we have experienced first hand at project why! The police refused to pick up the body of a young mentally challenged young man who lay on the road with maggot infested wounds and screaming in pain. It is our staff who did it and accompanied the body to the hospital where we had to get the press to ensure that the young man was attended to! Over and above more PCR vans can we press for well equipped ambulances for all accident victims so that precious time is not lost.

Everyone is asking for change. Change in laws and in mindsets. The perpetrators of this horrific crimes were the product of our society. Hanging them will not stop us from breeding more of the same. Rapes have not stopped post our protests. Our patriarchal and feudal mindset is age old and is carried out first and foremost in our homes. The false and misplaced sense of power that men have in India, is the result of his upbringing and is mostly inculcated by the women in the family: the granny who wails at the birth of a grand daughter and places the ‘blame’ on the innocent daughter in law; the mother who mollycoddles the son and neglects the daughter, the sister who accepts a secondary role with silent acceptance. And this happens across the board! Should a sexual assault occur within the home and the girl have the courage to bring it up, it is the women of the family who rise as one and brush away the crime in the name of honour, thereby condemning the survivor to share a space with the perpetrator. Maybe it was time we as educated people stood up for our child no matter what the consequences. Can honour be more important than the pain of an bused child. It CANNOT and should not.

Perhaps it also time we stopped blaming a girl, no matter what her age is, for the assault she may experience. This is done time and again and in all homes rich or poor. She laughs too loud, dresses too revealingly and so on. And maybe we should start educating all people, men and women about the X and Y chromosome story and free the woman from the unfair accusation of being responsible for the sex of a child. WE women do not have the Y chromosome!!! I know of an educated gentlemen, or should I say supposedly educated, whose answered shocked me when we were discussing this topic. My son can do no wrong he quipped angrily. In the country where women Goddessed are worshipped night and day giving birth to a girl child is wrong. Maybe it is time we again looked into ourselves and see how guilty we are. Time to set our house in order before casting the first stone.

Another point that may see disturbing and unsettling to many and yet needs to be made is to look at who the perpetrators are and where did we as a society, go wrong. Let us take the case of the youngest accused. Before I go on, I would like to say that I am not defending anyone but simply trying to understand what makes a child a brutal criminal and assessing where we went wrong, as at this moment we have to live with the fact that rapes and sexual assault will happen. Today’s newspaper gives an interview with the mother of this boy. His family is the poorest in the village and lives under a plastic sheet. 11 years ago when he must have been just 6 he left the village to earn a living as he was the eldest and his father mentally ill. There are 5 younger children who do not go to school and need to travel 30 km to get work as labour. Today the mother does not wish to see her son. Her only worry is that now no one will marry her daughter. Take a moment to ponder over this. In 11 years a six year old kid became a barbaric killer. Six year olds need a home, the love of their family, food in their belly, a school to go to. Most of this is guaranteed under the Constitution. He is not meant to be thrown in the  big city alone. It took about a decade for him to become a killer, his only teacher the big city. A city that has passed many laws to protect children but failed to implement them. Had the child labour law been respected this boy should have been either sent back to his family or kept in a children’s home and received education. How many children have not seen working and yet how many of us have picked the phone and reported the matter. Many children work in homes of the rich and yet no one says anything. Another code of silence that needs to be broken.

There is debate about lowering the age of the Juvenile Justice Act. This Act was implemented as it was felt that children should be reformed and not punished as adults. This per se is a very sound approach. But it requires one important element: well run remand homes where the child is given an enabling environment that would allow hom to reform. All you need is visit one of these homes and you will realise that no one can be reformed in them. is it not time to demand for well run reforms homes for the children who have turned into criminals.

But before that we need to look at our school system. If our state run schools were well run, many problems we see would be set right. Perhaps it is time that all schools be made coeducational so that boys and girls grow together as buddies, competitors, friends.

It is also time that sex education, and here I do not mean a chapter on reproduction often hurried through, but age appropriate sex education, starting with good touch bad touch and explaining all emotions that children, tweens and teens go through, should be imparted to every child in school.  It is time we did that and not brush these under the carpet as we tend to do.

I could carry on and on but will not.

I simply would ask each one of us to look at the three fingers pointing back and be man enough to accept responsibility.

The past weeks has seen a city angry and outraged at the brutal and reprehensible assault on a young woman. One wonders what made this rape awaken our frozen consciences and come out of our convenient and self induced torpor. Rapes are not new. In fact there is a rape in our country every 22 minutes, that is 65 rapes a day! Not a figure to be proud of. Many of these are as reprehensible as the one that happened last month. What could be worst that the rape of a 2 year old and yet we kept silent. Perhaps it was because the victims were not ‘one of us’ and we felt immune from such aberrations. The rape of the young woman that shook us all was one we could identify with. It could have been our daughter or our sister as they too watch movies with their friends and may take a bus back home. This incident was too close for comfort and thus we shouted and protested and wanted to be heard. We clamoured for news laws, for severe punishment, for safer roads and so on. I can only hope that something positive comes out of our new collective persona.

Yet there are many things that should shake our conscience as human beings. One of them is the state of the homeless in the freezing winter. There are over 300 000 homeless in Delhi, including women and children. They are not hidden. We see them huddled under flyovers as we drive past. We see them sleeping on pavements as we return from a party or a late night movie. Every year the media run programmes on their plight. And yet we remain mute or at best to ease our consciences by donating a poor quality blanket. The same state that let down the one we call our braveheart, has only been able to make a paltry 154 shelters that can accommodate 7500 or a mere 2.5% of our homeless. In spite of court intervention nothing much seems to happen on the ground. Some homeless people have no option but sleep in public toilets to escape the biting cold.

While we layer ourselves with thermals and woollies, sit next to heaters and sip a hot mug of coffee, these people just pray that live through the night, and through every winter nights. No one cares for them. For politicians they are not vote banks and for the rest of the city they simply do not exist. They are brutalised by the police and often their paltry belongings confiscated. The women are abused and the children will never see a school. They are the most vulnerable and abandoned by one and all.

They too belong to the city we live in. Will the collective conscience that has been awakened by a brutal rape, raise its voice for these defenseless citizens of India.

Enough is enough! I have kept quiet for far too long. It is time I reclaimed every right that has been usurped from me. I do not want to be killed in the womb just because I am a girl. I want my birth to be celebrated and feted. I have the right to the same education, to as many toys, and to the same new school bag every year than the one my brother gets. I want to play outside like all children. I want to wear whatever I feel like and laugh as loudly as I can.

I do not belong to anyone. I am your daughter, your sister, your wife, your mother but I am first and foremost an independent being. I am ready to learn and respect values and want the right to abide by them because I want to, and not because you impose them on me. I do not want to be told what to do, think, see, touch, feel and  hear. I want to experience everything on my own. I want to feel the the coolness of the evening breeze and the warmth of the winter sun. I want to discover the world at my own pace and through my own eyes. I want to learn and grow with the same freedom as my brothers do. I want to go to school and not be used as a surrogate mother whenever needed and saddled  with household chores. I do not want to see my studies interrupted to look after ailing grandparents in the village. I do not want to be considered as a burden that one has to rid itself of by harnessing me to an unknown man.

I want to be the pride of my family. I also know what honour means so do not throw the izzat bogey to curb my freedom and make me do what you want. I want you to trust me implicitly and you must  if you have taught me right. I am not an object or a commodity. I am a person with dreams and aspirations. Please do not hijack them or stifle them. I do not want to be judged by a kangaroo court and killed if I decide to fall in love. I want the right to fall in love like any one else.

You worship Goddesses with a fervour that sometimes seems false and sanctimonious. When you sit and chant her name through the night, do you forget that she is a woman just like me and the best of respecting her would be to respect every woman you see. When will stop being so hypocritical! Your  double standards are galling. You will protect the women in your family but consider every other woman your plaything. I am sick and tired of all the groping, leering, ogling and all other kind of abuse you are master at every time I step out of my door. You rape with impunity be it a baby or a mature woman. Do you ever think that the 2 year old you violate could be your own child. You then unabashedly throw the blame on us for the crime you commit. It was what we wore, or the time of the day we were out, the place we were at and so on. Please tell me how a 2 year old in a play school was at the wrong place, at the wrong time and wearing inappropriate clothes or are diapers sexy too! You make me sick.

If a woman is violated and we demand justice you come up with asinine fixes: do not go out at night, do not wear skirts, do not own a cellphone etc. The best one is get her married. This is not acceptable. You have such disregard for us as even your prized abuses have to insult us. How many times a day do you f**** sisters and mothers. Have you ever thought of that.

Last month you abused and violated a young beautiful woman who only wanted to live life on her own terms with such violence and depravity that the nation shook and every woman in this country, young and old felt defiled. Yes you raped us all. But let me tell you one thing: you could not and never would violate her soul or spirit,

When we were on the streets  venting the rage we felt, you kept quiet at best, or blasted us with water and tear gas and broke sticks on our back. What were you trying to prove? That you were men! You even fell as low as  calling us painted and dented to once again try and denigrate us. You took a dying child on a plane ride when you knew she was going to die. And then you brought the braveheart back in the dead of night and cremated her like you would a thief. Was it because you were too scared of the very people you come and beg for votes once every five years.

How good you are at protecting yourselves. You clamp all kind of laws and restrictions against your own people. Let me tell you: you do not look good. We wanted you to come and grieve with us, to listen to our woes and suggestions. We did not want empty words that sounded so hollow. We have seen through your game.

Yes we want justice for the young woman whose dreams you crushed. But what about the millions of women waiting for justice and who have gone old waiting. Will you bring laws that ensure we do not get raped over and over again if we muster the courage to seek justice. Will you ensure that justice will come to all those waiting. Will you change the law that would make a rapist or abuser guilty till proved innocent? But that is not where it ends. We want to reclaim our space day and night. We want to be able to move freely at any time of the day and be safe no matter what we wear. We want to be respected and accepted as equal citizens.

We do not need protection, we need freedom be it in our homes or on the streets.

This is perhaps the first time that I am at a loss of words to usher a new year. Normally one is filled with hope and dreams and resolutions. But this year seems different as it has placed on our shoulders responsibilities we all have been shirking for far too long. Somehow 2012 can be divided into two parts: before December 16th and after December 16th and though the later is an infinitesimal part of the 365 days that make a Gregorian year, the last 15 days of the year gone by have shaken us of the comfort zone we had allowed ourselves to slink in. We were rudely awakened from an almost catatonic slumber that made us believe that all was well. Suddenly the conscience we had conveniently parked somewhere in the recesses of our minds was stirred and we had to accept the uncomfortable reality that we had we had failed in more ways than one. What was even more troubling was the fact that it had taken the most brutal and barbaric death of a beautiful young girl to make us come to our senses.

It is apposite that the young braveheart has remained anonymous and unnamed. She thus becomes every one’s daughter or sister and makes our irresponsible behaviour that much more unpardonable. For years we have been passively accepting rapes and other reprehensible acts without the outrage that must be felt by any self respecting human being. We conveniently brushed these aside by telling ourselves that such aberrations did not happen in the tiny confines of our lives. We clucked away news of children being abused and hurt when we should have screamed our indignation. As supposedly educated and aware citizens we never lend our voices to ensure that justice was done. We accepted corruption, inefficiency and venality in every realm of our lives. At best these made juicy drawing room  chats and never went beyond that. We accepted the arrogance of politicians and bureaucrats  and found ways of circumventing things when it concerned us. We too surreptitiously became partners in crime.

This how we have been shaken to see ourselves and what we see is not pretty. It makes us hand our heads in shame. But at the dawn of this new year we have been given a chance to redeem ourselves. I hope we will. If we do not then we are doomed.

It is a new year and I cannot but hope and pray that my family and my extended family and all my friends and supporters have a wonderful year. Is this not what one wishes fro those we love? As for myself I hope that I can walk that extra mile that would make the two Indias we live in come closer and learn to accept and respect each other just like the two little Angels in the picture, Utpal a child of the dark and Agstya my little grandson.

May 2013 bring the wisdom, sagacity and healing we so need.