Speaking up because I can't stay quiet

This blog piece originally appeared here and has been adapted for use on SHEROES.
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I’ve lived in three Indian cities for substantial periods of time, some are slightly safer than others for women. Even if you try to “dress right” for the occasion (or in some instances, the place) it’s never enough.

Every time some pervert pinches me or some jobless lunatic sitting on the fringes of a railway station shows me his organ, or some auto driver takes me to some scary shithole at 7 in the night it’s always: what were you wearing? Whom were you with? Why did you go to a perfectly innocent place like a restaurant at 8 in the night? Why were you alone? The primary school lesson of safety in crowds remember?

Indian women have a long way to go before beginning to fight glass ceilings. It’s firstly about ensuring that they reach their offices first. Alive and intestines intact, without multiple character based injuries.

I was feeling hopeless, outraged and helpless after the Delhi girl passed away that night in December. After she was so brutally gangraped on that bus. And after all that, one of the convicts was released because he was a minor?

On the one hand, we saw the launch of Angry Indian Goddesses this month where matters close to the heart of urban / city girls are broadly discussed. On the other, Nirbhaya’s culprit goes free.

Here was an ordinary girl. She was just a normal girl looking to return home to go to college the next day. And she was with a guy. A sure shot solution that she would be protected if the need arose.

There's rage within because our government thinks more about nuclear bombs than about a random citizen on the street. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing in India does to them, unless it’s an election issue, that too only once in five years. And women’s rights an election issue? I think it’s a reasonable suggestion to consider killing girls in their mother’s wombs than to bring them up to fight and lose a battle everyday as adults.

It might be a losing battle but I want to channel my outrage. Here is a list I came up with:

– Vote. Its all very well to say there are no alternatives. But research on independent candidates, on MPs and MLAs before voting for them. Our netas need to be accountable, they need to know that they’re accountable and not invincible.

– Write my suggestions to Justice Verma.

– Participate in some way in one of the protests. Don’t listen to the so called sceptics on the difference a protest or vigil can make. A bunch of non-violent collective activities brought us Independence.

– Participate more proactively in outlets like hollaback, bell bajao, Blank noise. A list needs to be curated.

– Write to song writers, soap opera directors, film directors for anything that offends me. There is no point to your degree and 8 digit pay check if you’re going to Laugh off ‘women are not supposed to have ambition’ dialogs when your feminist friends are enraged about it. Nobody who says things like that is a superstar in my book. 

– Take the day off and volunteer in a domestic violence shelter instead. Or meet victims of sexual abuse.

– Sit with younger cousins and talk about the idea of good touch and bad touch – male and female, and mutual consent.

By Hamsini Ravi

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