An Open Letter to the PM

(written after the Delhi gang-rape braveheart finally succumbed to her injuries on 29th Dec 2012)

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

I wish I could time this open letter to you better; but then shouldn't the timing coincide with the dark shameful truth that we could not save another of our women in the country we call independent and our own?

How I wish the lady who was brutally and beastly raped in a moving bus next to the power corridors of India was your own daughter! How I wish your daughter's chastity was compromised with every time an Indian woman's body and soul was molested and as many times these incidents happened in the country you democratically lead! Yes I'm really really really angry. And trust me Mr Prime Minister, that's as effective as you've been in office, and you must know this especially when you're planning to host the next season of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas. Sadly, just look at your red face each time I and my fellow countrymen talk about your report card. You don't even just pass; you fail miserably, sir.

Every time you've addressed the nation - although instances like this have been way too rare - you've failed to assure your people of any seriousness or sincerity that your team has in doing even one thing that should positively interest them. How often and how many more times would you be a mere spectator of heinous crimes on our roads and public transports, issue a statement, set up an inquiry committee and hope that we forget about that? I understand India isn't a monarchy and you can't change things on your own; but aren't YOU the administrative custodian of our constitution as the head of the government that runs the country and makes policies to influence the future of the nation? When will we see ACTIONS and not just hollow promises that fall apart every day? Honestly, how long does it take to amend or implement certain laws that for long have been believed to need amendment or implementation? As an educated youth of India, I acknowledge that change doesn't happen overnight, but I also realise if you don't make an immediate attempt to start changing things that need to be changed, the world we live in will only get worse by the day! Is that what we're destined to be led into just because we've been foolish to vote you guys to power? I'm not sure if this letter will ever reach you, but I'm hopeful through strong voices you'll know what the country thinks and expects of you. You should also understand why you're paid for a job you've never been good at!

I end my letter hoping that better sense will prevail and you'll understand you have no business going to work if you know you can't produce expected results. At least show us for one you have the courage to resign!

Sincerely,
An Indian

Thank you Ratan Tata the Man of Steel

Dear Mr Ratan Tata,

If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have known a businessman who did business not to amass wealth and earn a fortune for himself, but also to create jobs for the masses and make a difference to the way a nation lived.

As you did in your initial years at the helm of the Tata Group, you continued to be in a league of your own till the last day in office. You've lived by values, for passion and with integrity. Only a chosen few could ever possibly emulate your feat not only in the business frontier, but also in all that you've done to the way business is conducted. Not many did and would exhibit the grit and courage that you have way too many times in challenging in the open various government policies, be it corruption or a malfunctioning bureaucracy in the administrative backyard. Your persistence advocacy of clean business administration should become part of academic curricula!

Your contribution in taking the Tata conglomerate into every household in India and many other countries - from steel to software to automobile to what not - shall be considered material for fairytales for a long time to come.

Off the business table, I'd nurture an enduring pictorial memory of you co-piloting an F-18, the Super Hornet, into the skies. You're also probably the most good looking Indian business person. 

I congratulate you for being a 'man of steel' in the true sense!

Sincerely,
A social observer.

Rape in India: the Historic & Social angle

(Written after six men gang-raped a girl on a moving bus in Delhi. The girl is now fighting for her life in a hospital)
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It seemed just the right time to pen my thoughts on why Indian men rape women. In this particular case study, I decipher the historical and social reason of the menace.

There WAS an era in India that epitomised women as goddesses and mothers and there was encouragement for worshiping women. Over the span of many centuries since then, Indian history and the society have been subject to tides of change. Change caused due to invasion by foreign and domestic rulers whose legacy imposed partial - and in some cases - total darkness over the way this country treated philosophy, science and of course women. Some may say these are not related to which my humble submission would be that a society does not evolve unilaterally in one dimension but changes wholesomely. It did happen to us. 

Before long, that golden era turned pre-historic! India was pushed back in the darkness. If you're reasonably well-read, you'd know I'm not talking about the British rule at all! What that did to us - amongst many other things - was to negatively influence our societal attitude towards women. The woman was soon an object of lust and desire. Once again!

She was taught she wasn't equal; she was made to believe she was different and that she had to protect her chastity and sanctity, for men would otherwise prey on her. Even before she understood why she could be hunted for no fault of hers, she knew she had to keep herself deprived of many a sunshine until such time when she possibly could no longer be seen as a potential prey. That didn't do much good to her anyway. Man's unsatisfied hunger to dominate and thus prove supremacy - just because he was created as the stronger of the two - was out in the wild. She was being raped in every household, literally or otherwise. Nobody told her she could protest and ask it to be stopped. Hence it continued!

What we shamefully lost out on is TIME. During the same time, the world had moved much ahead of us; it was so way beyond for us, we couldn't even comprehend what liberation or equality or human-rights could be! We were not even ready to learn from them. In certain parts of the world, women were being seen as peers and colleagues to men. Men started to believe that their women were their better halves in true sense, while for the Indian men, it (ardhangini) was a mere word that sounded poetic and cool.

Then there emerged a new era. An era that offered closer proximity to the developed world, provided access to more advanced societal structures, taught alternate ways of looking at and treating women as a means of wholesome progress. What however did the damage was the big - yes, that was really big - disparity between every two classes and sects and layers in our society. The whole of the society never had the same reality, same level of education or awareness and same maturity to comprehend freedom. The obvious fallout of that layered hierarchical society was that while a certain section gradually embraced and adopted an advanced way of exercising women's rights, the other section of the same society was still living in a world where a woman was meant to never 'expose' anything that could 'entice' a man. The women belonging to the fortunate lot started having what they could call a life, while the unfortunate lot quietly noticed this shift in the socio-economic landscape. What was common in the minds of the men across these lots was the desire to tame who seemed both tough to have as well as vulnerable to assault. Unfortunately, the beastly want to dominate women hasn't improved much even over the last decades, doesn't matter which side of the class divide the man is on. As a result, a 'white' woman even today remains something to be had to the average man of our society. And that extends to any woman irrespective of their skin color, age or background. For the rapist, the act of few minutes is less of a physical adventure and more of a psychological 'victory'. This mentality won't change until such time when men start believing that women are just like them and that the physically weaker section of the society needs to be protected and not preyed on!

There are of course other equally important factors influencing the increasing number of rape cases in India. I'd talk about those in my upcoming articles.