“There are two ways of
spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflectsit-Edith Wharton “
The light from candles
cannot really help in enlightening a darkened life ruined by inhuman and devilish acts of sick minds of
society. Whether its New Delhi , Bihar, Jharkhand ,Mumbai or any other
part of this country, every time any
such unfortunate event takes place,
everything starts to seem very much repetitive. Same media hue and cry, public outbursts,
political allegations and counter allegations, it all seems like a vicious
circle.
Does one Candle march, few
debates, strong support for stringent laws satisfy the factum of being
responsible for the society and country?
If you ask me, my answer is
‘No’. We all are habitual of seeing and
believing in things as media shows it to us, but the reality is far from what
it seems. As I see, there are various factors that actually participate in such
pseudo collective societal sensitivity acts of ours.
Firstly media and news
channels in their ever growing greed for TRP’s, instead of reporting and
sympathetically supporting with the victim of such incident, sensationalize
such incidences beyond proportions. Then comes the allegations and counter
allegations by political parties which becomes the centre focus of media
coverage. Once such a heinous act is sensationalized by media while the real
cause takes a back seat, flash revolutions resulting into loss of public
property by goons and grave inconvenience to fellow citizens is what follows.
But it is not the end, while social
activists and NGO’s cry for stringent
laws. Any debate that I follow on such incidents, discussions are dominated by
need for stringent laws, lack of policing, failure of government etc.
Following the recently
evolved tradition, people do come on road, perhaps on weekends for candle
marches, but when? When dreams of some innocent soul have already been
destroyed, when someone’s daughter, fiancé, wife, sister had already been
ravished.
They don’t need solidarity,
they need our support, they don’t need our candle light marches, they need us
to show light when they are standing alone at bus stops at night, when they
travel alone for work, profession, studies or anything, when they feel helpless
being alone, when we turn our ears deaf to someone’s lewd remark on them, they
need us before becoming a victim of such an inhuman act.
Does the conviction of any rape accused achieve
the motive behind such Candle light marches? I don’t think so. But the real
reason lies within us. Society encourages rapists when eve teasing is
considered acceptable by passersby, when in our psyche females are still considered
as an object, when want of male child dominates the society, when instead of a
collective strengthening of society , we individually have started fearing of
it.
Need of the hour is not a
momentarily sympathy against such acts, it is not candle marches on roads but lightning candles within us, accept our responsibility
of safety of fellow female citizens, clear our hearts and minds from the filth
and hypocrisy. Once this is done, I am sure the light from candle light marches
will actually enlighten this country.
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