Faith or Fear

Rabindranath Tagore once said losing faith on fellow beings is a severe sin. Ramkrishna Paramhansa used to believe that not trusting is much more painful than getting hurt after trusting. Only mutual trust can bring harmony in any relationship. World would have been much better place if we could have placed trust on each other easily. We are taught precautions while growing up since our society is an unsafe place. I deem myself lucky as I met enough number of strangers on roads, buses, trains who did not cause any harm to me. Rather I cherish some beautiful memories with these strangers. By saying so I don't deny the fact that I also experienced my share of unwanted touch from some ugly strangers. 

Since past few years India has seen many cases of brutal rape and murder. These are the ones which get media attention or get reported officially. Many more cases don't get reported due to shame or lack of trust in the judicial system. Some people feel there is steep rise of such incidents in recent years. They attribute this to liberalization of women and dehumanization of tech-savvy modern population. I exclaim if this type of barbaric incidents started happening only from 21st century.  The restriction imposed on women's mobility is a long running custom in our society. Where did this custom stem from? Is not it driven by some insecurity in the first place? And this insecurity has encroached our minds since generations because sexual abuse of women in our society was never a stray incident. Even history books tell us about many kings and landlords who used to misuse and abuse women. Mistreating woman's body and mind is unavoidable incident and only thing we can do is to hide woman somewhere or for some time - this is the underlying thought that shape each of us in our society. 

I was in high school when I had this conversation with my father. I asked him why number of rapes reported so few in western countries where women wear all sorts of cloths. My father has strong opinion on how women should dress up. My mother overheard us. She tried to add fun saying men in those countries grow up seeing their mothers in bikini and so women in less cloths don't allure them much. Now I realize she gave me the right answer that day! I saw one tier one news paper shaming a Bollywood heroine for wearing swimsuit in front of her toddler son. There is hardly any Indian daughter who has never seen her father in bare body and that never makes to news channel. Law and administration can enforce strict punishment on those heinous criminals. Will that abolish this kind of crimes totally?

I commute to work everyday. Even I take solo trips every year. I may get raped and killed some day. I took a pledge in December 2012 after the Nirbhaya incident. I will stand up against discriminatory behavior against women whenever possible. I have stayed true to my pledge till date. I don't know when the dawn will break. I wish to hold onto the faith that we will embark on Tagore's dream country one day where mind will be without fear and head will be held high.