PRINCESSES NOT OBJECTS

India, the land of beauty, colours, heroes and a rich cultural heritage. A land that has given birth to hundreds of brilliant and talented minds. A land that is today full of crimes against women, so much that the front page of every newsletter is plastered with incidents which we cannot even believe were possible.

We feel that justice has been granted to those vile rapists, by sentencing them to death. The most savage of them, escaping the sentence because he is a “Juvenile.” How on earth is raping and mutilating a girl, a juvenile act?

For those of you who claim that these amended laws will instill fear in the minds of such perverts, just a few days ago a ten year old in Guwahati, was gang raped by a bunch of brutes who say they are “12 to 16 years of age” and thus ask for pardon under the juvenile laws.

Do you think a mere few years in a juvenile rehabilitation centre is enough punishment for those, whose crimes cannot be classified as juvenile? If the prospect of a death sentence does not deter these savages then what will?

The child whose only struggle should be solving mathematics, is going to suffer for the rest of her life unable to come out of the trauma which she has gone through. She probably didn’t even understand what had happened to her.

There were some angles in which the case of the girl from Delhi was looked at by the general public. I heard many men and even women say that the rape incident was partly due to the way the girl was dressed. “Her dressing provoked those men” is what I heard them say. If that is the case, then in what way did a 10 year old provoke those men? In what way are 2 year olds and 4 year olds provoking the mindless pedophiles that exist in our country. Let me tell you something. Even if you cover a woman in concrete, these savages will find ways to lust after her.

Women are becoming pilots, engineers and astronauts in our country. At the same time, in remote villages, children and women are still sold like objects and trafficked into other countries to satisfy the pleasures of flesh eating slugs.

What is happening? Why do we try to hush up these issues? Why are we so fearful of stigma that we cannot act to do something right for a change? A thousand protests and the most stringent of laws will not change the minds of these animals. Imposing curfews on the girls in your house will not protect them.
I strongly feel that there is no change happening in the minds of people because we hide behind veils of clouds on what we perceive to be reality. Our thoughts are deluded so much that we don't even realize that it's hailing painfully all around us.

What we need, is the youth of this country to take charge. Talk to your friends about these issues. When my friends heard me talk about this, they told me to talk quietly fearing that others might hear our conversation. I started talking louder. The more people you talk to, the more people they will talk to. Create awareness.

If a girl in your street is getting teased or harassed, gather a few of your friends and confront the idiots. Every sick pervert in this country should have a fear that if he tries to touch a woman or child, thousands of her brothers and sisters will beat him to pulp and punish him in the most imaginative ways.
I want to be able to stroll the streets at night with my best friends, with a comforting feeling that no one will harm me or my friends. When will that dream turn into reality?
When will I ever be able to take that jog before dawn? When can I ever enjoy the moonlight when I drive at night? Help me erase my fears. Help every child and woman show the bravery that we all know they are capable of.

By the year 2020, more than 50% of our population will comprise of people below 30 years of age. This makes us the strongest country in the world. If we all start standing up for what we believe in, we can not only give our precious princesses a safe and happy life, we can truly create an “INCREDIBLE INDIA.”