The latest noise around a very relevant documentary by Leslee Udwin, BBC has brought out a few unseen colours out in the open. There is so much of din and noise about WHY the film was made? WHO gave the permission? STOP its screening etc etc.... Irrelevant when compared to a diverse set of messages this documentary gives.
Whoever watches it for getting a glimpse of who Jyothi was, her parents are etc will see just that... If you are watching it to listen to the convict talking about the incident scene by scene, you will see the entire documentary only about the convict but if you are looking at watching the documentary to try to see who raped and what were the intentions with the motive to find a solution... it is here, in this short documentary named - India's daughter.
These men have not seen or been to school, they were born and brought up in crammed slums where there is no privacy for women and any violation of her privacy is heard across the slum as a routine ever since a boy or girl is born. They have been brought up making them believe their mothers are their father's punching bags, the cook, bai and everything called as a housekeeper. They have played and grown up with boys who come from similar background.
But as they grow up into men, they leave the slums and move into cities where they see women are free to work, earn, travel, go to hotels, wear everything from sari to minis. If educated, these variations will not make any difference to his brain or hormones. They wont even bother to see what a woman is wearing or doing as they have their job to do. Such educationally- conditioned men do not see women as inferior nor superior but just as a peer.
Whereas, straight from the slums where his move to city is celebrated with drums, friends lifting him up in air, women looking up at him as if he is somebody superior is treated as an equal in a city by a woman, it hurts his ego-conditioned brain. His ego is punctured when as a driver a woman in a city asks for balance after a drive, a woman stops him from coming close to her in a crowded bus or even pushes him rudely as he reeks of alcohol. He get infuriated why is his superiority which has been driven into him all his 25 years is being belittled by a WOMAN.
Teach her a lesson, screams his ego, his uneducated brain and hormones take over. His only intention is to TEACH HER A LESSON for puncturing his male superiority that his mother and sister worship. How else but violate her dignity, TEACH HER A LESSON about his superior power by hurting her where it hurts the most - her body. Rape her. Hurt her. Kill her. And pat yourself saying I have TAUGHT HER A LESSON how a man is powerful than a woman.
Take a few steps back and put him in a school. Parents object but Government says no ration if your boys and girls do not complete school till 10th grade and every year their promoted certificate to be shown and validated by the local body in their area. That sounds too too tooo idealistic to happen is a slum even in the capital.
How about have 5 points on "How Can You Not Hurt a Woman" be added as a public message in the cinema halls, on cigarette packets, on pan masala packets, on every film poster, on every election campaign material, into school diaries, on walls, posts, condom packs, alcohol bottles, exit and entry of every bar, public rest rooms for men, as morning pledge in aanganwadis, in every religious worship centre, super hero narrate these in their movies.... across touch points where boys who do not go to school are sure to pop up or roam around.
I hear the word Women Empowerment. Yes, making a woman aware who she is and what's her identity, that she is capable as any man in this society is a must. At the same time, making a man aware that a woman is needed for him to sustain his living on this earth and if no women are around he will perish, empower her means his burden is being shared will make a male-ego centric society accept women empowerment as a must have for all.
There is no point in generalising all men are rapists. With such open, hollow statements we are distancing the majority of the men who are aware why women are on this Earth. Take men along in empowering women.
Reach the roots of those at grassroot level. Lets start talking in their language, in the surrounding they live than from well-lit studios or high podiums about women's safety.
Lets make men in the lowest of the lower strata understand women are nothing inferior or superior but their peer. It will take painstaking ground work and a long 15-20 years to implement this change of thought but lets start somewhere. Today.
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