Growing Rapes In India - Why Are Our Fathers And Brothers Silent?
By Cynthia Stephen
20 December, 2012
Countercurrents.org
The grim reality of our society's pathology - extreme gender violence - is played out in gruesome detail everyday in the media. Women's groups protest the gang rapes and the rapes of infants in our society, even as the crimes continue unabated. But I want to ask our brothers, fathers, uncles - don't you have any stake in this situation, don't you want to join all right-thinking persons in the struggle against the epidemic of blatant and public sexual violence against women and girls? How is it that in our society comprising brothers and fathers who are so possessive of their daughters in the arena of marriage and sexuality, be silent and passive when their daughters are being raped in public places and public transport?
Our judicial system needs to gear up to address this on a war footing. The Chief Justices need to designate Fast-track courts to take swift and decisive action, as is often the case in many criminal cases. The lumbering pace of investigation, which in fact amounts to covering up the crime, are also a major contributing factor to continuing and increasing cases of rapes of women and girls, even infants. The impunity and lack of social stigma against the rapists (implying a tacit acceptance) are an important contributory factor. The unravelling of families' and societies' bonds, mediated by an increasingly strident and intrusive media, and the spread of technology with a corresponding loss of cultural identity, have dehumanised our youth to a bewildering degree. The bankruptcy of our social and national identity crisis is out in the open. Friends, Brothers, fellow Indians, will you join your sisters in our struggle to reclaim our humanity - and restore you to yours?
Cynthia Stephen is an Independent Writer and Researcher
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