A friend of mine sent me this article http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/dont-like-this-temple-choose-another/article4313507.ece. It’s on this age old controversy on why women should be allowed into Sabarimala. He was just curious to know what I think of the whole thing. But what I don’t understand is why he expects me to really care about this.
In a country where a woman cannot step into a bus without fear of harassment, in a country where women are judged, pitied and persecuted at every turn, an acre of no entry zone hardly matters. As if women can expect to safely make the passage to the hills without getting harassed on the way. For women in India, I am sorry to say my friend, the temple hardly matters, we have bigger battles to fight.
I cannot help but wonder if we truly are a developing nation ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with modern humanity. Are we just playing dress up and pretending to be liberal to cover up our true savage selves? If I wear a western suit and bash a man to death with a club, am I any less a barbarian? As a society we have no right to calls ourselves liberal until we stop the honor killings, the rapes, the corruption, the road rage and the abuse of power that we all allow if not participate in.
This notion that money and education makes one liberal and they shoulder the burden of modernizing India is as ridicules as Asaram’s idea of self-defense. Everyday, I see educated software engineers on their way to work selfishly disregarding traffic rules leading to havoc on the streets. I see the rich who selfishly and meticulously manipulate their accounts just to avoid paying tax. Sadly, we make engineers but not educated engineers, we make doctors but not humanitarians, we make politicians but not leaders.
All that we have learnt in the last decade seems to be boiling down to intolerance and a sense of superiority complex that’s marginalizing the under privileged. Of course, apart from these we did gain a lot of coke bottles and junk foods that our next generation is over-dozing on but hey we are teaching them the tricks of getting away with anything in India….
In a country where a woman cannot step into a bus without fear of harassment, in a country where women are judged, pitied and persecuted at every turn, an acre of no entry zone hardly matters. As if women can expect to safely make the passage to the hills without getting harassed on the way. For women in India, I am sorry to say my friend, the temple hardly matters, we have bigger battles to fight.
I cannot help but wonder if we truly are a developing nation ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with modern humanity. Are we just playing dress up and pretending to be liberal to cover up our true savage selves? If I wear a western suit and bash a man to death with a club, am I any less a barbarian? As a society we have no right to calls ourselves liberal until we stop the honor killings, the rapes, the corruption, the road rage and the abuse of power that we all allow if not participate in.
This notion that money and education makes one liberal and they shoulder the burden of modernizing India is as ridicules as Asaram’s idea of self-defense. Everyday, I see educated software engineers on their way to work selfishly disregarding traffic rules leading to havoc on the streets. I see the rich who selfishly and meticulously manipulate their accounts just to avoid paying tax. Sadly, we make engineers but not educated engineers, we make doctors but not humanitarians, we make politicians but not leaders.
All that we have learnt in the last decade seems to be boiling down to intolerance and a sense of superiority complex that’s marginalizing the under privileged. Of course, apart from these we did gain a lot of coke bottles and junk foods that our next generation is over-dozing on but hey we are teaching them the tricks of getting away with anything in India….
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