An Act of National Shame

We lost another innocent life in a brutal attack to mankind. We were forced to scamper in a corner and introspect quietly as a few non-human living beings assaulted the life out of a 23 year old, innocent, unarmed girl. The six men, whose parents must have prayed every night to the Almighty to bless them with a son, wouldn’t have even thought twice about their mother who raised them before committing the heinous act of incomparable proportions. The Indian parents, who can give anything for a male child, need to educate and raise their sons in a way so that they do not take themselves to be the king of the world but as soldiers to protect our society. No matter how many laws are made or how strictly the judiciary treats the culprits, the problem with our society is not the way the rapists are dealt with, the problem is that rapes take place. The real victory for our cause will come when such incidents stop to take place. Yes, stronger punishments are a good start to scare people from doing such acts, but do we want our ‘beloved dear sons’ to stop themselves from doing such acts because of the scare of the punishment afterwards or because of the respect for the women.

The real problem lies in the mid-set of our whole system. Girl child is aborted or killed right after birth. Girl child is left at the dumpsters. Prayers and offerings are made for a male child. Daughters are not given education and made to do household work instilling a sense of superiority in the sons of our society. The parents of a girl are made to fold hands and kneel down in front of the groom’s family, fulfilling their every demand, during her wedding. The uneducated, illiterate, sexist male is bound to feel superior when he sees this scene around his eyes everyday of his life. Why are these sons given so much of importance? Just because they have the ability to rape, and not get raped? What pride do these men bring to their society? What fulfilment of dreams can such boys do? It’s better to be childless than having such immoral, misogynistic kids.

The worst part is that the eminent dignitaries of our society, the MPs, the MLAs, the bureaucrats, the women psychologists, they think that the problem lies with the victim. The girls should not go out after dark. They should not wear western clothes. The girls should not visit nightclubs. The girls should not use public transport alone. The girls should give in when attacked or assaulted. If such is the case, why do we have laws? Why is there a constitution in place? Why is there a police force in every city, town and village? Then what right do we have to look down upon the middle-east for their strict and biased laws? Why is Taliban criticised in our country then? Every individual in this country has been promised the right to live freely and equally. How can these government representatives make such statements and roam scot-free on the streets of our country. They should be stripped of every public post they have been given. These kinds of incidents are bound to happen in a country where the men are treated as the bosses and where the government supports such notions of the people.

We need education; we need educated ministers; we need educated sons. Don’t blame the system for every shortcoming. Change the thinking and outlook of your father, uncle, brother and son. Stop treating them as the privileged class of our society.

CHANGE YOURSELF!!

Suicide - Illegal or a Right?

20^th December, 2012; the last day of the human race because supposedly the world ends tomorrow. So, the doomsday scare got me thinking- what if I want to end my life before the nature decides to end it for me? What if I kill myself so that I don’t have to face God’s fury? And then it struck me, it is ILLEGAL and socially unacceptable! Why is suicide illegal? And on top of that it is a punishable offence in India. So, if a person’s suicide attempt fails and he survives, he/she will have to face a proceeding in the court of law. As if the failed attempt to end’s one life wasn’t torture enough!

Why is suicide considered illegal? Why is giving life considered a noble deed and taking one’s own life a heinous act? Why is the decision to end my own life, whose sole and whole owner is I, considered unjust? Why is the power to end it not given in my hands when I didn’t even ask for the life? What meaning do the other fundamental rights hold when the basic right to live or die is not in one’s own hands?

When I was given life, no one asked for my permission, I was just born, naked and in tears. So, why should I ask for someone else’s permission before ending my life?! At least I will be at peace and smiling when I end my life on my own will. I see no reason why I should not be allowed to meet my maker when and how I decide to meet Him. If one commits suicide under pressure or threat, it is non-justified, but if one commits suicide just to end the monotonous, bland, unanimated life and for a bigger reason of not receiving the gift of life he/she had been given, I see no harm in it. It will not hamper the balance of the society, nor will it lessen the tolerance level of people. What it will do is give the people a sense of righteousness.

I’m not saying that committing suicide is a wonderful thing and it should be encouraged. We make a lot of relations when we come to this world and we should think about them before taking such a drastic step. All I am trying to say is that people should have the freedom and right to decide when they want to end it, especially in some medical cases where the patient is leading a vegetable life. 

The Terrified Terrorist

Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab- The name that terrorised the nation four years ago and continued to do so till he was hanged at the Pune Central Jail on 21^st November, 2012. Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab which literally means ‘The most handsome prince’ was nothing but a petty thief in the town of Faridkot, Pakistan before the members of the political wing of the ‘Army of the righteous’ (Lashkar-e-Taiba) persuaded him to join the terrorist organisation ‘to free the fellow Muslims from the atrocities they go through worldwide’. And thus the Ajmal Kasab was born who mercilessly killed hundreds of people on 26/11/2008 in Mumbai. The lone terrorist captured alive was hanged pretty unceremoniously on 21/11/2012 which left many aggrieved and agitated citizens disappointed. The judiciary system took four long years to pass the final judgement of executing Ajmal Kasab after he was captured alive from the streets of Mumbai with automatic weapons, explosives, GPS devices and mobile phone. The CCTV footage confirmed Ajmal Kasab firing at innocents mercilessly and still the law took its own course and spent four years in reviewing and rechecking all the evidence and taking statements from the witnesses and the terrorist himself.

India was furious with the delay in the execution of its biggest villain. Ajmal Kasab had earned the widespread hatred he was receiving. And personally I think he must have been getting a kick from all this. After all he was trained and preached to hate Indians, to dislike and distrust every Indian move, and to get the whole nation in hating him for his heinous activities must have been giving him a satisfaction which even killing all those innocent people might not have given him. Ajmal Kasab was a terrorist who had lost all human emotions, who had been brainwashed of achieving paradise by his terror acts. Ajmal Kasab was a living example of the by-products which radical terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba are capable of producing. Ajmal Kasab had no remorse or regret for his actions and the long wait of four years to meet his maker must have made him rethink entirely what he had been taught. The sluggish pace with which our judiciary system worked must have proved to be crueler for Ajmal Kasab than any other quick execution might have been. The four years in prison had developed hope in Ajmal Kasab. Hope is the biggest weapon one has, but in this case the hope which was developing in Kasab proved to be a weapon for the families of all the people who had lost their lives on 26/11/2008. A man without hope is like a body without its soul. You cannot kill a body which has no soul. If Ajmal Kasab had been executed just after his capture he would have been happy to die, because that is what he was sent to do- kill and die- and then achieve the paradise he was promised by all the “holy men” of Lashkar-e-Taiba.  Keeping him alive for four years in prison changed his mind-set, otherwise why would a terrorist sent on a suicide mission apply for a mercy plea! Executing a man who had been trained and brainwashed to die would have not brought the satisfaction to a bleeding country. Watching him plead for mercy before the Indian judges and President calmed me. This was the right end for a terrorist like Ajmal Kasab. The unceremonious hanging was also a perfect end. The nation should not celebrate this moment, but strengthen itself to counter any such attacks on its soil in the future. Celebrating someone’s end makes us no different than those radical groups which had trained Ajmal Kasab and brainwashed him into going on a killing spree. We are a peace loving nation and should always remain so. It’s better to change the world by love rather than changing it by wars.

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” ~Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi