India fails to protect its women and children.

The incident that has gripped the nation once again in fear, anger and frustration is the rape of a 5 yr old girl in Delhi. This is one such minor case that made it to the headlines recently and I am so glad it did. Every day children and women in this country are left physically & mentally crippled by malicious men who cannot be called humans. Last year before the Nirbhaya case became a revolution in the country demanding fast track courts and larger safety for women, I had heard about some cases where a 3 yr old, a special child, even a few days old infant was raped in different parts of this nation. It made me nauseous and I extended my prayers every night to these little children that under their innocence also hid their trauma, their pain, their laughter.

Then on one dreadful night in December 2012, a twenty-three old girl was brutally raped in a moving bus and left to die. She, along with her friend was thrown naked, bleeding, in unendurable pain, on the streets of Delhi. There were foreign objects inserted into her body. The men who left her there made an easy exit just like they always do in this country. Most of the times they never get caught, or if they do, they freely live their life after the so called stretched ‘fair trial’. Then, they go on to traumatize more children and women. I remember the night I didn’t sleep, think it was December 18 or 19, 2012. My best friend was visiting from Delhi and we talked about Nirbhaya for hours. We caught the news on television, went to Change.org to sign the petition started by Namita Bhandare asking for better laws to ensure safety for women, glanced through Facebook to see some pictures floating around of the five accused men, only to realize that they weren’t the men. We so wanted these men to be exposed in public, forgetting that in India when under trial, the criminals hide their faces in public. I fail to understand why this happens even after the accused accepts his crime.

That night, my friend and I hugged each other and cried. We cursed the perpetrators a million times. Both of us couldn’t imagine what Nirbhaya went through. We kept going through the incident repeatedly in our heads. The decision to take Nirbhaya to Singapore also came in very late. She was already in a critical state and died just before we hit 2013. This time I seriously hoped that the authorities would do something. I kept thinking, this is serious, the nation is crying. In spite of multiple protests, media pressure, demonstrations, and more cases being reported across the country, the government did nothing. It just created committees after committees and asked for more investigations after investigations. A hope in the dark was when Justice Verma submitted a full report on Rape Law in December 2012, but the poignant part is we are in April, 2013 and there is no news of the trial making any progress. What added fuel to the fire was how Raju, the seventeen year old accused in the case could get away being a juvenile. It was Raju that was barbaric and took the lead in mutilating Nirbhaya. The reason I couldn’t sleep for a few nights more, was because Manoharlal Sharma, the god-awful defense attorney made a public statement that his clients will plead not guilty! He further added that the victims brought the whole incident upon themselves. They shouldn’t have been out as a couple that late in the night when they were ‘unmarried’. He in an atrocious comment also said that he had never seen any ‘respected woman getting raped’. Manoharlal Sharma, you sound like an illiterate man, and you are a despicable human being. There should actually be a case against you for making such appalling remarks against women and belittling all that Nirbhaya and her friend went through.

I am still waiting for Nirbhaya and her family to get justice and while the whole nation waits for that, more four, five, six, seven, eight, ten, eleven yr old girls are raped and left to die every day. As Indians we are very tolerant and only when things are extremely out of kilter do we raise our voices and then have candle marches to feel good. The sad part is our government has no feelings. This time I am enraged because a five year was sexually assaulted and tortured right below her house by two callous men. The cops in our system never investigated the missing girl complaint and on top of that tried to bribe the parents to stay hush. In all this madness, a superintendent of police had the audacity to hit a girl protester and all he got was a suspension. I see our ageing, corrupt, incompetent government once again in a long-winding process of investigation while more and more toddlers fight for their lives in the hospital. Their innocent, little minds and bodies shaking in fear, not knowing what happened to them.

I am one of those people who has no hope this country will become any better till the leaders who rule this nation go through a serious transformation. We need young, noble, educated, assertive and sensitive leaders. I also don’t want to hear any more people talking about how we should vote for good people so we have good rulers, because time and again, this country has faced the same challenges with different party leadership. Politics is so deep-rooted that leading the nation is just a gimmick to get power and then repeat the chain of events. When as a good citizen, we follow all the rules and pay our taxes, why don’t I have faith that we will do better? Why don’t I feel safe in India?