Friday 28 December 2012

She is me



10 days ago, my heart ached when I read the truly shocking news about a young 23 year old girl who was gang raped and brutally assaulted on a moving bus in Delhi, India. To hear the breaking news today that she had succumbed in her fight for survival broke my heart. I cried, both tears of sorrow and of undeniable anger. The reason for my grief is the simple notion ‘She is me’. This girl was 23, she was smart, confident, independent, she was studying medicine, was seeing a movie at the cinema with a male friend. I’m 23, I studied medicine and engineering, I too frequent the cinema with my male friends at 9pm of an evening. In every essence this girl is me. But to think the one thing that split us apart is the fact that she was born in a country where being any of those things is a social crime, where the gender lottery of being born a woman can instantly condemn a child to an inferior life. Violence against women is present all over the world, but NO country does it with such impunity as India.

India may be the world's largest democracy, but it’s also one of the most dangerous countries for women. It recently beat Abu Dhabi, Afghanistan and Thailand to be the number one most dangerous G20 country for a woman, not a number one any country should be proud of. I’ve been to India, I lived in India’s central south, Bangalore, for one month, and it was an experience that has changed my life.

It is an undeniably beautiful country, with the most generous and kind people at its core. Its people are smart, incredibly smart actually, and have an innate pride in everything they do. They made me smile a million smiles, but India also made me cry.
In India I saw a lot of things, things I never want to see again… I saw women getting beaten by their husbands, not just in the villages, but in the affluent apartment complexes too. I walked home from school with an 11 year old girl who carries a stick to ‘beat away bad men’, and I saw a 5 year old girl lying naked in the gutter on the edge of a slum… India broke my heart, but it set it alight too. 

It inspired me to start my own social enterprise, Roka, which empowers women in rural Bangalore through education and economic empowerment. I saw the need for change in India, and I decided to act upon it, even after being warned of village ‘mafia’ and my safety, even as a western woman. Because the only crime these women have committed is that have been born at the bottom of an ancient social hierarchy, and they will forever be punished for simply being a woman. Roka won’t change the world, nor the lives of every woman in India, but it can change the lives of these women, in this village, and change can be the wildfire that touches all.

The horrific gang-rape of the 23-year-old med student on a moving Delhi bus, has seemingly knocked India's entrenched ‘blame-the-victim’ mentality off its footing. A woman in India is told not to dress provocatively, to never be alone, and to not be outside of her home after dark, all for fear of being assaulted. If, as so often it does happen, a woman is abused, it is her fault for not following the stringent social rules. The blame is always on the victim. This is a society that is telling women not to get raped, rather than telling men not to rape. It is a society where there is no trust in government or its police, where women would rather suffer the social shunning of rape then to be berated, ridiculed, and abandoned by a policing system that is stacked against them and rife with corruption. Only 26% of reported rapists in India ever get charge, with the charge often a finger-waggling and wrist slap. This lack of punishment and conviction, as well as the social degradation towards the victims, results in 75 -95% of rapes never even getting reported. Women are left to suffer in silence and often take their own lives as a result of the cultural shame.  In India, the rape victum is the only one who gets the death penalty.

But the horrific events in Delhi is a sheer reflection of the way India has evolved. Women being raped day in and day out is a story of Indian evolution, this is a country where, almost exactly two years ago, a 13-year old girl was gang-raped by four boys. After they left her by the side of the road to die, she crawled into a brick kiln, where she was found and raped by two other men. Later, she was found and raped by a rickshaw driver, only to be abducted and raped for another nine days by a truck driver and his accomplice. As if the Haryana rape spree earlier this year, and the religious and political leadership’s indifference to it, weren’t awful enough, The sad fact that still more gang-rapes have been reported, and hundreds more unreported, since Sunday's bus attack seems to further confirm that Indian women will continue to suffer this undeserved short straw in life. India, according to many, is a lost cause for equality for women. 

But India is not a lost cause. India is a land of potential, with the potential to be one of the greatest economies in the world. Yet with half of its population being marginalized, India is its own worst enemy for global development. The fact that 18% of Indian’s, both men & women, are still discriminated against as Dalit’s, shows that what is needed is not simply a legislative change, but a social one. Some are asking for capital punishment for the offenders of rape, however living in India is itself punishment for women.

Too many people, and politicians in India, have an addiction to superficial things and not enough conviction for substantial things like justice, truth, and change. People these days seem to have lost grasp on the basic morals that should bind us together. We seem to have replaced empathy, compassion, and understanding with an innate desire to scrutinize, judge, and criticize.
When I was in India, I was assisting in a government school class. When asked what super power they wanted one little girl, 11yrs old, replied 'I want to be a doctor, because everybody likes doctor, and they help people everywhere'. My heart was in my throat. These girls don’t lack dreams or ambition, what they lack is opportunity, and it broke my heart to think that all this little girl wants is to be respected, to be needed, to help people, but she will more than likely never be afforded the opportunity, because of her gender, and her caste. Women have an incredible potential, if they are afforded the opportunity to harness it. Not every girl or boy can be a doctor, or prime minister, but every child should be given an equal opportunity to try.

So, Consider this an open letter, to Sonia Gandhi - President of the Indian National Congress

What has occurred in Delhi is an atrocity at its best, but what is more saddening is that this happens all too frequently in India and that it has only taken a global outcry like this to make violence against women an issue to be addressed in India. Women have often been shunned in Indian society, put in the corners, told not to cause trouble. But women aren't the problem in India, they are the solution. The plight of girls is no more a tragedy than an opportunity. An opportunity to rectify the wrongs of this democracy, and opportunity for India to show it values its people and their lives, an opportunity for India to utilize the potential it has and to be the great nation it can be.

The young girl attacked in Delhi was called Damini by the media, a touching tribute to the spotlight she has placed on rape. But what is her real name? I’ll tell you what it is, her name is your name, your daughter’s name, your granddaughters. Because in this India, this could have happened to anyone. 

Unfortunately, the Indian government has successfully convinced the international community that gender discrimination is an internal, cultural issue. But the truth is, it affects the very way the country is run.
Indians, and in particular Indian women, are culturally taught to shut up and not question anything. Thus, even though the atrocities and need for action are obvious, nobody important will sit up and say 'We need to change things'
It isn't easy to change things but it needs to be done. You, Mrs Gandhi, are an intelligent, strong, and outspoken individual. You are a woman. And you, of all people, have the best chance of taking this archaic bull by the horns and showing it the right direction

So this is my call to India, to you, this is your chance to stand up and make substantial change, to show the world you can. Harsher penalties for rapists, reductions in police corruption, equality for women of all social standing, are not the silver bullet solutions we all want. But together, it’s a start. And with legislative change, guidance from their leaders, and equipped with knowledge, the social change can begin and India as a country can move forward as a proud country, for both men and women. Every woman that is raped is you. She is our sisters, our daughters, our granddaughters. She is me.